China is a very different country in many respects. Before you go to china as a traveler you may want to know a few extra things that you will not encounter in other countries, one of these things is the nationwide restriction on internet access in the country, as you may have heard of it before, a lot of the most used websites are inaccessible from within China, including Google and Facebook. You will be surprised to find that you cannot access lots of websites that are used on a daily basis when you are in China.
If you try to access Google in China, the browser will show "This site can't be reached" even when the WiFi signal is strong, like what is shown below. Same thing will also happen if you try to access Facebook and all the other blocked websites in China.
This is because Chinese authorities established a nationwide Internet filtering system known as Great Firewall to keep its citizen away from accessing those websites, which are considered by the authorities as containing so called "harmful contents".
The locals don't pay attention to this as most of them tend to use some domestic alternative sites, which are mostly only available in Chinese. For foreigners it is really a serious issue, which can even make them give up the idea of traveling to China. Without Google you won't be able to search and find the answers when you have questions, without Gmail and Facebook you will lost the connection with your family and friends. And these three services are not the only useful sites blocked, there are much more, up to thousands of major sites are blocked, some notable ones are listed at the end of this page.
Luckily the GFW is not undefeatable. Bypassing the Firewall is actually quite easy, to do this you don't need to be a tech savvy, everyone is able to get it done in a few seconds.
Below are some methods to bypass the Great Firewall and access Google in China:
Method 1: Using a VPN
The most used and easiest way to access blocked sites in China is use a VPN service. VPN stands for Virtual Private Network, is a type of software that is combined with a series of servers located around the world, it allows users to connect and obtain a different IP address based on the location of the server, once connected, VPN can help the user bypass the Great Firewall by disguising the user's real IP address as if the user is browsing the internet outside of the Great Firewall.
Most VPN services, especially the ones that work in China, are not free due to the cost on the bandwidth and the maintenance of servers (there are also free ones, which will be introduced later in this article), but typically cost only about 10 dollars a month, some of them cost less than 3 dollars a month, you will be able to circumvent the censorship of Great Firewall with VPN enabled in your devices. Many VPN services offer 30-day money back guarantee, you can get your money back if you find them not very effective as you imagined.
VPN is very easy to use, just follow the simple steps below:
1. Sign up for a plan on the website of your preferred VPN provider (for example, Surfshark or NordVPN), they will send you an email containing a link to the page for setting up your VPN.
2. After accessed that page you will find an activation code and a button for downloading the VPN app. Copy the activation code and then download their app to your desktop or mobile devices.
3. Open the app, activate the service with the activation code you copied before, then select the connection type and your preferred location of server to connect or let the app automatically choose for you.
4. After the VPN is connected you can leave the app in the background and start to enjoy the fun of free internet in China.
With the help of VPN you will be able to search Google, use Facebook or watch YouTube videos again, just like in your home country.
Not every VPN works in China, because the authorities block them, too. There are already many VPNs that were once used fine got blocked now. And Great Firewall is constantly being upgraded now and then, more and more VPNs are blocked every time when the Firewall upgrades. As of 2024 only a few VPNs can effectively bypass the Great Firewall.
Currently the most popular and effective VPNs used in China are Surfshark, NordVPN, and ExpressVPN, these VPN providers have technologies to disguise VPN traffic so that the Great Firewall won't be able to detect and block them. And they are confident that their VPNs can hard to be blocked by the Great Firewall in the next few years, they also offer money-back guarantee.
There are a few other VPNs that also work in China, you can compare and view the details of those VPNs at here.
Be aware that the websites of most VPNs are blocked in China, which means you cannot sign up their service and download their apps after arrival in China. So you'd better to sign up a VPN service in your home country. (Update: Now Surfshark and NordVPN have mirror sites that are accessible in China, so you still can sign up their services even if you have arrived in China, clicking the links above will redirect you to their mirror sites)
You may have questions in regard to the legality of the use of VPN in China, as of now there's no legal guidelines prohibit the use of VPN, in fact most international companies in this country are using it everyday as it is really a necessity for them, and many Chinese celebrities are using it to continuously upload their new photos to Instagram. In addition, all the above mentioned VPN services can disguise your VPN traffic and encrypt your data, it's hard for the authorities to find you using VPN. So feel free to use VPN in China as long as you don't do things that go against the local authorities with it.
If you are really on a budget, you can try to use some proxy software, which are usually free to use. After the recent upgrades of Great Firewall of China, free proxies are not as effective as in the past, one of some notable free proxies that work in China is Lantern. However free services come with many drawbacks, the connection through Lantern is not stable in China, which means sometime you still can't access the blocked sites when its connection is bad, and the speed is very slow. Not only that, the Great Firewall keeps attempting to interfere and block it, so the updating is frequently occurred, when an update is available your old version app will no longer be useful, you must update it. More importantly, the largest downside of Lantern is that it has restriction on the daily data usage, which is only 240 M, usually a short video of 10 minutes will run out this small amount of data (if you only want to use Google in China, this amount of data is possibly enough). Moreover, Lantern is only available for Windows and Android phones, not available for Apple users. Most other free proxies are also not available for iOS. For these reasons it's not wise to use proxies, you can simply sign up for a VPN plan, so that you will get fast and stable connection with unlimited data usage, it can be a backup once you find the free proxy doesn't work in China, and you can get back the money anytime within 30 days if you think the VPN is not very excellent.
Method 2: Using Shadowsocks
Another measure to access Google and all the other blocked sites in China is using Shadowsocks.
Shadowsocks is a special proxy software invented by a Chinese programmer in 2012, with the intention to help people circumvent internet censorship, the software itself is free to use and open source, however, it requires a remote dedicated server to work, so you need to rent a remote virtual private server, the cost is slightly less than a VPN service, but after that you need to set up the service by yourself (Install and configure a dedicated software on the remote server you rented by using command prompt on your computer, so the server can handle the request of Shadowsocks, to do this you should have some higher computer knowledge, understanding the scripts of command line.). As the process is a little complex, this article will not cover the process for setting up Shadowsocks, but if you wish to learn, you can check out this tutorial.
The main benefit of Shadowsocks is that it can selectively disguise a certain part of its users' online traffic, with other parts remain as the normal traffic as if no proxy is running in the background. This can be helpful if you also need to frequently visit Chinese websites, as the contents on many of these Chinese websites is only accessible from within China, if you have VPN running in your device, those sites will assume you are outside of China and hence become inaccessible. Shadowsocks users can choose to disguise their location only when they are visiting those blocked sites, so they can frequently switch to those Chinese sites without turning off the Shadowsocks app.
If you do not need to frequently visit some Chinese sites that are displaying only Chinese, Shadowsocks is not the best choice for you, you can just turn off the VPN with a single click when you need to visit a Chinese site. Shadowsocks is designed especially for Chinese users who need to bypass the Great Firewall occasionally to access blocked sites like Google or Facebook but in most time staying on Chinese sites, that's why it is popular among Chinese users.
When it comes to the security, anonymity, and many other respects, Shadowsocks is not in the same tier as VPN, it doesn't encrypt the users' private information since it's designed for circumventing the internet censorship, its focus is not on anonymity and security.
By contrast, the functions of VPN is not solely bypassing internet censorship, it can protect your online identity, let you stay anonymous on the internet, and encrypt your private information, protecting them from being stolen or monitored by third parties like your ISP provider. You may say "I have nothing to hide." But do you know that when you are using free public WiFi in a hotel or coffee shop, hackers who in the same hotel or coffee shop can connect to the WiFi and easily steal the information stored in or sent from your connected device, these information could be your bank account details, Facebook password, your private photos, as given that today anyone can be a hacker by using existing spy software, it's a good habit to turn on a VPN app whenever browsing the internet using public WiFi.
Another important benefit of using VPN is it can help you access geographically restricted contents. Some websites like Netflix have geographical limitation, much of their content is only available for internet users in America, if you are traveling to Europe, even though there's no things like Great Firewall, you still can't watch the latest episodes of your favorite TV series due to the geographical limitation. And many of these websites is known for blocking VPN users, however, those who use Surfshark and NordVPN have no problem to access these sites and the geographically limited content.
Method 3: Using Tor Browser
Aside from using VPN and Shadowsocks, using Tor browser is another way for bypassing the Great Firewall to access Google and other blocked foreign sites.
Tor is a free distributed anonymity tool which can also be used to circumvent the firewalls. Unlike VPN which runs in the background when you're using your preferred browser, Tor can only be used with Tor browser, and when the browser is running you can access to blocked sites within it while other browsers are still unable to connect with blocked sites. To use it you need to download a Tor browser from the website of Tor Project.
Tor browser is simply a modified version of Firefox browser, their interfaces are very similar, but Tor browser can be used to bypass any firewalls via Tor bridges, hence one of the differences between these two browsers is that before the window of Tor browser opens you will be asked to choose a Tor bridge to configure in a small window, then the window will show the status of connection, it takes a few seconds to half a minute for the bridge to be connected.
The cons of using Tor browser is the websites will load much slower than that of using a VPN, as Tor is not initially designed for users to circumvent the firewall but to protect the privacy of the user or make the user stay anonymous on the web, this is similar to VPN, but Tor focuses more on the anonymity, the technology of Tor is by making the information passed around between thousands of relays that widely distributed around the world, thus it significantly decreases the speed of connection as data will travel large number of relays and distances across the world to reach the user. And as Tor cares about the anonymity, every time you close the Tor browser you will be automatically logged out from your Google or Facebook account and the accounts of all the other sites, next time you open the Tor browser you need to log in again.
Since 2017, China's Great Firewall started interfering and blocking Tor bridges, now many Tor bridges can't connect in China due to the interference, if Tor bridge is not connected, Tor browser will not open.