Let’s Talk About VPNs In China

2nd October 2022

Article contains affiliate links for TorGuard VPN only since it is the one we recommend. We love TorGuard VPN and have used it daily since 2019. If you use our affiliate link we will receive a small commission. If you do use it, thank so much! And trust us, you won’t be disappointed with the service from TorGuard!

VPNs in China

If you’re travelling to China and you want full access to the internet you’ll need to think about using a VPN.

A lot of the internet is blocked in China. To be absolutely clear that means once you cross the border if you don’t have a VPN installed you can wave goodbye to all things Google. That includes YouTube, Gmail and Google Maps to name a few.

All western social media channels, such as WhatsApp, and many of your favourite websites such as Wikipedia, Netflix, Amazon, News sites – the list goes on – are completely inaccessible without a VPN.

Trust us, a lot will be out of reach in China.

If, like us you were using something like WhatsApp to send messages to your family we recommend getting the VPN installed and test it on your phone before you cross the border. What might also be a good idea is to try and download WeChat onto your phone. WeChat is the Chinese version of WhatsApp it will help you chat to people in China, but if you and a family member or two download it and sign up you can be sure you’ll be able to reach them.

In this Article:

VPNs we used in China and our review
Why are websites blocked in China?
What is a VPN?
When should you use a VPN?
Free VPNs we used in China

VPNs we used in China and our review

I’m going to jump straight in here and say that Torguard is the best VPN we used, ever. We used it without problems in China, which is pretty impressive! The Free VPNs (discussed below) had nothing on TorGuard. The free VPNs tended to lose their connectivity frequently, or worse, not connect at all!

TorGuard has been a firm favourite in our household for some time now. Since we got home we’ve used TorGuard daily. And of course, we also used the VPN in the 20 countries we visited.

Zoe works in SEO and needs to access websites as if from other countries and TorGuard does the trick, every time!

ACCESS THE INTERNET IN CHINA

With TorGuard you can expect:

Unlimited Speeds
Unlimited Bandwidth
Port Forwarding
x8 Simultaneous Connections
3000+ servers in 50+ countries
OpenVPN / Wireguard / IKEv2
Internal encrypted DNS
Fast 24/7/365 support
No logs, no leaks, 100% private
Supports Windows, Mac OS, Linux
Supports iOS, Android

Stew and I used the Anonymous VPN package and have never had a problem. Truly can’t speak highly enough about it.

Why are websites blocked in China?

We have read lots of different ideas about why websites are blocked in China. You may have heard China’s strict regulations around the internet referred to as “The Great Firewall”.

Here are some alleged reasons for China’s rules and regulations:

Google is blocked because it does not comply with China’s regulations
Many claim that China blocks websites to stop the local people accessing information from outside of China
China wants to keep money within China, so if they create their own apps that are similar to those built outside China – the money stays within China rather than going overseas

We don’t really know the ins and outs of China and its rules, and I’m sure there are other ideas about “The Great Firewall”.

Ultimately, all you need to know is what you can do to access the internet in full, just as you would on the sofa at home.

This blog should break everything down and make choosing a VPN easy!

What is a VPN?

A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, is a means of connecting to a secure network over the internet. A VPN will encrypt your internet access and provides you with an Anonymous IP. A combination of the encryption and anonymous IP means that you can use the internet without worrying about negative side effects like someone hacking into your data!

Typically, when connecting to a VPN, you will be asked to enter a username and password. This is so that the VPN can authenticate your connection and allow you access to the network. Once you have been authenticated, your computer will be given an IP address on the VPN network.

When should you use a VPN?

Although we’re sharing VPNs for use in China and on travels, you should really have access to a VPN in your home country, too. Using a VPN to browse the internet in public places is a must.

VPNs can be used to access internal networks at work, or connect to private networks for extra security when using public Wi-Fi hotspots.

Stew is a website developer and he would be the first person to tell you that if you’re browsing the internet out and about – using 3G/4G/5G or unknown Wi-Fi networks you should be using a VPN to protect your data.

That goes for anywhere in the world – we even use a VPN in England for all browsing outside the walls of our home.

GET ACCESS

Free VPNs we used in China

We did try a few VPNs in China. Before we crossed the border we downloaded a few just incase there was a problem with any one of them.

I have to say, none of the free VPNs we found to be very effective. They either didn’t work for us or connectivity was poor. A side issue with a free VPN is that you never know if it’s going to cause problems, later, if for example they made it a paid service and you didn’t sign up in time. No effective technology stays free, generally.

Anyway, here are the VPNs we tried:

Turbo VPN I can’t remember having much, if any success with this one.
Super VPN similarly to Turbo, this was an intermittend VPN in China. Sometimes in works, for the rest of the time it annoyed me!

Other, paid VPNs we used in China or heard were effective

ExpressVPN I actually downloaded and paid for this one, but I found it to be ineffective. It would work sometimes, other times it wouldn’t. It also dropped in and out of service and drove me mad! I went through the effort of getting a refund.
NordVPN confession we did not use this one, but heard from other travellers it was effective.

Post written by: Zoe Ashbridge