VPN testimonials…

[rawTOP]

VPNs are a hot topic lately, so I figured I’d start a thread where they could be discussed. 

I’m headed to China in a few weeks. It’ll be interesting to see what I can and can’t access without a VPN and how well the VPNs work. China is at the top of their game playing whack-a-mole with VPNs, so I’m thinking what works in China should work in slightly less restrictive locations.

Anyway, the three I’ll be trying are:

1. ExpressVPN, $13/mo, but comes with a 1GB eSIM which should be useful. Historically this has been the best VPN for China, but lately there have been reports of issues. 
    
2. Mullvad, €5/mo ($5.83), has a stellar reputation for privacy. 
    
3. V1VPN, $6/mo, Europe-based but targeted to work in China. My theory is China focuses on the major VPNs, so I’m hoping this one is somewhat off their radar. 

When I’m back I’ll let you know my thoughts on each. 

[PozBearWI]

Thanks @rawTOP and safe travels to you.  

[bare28]

Have you considered to use the TOR network? It would be quite interesting to see if China blocks that completely. It works well for me to connect to here

 

[Incognito91]

5 hours ago, rawTOP said:

VPNs are a hot topic lately, so I figured I’d start a thread where they could be discussed. 

I’m headed to China in a few weeks. It’ll be interesting to see what I can and can’t access without a VPN and how well the VPNs work. China is at the top of their game playing whack-a-mole with VPNs, so I’m thinking what works in China should work in slightly less restrictive locations.

Anyway, the three I’ll be trying are:

1. ExpressVPN, $13/mo, but comes with a 1GB eSIM which should be useful. Historically this has been the best VPN for China, but lately there have been reports of issues. 
    
2. Mullvad, €5/mo ($5.83), has a stellar reputation for privacy. 
    
3. V1VPN, $6/mo, Europe-based but targeted to work in China. My theory is China focuses on the major VPNs, so I’m hoping this one is somewhat off their radar. 

When I’m back I’ll let you know my thoughts on each. 

I've found travel esim to work on sites outside of China. China don't seem to block travel esim that are roaming (I've tried mobimatter, airalo and starhub, but heard from other friends and family who travelled there who are the same). You'll be able to use Gmail, YouTube etc on Sims are are roaming in China.

 

It is primarily when you use the hotel's wifi that you'll encounter issues visiting sites outside of China. You wouldn't be able to use WhatsApp, telegram, Gmail etc when your phone goes into the hotel wifi. Turning it off and using your roaming data will work for me 

 

Because I like working on my computer, as a contingency if my VPN didn't work, I also set up a computer at home I can remotely access. They work fine on hotel wifi (eg parsec, TeamViewer, anydesk).

 

I had nordvpn. It was spotty success. I would say it worked 20% of the time over wifi. Someone since told me that if you use the data point instead of wifi, the VPN works better. I don't know how true that is

[NeedBredAnyTakers]

I use VPN unlimited thru Keepsolid I pay like $10.69. And get access to alot of other countries i can set it to like I'm in Indianapolis Indiana and the VPN is set to Austria and it works just fine 

[AirmaxUK]

I think it is important to recognise that people on this site who are interested in VPNs are likely the use case that they are in a place that has been blocked by BreedingZone, so the aim here is to try and appear to be located somewhere different than the zones being blocked. What's important here is the exit node and where it appears to be, and if it is on any blacklists.    

Testing a VPN on a trip to a zone where the zone itself blocks traffic is a different use-case: you're trying to circumvent a firewall or block in the zone where you are located. What's important here is the entry node being accessible in the zone where you are located. 

A VPN that's good in one scenario may not be good in the other. 

The suggestion from @Incognito91 to have a computer at home with TeamViewer running is a good one. When I travel for work, that is my backup plan and also works if you get your stuff stolen - you can get up and running again with almost any computer.  

[BlindRawFucker1]

Being someone who has very little computer knowledge, I basicly have no idea how to set up a VPN.

 

Most of what has been said above, has gone right over my head.

[austin_submale]

1 hour ago, BlindRawFucker1 said:

Being someone who has very little computer knowledge, I basicly have no idea how to set up a VPN.

 

Most of what has been said above, has gone right over my head.

Download and install Tor.  It works.  It's easy.

 

[hntnhole]

I use a "computer support" company that "cleans" the computer monthly.  They installed a VPN offered by AVG (which offers a number of services (a la carte) for computer maintenance,  and it's worked perfectly for me.  I do need to turn it off when I use the banking site though.  I'm completely satisfied.  

[Pozzible]

Anyone use Proton VPN? What do you think? 

I’ve been using Surfshark. It’s easy to use, but their locations are blocked from lots of sites (eg barebackrt).

[LDNSmoke]

When I visited China they didn’t block my Facebook; whatsapp etc - they in theory also couldn’t see my WeChat messages (you need WeChat or Alipay to pay for just about anything there now) because I downloaded from the (at the time) EU App Store with an EU privacy agreement. Their blocking is quite a lot more nuanced than the way everyone from outside are cutting off the people in the UK, including visitors .

[sluttony]

Here's my own experiences:

NordVPN and SurfShark. I believe that these are now owned by the same parent company, but they each have different advantages (and so I actually do subscribe to both, as they're cheap enough on long term, multi-year deals).

SufShark supports the Wireguard protocol. This is newer and is usually faster then OpenVPN. It's also considered to be more secure. 

If you are setting it up as an app, it's definitely no more difficult that any other way of connecting. If you're doing anything fancy and using e.g. a VPN router like OpenWRT then there are extra steps.

NordVPN though, provides access to SOCKS proxy servers. This is useful for people who want to download e.g. Torrents, as you can simply add the details into the torrent software and never have to remember to connect to your VPN again.

These are both well known, well regarded options. Both claim that they store no logs, but I do not believe this has ever been verified.

Next up we have TOR - The Onion Ring.

There are a couple of ways to access TOR. First off is with their own web browser, the TOR Browser. It handles the connections for you, etc.

Another way is to use the Brave web browser. This has private browsing and private browsing via TOR and it gives a visual confirmation that you are indeed connected via TOR. 

However, it's important to note that Brave, even via TOR is not guaranteed to be entirely secure as it can suffer from something called DNS leaks - this is where your computer uses the DNS servers from your ISP to work out where to find website addresses. It is also important to remember that you have to remember to open a private window with TOR

It's not usually a problem for the vast majority of use cases, but if you want to guarantee highest security, download and use the TOR Browser itself.

TOR has another disadvantage in that you cannot set an exit point, so you might end up coming out to the internet in a country that is blocked, whereas with VPN clients you control which one you connet via.

Personally, if you can afford a subscription, I would suggest you pay for a well known VPN like SurfShark or NordVPN. They also both have very good tech support. I've also heard good things about ProtonVPN but have no direct experience to share.

If cost is an issue, then I would suggest downloading either Brave or the TOR Browser and using them.

[sluttony]

2 hours ago, LDNSmoke said:

When I visited China they didn’t block my Facebook; whatsapp etc - they in theory also couldn’t see my WeChat messages (you need WeChat or Alipay to pay for just about anything there now) because I downloaded from the (at the time) EU App Store with an EU privacy agreement. Their blocking is quite a lot more nuanced than the way everyone from outside are cutting off the people in the UK, including visitors .

Look up man in the middle.

I assure you that unless you were using a VPN, they could see everything you were browsing.

[rawTOP]

On 8/11/2025 at 4:07 AM, sluttony said:

Another way is to use the Brave web browser. This has private browsing and private browsing via TOR and it gives a visual confirmation that you are indeed connected via TOR. 

We’re not taking computers, just iPhones and all browsers on iPhone have Safari as their base. So things like Brave aren’t an option. 

On 8/11/2025 at 4:08 AM, sluttony said:

Look up man in the middle.

I assure you that unless you were using a VPN, they could see everything you were browsing.

BTW… all of my sites will throw an error and refuse to work in a man-in-the-middle  scenario. I’ve had users complain that the site wasn’t working and the culprit was a corporate firewall doing what you describe. 

[sluttony]

2 hours ago, rawTOP said:

We’re not taking computers, just iPhones and all browsers on iPhone have Safari as their base. So things like Brave aren’t an option. 

BTW… all of my sites will throw an error and refuse to work in a man-in-the-middle  scenario. I’ve had users complain that the site wasn’t working and the culprit was a corporate firewall doing what you describe. 

Ah gotcha - had missed the bit about iPhones, my bad. This is one of the many reasons I prefer Android (but those come with their own raft of issues).

Yeah I'd noticed HSTS errors a few times when going through VPN but not recently.