Best Free VPN

[jobm]

The best things in life are free. So, I suppose there are free VPNs that work well in China. Can you recommend some? I would also like to install it on my smartphone to access google play and on my computer to open fb, youtube, etc.

[ppsmos]

Both Hola and ZenMate should work. But i would suggest you get a paid VPN as well. I was in Hai Nan province last year. IPVanish worked. Hidemyass works in China as well, but it is very slow.

[James3]

I don't live in China (yet), and I don't use a VPN, but I thought I'd let you know that I've noticed a reluctance among some people to pass along the name of their VPN if it's a good one. Then again, I could be wrong.

[jobm]

ow really? hmm

[French]

I use Hidemyass, but its reliability is dependent on the city (maybe the provider too?) . I'll have Internet in Shanghai in a few hours. I can check it out.

When I was in Guanzhou, it worked very poorly both at the hotel and at friend's bureau.
It was better in Beijing and even better in smaller towns.

But it is not free.

 

PS : The VPN always worked well on my PC regardless of the city but in Guanzhou, it was one of the worst Internet experience I ever had. It was so slow most of the times and I tried to use it extensively at two places. In Guanzhou, it was next to impossible to use my VPN on my smartphone or tablet.

It seems to work fine so far. 

[Demonic_Duck]

I think very few people in China long-term use free VPNs, due to poor speed and unreliability. Paid ones don't cost an awful lot when you think of the cost as spread out over the course of a year.

[French]

Well, not only the cost but also all the time you'll be end saving and far more less frustration over time.

In Shanghai, Hidemyass doesn't that great on mobile devices (tablet & smartphone are Android based). Very hard to get a active connection while no problem whatsoever on my PC.

[shuoshuo]

My personal experience with VPNs: the free ones aren't anywhere as close to the quality of the paid ones. Commercial VPNs are very affordable.

[James3]

Here's a previous thread titled VPN advice needed (May 2014) that may offer some suggestions as well.

[jobm]

^thank you guys for all your comments! I will arrive in china on Sunday and I am rushing to have a VPN before I arrive there. would these companies need a credit card account? because I do not even have a credit card account nor a paypal account

[French]

Well, that's how it usually works. Ask a friend, so you can use his card and give him some cash.

[Demonic_Duck]

To be honest it's not super-difficult to set up your VPN in China, a lot of GFW-circumventing VPNs' official websites aren't blocked. Probably more ideal to set it up beforehand though, I guess.

[kagato]

Here's the technical version of why this is a really, very, extremely terrible Bad Idea.

 

Everything that is sent over HTTP can be logged by default by a VPN (surprise: your username and password when logging into even this forum can be logged by default by the VPN as its sent over HTTP)

 

Everything that is sent over HTTPS can be logged using a phishing man in the middle attack by requiring you to click through the security warnings that the ssl certificate is not genuine. In fact, you may have noticed the government of China has been doing this for Google and Apple accounts lately. So if you clicked through them thinking "Oh, it's just the silly Chinese government trying to log my information again", it's actually the 'free' VPN provider you've been gallivanting your information through.

 

Did I mention that if you've ever logged into chinese-forums on a VPN your username/password is now stored by an unknown third party? Not to mention the Chinese government. Surely you don't also re-use your passwords across multiple sites, right?

 

There's always a motive for someone hosting a VPN. Given that it costs so much money to route traffic, I'm going to hint that the motive is money. Hopefully you're paying that money by paying for a subscription instead of having your account logins harvested.

[imron]

Surely you don't also re-use your passwords across multiple sites, right?

I most certainly don't.  I have unique passwords for each site and/or service I use