Hi all! Very soon I’ll be ravelling to China and was wondering if it’s viable to have a VPN on on my phone 24/7. My main concern is battery life and protection of my data, I know free wifi can be sketchy at the best of times but it’s so convinient that I use it anyway. But if I say, connect to hotel wifi without a VPN does that mean that I’ll have to turn on the VPN on? I don’t want to attract any ‘unwanted attention’ by my phone having to be connected to a VPN service every time it’s turned on, if that makes sense. Thank you!
Nobody cares. But keep in mind that with a VPN active, 90% of Alipay/Wechat stops working. You won’t call a DiDi, you won’t order food, sometimes it does not even let you confirm payment.
So yes, it is possible. But unless you plan to be just paying cash everywhere, I highly suggest turning it off when you need to use Alipay or Wechat.
My thoughts:
- Get a Hong Kong simcard and roam, you won’t need a vpn as it will have unrestricted internet. They are harder to come by nowadays but you can still just get one on Taobao.
- Use Wannaflix VPN with v2rayng if you are on Android. I have it always on, it doesn’t really impact battery much, it’s the most reliable I’ve found and if needed the owner responds directly on telegram. (I’m fine doing Alipay and WeChat with VPN on, but the shares bikes don’t always work.) I also have Surfshark but Wannaflix is 10x better.
Don’t expect it to actually work
The VPN I use is tailor for long term using in China. It has a smart mode which means the VPN is automatically off for all Chinese sites/apps.
I just got an Airalo eSIM for data which had a built in VPN so all the apps (Alipay, WhatsApp, Google etc) worked perfectly. I also bought Surfshark VPN to use for my phone and laptop when connected to wifi. Also had access to Astrill and Let’s VPN (was on a trip with 7 family members so 3 of us each got a different subscription as a backup) and Surfshark worked the best for us, Astrill was pretty good too. Didn’t have much luck with Let’s.
You can set the VPN to not function with certain apps. Get a decent VPN and this isn’t a worry
Turning it off quickly to use WeChat and Alipay shouldn’t be too much of a problem, but I’m using ProtonVPN which has had problems in China so I’m wondering if there’s any other options that would work seamlessly, if there is one.
Ah, thank you! I’m using a paid for vpn service so hopefully it should be a little faster, I’ll try and set the same settings so it connects to a VPN when on wifi.
I’m not expecting a seamless experience, I just want protection from some of the bigger downsides of travelling to a country with strict internet laws.
Which vpn is it cause I need a good vpn for China
I just would like to say that Airalo does not have a built in VPN per se. The reason the western apps work is because the ESIM is registered in Hong Kong where the Great Firewall is not active.
So if a person needs a VPN for security reasons, Airalo does not offer such a protection.
You are correct, I forgot about this function.
Important to say is that this function is not available in an iPhone with Astrill VPN.
Get LetsVPN. Simple to use, cheap and works well
Astrill VPN is the best one (most stable, reliable) to use in China.
ProtonVPN is shit - it will either not work at all, or be annoyingly slow.
Either way the same problem applies - if you turn on VPN, Alipay and Wechat will determine you are in a different country (which ironically only proves the VPN works well because that is the intended feature here) and lock you out of using most functions.
Just turn it off when you need to use Alipay/Wechat.
99% of the vpns that work in China are paid vpns. Paying is not a factor for knowing if it will be faster or not. Also, if you’re using a major provider like Nord, surfshark or expressvpn, they probably won’t work most of the time.
I don’t think you understand, vpns most of the time don’t work at all.
they are referral only so use my link: https://leensc.com/#/register?code=jNAdySRq you’re welcome
That’s a whole otherissue. Having an apple product