I downloaded 8 VPN apps on my iPhone before came to Shanghai… and only two works

VPN
1

Ok I’ve never been to China since September 2019 - at that time both Express and Nord were working ok, I mean, they don’t get your phone connected to their vpn servers all the time but at least good enough for me.

Ok here are the ones I downloaded:

  1. ExpressVPN - works very occasionally

  2. NordVPN - not working anymore

  3. VyprVPN - no

  4. Proton VPN - the worst one I’ve ever tried

  5. TorGuard - no

  6. Surfshark - it’s owned by the company which owns Nord, so I guess when Nord doesn’t work there’s no reason to expect this one can function

  7. Astrill - fairly good, sometimes slow

  8. Windscribe - quite to my surprise this one sometimes has better connection than Astrill

2

Download Shadowrocket for iOS and MacOS, Clash or v2rayNG for Android and Windows, then look for subscription sites (called airports), add subscriptions in the software and update subscriptions.

3

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Astrill is indeed very suspiciously the only one that works consistently in China.

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It’s either they have this magical unknown technology or “someone” allows them to operate for obvious reasons. I might be wrong but I can’t think of another possibility.

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If you do choose to use them, I’d install their aplet on the router, and then use a different VPN on the client side to tunnel through it.

4

Nordvpn is the shittiest app ever if you’re in Shanghai. Basically a scam

5

i would never use a vpn in china cause that’s illegal. also the first rule of vpn club is you do not talk about vpn club.

6

Express VPN works for me. I just check my gmails and watch YouTube

7

Is this using the default setup for NordVPN or using the obfuscated server setting for NordVPN? I got it to work on my iPad and iPhone with obfuscated servers earlier this year. Not sure if anythings changed since then.

8

Ok here’s the 9th one, I only downloaded and tried it yesterday:

Mullvad, and it works pretty well on my old laptop (windows 8.1) and iPhone. And - it’s quite cheap (no free plan though), it’s €5 per month and they don’t give you discount for longer membership (so, yes, it’s €60 per year)

I would highly recommend you try it for one month if you need a backup plan B - for me Astrill is still the one I use most often.

9

JustMySocks works in China.

10

I use one called Larva VPN. It’s good, has loads of servers around the world. Only use it on my phone but works 99% of the time.

11

LetsVPN has worked very well for me the past weeks. Also with Unicom.

12

Here in Shanghai using Astrill. Worth every penny.

13

you can use Shadowroket

14

What worked for me is to just pptp vpn back to my home internet connection.

Used to openvpn back but it doesn’t work anymore.

15

Get this one: Geph It has been pretty stable

16

Were you running openvpn?
What other config setting did you have?
What was the average speed?

17

I remember running a prog called u-318 that would stack proxies which was how we used to get around the GTF.

18

maybe try a chinese vpn? i used to have the same issues but when i tried my chinese friends vpn it was pretty good. this was a while ago tho. you can buy them on taobao (at least you used to be able to, idk now)

19

I used to use Astrill until I left. It is not perfect but good enough for streaming. Ping is too high for gaming.

20

Express used to work at times when it was hard for them to work (eg tianananen anniversary, etc) by being very patient, you have to use obscure server locations. Myanmar, Algeria, Qatar, etc