I’ve complained before about China’s notorious Great Firewall (GFW), which makes accessing sites like YouTube, Twitter, etc. difficult or even impossible.

For the longest time, I relied on free web proxy services. But as I mentioned previously, they are just not cutting it any more.

So, I started looking into the idea of getting a paid VPN (Virtual Private Network) subscription. After trying out the service we use at my company, I’ve decided it’s more than worth the cost.

It’s not as fast as surfing the Internet back home, but it’s so convenient you’ll forget the GFW even exists.

How it works

When you use a VPN service, a secure connection is made from your computer to a computer that is located somewhere out of China.

For example, let’s say you are in China and you are using a VPN service in the US. When you ‘turn on’ the VPN connection, any requests you make from your computer are securely sent to that computer in the US. That computer then makes that request over the Internet on your behalf, and returns the content to your computer through the secure connection.

All the GFW ever sees is that you are connected to some computer in the US – it does not see that you are connecting to YouTube or whatever – so it doesn’t terminate your connection.

The result is that you’ve got normal, uncensored Internet like you would have outside of China, and can access all of the sites that are blocked here.

Set up

Setting up a VPN service on your computer shouldn’t take more than 2 minutes, and only requires setting up a new network connection in your Control Panel in Windows or System Preferences on a Mac (if you’re a Linux user, I’m guessing you don’t need instructions on this:) ).

The company you subscribe to should provide you with step-by-step instructions on how to set it up, but it’s basically this:

• Create new network connection.
• Enter host name of VPN service.
• Enter your username, password, and then connect.

Some companies offer client software for you to install that tries to simplify this even more by providing you with an MSN-style window with a big green “ON” button, but it’s really unnecessary. That said, if you like to waste your computer’s memory and clutter your system tray/dock with unnecessary applications, suit yourself.

Access to regional content

One of the additional benefits of using a VPN is that you’ll be able access content that is only available to users in the region in which your VPN is located.

For example, a lot of BBC series are only available to Internet users that are in the UK. If you subscribe to a VPN service based in the UK (more accurately, if the computer you are connecting to is in the UK), your connection is technically coming from that region, so you can access all of that content that would normally be blocked. The same goes with TV shows in the US, and any other content that is restricted based on region.

So before subscribing to a service, you may want to consider where the computer you’re connecting to will be located.

Bandwidth allotment

Most services should not cap your bandwidth and don’t impose any restrictions on how much you download. That said, if you go overboard, they may suspend your account. As to what ‘overboard’ is, your guess is as good as mine. No service I’ve looked in to seems to advertise this, either for fear of being seen as imposing limits, or maybe just for the fact that it’s never come up. Either way, unless you’re some head honcho in the warez scene or something, you probably have nothing to worry about here.

Providers and cost

VPN service costs vary, but should be anywhere between $5 and $8 a month. More expensive usually means you’re allowed more concurrent connections. The two services I’ve tried so far are SwissVPN based in (wait for it) Switzerland, and My Private Network based in the UK. Both were relatively fast, reliable, and very easy to set up and use.

SwissVPN is cheaper, but unfortunately only allows you to establish one connection with your login credentials at a time. This really sucks if you have more than one computer in the home, or if you use your phone in addition to your computer to go online. Their recommendation is that you purchase additional login accounts at full price if you want additional connections. If they allowed at least 2 or 3 simultaneous connections, I’d highly recommend them. As is, I won’t be subscribing to them for another month of service.

Also worth noting is that I emailed them to inquire further about this and they didn’t respond to me at all, making me question what they’d be like to deal with if I ever encountered a support issue.

I haven’t had to deal with the support of My Private Network, but their service has been very quick and very reliable so far. They also have the added benefit of letting you sign up for either a UK or US VPN connection, or both. As for simultaneous connections, they apparently allow up to 7 at a time, which is more than enough for most people.

However, one annoying quirk I’ve noticed is that I need to always authenticate sessions and log in to YouTube when I try to open a youtube.com URL – this doesn’t happen with the other services I’ve used. I’m not sure why, and it’s definitely not a deal breaker, just slightly annoying.

Their service costs a bit more (£5), but if you’re planning on establishing more than one connection at a time, it makes sense.

It’s also worth noting that virtually all of these paid VPN services require payment through either credit card or PayPal. So if you don’t have either, you may be out of luck.

Is it worth it?

I guess that depends on how often you go online. But for me, at this price? Definitely. After forever dealing with timeouts, unreliable proxies, or going without access to a lot of the most popular western sites, a VPN service is something I wouldn’t want to be without. If you use the Internet a lot in China, and especially if you’re into social media stuff, there is really no reason not to sign up for one.