VPN's for use in China - are there any good choices other than Nord?

[RSD]

I tried using TotalVPN when connecting to the hotel wifi at various Pullman's and Mercure's on my last trip to China a couple of months ago, the best I could describe the experience was somewhere between extremely frustrating and a waste of time.

Has anyone found any good VPN's that work reliably with China hotel wifi other than Nord? And does Nord even work well with China hotel wifi?

 

[BettyB]

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Has worked for me.

 

[moa999]

Think it's a continual game of whack a mole with the commerical providers
If you can sign up for it so can those in charge of blocking it.

If a low/ moderate data user just use roaming SIM/ dedicated eSim

 

[markis10]

Get a eSIM and hotspot it, solves the great firewall issue without a VPN needed.

 

[Matt_01]

I have just come back from China and run Nord, it was as good as useless on the hotel wi-fi. There are some posts here you may find of use Using AFF in China @SYD mentioned it a couple of times just use an eSIM and get more data than you expect to use. I ended up going down this path and used my phone as the hotspot.

Edit. Another thing I learnt if you register/ subscribe to an eSim with a gmail account it is probably best to turn on auto renewal. At a couple of hotels the only way to get online was to scan a QR code which took you to the online activation, at some point my data had run out so there was no way of getting the wi-fi to work. To get around this the concierge let me hotspot from his phone and I registered another eSim using my .mac account and there were no more issues. Other hotels required a phone number, although there was an option to select an AU number the activation code never came through. I spoke with the concierge and was informed only Chinese carriers work.

 

[Cruiser Elite]

Astrill is most commonly used by long time expats in China - it’s the only one I use - try that or not

 

[SYD]

Astrill is most commonly used by long time expats in China - it’s the only one I use - try that or not

They probably have to have something if they’re there permanently/extended period.

As per the other thread, for a short business/tourist trip don’t expect a VPN to work on hotel / other free wifi. Potentially a waste of money.

But any existing VPN is probably fine on your roaming data / eSIM - if that’s what you do at home anyway. Just use those dollars towards extra eSIM data. The $20 I wasted on Nord could have bought 10GB or more for my 2wk trip.

 

[Daver6]

I assume the desire for a VPN in China is to access sites that the CCP is blocking. In that case using The Tor Project | Privacy & Freedom Online might just be easier and simpler.

 

[anat0l]

I just purchased a Holafly eSIM. Apparently it has a built in VPN (no app required), or so I've been told by the customer support. This is supposed to let me use services as normal (including Facebook etc.), but unlike other VPNs you can't change the geolocation.

Without Holafly, I might have tried to rely on my Hotspot Shield VPN which comes with my Dashlane Premium subscription. I might still try and use it on my laptop when connected to Wi-Fi, since at least that one I can change the geolocation.