Best VPNs for China in (2024): Real Test Results – Ranked!

How we Tested & Selected these VPNs

We want to take some time to clarify how we have chosen the best VPNs to use in China. In the beginning, we have a tendency to cross out all suppliers that don’t add China or can’t give stable service. Next, we tend to rate each VPN abuse on the following criteria:

• Security. Mistreating ONE unreliable VPN in China will cause you a lot of inconveniences, especially since you will think that you are protected once. In fact, you are not. Options like secure tunneling protocols, a powerful kill switch, and leak protection are a must.
• Privacy. Only use a real VPN with no logs. Which is a lot. Those with anonymous checkout or anonymous signup options have a huge advantage over the rest. Finally, avoid any VPN that operates outside of China.
• Speed. All VPN services can make it difficult to join to some extent. This is why choosing between the fastest VPNs is recommended to be sure that you still have some juice left for streaming or torrenting when it beats the good Firewall.
• Transmission. Many people in China want to watch US Netflix. so if a VPN can’t help with geo-blocking, look at competitors that will. Also, keep in mind that some providers even unblock many Netflix libraries around the world, which means there’s a higher chance of finding the TV show or picture show you need.
• Torrent. P2P blocking can be a nuisance all over the world, and China is one of the worst places to download torrents. Fortunately, you’ll be ready for fast, free, and robust transfers with a reliable VPN.
• Customer Support. China is tough on VPNs, so you can expect some issues that you’ve never had before. Therefore, 24/7 customer support becomes indispensable. Accept nothing more than a live chat option to avoid waiting days before your issue is resolved.
• Price. Once you select a VPN for China, saving money shouldn’t result in a less secure or non-public option. The same, some top-tier providers are within your means.

How to Choose the Best VPN for China?

Choosing the best VPN app for China is not an easy problem, especially if you are doing it for the first time. That is why we tend to create a list of the most important options that your VPN should have to make the selection easier.

• Stability. Very few suppliers claim to work in China, but how many do most of the time? Having a casual relationship that is already slow will make the experience unbearable.
• Reputation. Most VPNs advertise their glorious security and privacy, but do they need anything to back that up? Looking at past scandals can provide you with a blueprint as to whether or not this service is worth transferring to China.
• Security & privacy. A VPN with an audited or court-verified zero-logs policy is the most popular. Second, a kill switch and a leak-free area unit are a requirement. Finally, look into some additional options like anonymous payments, Tor over VPN, or multi-hop to enhance your protection. The most important thing is to look for a “stealth protocol,” “stealth mode” or “obfuscated servers” – these are usually crucial for a VPN in China.
• Speed. A fast tunneling protocol such as WireGuard is strongly recommended to enhance speed. In addition, keep an eye out for a lot of covered servers and locations.
• Streaming & Torrenting. This unit of area is probably the most common reason why people get a VPN. It’s not different in China, as there is no native Netflix or YouTube in the slightest. Confirm that your VPN covers your required streaming platforms and has enough juice to download at the specified rate.
• Customer Support. You should notice at least a few VPNs that have 24/7 live chat.
• Price. This one is hard. Area unit Do you get a VPN only for a few months? Or an area unit that is about to stay in China for over a year? In the latter case, the cost area unit is quite similar, but long-term plans offer a wide range of discounts.

How to Use a VPN in China?

The greatest advice you can get about using a VPN in China is to plan ahead of time. If you have not yet arrived in China, it is a good idea to transfer and run the VPN software package before you arrive. You’ll have the tools you need to get around the limitations this way.

• You will want a reliable VPN provider. We tend to recommend NordVPN because it includes a good list to bypass the big firewall.
• Sign up for the service and purchase your subscription. Confirm that its length is not shorter than your keep.
• Sign in to your account and transfer the software package (it’s smart to install it on all your used devices)
• Each operating system has different setup instructions, so check with your provider for details.
• Once setup is complete, all you have to do is open the app, sign in, and connect.
• For a VPN to work, it would have to connect victimization obfuscated servers.

Don’t forget that tunneling protocols like OpenVPN, PPTP, and L2TP area units are blocked in China. Therefore, the best thing to do is to use different ways to unblock restricted websites.

Is Using a Vpn Illegal in China?

VPNs in the China area unit are legal but severely restricted. In 2018, the Chinese government decided to ban all VPNs that are not approved by the government. Before long, VPNs disappeared from the native app stores, and ISPs began to dominate them very strongly.

However, this measurement area unit is primarily aimed at locals, so travelers will still transfer and use some VPN apps. those VPNs that are operating in China continued to do so even after 2018. In a way, this could mean that the Chinese government has given more room for those providers to work within the country. On the other hand, you still need to find the right tool and thus downloading the app is not easy.

If you are in a neighborhood, using a VPN will be much riskier, especially if you live in provinces like Xinjiang, where the population is more strictly controlled by the Chinese regime. If they are caught, voters will face dire consequences.

What Is the Great Firewall of China?

Officially known as the Golden Shield project, China’s Great Firewall censors network access within the country. Since all network service providers (ISPs) are government-owned, they will monitor all your traffic and block certain websites that are deemed dangerous or inappropriate. Unfortunately, the block list is a bit long, along with Facebook, Twitter, most search engines, and electronic messaging services, not to mention Netflix and YouTube.

China began seriously censoring the web in 1997, just three years after it started surfing. In 2003, the Golden Shield project was started to censor and jointly promote the party’s ideology. for example, you will learn that Hong Kong and Taiwan are part of China, and you will not learn anything about the Tiananmen Square massacre.

How will China censor the Internet? Well, it uses a variety of refined ways, such as information processing blocking, DNS snooping, keyword filtering through deep packet inspection (DPI), and manual blocking. DPI is also used to see and block VPN traffic. That is why the most effective VPNs must be prepared to prevent DPI from appearing in China.

Without a VPN, you’ll be forced to use native apps and websites for communication, online search, and the rest. Your search keywords will be changed and you will see government-approved companies at the top of the results page. Most importantly, your online privacy will be non-existent thanks to China’s online police investigation teams.

How VPNs Bypass the Great Firewall

Bypassing the good Firewall is doable by victimizing the associated grade encrypted reference to surface servers. Although there are several ways to travel about it, VPNs are the most common and easiest way for many users.

A VPN encrypts your connection, making it impossible to view and filter the pages you are trying to access. In addition, your association is trained on the network of surface servers that have unlimited access to the network. That way, you’re experiencing the network as if you’re located somewhere else, yet physically you’re still located in China.

It is worth mentioning that China has cracked down on most free VPN services and proxies. the good Firewall detects the data processing ranges of some free VPNs and blocks them dead in their tracks, rendering them useless. So if you want some assurance that a VPN can work for you, it’s not a bad plan to trust the paid VPN service provider.

How to Bypass the Great Firewall of China Without a VPN?

While VPNs are the most effective technique for bypassing China’s good Firewall, they can also be full proxies. Any services you use must be run from outside the partner country, ideally supporting an HTTPS-encrypted tunnel.

There are several paid proxies to be established, but your name is sometimes not enough to know that your private information is safe. Also, a VPN can often be faster and offer an additional stable association. Proxies can generally have additional issues with streaming and torrenting.

Another technique to bypass China’s good Firewall is Tor. It uses a network of thousands of repeaters around the world, effectively hiding your information processing address and traffic. sadly these are their vulnerabilities and will ideally be used with a VPN once possible. Finally, Tor won’t help you with streaming, torrenting, or forwarding because it’s designed for browsing.

Proxies and Tor don’t seem to be the only alternatives to VPN. However, other options, such as I2P or encrypted DNS, are either extremely technical or too narrow to include in this article.

Why Does China Block Most VPNs?

China is an authoritarian regime that likes to spy on its voters and guests alike. Limiting the online content available in the marketplace helps spread government information and keep foreign sources out of stock. Since VPNs make it easy to unblock websites and services by bypassing the good Firewall, China considers them dangerous and harmful to its policy.

A VPN could be a powerful tool that gives you access to a variety of blocked services. We are talking about social networks and electronic messaging, search engines, news sites, streaming, torrents, and more. While no one, voters reckon they were built to use native online services while also giving away their scientific addresses and online activity logs for free to ISPs, which, by the way, are collectivist.

Oddly enough, the VPNs that worked before the 2018 change still work today. That’s probably because, without a VPN, China would be financially hurt. After all, there are foreign businesses that require access to numerous online resources to operate. thus, in a very broad sense, China is leaving those few VPNs in relative peace on their own.

Which Free VPN Works in China?

The question in the title is intentionally single. There aren’t many decent premium VPNs that function in China, and there are even fewer free choices. Windscribe is your best bet right now.

As of 2024, Windscribe is the top free VPN in China. It’s a reputable company with no scandals or leaks. This is why it frequently appears on our list of the best free VPNs.

This service provides you with ten GB/month for browsing, streaming, and torrenting. While this limit may seem strict, keep in mind that most free VPNs have a data metering limit, and those that don’t won’t work with Netflix, P2P, or both. With Windscribe, you can view a three-hour-long image or browse for more than 5 hours a day.

Unlike the other free VPNs that offer you only a few locations, Windscribe offers ten countries. which has a city, so the speeds are higher than once connecting somewhere on the other side of the world. Of course, for streaming, you can probably still select the North American country, the UK, or the European country.

Windscribe features strong secret writing, a kill switch, and malware protection when it comes to security and privacy. If you want to travel premium, it’s also a no-logs service with a tracking blocker and anonymous payments. Finally, STunnel and Wstunnel are two “stealth protocols” in Windscribe.

Windscribe, like other free providers, does not have a live chat option. Sending a price tag, berating a chatbot, or viewing the material are your only options for measuring the square. Despite this, no best free VPN that works in China exists.

VPNs That Don’t Work in China

Many VPNs do not include China. It might be easier to list the ones that work. However, below you will see services that cannot bypass the Great Firewall of China at the time of writing, although this could change.

• Avast Secureline VPN
• Betternet
• HideMyAss
• IPVanish
• Mullvad
• Perfect Privacy
• StrongVPN
• SurfEasy
• VPN Unlimited
• ZenMate

As you will see, even some esteemed VPNs concluded on top of this list. This in no way implies that they are dangerous outside of China. Some of them are among the simplest VPNs overall.

Popular Websites That Are Blocked in China

If a website is worth a damn, the probability that it will be blocked in China is high. This includes:

• Social networks. It is not about oral communication that social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Tinder, and Snapchat are completely illegal.
• Streaming sites. China also bans popular streaming sites and services like Netflix, Youtube, Vimeo, Twitch, Dailymotion, Spotify, Hulu, HBO, and Vevo.
• News and informative pages. As China’s web censorship area unit with enthusiasm, you will not be able to access any Western news page or informative site. This includes the BBC, The Big Apple Times, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, The Guardian, and Wikipedia.
• The search engines. Even search engines are not resistant to China’s blocks. Even though it’s not a VPN, it won’t access Google, Yahoo, or DuckDuckGo.
• Websites bypass Internet censorship. It is not verbally communicated that websites like NordVPN, Surfshark, or ExpressVPN are on the block list, as they would allow you to bypass the blocks.
• Websites for file sharing. All of these services, from Imgur to Dailymotion to torrent websites, have been restricted to make it more difficult to exchange data.

China also blocks numerous electronic messaging applications such as Message, Messenger, Slack, or WhatsApp and cloud sharing and storage websites such as Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive.