How to get past China's Great Firewall and reach blocked sites?

Question

I wonder if there are any other users who are annoyed like me by the Great Firewall set by the Chinese Government. If so would you please present me an effective way to get on YouTube? Since it's going to be China's flag-day or something, I tried almost all approaches from the internet like ultrasurf , hotspot shield proxy and some other web-based proxies, none worked to me.

What I want is just to be able to view and download a couple of videos, all tech and programming related. So if there's no way to get pass GFW, other work-arounds are still welcome. Thanks.

I'm asking for technical help. So please don't go any further to politics or anything, not interested and not productive.

I have tried the following to no avail:

• tor + firefox
• tor + opera
• hotspot shield
• Jap ( probably anony-service list banned )
• ultra surf
• http tunnel client ( not sure how to configure, tried an proxy but didn't help )
• any other ordinary http proxies

Nothing worked for me up to now. I don't think this is "Mission: Impossible" and I don't want to wait till China's flag-day to be over, who knows, maybe they'll still be blocked.

Could some commercial solution be the final life-saver?

After a couple of days of following this question (and thanks to the folks who tried to help) it seems to me now this thread can't be loaded completely from my Firefox, the 'Connection reset' info starts to appear.

I picked the answer that actually is working for me. So maybe it's time to close this question because I will still want to access Stack Exchange in the future.

Solution 1

It seems that Freegate (alternative domain) was not mentioned yet? It claims to have released version 6.89 just before the celebrations started. I have never used the program.

[EDIT] The English download page only shows older versions. Deducting an URL from that older versions, only gives me the August 26th 6.88 as the most recent. The Chinese version of the download page seems to confirm that, so the original Chinese version of that website might be much more up to date (and seems to be some "secure and uncensored Internet portal" as well). The older version 6.80 can be found on many alternative places, like via CNET or Softpedia. According to a tweet, "Freegate 6.89 U tunnel beta 4" is available on 91files.com.

It might only be free when used from within China.

And merely for the archives (as it won't help at this very moment) apparently some project called Haystack is about to be released soon:

Haystack is a new program to provide unfiltered internet access to the people of Iran. A software package for Windows, Mac and Unix systems, called Haystack, specifically targets the Iranian government’s web filtering mechanisms.

Similar to Freegate, the program directed against China’s “great firewall,” once installed Haystack will provide completely uncensored access to the internet in Iran while simultaneously protecting the user’s identity. No more Facebook blocks, no more government warning pages when you try to load Twitter, just unfiltered Internet.

Which compares itself to Tor as follows:

Tor focuses on using onion routing to ensure that a user's communications cannot be traced back to him or her, and only focuses on evading filters as a secondary goal. Because Tor uses standard SSL protocols, it is relatively easily to detect and block, especially during periods when the authorities are willing to intercept all encrypted traffic.

On the other hand, Haystack focuses on being unblockable and innocuous while simultaneously protecting the privacy of our users. We do not employ onion routing, though our proxy system does provide a limited form of the same benefit.

Solution 2

I was going to suggest Tor but is seems that it is being cracked down on in China.

A very easy way to try Tor is OperaTor which is an installation of the Opera browser and Tor which just works with next to no effort at all.

Solution 3

Have you looked at Hotspot Shield or HTTP-Tunnel Client?

Here is some text from the later:

HTTP-Tunnel acts as a socks server, allowing you to use your Internet applications safely despite restrictive firewalls and/or you not be monitored at work, school, goverment and gives you a extra layer of protection against hackers, spyware, ID theft's with our encryption.

Help and guides for HTTP-Tunnel Client are here.

Solution 4

In China, proxies do not really help. It does not totally disguise your identity. Data still has to be served to a chinese ip and that will most likely fail.

I suggest you migrate to the civilised world or get a SIM card from another country to open data connections over HSDPA / UMTS. In the bigger cities of China this worked for me.

Solution 5

The problem with such requests is that the information is available not only to you, but to the opposite side, that tries to restrict you. Anyway, I suggest you to try some vpn server in another country. I use witopia when I need to connect securely from a public place, it's reliable, feature-rich, but not free, so YMMV.

View more solutions

Comments

[Admin]

If you can get someone stateside to set up one end of a VPN you might be able to pull it off.

[Admin]

interesting question, and stated well

[Admin]

Don't attack China's government in your answers; it really won't help readers of this question solve this technology issue. There's a level of oppression everywhere in the world, just some places more than others.

[Admin]

By the way: I assume well-known things such as hidemyass.com (and hence its YouTube proxy at hidemyass.com/youtube-proxy as well) have been blocked since ages, right?

[Admin]

forget about NORMAL proxies.

[Admin]

Well, the hidemyass.com web proxy is not a "normal" proxy in the sense that your browser does not know what URL it is requesting. It only knows about the hidemyass.com URL (and its IP address). When using HTTP proxies for which one actually changes settings in the browser (or network connections), then the browser knows the URL, and the censor can read that. (But I assume the censor knows about the well-known web-based proxies, like hidemyass.com and its alternative domains from privax.us, which may even have the same IP address.)

[Admin]

Just read your last edit. Too bad! :-( Though it still could be a technical issue of course... Get some Tor bridges while you can? And read the blog ZelluX posted?

[Admin]

Tried Jap out, unfortunately the anonymity list failed to be fetched, I guess it's still the GFW. Thanks anyway.

[Shawn]

However didn't work for me, stalled at "requesting localhost" after launching OperaTor and requested youtube.com, any further instructions?

[Shawn]

Hotspot shield failed me. For HTTP tunnel client, does it have to work with a server and where do I deploy this server? Install it locally or somewhere remote ?

[anttix]

Thanks for the OperaTOR! and the information about Tor in China.

[harrymc]

You don't need a server - it's supplied by http-tunnel.com, which is why they also have paid high speed accounts. I've added the guides' location to my answer.

[harrymc]

(note) Hotspot shield may not work because blocked by the firewall.

[Shawn]

I used to work with HS, but long time ago( 1 yr or so ), that time it works, recently it's killed. On rare occasions it succeeds to get passed and gives you the youtube webpage, but videos just don't play.

[Garik]

As far as instructions go all I can think of is wait and then wait some more. OperaTor works but from what I remember it can be very slow.

[Safwan Hijazi]

theregister.co.uk/2009/09/29/china_tor

[Shawn]

@littlegeek : :-( The web page leads to torproject.org/bridges which I couldn't access due to obvious reasons.

[user1686]

Proxies do help when the Firewall does not know what is sent through them. (SSH tunnels and most VPN software use encryption.)

[harrymc]

try also iphider.org, allanonymity.com/ip-hider-hide-ip-software, download.cnet.com/windows/privacy-software/?tag=bc

[Pit]

I was at the olympics. I can tell you, in China, proxies did not helpe me even though I figured it would for al the reasons you just mentioned.

[Arjan]

@Shawn, that page shows 3 bridges out of the actual list, and gives the same result for the same requesting IP address for some time. (Thus avoiding someone easily gets the whole list.) Surely anyone who can access that page, could give you those 3 bridges. (Assuming none of them is in China, so assuming you could use them as well.) Another way to find public bridge addresses is to send mail to [email protected] with the line "get bridges" by itself in the body of the mail. You'll need to send this request from a Gmail account, to avoid releasing the whole list to some automated process.

[Shawn]

Nice tip. Haven't come to that myself. btw I'm a native Chinese :-)

[Shawn]

of course I can't reach the page you said, you know for OBVIOUS reasons.)

[Shawn]

No luck. Sorry.

[Shawn]

Looks Treewalk Proxy Configurator is for DNS work arounds. G*F-W is more powerful than DNS stuff.

[Shawn]

Simple install and Worked. A bit slow but working that I can't complain. Thanks a lot.

[Arjan]

Ow wow, that 6.88 version then?

[Shawn]

I don't think normal proxies can really help. Think about it, if somebody can find 'the' proxy, why can't GFW? Even it's for now, it WILL be on the kill list soon. Proxies can't be practical solution here.

[Shawn]

It's 6.89u, didn't try 6.88. I got it from the "on 91files.com" link you gave me. Plus the interface is even in Chinese. Guess some Chinese guy is envolved.

[Shawn]

Again let's pray it still works tomorrow morning. G*F)W is getting so smart now. Even ssl stuff can get passed.

[Shawn]

fix : Even ssl stuff *can't get passed.

[quack quixote]

interesting that OperaTor went from you requesting youtube to "requesting localhost", assuming i understand you correctly. so the GFW basically routed youtube to 127.0.0.1, even Tor'd.

[steampowered]

You need to make your own proxy which China does not know about. Making your own proxy will work.