VPN for China: How to access Facebook and Youtube behind the Great Wall

The first part of this article explains what a VPN is and how it can be used to access Facebook, YouTube and the other websites that are currently blocked in China.

The second part is a comparative review of VyprVPN, StrongVPN and ExpressVPN, which are in my opinion, the three best VPN services in China. We’ll compare prices, functionality and the performance of the three VPNs.

As you probably already know, the internet doesn’t work like we wish it did in China and a large number of websites are blocked by the Great Firewall. Among the websites that you can’t access there are Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Google+.

There are many other blocked websites, and depending on what you do, it will be virtually impossible for you to work in China without a VPN (Virtual Private Network) from China. The most striking case is probably given by Google.com, which often returns an error message when used from within the Middle Kingdom.

But there is still hope…

In order to solve this problem, you can install a VPN, which masks your I.P. address so that your laptop appears to be connected from the U.S. or Japan even if you are in China.

A VPN will allow you to bypass the firewall and access any website you want. But you need to choose wisely: even if there are tens of VPN services available, only a few works well in China. We have tested several of them for more than a year and today we’re going to review the two we like the most.

What VPN should I choose?

In a nutshell, if you’re looking for a cheap, fast and reliable VPN, I suggest you to get StrongVPN.

However, if you don’t mind spending $1-2 USD more (per month) in order to get a VPN that has a more user-friendly setup and also works well on smartphones and tablets, then you should get VyprVPN.

Finally, if you are looking for a VPN with good performance, which is less popular in China (and therefore less susceptible to attacks like those that occurred in January 2015) and with servers in many countries, I recommend you use ExpressVPN.

Even though there are several free options such as Freegate (which is actually a proxy, not a VPN), they aren’t at all reliable and are extremely slow. The practical result is that by resorting to a free option, you won’t be able to do anything other than check your Facebook or Twitter feeds. Even posting a comment on Facebook will become an impossible mission. Forget about watching a YouTube video.

Recently, several free VPNs have been released that might offer decent performances. My suggestion is to check them out carefully before installing them on your computer, since in many cases, they’ll install other things, such as programs that cause popup ads when you are surfing the internet, programs that store your browsing data to sell it to third parties or in the worst cases, programs that use your computer as a server ( the internet will work much more slowly).
Source: http://www.saporedicina.com/english/vpn-how-to-access-facebook-in-china/