Other circumvention tools exist to bypass the Great Firewall (GFW) besides a virtual private network. Still, they’re not nearly as effective as VPNs. Usually, these tools will provide anonymity or encryption, but not both.
Here are three common tools that may work for you in China:
- Tor: The Onion Router (Tor) is a free and open-source web browser that sends your internet traffic through three random servers in order to hide your IP address. Unfortunately, the benefits of Tor end there. Due to the extra routing, Tor is usually much slower than other browsers and doesn’t offer encryption as a VPN does. You can use Tor to spoof your IP address and unblock websites, but it won’t shield your data from your nosey ISP or government agencies. Using Tor in China isn’t for the faint of heart either. China actively blocks IP addresses linked to the Tor network, which means you may have to experiment with different settings.
- Proxy Server: Similar to Tor, a proxy server can hide your actual IP address, but it doesn’t encrypt your internet activity. This means your data can still be seen by online snoopers. The main difference between a VPN and a proxy is that a VPN will anonymize all internet traffic sent and received from your device while a proxy only anonymizes specific programs. For example, you can set up a proxy on just your internet browser to privatize your web traffic, but it can’t guarantee your safety when using other applications.
- Mirror Websites: This circumvention method is used when a website is blocked by the GFW. Companies will sometimes clone their website under a different URL. So long as this “mirror” site itself hasn’t been blocked, users in China should be able to access it.