# Where can I get a good VPN? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 18, 2012, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-get-a-good-vpn/641393 "2012-11-18T10:39:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Scholar\_Beardpig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de053/32.png) [@Scholar\_Beardpig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scholar_Beardpig)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2012, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-get-a-good-vpn/641393/1 "2012-11-18T10:39:44Z")
Dear all, Here I am, happily living in the beautiful city of Shanghai, in my beloved new socialist motherland of the People’s Republic of China. Just got the new job, making decent money, found a nice place to live, and life is really good. Only one problem, though it’s so small a problem that I hesitate to call it such. To be blunt, the Great Firewall **is total ballsack.** I didn’t care when it was just Youtube and Facebook, but now Gmail is flickering constantly and it’ll take five or six refreshes just to get through to my inbox - to say nothing of the fact that I maintain three e-mail addresses for different purposes, and checking my e-mail becomes a forty-five minute odyssey of whacking the refresh button, doing every kind of bandwidth-voodoo to make sure everything goes right ruddy proper, and calling people on the phone to make sure that my e-mail actually went through to them. Google Drive is **totally** off-limits. I’ll pay money, but I won’t be a sucker. Any other doper China-hands to share a good VPN that’ll slice through the bullshit and get me what I need? ---
**Author:** ![kenner116](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecb155/32.png) [@kenner116](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenner116)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2012, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-get-a-good-vpn/641393/2 "2012-11-18T11:19:48Z")
The free VPN I use (GoAgent) hasn’t really worked since over two weeks ago. The internet has been awful due to the 18th Party Congress that took place down the street from here. Hopefully the internet goes back to “normal” soon now that they’ve paraded out the top seven leaders. Though I saw Hu and Xi today on TV in front of a big military assembly so maybe the transition is still going on. Before GoAgent I used Freegate, which is much easier to set up but can be slow at times. It hasn’t been working either for the past couple weeks. ---
**Author:** ![goldmund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a4c791/32.png) [@goldmund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/goldmund)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2012, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-get-a-good-vpn/641393/3 "2012-11-18T15:54:06Z")
Never used it from China, but StrongVPN is excellent, and very fast. Check out their China page here: [http://strongvpn.com/packages\_china.shtml](http://strongvpn.com/packages_china.shtml) ---
**Author:** ![SpaceDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spacedog/32/9932_2.png) [@SpaceDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpaceDog)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2012, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-get-a-good-vpn/641393/4 "2012-11-19T03:39:00Z")
I haven’t used it much (and it was a little tweaky to setup on my Android tablet) but the one I found recommended on-line was [WiTopia](https://www.witopia.net/products/). Once I got it running it worked fine. ---
**Author:** ![Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Throatwarbler_Mangrove)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2012, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-get-a-good-vpn/641393/5 "2012-11-19T06:00:40Z")
I have read vaguely about using a free Amazon Web Services (AWS) account to setup your own VPN. I wish someone would post or provide a plain English guide on how to do this, because the existant guides I could find all presume some level of expertise in Unix/web development which i don’t have and I can’t make heads or tails of their instructions. ---
**Author:** ![heigugu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/eb8c5e/32.png) [@heigugu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heigugu)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-get-a-good-vpn/641393/6 "2012-11-28T01:39:54Z")
Thankvpn provide with Free USA VPN [www.thankvpn.com](http://www.thankvpn.com) Support PPTP L2TP/IPSEC OPENVPN ---
**Author:** ![gr3g0s](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@gr3g0s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gr3g0s)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-get-a-good-vpn/641393/7 "2013-03-16T10:10:44Z")
try 0strikes.net.nz new so not on block lists uses Open VPN but not default ports so port should be open too ---
**Author:** ![Bbusyb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bbusyb/32/4580_2.png) [@Bbusyb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bbusyb)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-get-a-good-vpn/641393/8 "2013-03-16T12:24:13Z")
I’m currently using [www.overplay.net](http://www.overplay.net) as a VPN provider. I was previously using VPNUK, but found that for the same price (US$10) overplay gives me access to servers from 40 countries and is much more user friendly to use. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2013, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-get-a-good-vpn/641393/10 "2013-11-12T00:59:55Z")
Reported as spam. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2020, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-can-i-get-a-good-vpn/641393/12 "2020-02-19T16:53:32Z")
Reported. The thread is a spam magnet.