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Define censorship. As long as you can find what once happened on Tiananmen Square in China, who Snowden is and footage from LiveLeak, nothing is censored. You may even find explicit pornography and scenes of murder on Google and Bing nowadays. What you won't find is child porn, but I'd be very careful in calling this an act of censorship. It's in the nature of the deep/hidden web to not have been indexed. That's why it's called hidden. No amount of "uncensored" search engines will help you here since they all work in a similar way. Some info simply can't be indexed for search engines, like databases. But it is true, DuckDuckGo won't ever find info on .onion hosts. It may find mentions of .onion addresses in the clearnet, though.

I don't know what to write about... Everything's fine and I love AirVPN. Sounds cheesy but it is what it is. I've been using AirVPN for half a year. Many servers to choose from, very transparent from the user's point of view - something I value. Transparency about server status and an API (admittedly I haven't used it much). From reading the forums I grasped that AirVPN has very strict (legal) criteria for choosing server locations (countries), an approach that is unique across all providers I've seen so far. Yea placing servers in China wouldn't be the best idea or many other more "democratic" as a matter of fact which were ruled out. The config generator is awesome if you're not using their open source client Eddie (bonus points again!) - plenty of flexibility. Configs? Afaik there're some providers out there who still have user/password prompt on each connection, laughable. AirVPN not only properly makes use of certificates (that's how the server knows you are you without asking for credentials) and on top of that allows you to properly distribute different access keys across your devices (in case of theft etc). Lost a device? Revoke access to that single one and done! Port-forwarding support ALONG WITH Dynamic DNS is unparalleled. Sure an advanced user probably could create an ad-hoc DDNS solution for themself, but offering it along the VPN is ingenius. The servers are very stable, the stats currently show a user has been connected since January. I've read comments where other VPNs often force reconnects etc, that just sounds wild to me. Before AirVPN I've been on a private VPN server with 24/7 uptime and that's the quality of service I got used to and wouldn't want to downgrade from (looking at those other VPN providers) The AirVPN forums are a great source of information. The staff cannot be commended enough for responding to concerns and generally being here for discussion. @OpenSourcerer is a damn community hero, this place is unimaginable without him! I myself have contributed in one form or another and will continue to. As a side note to forums: AirVPN appears to have customized the forum software for privacy. I can't assess how far it goes (hopefully "enough"), and it's a far better choice than those completely relying on Reddit - undoubtedly a useful puppet of/for the certain government. The only problem I've had was with initial payment. I bought the 1 month plan and found no clear indications it was still active (because it is a PayPal recurring payment), so before the month expired I bought the 1 year plan. I was quite surprised to see a few days later my access days to have been extended by +31d - the automatic Paypal payment kicked in and I paid a single month extra. Though I like the service so much I decided not to bother with a refund (consider it a donation hehe). You need to login in Paypal to cancel those, I wish this was made clear/er. What's unclear to me was whether/how much info is retained on payment after all the transactions... but to grossly paraphrase an official response: use crypto. Just make sure your mug shot (photo) isn't connected to the coin wallet Roses are red, AirVPN's great.

I have noticed that when using the Dutch VPNs sometimes for what I think is an inexplicable reason, my traffic is routed through an OVH server in France (I have also noticed traffic to China is routed through America, but that's unrelated). My questions are: Why does this happen? Why are users not informed about this? My best guess is that it could be to bypass blocks, but the places where it happens (Akamai and Amazon) don't block VPNs to my knowledge, and mysteriously it only seems to happen for a short amount of time as refreshing the page often results in traffic no longer being routed through France. Image of this happening: https://i.imgur.com/b8qdBnC.png (The same image is attached)

typical double-speech from Apple, I remember when the Taiwan flag crashed iOS to appease China.. But I'm more interested in the method itself. It's sounds like using two Proxy-Providers, but somehow independent to provide anonymity?

So: iPhone -----> Apple ("strip" IP, definitely a proxy) -----> mysterious 3rd party (proxy/VPN) -----> destination? Only on Safari. Well. What the article doesn't tell is that this won't be available in China, Kazachstan, Saudi Arabia and a few other countries. What's the point if the countries in which you need such a feature the most are not included?

Hello, after reading the pinned post about blocking VPN in China I feel a little embarrassed by the relative importance of my issue, which has been occurring more frequently over the past ~6 months. I wouldn't normally complain, I've been using Airvpn for years, but it's getting a bit worrisome. I usually connect to Airvpn's Canada BC servers, but they seem to be having serious load balancing issues. The screenshot depicts a typical situation, the Los Angeles, Fremont CA, Vancouver, even the Chicago and Phoenix servers are not listing. I find that I am often kicked from a server and reconnected to another one *very* far away. For example, I'll be on Sham in BC and a couple hours later find that I'm suddenly connected to Atlanta Georgia or Toronto 2,000 miles away.... Is this due to excessive traffic on the west coast, and are there any plans to increase service coverage for this region?

I am from China.the Chinese ISPs have blocked a lot of websites, it lead to many people have to use vpn and proxy. I have used Express vpn before. To be honest, Express vpn is very fast most of the time, and I can also use it to unlock netflix. However, because Express is so famous, it is often blocked by GFW, which makes it very unstable. Airvpn does not have this problem. Its speed is not slow in China Mobile and China Unicom, and it is rarely affected by GFW. However, Airvpn still cannot meet all my needs. Its speed terribly slow in China Telecom. And it can't unlock netflix. So I have to buy another vpn to supplement the weakness of Airvpn.

Hello, I'm looking for servers that will provide optimum download and upload for users physically located in China. I used to have good performance with the Japan servers although that was a long time ago. Certain Netherlands servers (Alpheratz, in particular) were very strong for a period, although the routing appears to change a lot, taking the high download speeds with them If anyone as any suggestions for servers to try or if the admins can suggest any techniques I can use to determine the best servers myself, I'd appreciate it!

Elaborate, with some sources, please. I remember VyprVPN being listed as a logging VPN provider in TorrentFreak's VPN provider questionnaires, so it is sufficient if you want to watch Netflix in Uganda or pretty much anything decent on the internet if you're in China. Not sure about today or if TF still does those questionnaires, but you really shouldn't torrent over it – or hope for a pseudonym in the face of prosecution.

This is the reason i trust in you guys. I've been searching like every one says one thing "no logging". But in the end such as NordVPN, HidemyassVPN has been caught data leakage or selling private info. Not many VPN offers TOR or investing for free speech. They have VPN server in China how cool is that.

Up until last week, I was able to ping the Japanese servers and return around 80ms. Now the ping is around 240 - 50ms. I suspect it must be to do with changes on the ISP side but I'm curious if anyone else has noticed any similar performance hits within China? Is there anything I can do to improve things? Thanks!

Do you think this is because the firewall in China?

https://www.zdnet.com/article/china-is-now-blocking-all-encrypted-https-traffic-using-tls-1-3-and-esni/ https://yro.slashdot.org/story/20/08/09/000209/china-is-now-blocking-all-encrypted-https-traffic-that-uses-tls-13-and-esni

Thank you for replying, my brother was sleeping (china time). I tried to install the TAP manually but it didn't work. Here is the log file. Eddie_20200808_153805.txt

Hi, I bought this VPN for my brother back in China. AirVPN works properly on my computer BUT doesn't connect to any server on his. Every time while connecting, the client says 'Checking authorization...' 'Installing tunnel driver 0901' 'Restart in 3..2..1..' and goes back into the loop. I saved the log file on his computer if anyone can help with this problem. Thank you

The change this week in Hong Kong, with direct jurisdiction by the CCP/Beijing government and the override of the "Two Systems" agreement by security laws and mainland police presence seems to require review of whether users can have confidence of privacy or security when using HK servers. One reference of the impact and scope and implications is this Australian newspaper article: https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/hong-kong-s-new-national-security-laws-reach-beyond-china-20200701-p557zd.html Although it is undesirable to follow the Trumpist/US MIC with various anti-China propaganda, it should be recognised that although China is increasingly powerful and aggressive, the rest of Asia is a considerable counterweight (Japan, S Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Australia, India, etc) and European organisations such as AirVPN have alternatives. Perhaps Taiwan can be a replacement for CCP HK, or more servers in Japan and Singapore, or perhaps give Indonesia a bit more modern industry ?

I am in China, Hong Kong is the closest region to China. Usually Hong Kong servers should be the best for Chinese users. But AirVPN's Hong Kong server is very slow and the ping value is high. Is it possible for AirVPN to improve Hong Kong servers?

Unfortunately, wireguard is blocked in China, doesn't work anymore through WG protocol..................I have tested Astrill/Torguard/VPNac woth their WG protocol...........confirmed by torguard staff........ damn.......... Wireguard is not designed to bypass blocks. It's sufficient blocking UDP (or strongly shaping outgoing UDP packets) to make Wireguard unusable, and that's more and more common practice on many mobile ISPs in every continent and country. Forget connections over stunnel and don't even fantasize about connections over SSH. There are also other important limitations and concerns, anyway we will make them all very clear when we offer Wireguard. Please use OpenVPN as usual to bypass China blocks. Kind regards

Unfortunately, wireguard is blocked in China, doesn't work anymore through WG protocol..................I have tested Astrill/Torguard/VPNac woth their WG protocol...........confirmed by torguard staff........ damn..........

Hi. I'm connecting from China, the normal speed is about 10mb/s ~ 15mb/s without a vpn, when use airvpn, I can get full speed in the morning, the speed continue dropping later, and in the evening(from UTC 10am) it becomes extrmely slow that I only get 100kb/s ~ 200kb/s. I have tried servers from America, Canada, Germany, Japan, Singapore but the results are similar. I wonder if it's because the China GFW or I have misconfigured something? Has anyone in China faced the same issue? System_Report.txt Eddie_20200214_071333.txt

I am using pf-sense 2.4.4 on a netgate SG-1100, configured for AirVPN using the guide listed on this site. I have a tp-link, c2600 dumb AP for wireless, configured with OpenWRT 18.06.05. Up until a few weeks ago, my connection was perfect: AirVPN connection to Gliese worked well at ~20mbs download speed. Fine for my needs. Latency is bad, ~300+ms, but then again, I'm in China and it's ok for my needs. Now, I am frequently experiencing the spinning wheel of frustration when I am streaming video on my Apple TV. 3-4 times of ~30 second pauses in a 5-10 minute period is not uncommon. Because I like to "tinker" with my settings (I recently tried the 19.07 rc2 for OpenWRT), I'm thinking I did something to cause the problem, but that doesn't appear to be it. I have reverted to the settings I had when all was working ok. I'm thinking it may be traffic shaping by the great Chinese firewall, but I'm not positive. It could also be a configuration issue on my end. One reason for my thinking it's a configuration issue is that when I try to login to pfsense from a network connection (not wireless), the pfsense dashboard doesn't load until my internet connection is working. Strange. I've monitored the download speed traffic via pfsense, and I can clearly see when download speed via the openvpn wan connection crawls to next-to-nothing. Short of doing that, I'm not sure how to troubleshoot the issue further. Since I'm a hobbyist, and not a trained network engineer, any advice to trace the problem would be of help. Thanking you in advance. PS Yes, this is in all likelihood NOT an issue with AirVPN and I am definitely not complaining about AirVPN service. I am and have been a very satisfied customer. That said, I know there are a lot of smart people on these forums and due to the totality of the issue (AirVPN + OpenVPN + China + networking) I'm thinking someone smarter than me may have a clue to troubleshoot.

I'm using the set of IP's in denyip.com's "china" block to set up a block of all China IPs. I don't have any business there, and the vast majority of the hack attempts through my forwarded ports come from there. That said, as soon as I did it I see my 'country drop' log messages (from iptables) referring to port 12103, like below (personal info redacted) Nov 13 22:04:08 <machine-name> kernel: [1907343.892570] [cn Country Drop] IN=tun0 OUT= MAC= SRC=36.102.210.52 DST=<RFC 1918 IP> LEN=143 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=100 ID=1851 PROTO=UDP SPT=8364 DPT=12103 LEN=123 I can't find any info on this port, and wondered if this was something the AirVPN was using?

I recently ran the test with Titawin server connected and logged in Facebook. The security in Facebook said my active connection is in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Also I preformed the traceroute to Facebook.com, nothing going through China at all. I would assume your account is possibility hacked, I recommend changing your password. And enable 2FA in Facebook. Try to connect to different server to see if it still route through China. Also keep an eye out on security activity.

If i'm connected through Titawin (Canada), Facebook has recently starting checking my logins saying I'm in shanghai china? It used to say Vancouver Canada when connecting while on the VPN.

I also live in the UAE, and I have been here for a few years. Your suggestions do not work unfortunately. They did at one point, but that is not the case currently. About 1.5 years ago or so, I had to switch to tls-crypt to connect, as DPI seemed to be blocking standard UDP 443 (or any port TCP or UDP). Then, about 9 months ago, this now fails in interesting ways. I use pfSense with gateway monitoring, and like OP says, traffic is throttled to the point is not useable. It went off and on for 1-2 weeks at a time for a few months, and now it is all time problematic. With tls-crypt to any ports or IP/FQDN's, there is severe throttling to about ~80% packet loss for any connection speeds. I switched to Stunnel with OpenVPN tunnels (took some work) on pfSense, and I experience throttling / packet loss on any connection speeds over 1-2Mbps. The experience is the same using Eddie clients on Windows 10, and it is the same on my mobile devices as well. Using Eddie, if I do OpenVPN over SSH or SSL to any ports/IP/FQDN, all the same. I spent many hours testing all the possible combos, no dice. Other VPN providers have the same issues, except most others are entirely worse because they do not offer tls-crypt or Stunnel/SSH options. If their tunnels do manage to get up, significant packet loss. It works for a VOIP call home, but that is about it. @Staff are there any suggestions or is this a known issue? I have many colleagues who work in China, and my discussions with them leave no doubt in my mind that UAE is now at the same level as their great firewall in terms of blocking non-desired connections. I suspect machine learning tools, and I have no hope it will improve as this technology comes down in cost. See this for more info: https://www.reddit.com/r/networking/comments/d7vlqd/how_do_airlines_usually_sandbox_in_flight_network/f162oxk/