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I live in China and daily I have to face the great firewall pain :(

On Windows/Mac/Android there are many VPN and other services but on Linux there are only a few that I know of.

Right now I am using these ones:

  • Tor (here works only with obfs3 bridges)
  • Lantern
  • XX-Net
  • ShadowSocks (you ll need a server address or configure your own server)

Usually the above programs set up a local proxy so SwitchyOmega is to me the best way to switch between them.

ShadowSocks

It is easy to configure a server/client, if you don't have a server 'outside the firewall' one option is to configure a Shadowssocks server on Amazon AWS: for one year amazon give you a server for free (but they will charge some small fees if you exceed the monthly data traffic).
With AWS the only issue is that you'll have to change the IP in your client configuration every time you restart the server:
you can workaround this programmaticaly with aws-cli I have shared a bash script here

Psiphon

There is an experimental version for linux but it does not work for me in China. ( the phone app works so you can use the below method to route your traffic to the pc )

Route your Android VPN to your pc

if your Android VPN is able to route all your phone traffic, You can create SSH tunnel to your phone (see)

Do you know any other software?

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    A commercial VPN might be an option ? (I don't live in China though, so I don't know of those work) There are many VPN providers, pretty much all of which support Linux. Feb 27, 2017 at 12:52
  • Yes It could be, but it is a well known paid solution ... ( beside I don't trust VPN providers ... also they use technology that are not meant to be anti censorship so they can be easly blocked by the governament, for example openvpn does not work ) Feb 27, 2017 at 15:55
  • @Postadelmaga OpenVPN on the HTTP/S ports as well?
    – muru
    Mar 6, 2017 at 8:59
  • @muru I don't have the time to check that because It would required to set up a VPN first ... I remember I tried with OpenVPN but after a while the traffic get blocked and the remote server blacklisted. I read that China great firewall is able to finger print your server and uses some AI to analyze the traffic, so I think it is able to understand if you are using openVPN regardless of the protocol ... as I wrote classical VPN are not a good solutions Mar 6, 2017 at 9:11
  • I think the question could be rephrased from (paraphrasing) "Conspire with me to commit a crime in China and face extradition" to "How can I break through firewalls I don't like" Aug 22, 2017 at 17:18

2 Answers 2

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Opera browser has free vpn function. Opera don't presents in official ubuntu repository but could easily downloaded from official web site www.opera.com In Security section of settings select VPN. In address bar of browser you can use vpn location selector.

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  • First off, China recently made VPNs illegal. So anyone in China should not try this, they could go to prison. But if you dont care about speed, maybe you could tunnel X11 over ssh. for example if you have server caocao.whatever.cc you can go 'ssh -X caocao.whatever.cc' and then run x commands like xterm, xeyes, even firefox. it is extremely extremely slow but it can be useful in a handful of unique situations. There is a faster version of this using Xvncserver and xvnc or xvfb, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xvfb but its still pretty slow (you cant probably stream video for example)
    – don bright
    Aug 15, 2017 at 23:34
  • VPN are not legal in China but all foreigners I know use them ... nobody I know ever faced any issue ( just to share my experience, then act as you believe is better for you ) Aug 23, 2017 at 12:07
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There are a lot of ways that you could do this actually. You could just spoof your IP. I remember the ability in BackTrack but I don't remember the name.

I know that Avast has a VPN tool on window but not sure on Linux, you could look into that.

If it is just websites that you are needing to get to, like I do for StarTV, you can use a plugin from firefox called anonymoX... This allows you to change the country that your browser reports. It's how I watch my Indian TV channels.

Here is a list of sites that popped up when I searched on Google:

The best one I can see from where I'm sitting is OpenVPN. Here is a guide to install it.

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    VPN is what I want to avoid because it is usally paid option ( openvpn is blocked by GFW ) Mar 27, 2017 at 9:06
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    How is IP spoofing going to help to circumvent a network blockade in a meaningful way? Also, in a heavily monitored network sending packages with spoofed source addresses is like setting up a neon sign pointing at you that says "I'M DOING SHADY AND PROBABLY ILLEGAL STUFF OVER HERE!" Mar 28, 2017 at 8:29
  • you have a valad point David. But then, doing any kind of anti-piracy is like flashing a neon sign. VPN may be the only way to go on this. Again, there are options if you just want to browse the internet. Like a firefox plugin. Stealthy italic bold code is one. Of coarse, if you just want to watch videos, there are other plugins for that as well. It really depends on what your trying to do.
    – Taynak
    Mar 29, 2017 at 6:35
  • Anti-piracy? The question is about the circumvention of censorship not online "piracy". Aug 22, 2017 at 17:11

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