Livin' In The Chonx

The Great Firewall (GFW), sometimes referred to as the Net Nanny, may be the bane of your existence in China. But it doesn’t have to be.

Most blocked sites (blogging services, certain news sites, anything with “sensitive” words), can be accessed in China with the use of a proxy. Those willing to fork over some cash can spring for a Virtual Private Network (VPN) - this highly recommended one goes for $40/year.

Gearing up for the Olympics a few sites that were blocked for a long time, have now been miraculously unblocked including: blogspot, Wikipedia (both English and Chinese!)

In exchange Facebook seems to be going in and out.  EDIT (7/8/08): Stay on top of which sites are blocked/unblocked with this handy list.

Some tips and tricks from the veterans:

• Those who use Gmail and Google docs in China may find that it constantly disconnects. To fix that simply add an “s” after http making the connection “secure” example: http://mail.google.com/ becomes https://mail.google.com
• For Myspace junkies, occasionally profiles are blocked. Quick fix, delete the “profile” from the address and refresh. Example: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=????? becomes http://myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=?????
• In China you can access the Flickr site, but not see photos. To get around that install this handy plugin to Firefox: Access Flickr.
• The Fastest workaround for Wordpress and Blogspot (when it becomes blocked again) is a .pac file.
• Feedburner RSS posts are blocked, even when the original content is not, so sometimes you just have to go to the original site and search for the article in question.
• Post to your favorite blogs even though they are blocked through non-blocked posting services like Ping.fm (supports Livejournal, Blogger, Xanga…).

Let us know any other tips and tricks we failed to mention by telling us your favorites in the comments below!