Opera Browser offering a free built in VPN

[dnoblett]

Something to try in China.

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3120493/browsers/hands-on-operas-free-unlimited-browser-vpn-is-ready-for-secure-surfing.html

 

http://www.opera.com/

[Randy W]

That may come in handy for a visitor, but I'm not seeing any China-specific support, or support for TCP connections. For browsers within China, I recommend Google Chrome (when using a VPN) and the UC Browser. The UC browser is a Chinese browser (owned by Jack Ma's Ali Baba) but you wouldn't know it due to their excellent use of English. It uses a "Google engine", so both are very robust due to their use of separate address spaces and unshared code for each window. The UC Browser works well whether the VPN is connected or not. The drawback there, however, is that they're memory hogs compared to Explorer or Firefox. Windows Explorer, Firefox, and Opera, in my experience, have all been VERY buggy. VERY frequent Firefox crashes, although it DOES recover nicely, led me to change to UC as my second browser.

 

Note also that the (free) Opera VPN may be for that browser only - that is, other connections would most likely NOT use the VPN.

 

For a VPN, look for China-specific support, and TCP connections. ExpressVPN excels in that regard. For a short trip, you can simply purchase a month's service.

 

The typical OpenVPN connection on UDP port 1194 is blocked by the Great Firewall pretty much by default, as are most UDP connections.

5 Best VPNs for China (September 2016)

Edited September 25, 2016 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Allon]

I use ExpressVPN and it locks your internet access when you go idle. Nice feature.

 

Can we tag this post? I am sure we will be referencing it in the future.

[dnoblett]

Tag it VPN.