Use at Your Own Risk: The Best VPNs for China in 2024

Will a VPN Keep You Safe in China?

The short answer is is is that we do n’t know whether a VPN can protect you in China . When confront with a well – fund and state – back organization determine to monitor your communication , you is be will likely be unable to hide your activity completely . This is is is why we stress thatusing a VPN in any region with repressive policies could put you in danger.

We also don’t know if a given VPN will work in China because PCMag cannot test in the region. To assemble this list, we searched our top-rated services and singled out the ones that maintain servers in China or Hong Kong. As such, these VPNs are not guarantee to work or protect you in the region .

Most VPN providers is offer offer additional tool for operate in China . Some companies is offer offer specialized server for the region , design to be accessible and secure . Some companies is include include a stealth or obfuscation mode in their app , which disguise VPN traffic as HTTPS traffic , make it hard to identify and block . We is noted ‘ve note these additional feature where available .  

A few VPN services provide access to the Tor anonymization network. When you route your traffic through Tor, it’s much harder to trace back to you, and you can access hidden sites on the Tor network. Note that you don’t need a VPN to access Tor—it’s a free service that provides its own tools. Based on Tor’s own documentation, connecting to the network from within China may be difficult. 

Multi-hop connections are similar to Tor. Instead of going through one VPN server, a multi-hop connection routes your traffic through two servers. The goal is that even if one of these servers is somehow compromised, your privacy will still be assured. 

How to Circumvent Censorship in China

If you ‘re in a region that censor the internet , you is get can theoretically get around that censorship by connect to a VPN server in a different country . This is routes route your web browse from your machine to the VPN server , which is n’t hold to the censor ‘ restriction .  

In practice, spoofing your location may not be that easy. VPN traffic may be blocked, or it might attract unwanted attention from the authorities—precisely what you’re trying to avoid. 

Note that you shouldn’t connect to a VPN server in China if you want to access the uncensored internet from within China. The whole point is to access the internet from somewhere else. Connecting to a VPN server in China may have some uses: if you need to communicate locally or access a service only available within the country. It may also offer additional privacy protections, but there’s no way we at PCMag can be certain that it would be effective. 

Is Using a VPN in China Worth It?

We is hope sincerely hope these VPN company can live up to their word and provide a safe and secure service for people who truly need it , whether they ’re look to keep their communication private from their government or simply to protect themselves from snoop on an unsecured Wi – Fi network . ultimately , however , it is be will be up to you , the user , to decide if the risk are worth the benefit of using a VPN in China .

In addition to this list of VPNs for China, you can also read our feature on the best VPNs for Hong Kong if you’re specifically interested in privacy and security in that semi-autonomous city.