A journey of self-discovery (or finding my own ways to get around the Great Firewall)

[Not that anyone who is having troubles with it can read this blog, but never mind.]

Disclaimer: This post is in no way intended to be political.  It merely outlines my personal discoveries resulting from frustration from being cut off from the outside world.

1. One little letter

I was doing my general post-arrival work things - checking my email, starting up WinAmp, glancing at Google Reader, etc - this morning, and was having a lot more trouble with Reader than I usually do.  I've been getting used to not being able to see the feeds for the sites that are blocked by the Firewall (Blogger, WordPress, Facebook, etc) - though Reader used to be able to solve these problems - but today it was slow to load, kept booting me out, and every time I clicked on a feed, it would come up with the encouraging message:

Sorry, an unexpected condition has occurred which is preventing Google Reader from fulfilling the request.

Can I refer to China as an 'unexpected condition' now?

Anyway, a quick search for news about the status of Reader in China turned up this post at China Herald, which had a comment from Web Analytics in China, with a very tiny but apparently effective tip.  Use 'https' instead of 'http' in the URL.  According to the tipster, this works 6 out of 10 times for GMail and Google Reader.  According to me, it works 1 out of 1 times, and lets me read the feeds that were blocked without that one little ess.  That's right.  I feel like I'm back in the world, without having to get around the blockades in an active way.

2. One little browser

Desperation kind of set in several weeks ago when I realised that maybe the blocks weren't temporary and wouldn't be lifted after certain major anniversaries.  I was playing around on my Nokia N96, trying to get access to various websites and such.  I had four browsers on it, that I was using in various capacities.  My least favourite one being the crappy default one, and the others being Opera Mini, Opera, and the newly-released Skyfire.  I actually had a preference for Opera at the time (and a 30 day trial of the full browser that I was trying to take advantage of), but because of lack of access to essential sites (mostly Facebook, if I must be honest), I gave Skyfire another go. 

It became apparent that I was able to see everything that had been blocked, including full access to Facebook, Blogger, and even YouTube.  How, you may ask?  Well, it turns out that Skyfire has its own dedicated servers that process all the data and optimise it for mobile phone use, essentially providing a free VPN service just for using their browser (which could use a few tweaks, but generally works really well).  So if your mobile phone can use it, download it now!

3. A couple of little web/mobile services
 
After I'd awkwardly managed to set things up through Facebook and Blogger on my mobile, I started using Ping.fm from my PCs, and Shozu from my mobile.  Ping.fm can be used to update statuses, micro-blogs, and blogs for 40 different web services, including Twitter, Facebook, and WordPress, through web, IM, SMS, email, and a bunch of other inputs.  It's fast, customisable, and very handy for anyone managing more than one or two different services.  If you also sign up for Pinglater.fm, you can schedule future posts as well.  Shozu provides a quick way to upload or email photos directly from a mobile phone, and can also update a number of social media sites (including Flickr, Blogger, Facebook), and can send status updates and blogs as well as captioned and titled photos.  Shozu also keeps you up to date with a limited range of feeds from various sites (e.g. friends' photo uploads and status updates).  For Blogger, I submit posts via email, but I've been doing that for a long time, so it doesn't seem like a new thing to me. 

4. A few VPN/proxy services

These are my least favourite methods at the moment, mostly because the speed and quality of the internet available to me at home and work is extremely unreliable, and VPNs tend to slow it down even more.  I've used a couple of random proxy sites (e.g. youtubeproxy.org, sneakme.net), which work as a quick access solution, but are unreliable and drive me crazy with annoying advertisements.  I had the paid VPN service WiTopia recommended to me by a few people, so I thought I'd try it.  So far it's been patchy, and some services I can use better without it on, so it's frustratingly gratifying at best.  I'm coming up to the end of my trial month, and that might be the end of it for me.  There are a few other services out there that I may try and report back on.

In summary
1. For RSS and Atom feeds to keep up with blogs and the like: Use https://www.google.com/reader/
2. For mobile browsing (for compatible mobile phones): Use Skyfire.
3. For quick status and blog updates using a variety of inputs, use Ping.fm for now, and Pinglater.fm for later.
4. For status, blog, and photo updates using your mobile phone, use Shozu.
5. For blogging, many services have an email-to-blog option where emails get posted directly to your blog.  Disabling comment moderation is risky, but lets those comments get online when you can't moderate them directly.
6. For a reliable VPN service, I don't have a recommendation as yet.  Please let me know if you have any!