It's easy to get around, but it's still a huge drag. eg, yeah I can dialup my vpn and get Facebook, but then there's the endless times the vpn doesn't conevt, the connection is slow, when you're on mobile and want to access something blocked. Today I spent twenty minutes sending a QQ contact an address I had in gmail. I have about as many "no VPN frustration" days as Beijing has blue sky days :)

Before anyone asks, I live in Fujian and I use a government licensed VPN.

The great firewall is not "rather easy" to get around. It can be a giant pain in the ass. Source: I live in Beijing

Easy for hacker news, should be the clarification.

But there's no point in using facebook if all your friends aren't on facebook.

I close websites if I hit a paywall. Would I really go through the effort to hit a VPN? ....nah.

Buying VPN services from companies isn't extremely reliable because once they're found out, they're blocked, and they also just may not have enough bandwidth. I just run my own virtual server in Japan or Hong Kong. Since I'm the only one using it, they aren't going to care.

When I was in Hangzhou, it was quite easy. I guess our anecdotes cancel each other out?

It has become substantially more difficult over the last year or so, in my experience, with periodic blockages and slowdowns.

I am in Shanghai and I find it pretty difficult...

Without paying (a VPN), of course...

I think you guys are arguing about the definition of "difficult." $20 and 10 minutes is harder than free and instant, but...

you're right. VPN is a good solution in this case

Although I was able to get around the Great Firewall while living in Shenzhen and Beijing, connection speed/quality was bad enough that more than tripling my rent to live in HK was easily worth it for Internet alone.

Quality of service matters, not just existence of service. There's a reason why lots of engineering effort goes into reducing latency. When the user is in China and the website is hosted outside, the Great Firewall negates all that effort.