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Explore the Web From China

Posted by samzenpus on from the walking-in-somebody-else's-shoes dept.

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Download.com: "It slows down your browsing. It makes some Web sites inaccessible for no discernible reason. It doesn't even offer you any xiao long bao or pu'er tea for your troubles. But if you want to know what life behind the Great Firewall of China is like, then the Firefox plug-in China Channel is the cheapest and fastest way to experience using the Internet in China without actually being there."

9 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. Proxy or simulation? by Slashdot+Parent · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does this plugin actually proxy your web browsing through a Chinese host? Or does it just randomly mess with your requests?

    Kind of reminds me of apt-gentoo.

    --
    They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
  2. Hm by Idiomatick · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We should make a system that loads every page you visit from 3~4 countries. Then have a notification if any differences are found, and what they are. It'd be interesting to see who's blocking what. Curious about Australia recently, I like hearing about the supposed good guys doing bad things. It makes the 'i hate commies' people uncomfortable, atleast enough to shut it.

  3. Meh by ShakaUVM · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When I was using the internet in various cafes in Beijing, I didn't notice any blocks from sites I wanted to visit. I could update my livejournal, and ssh to my computer in America, so I'm not really sure what the great firewall really could accomplish. I mean, I could feasibly tunnel all of my connection through the ssh link, after all.

    That said, while I was ssh-ed into my home computer, a Beijing police officer came in and started walking around looking at people's computers...

    1. Re:Meh by RobertinXinyang · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I have never had to show my passport to use an internet cafe in P.R. China. It is pretty obvious that I am a foreigner. However, my friend has a special card that she uses to use an internet cafe.

      I have posted on this in the past, but always get modded down for it. The Chinese students have positive feelings about the "real ID" used to access the internet. There a tremendous amount of cheating and scamming in Chinese daily life, much more so than in America, and they feel that the "real ID" decreases the possibility that they will be cheated.

      This is particularly true in social chat rooms and on QQ (a popular chat program in China).

  4. TFA is terrible by nullchar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A ghastly article that is shoddy on details. It barely mentioned it was a proxy (as I was also wondering if this was a simulation). The article describes that the toolbar will display your new IP, but the screenshots do not show it.

    Also, in regards to the extension:

    1. The "China Channel" is a horrid name
    2. w00t, just what every browser needs, yet another screen-real-estate-sucking toolbar
    3. To get the same experience, why not use one of the many proxy switching extensions. Then go find a list of Chinese proxies so you can cycle through them.

    I do, however, respect the point of showing the rest of the world how the web "feels" inside of China.

    On a related note, does anyone have a list of proxies organized by country? As a web developer, I would love to test various web sites that geo-code the IP and dynamically display different content.

  5. Keep one thng in mind... by djupedal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Many ISPs outside of China, ban entire blocks of addresses that originate inside China.

    If you happen to be browsing from a computer that has an IP address corresponding to a range that has been banned in North America, as an example, you will find it hard to reach various sources that people in NA can reach without issue. Example: GoDaddy hosted sites.

    This has nothing to do with anything related to 'The Great Firewall'...

  6. Avid linux users? by ProfessionalCookie · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And for any avid linux users out there, the community could really benefit from some updated documentation on how to properly use tc mostly the only documentation is the source, which is great for completeness and accuracy but not helpful at all if you want to get something done in less than 3 days.

  7. Only foreigners care by dwater · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Almost no one in China cares about the firewall. The only sites the Chinese want access to are already on their side - the majority of them can't read anything but Chinese anyway.

    It's really only foreigners that care.

    --
    Max.
  8. Depends... by everdown · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As someone who lives in China and travels extensively within the country, I can tell you that everything depends on the city. Internet is slow generally, but sites that work in Shanghai or Wuhan or don't necessarily work in Beijing or Nanjing. Most every site that I've ever wanted to visit and is not something that would be obviously banned (not hard to guess what these topics might be) has been available. One site I haven't been able to get for whatever reason is the Huffington Post, though I can access cached copies and referenced articles...