[jjgod]

SSH tunnel is just too easy for the GFW to detect, it's so unstable that you cannot even browse the web with it.

Yes, setting up a VPS provider would be the most common way. There are Shadowsocks implementations that supports multiple users so that more than one person can use it simultaneously. There are also commercial solutions for Shadowsocks that you can just purchase an account instead of setting up your own server.