When the company proxy is down, development grinds to halt.
Google
Twitter,
Facebook
Dropbox
Github
Every site that uses Google Fonts will not load without fiddling etc etc etc.
VPN or a good proxy is a must. Or you just space out and stop reading the news, use a simple ssh tunnel for Git and live in happy non social media bliss.
But over the years I learned a lot of corner cases with proxy settings in almost everything. Like if you set a http proxy in Ubuntu, apt-get dont give a fuck, you have to set that separately, but if you want to use a password or different port you end up in config hell. Or if you want to use http proxy on your phone, there is settings for it in Android for both Wifi and 3g, but if you put a password into the password field, your phone goes "well thats nice, lets not use it".
You can pre cache google maps on your phone. But if you use a app that displays a google map, that app will not use the google maps cache.
But since almost everything is blocked or slow, there is Chinese alternatives to everything. And we mostly use Wechat here for everything so there there is not that many convenience missing for me.
The hardest part for me was playing Ingress since the GPS location is shifted in China, and the login requires Google servers, and running a VPN drains batteries. But I would not really see that as a major concern :)
That's definitely real. Normal, unobfuscated VPN will result in packet drops after a couple of minutes. Even obfuscated VPN will trigger packet drops if you send too much traffic.
It depends on the protocol. Unobfuscated OpenVPN definitely behaves in the way you describe. But I very rarely have problems with PPTP, which is unobfuscated.
Put simply, AFAIU, it's the pattern of TCP packet sizes. OpenVPN, for example, has a very recognizable handshake that makes it prone to detection. This post goes into some of the network-level details (not OpenVPN-specific): http://blog.zorinaq.com/my-experience-with-the-great-firewal...
I agree, shadowsocks is much more powerful open source solution in crossing the GFW. But I’m hardly find a quick reliable service provider. And the primary developer (a young woman) quitted under the stress of administration. So the future of this project is unclear.
When the company proxy is down, development grinds to halt.
Google Twitter, Facebook Dropbox Github Every site that uses Google Fonts will not load without fiddling etc etc etc. VPN or a good proxy is a must. Or you just space out and stop reading the news, use a simple ssh tunnel for Git and live in happy non social media bliss.
But over the years I learned a lot of corner cases with proxy settings in almost everything. Like if you set a http proxy in Ubuntu, apt-get dont give a fuck, you have to set that separately, but if you want to use a password or different port you end up in config hell. Or if you want to use http proxy on your phone, there is settings for it in Android for both Wifi and 3g, but if you put a password into the password field, your phone goes "well thats nice, lets not use it".
You can pre cache google maps on your phone. But if you use a app that displays a google map, that app will not use the google maps cache.
But since almost everything is blocked or slow, there is Chinese alternatives to everything. And we mostly use Wechat here for everything so there there is not that many convenience missing for me.
The hardest part for me was playing Ingress since the GPS location is shifted in China, and the login requires Google servers, and running a VPN drains batteries. But I would not really see that as a major concern :)