Access Facebook in China 2013

For those inside The Great Firewall who want to access Facebook in China, you're going to have to pay for it. Not in a kind of, "I'm going to get you" way, or, "You're going to pay for this" kind of thing going on, but literally. You're going to have to pay a monthly fee. While in the past there were free ways to access Facebook in China, these freebies just aren't around anymore, and if you do find a freebie, you can be sure that it's going to suck. Or it's not going to work. Or there's going to be something wrong with it, because no one in their right mind would put something out there for free when they could make money off it.So you've conceited to the idea of paying to get on your Facebook account. Next Step: How exactly do you access Facebook in China?

You can use a proxy or a VPN. They're basically the same thing from what I've read, but there's surely some nerd who's going to leave a comment here and tell me they're different. Apparently they use completely different technology and according to Yahoo! Answers, some guy there says they're not related in any way. However, I think they're not that different considering both have a server where your information is sent, you IP address becomes anonymous, and you get a new IP address assigned by the server. This I know.It's the IP address thing that helps you to access Facebook in China. You ISP is blocking sites from your with a Firewall. This firewall, very cleverly known as The Great Firewall (Actually called The Golden Shield, but that sounds much less menacing) can block sites by identifying your Chinese IP address and redirecting, throttling, or completely blocking access to sites. When you redirect your signal to a VPN or Proxy server, you get an IP address that is not Chinese (probably British or American) and then your ISP and everyone else that checks out the stats on you computer thinks you're wherever the VPN server is.

So should you use a proxy or VPN to access Facebook in China. Like I said, they're basically the same, and the end result is the same. I personally use a VPN for a couple of reasons. For one, there are more companies that promote VPN technology. I don't know why, but there are more out there and I got sucked into the advertising. A second reasons is that VPN are definitely more secure, and this is undeniable. With recent blocking of Gmail and a pimped up Internet restriction policy after democratic change that happened in Egypt, I'm only going to trust something with some awesome security, so China doesn't decide to spy on my computer. Three, also related to better security - I think some of the appeal of proxies is that they're easier to set up, and easier to run, so there used to be a lot of free ones out there. Now, most of the freebies are blocked or government run (or watched closely), so I wouldn't recommend using them. If I'm going to pay for something, I'm going to pay for something good - not some half-way secure change my IP but not encrypt my data proxy. Just my opinion.

Using a VPN to access Facebook in China definitely worked, and even in March of this year when tons of VPN sites were blocked, the VPN's themselves still worked, so it goes to show you that as long as new VPN services keep popping up, there will be a way to access unrestricted Internet in China.On a side note, there are rumors of being able to access your Facebook account in 2011, which is how you may have stumbled across this article. This is FALSE. Zuckerberg might be bringing a new social networking site to China, but this is most likely in no way going to be related to Facebook, except that it will be fathered by Zuckerberg.