VPN for China
The Great Firewall blocks VPNs by recognising their traffic patterns and by actively probing servers to confirm what they are. Most VPNs fail on one or both. Pangea's transports are built specifically for this: they make the tunnel look like ordinary web traffic and survive active probing. Traffic routes through Europe and the United States, which suits browsing, messaging and work.
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What the Great Firewall does
Deep packet inspection
Traffic patterns are matched against known VPN protocol signatures. A standard WireGuard or OpenVPN handshake is identifiable and gets dropped.
Active probing
After a suspicious connection, the firewall connects to that server itself to see how it responds. A server that answers like a proxy gets blocked. REALITY answers like a real website.
Tightening around events
Filtering gets noticeably more aggressive around politically sensitive dates. A service that works in a quiet month may struggle during one of these.
No app stores
VPN apps are not available in the Chinese App Store. Install before you arrive: our download page and GitHub releases are the sources.
Why the probe finds a website
Each of the five gets tried automatically. VLESS+REALITY in particular borrows a real site’s TLS handshake, so a probing firewall that checks the server finds what looks like an ordinary website.
Auto mode finds the way
The app tries each transport in order until one connects. Or pin one in the Connection Method setting.
- 1VLESS+REALITYBorrows a real site's handshakeBlocked in this example
- 2CloakHides in ordinary HTTPSBlocked in this example
- 3ShadowsocksNo TLS to inspectBlocked in this example
- 4Hysteria2Built for throttled networksBlocked in this example
- 5NaiveProxyIndistinguishable from ChromeConnected. Open internet.
Before you start
- Install before you travel. Reaching VPN provider websites from inside China is often blocked, so get the app while you can.
- Traffic routes through London, Amsterdam or New York, which suits browsing, messaging and work.
- If one transport gets blocked the app moves to the next without asking you.
- iPhone users should buy and install Shadowrocket beforehand, using a non-Chinese App Store account.
- Unauthorised VPNs are not legal to operate in China and the position for individual users is applied unevenly. We are a UK company and cannot advise you on Chinese law.
Questions
- Does Pangea work in China?
- The transports are built for exactly this kind of filtering: obfuscated traffic that also survives active probing. Speed is the part we will not oversell, since our servers are in Europe and the US. Try it free for five days and judge it on your own connection.
- Why do most VPNs fail in China?
- Two reasons. Their traffic is recognisable as a VPN by pattern, and their servers answer active probes in a way that confirms what they are. Beating the firewall means solving both, rather than encrypting harder.
- Should I install before I arrive?
- Yes, always. Getting to a VPN provider's website from inside China is often blocked, which makes downloading the client difficult once you are there.
- Is it legal to use a VPN in China?
- Unauthorised VPNs are not legal to operate, and the position for individual users is ambiguous and enforced unevenly. Foreign visitors using one are rarely the target, but we are a UK company and cannot advise you on Chinese law or your own risk.
If you are somewhere else
Install it before you go
Five days free, no card needed. Set it up on a network you trust, then take it with you.