After just finishing up our Best VPN for China in 2016 post, we thought it’d be appropriate to help out users who couldn’t access Gmail in China.This post will show you how to unblock Gmail in China.
Gmail is one of the best email services around, with a great organization, and easy access to the rest of the Google ecosystem (Google docs, calendar, etc.). It’s convenient, free, and easy to use.
However, your emails might not be as secure as they could be, and since it’s in the realm of Google, your data might be tracked or used for their company’s purposes (ads, data revenue, etc.). If you want the most secure email available, check out this list of encrypted email providers. Encrypted email is a great way to ensure your emails aren’t being read.
If you’re set on using Gmail in China, you will need to utilize a VPN made for China. However, it’s hard to use a VPN in China since most VPN providers are blocked. Due to deep packet inspection, a lot of the standard protocols like PPTP, L2TP, and OpenVPN are blocked.
Just download your VPN app, launch it, pick a server outside of China, and then you can access Gmail as if you were in another location. It’s that simple! Here’s a video on how to do that:
Our favorite VPN for China, as recommend in other posts, is TorGuard VPN since they have individual servers made for Chinese use that have little latency. These servers are called “Stealth servers” which makes your encrypted access appear to the vast firewall as regular HTTPS traffic. Coupled with their Stealth Proxy feature, which serves as a double layer of protection, that makes your VPN access even more invisible, TorGuard is easily the best VPN for China in 2016.
Some other services like ExpressVPN also push that they work for China decently, but despite having a few Stealth servers, they don’t have the same layers of security–and we’ve seen their safety come into question earlier this year when their RSA key was found to be so weak that a potential breach could have occurred from the Chinese government.
AstrillVPN is another popular VPN provider that tries to market itself as the best VPN for China, however, if you want to take advantage of its extra security, you will have to pay for each security feature, while TorGuard’s stealth servers and proxy is free.
Thanks for reading this short but sweet guide on how to unblock Gmail in China. If you have any questions, let us know below!
