Shanghaiist: 'Google, Gmail and the Great FireWall ...'

Cameron

Thu, 16 Mar 2006 10:50:16 +0800

Next time this happens, which I'm sure will be soon enough, why don't you all just another search engine instead of messing around with proxies? Google isn't that good and sold out all its principles recently, as we all know, and is now left with egg on its face as it is still getting shafted by the CPP.

myrick

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 23:18:52 +0800

There may be something fishy happening, and there maay be a redirect - check the comment here. No details personally as I'm packing up a Beijing hotel room for a hell travel day tomorrow. And the other oddness, that two FLG sites are unblocked in the capital and elsewhere, is also very weird. (Epoch Times and ninecommentaries.com for the curious)

Kevin

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 12:12:41 +0800

I use Tor on my Mac from within China with Firefox and SwitchProxy. It works great. There is a Tor solution for Safari too, though I've not tried it. The EFF has instructions here: Tor Mac OS X Install Instructions. Also, I did not witness any major blockage from here in Shandong of Google or Gmail over the last two days. However, I was briefly unable to access my Gmail over Pop via my mail application this morning, though I was able to access it via browser.

audun Utengen

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 11:14:31 +0800

Here, Gmail does not work. Google works, but extremely slow Google News works, also searches. I'm on a China Telecom ADSL in Shanghai. Has anyone tried the Tor solution on a mac, as described in an earlier post?

Dan

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 08:38:23 +0800

Also, we ditched Google Ads on the site for the time being and pages load much more quickly for us now.

Dan

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 08:33:50 +0800

This was also added to the post itself ... UPDATE: As of 8:16 am Wednesday, here is the status at Shanghaiist headquarters: Google.com loads, quicklyGmail loads and seems to workGoogle News loads, but searches on it do not. Clicking on links on the front page of Google News results in an error message, but refreshing the page after the error message gives you the news story you clicked on. Google News links accessed through an RSS reader work.Google.cn loadsOn Google.com, some "bad" searches work -- like a "tiananmen square" image search turns up photos of tanks. But any search for FLG results in an error message, and, oddly, an image search for "tibet" resulted in an error.Shanghaiist.com still appears to load slowly due to Google AdsIt's possible, likely even, that these are isolated occurrences that most PC users would blame on the fact that we use Safari on a Mac.

John

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 08:07:10 +0800

It's all back for me now. I get the feeling a lot of these problems are GFW-related, but more a thing of misconfiguration that gets worked out eventually.

John

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 06:28:11 +0800

Yesterday (in Shanghai) I could access Gmail via POP and Google Ads loaded, but that was it. This morning I can't access it via POP, but mail.google.com and news.google.com both load fine. Outbound links from Google News (that are first routed through Google to track clickthroughs, I suppose) don't work at all.

jackson

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 00:22:20 +0800

why is this blockade so hit and miss? i'm glad i've still got access, but i feel like it's just a matter of time before i get caught in the trap too. anybody know if the situation is worsening?

Pat

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 22:49:13 +0800

My google toolbars are timing out. I can get through with a proxy.

dennis

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 22:38:20 +0800

I have been using Tor tools for a while. Although it can be slow some time, it gets me to any site I want (so far at least). You can download it from http://tor.eff.org/. And if you're using Firefox, you can use it with a Privoxy tool, which makes using or not-using proxy just a click away. You can find the tool in Firefox add-on site.

zippo

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 20:43:20 +0800

This started to happen for me since this morning. I am getting problem trying to access www.google.com and gmail.com but no problem with news.google.com. From DOS, ping www.google.com returned "Request timed out", but ping news.google.com returned successfully as expected. It's frustrating I cannot access my gmail! What's going on? Is there a workaround anyone knows out there? I am on WinXP Professional. Thanks for any help in advance.

wg

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 20:24:05 +0800

oh GODDDD My gmail!! my workkkkkkk Im donne bye, cruel world arrgggggg

Brad

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 17:59:27 +0800

Google ads not loading on my 2 sites in China

stevedor

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 16:48:03 +0800

gmail and gnews work fine for me. google uk seems to work just fine. as for google, i just replaced the google search box in firefox to google uk. searches seem to be the same if not very similar. simple as that.

myrick

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 15:07:17 +0800

Things are working fine in Beijing - and I haven't yet heard from other provinces. Oddly, the FLG-linked heavily anti-CCP Epoch Times is unblocked in Beijing and (judging from traceroutes) seems unblocked in Shanghai. (http://english.epochtimes.com/index10.html). This would NOT be a deliberate unblocking, so I'm completely perplexed by what is going on (FLG hacking, great firewall malfunctions, someone at an ISP with a weird sense of humor).

Zat Liu

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 15:02:32 +0800

I'm using windows2000 in the office Brad, so I don't think it's only a Mac user problem.None of the people in my office can use google.GRRRRRRRRRR

Dan

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 14:12:45 +0800

Looks like Google Ads may be slowing down the load times for Shanghaiist in China. Anyone else having problems?

Brad

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 13:02:14 +0800

Google and Gmail works for me at home but not in the office without anonymouse. The 3 guys sitting around me can all access Google, and 1 other can't. I would assume that we were all on the same server. Strange, could they be blocking individual mac addresses?

Zat Liu

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 12:45:31 +0800

Google is dead! So is gmail! I'm going insane!!!! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!