Even from the beginning, proxies in China were popular. A slightly more well known tool than virtual private networks, and generally less involved with setting up and getting started, there are many proxy users in China. With constant updates to The GFW, much of what we have left is the cream of the crop for the proxy world. A kind of "proxy evolution" where only the strongest survive, if you can manage to open up a proxy site in China, it's probably pretty good.

That's not to say that they're all great, and when compared to virtual private networks, there are far more fly-by-night proxy sites. Any search for "free proxies" or "proxy lists" will turn up a bunch of gibberish and poorly designed sights with lists of cods, Google adverts, and links to other proxy lists. Lots of people search for free proxies, and people trying to make a buck throw up blogger blogs or cheap domains with random lists of proxies, along with tons of adverts just begging for you to click on them. They're rubbish. If you manage to find your way to a decent list with real proxies available, you'll immediately notice the poor design - an indicator questionable reliability. Proxies are easy to set up, and these days everyone envisions themselves as a super-hacker fighting for Internet anonymity so their mom won't catch them watching porn.

What's the point? The point is that if you're in China, you might have a tough time finding a reliable, working, trustworthy, and cheap proxy service to change your IP and unblock sites. They're out there, but you've got to look. My best advice for you is to search for RECENT blog posts from people located in China. When Facebook and YouTube were blocked in 2009, everyone and their brother wrote blog posts about it, and much of the information contained in them has since expired, and links have long gone dead. Old blogs, with new posts - that's the way to go.

Remember, that for quality, you're going to have to pay. It's as simple as that. In a country that's actively seeking to block out any loop holes in its regime of Internet censorship, it takes time and money to maintain these things properly, and constantly update alongside the GFW. What you can do is see if you can find a free trial proxy in China. Free trials and money back guarantees show that they can vouch for their product. Free trials are great, but most of the time they won't be for more than a few minutes or an hour to prevent abuse. Money back guarantees are more common, and the minimum should be about 7 days. One day is not enough to test a proxy in China - there are too many variables to consider.

One last thing to consider; web based proxies are far more versatile that proxies that have to be installed. Because there's nothing to install with a web based proxy, you can use the same license on your phone, at home, work, school, and even on public computers.