OpenVPN stopped working in 2017. Deep packet inspection prevents the initial handshake. I hosted my own SS for a number of years before switching to wireguard, with more success.. however, they IP ban a majority of VPS IP ranges, so the providers Linode/DigitalOcean were messed up.

And everyone experiences VPN slow down during CPC conferences.

It can only be worse now.

[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean zero practical success in banning vpns or stopping vpns from functioning correctly, yes.

They scared non-technically-minded people who already didn't use vpns into not trying them, but everyone I know in China who used and uses vpns without a problem for years are still using them today.

I know nothing about running a server, I'm just talking about my experience from the user side of the equation.

[–] makingrain@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Ah ok. Well, as I said I lived there for years and i'm telling you they can and do block VPN traffic (not all, another commenter mentioned Astrill) quite well. To say zero success is incorrect.

Location (and peering) might be a factor, so if you/your friends lived somewhere different to I your experience may differ.

[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

I mentioned astrill too, they do pretty well.

Vpns are working in Ningbo, Tianjin, urumqi, Chengdu, Beijing, Chongqing, Guangzhou, xian right now, idk, I haven't seen or heard of the problems you're describing, but I'm heading back over for the new year this year, so I'll check.

I think failing to block increasing, constant vpn use around the north, South, east, West, and center of a country for a decade despite constantly declaring vpns illegal and banned and stopped by government firewalls counts as zero practical success, yes.

[–] HipPriest@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

My sister still lives there and from what she says it's not too difficult. Some VPNs work, others are on the 'no longer work' list and at big events they mysteriously stop working.

She's not technically minded, she'll just be using an app.

[–] Anonbal185@aussie.zone 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Are you hosting it through a provider such as AWS or Azure? That might be why. I had no issues when setting it up on my own.

I have 2x ISPS and through that multiple raspberry pis. Set up docker, then you can set up multiple VPNs (e.g. OpenVPN which I used just before pandemic) so after 2017. It always worked but these days I would also esim it - they can't block roaming mobile due to the way roaming works and the travel Sim prices are quite competitive these days.

Tldr no issues hosting on personal internet rather than through a cloud provider.

Example ones I use, simple to set up via docker files.

https://hub.docker.com/r/linuxserver/openvpn-as https://hub.docker.com/r/linuxserver/wireguard