Poll

Which is better, Freedur or Witopia?

Freedur
0 (0%)
Witopia
2 (50%)
Neither
2 (50%)

Total Members Voted: 4

Voting closed: July 05, 2010, 10:09:51 AM

Internet Servers

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mlaeux

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Internet Servers
« on: June 28, 2010, 10:09:51 AM »
Some people are fans of Witopia and some are fans of Freedur. Which one do you use and why? Which one is faster and more reliable? And if you don't use either one, what do you use?

Re: Internet Servers
« Reply #1 on: June 28, 2010, 11:41:22 AM »
I too am gonna be investing, so I'd like to know the outcome of this...

I've heard good things about WITOPIA
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一个是老酒鬼,一个是老色鬼,真奇怪, 真奇怪

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Stil

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Re: Internet Servers
« Reply #2 on: June 28, 2010, 01:13:28 PM »
I won a free 6 month subscription with Freedur. It worked but was often a bit slow and I had some trouble with the mobile versions.

I next looked at Witopia and 12vpn. I asked around China through Twitter and both had their supporters. I finally went with 12vpn. I have been very happy happy with them. Easy to set up and use, fast connections and works on my iPhone and iPad as well as the desktop. They connect to American and British servers.

I've heard that their customer service is very good but I don't really know because I haven't had the need to contact them. When my subscription is up, I'll renew with 12vpn.

Re: Internet Servers
« Reply #3 on: June 28, 2010, 01:45:07 PM »
I use a small VPN service that I purchased through Taobao, one of these outfits that caters to professional gamers. It is very fast, so much so that I often forgot I was using it, and mostly reliable. There are occasional outages due to maintanance but if I ask they've always given me a temporary login that I can use during those times. I mostly like it because I can pay for it using my Chinese bank account and it is pretty cheap, 30RMB a month. You can also choose whether you want American, British, Continental European or Japanese servers.

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old34

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Re: Internet Servers
« Reply #4 on: June 28, 2010, 04:36:27 PM »
I use Witopia and am satisfied. They offer 32 various servers in the U.S. (LA, DC, and Dallas), England (London and Manchester), and Hong Kong. You can immediately switch to another if one is slow going. Usually, the US based ones will allow you to appear to be in the U.S. for purposes of watching those US-only sites although HULU will occasionally catch you and pop-up a message that says "This video is only available from within the US. You appear to be using a proxy from outside the US. Please turn off your proxy and ytu again." NBC and CBS and Fox, though, play through.

Customer service is great! I had a bit of a problem getting it to work at first and emailed them. They got back to me in about 6 hours (their time-morning) with the solution. I live on campus and connect through the university servers and when I told them that, they said, "Aha, yes there are some problems in China when going through university servers." There's an extra layer of sniffing, or something on uni servers, so they pointed out 5 or 6 of their servers-so-called "TCP 443" servers-to use and that works just fine although the 443 servers are a little slow with Youtube. Outside campus, the regular servers work fine. I have both a laptop and a desktop and can use the VPN on both, though not at the same time. They have told me they have a free phone version for regular users, too, but I have a Nokia and they don't have a version for that I think it only works with Palm, BB, and iPhone.
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad. - B. O'Driscoll.
TIC is knowing that, in China, your fruit salad WILL come with cherry tomatoes AND all slathered in mayo. - old34.

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Borkya

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Re: Internet Servers
« Reply #5 on: June 28, 2010, 04:43:34 PM »
I originally bought Witopia and tried, unsuccessfully, for several months to use it. I think it had something to do with my going through the university internet service. To be fair witopia support was good, but we went through almost a dozen different solutions before I gave up.

I now use SKYDUR and it is great. Works fantastic and I've never had a problem with it in the past 5 months I've been using it. Same price as Witopia. Since I've never had a problem I don't know how there support is.

Re: Internet Servers
« Reply #6 on: July 21, 2010, 01:29:11 AM »
So... witopia, 12vpn, freedur... are their admin websites accessible in the PRC?  As in, if I want to go online to buy in, should I be doing it before I enter PRC webspace, or can I hold off until the credit card recovers from the pummeling it's had to endure recently?
when ur a roamin', do as the settled do o_0

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simba

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Re: Internet Servers
« Reply #7 on: July 21, 2010, 02:31:55 AM »
You can access 12vpn in China. I just bought it the other day, its cheap compared to the previous servers I tried and works good.

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Nolefan

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Re: Internet Servers
« Reply #8 on: July 21, 2010, 06:36:55 AM »

witopia's been great to me for exactly a year now. it's time to renew and I have no qualms about paying the money for my peace of mind.
I've tried skydur/freedur and found them too unreliable.
12vpn has been steady good fora  friend of mine and I might get their limited service for my iphone... it's a steal for the price.
alors régressons fatalement, eternellement. Des débutants, avec la peur comme exutoire à l'ignorance et Alzheimer en prof d'histoire de nos enfances!
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Stil

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Re: Internet Servers
« Reply #9 on: July 21, 2010, 01:03:38 PM »
I use 12vpn. It's been great for me. Desktop, iPhone, iPad all easy to configure and use. I have a friend that just re-upped with Witopia and is very happy with the service.

I agree with Noles about Freedur, I had a 6 month free trail but it was flaky.

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Borkya

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Re: Internet Servers
« Reply #10 on: July 21, 2010, 05:14:15 PM »
I've tried skydur/freedur and found them too unreliable.

Really? Did you try it long time ago? Because I've had Skydur for 6 months and I have never once had a problem connecting or watching videos or anything.

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Escaped Lunatic

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Re: Internet Servers
« Reply #11 on: August 06, 2010, 03:27:48 PM »
I had the oddest time getting Witopia running at first.  It worked ok when I tested it in the USA, but didn't want to work with the DSL modem in China.  The default IP of the modem's admin controls had been changed, and Witopia support wanted to check some settings.  The reset button didn't help this.  I bought a new modem (the other one belonged to a friend and I wanted my own anyway) and made sure the admin controls were accessible before bringing it home.  I made the mistake of connecting to China Telecom before going in and changing the admin password.  Goodbye admin access (once again, reset failed - no clue how China Telecom does this).  The Witopia support guy was helpful, but couldn't find a way around it.

In the meantime, I deliberately had not added my hub to the mix.  Standard tech support procedure is to remove all non-essential devices to simplify troubleshooting.  A friend came over and needed her PC to be online at the same time as mine.  I connected the hub.  For some reason, I decided to give Witopia one more try, and it worked once the hub was between my computer and the DSL modem.

My only complaint with Witopia is that I'll connect, surf at only slightly reduced speeds, but then the speed often drops (sometimes to zero) after anywhere from 1 to 10 minutes.  I've already changed my DNS servers to their recommended ones, and that hasn't helped.  The only way I've found around this issue so far is to keep jumping from proxy server to proxy server as it happens.
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Nolefan

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Re: Internet Servers
« Reply #12 on: August 06, 2010, 03:34:47 PM »
witopia was good to me for as long as i had it... however, i just made the switch to 12vpn
alors régressons fatalement, eternellement. Des débutants, avec la peur comme exutoire à l'ignorance et Alzheimer en prof d'histoire de nos enfances!
- Random food, music and geek tales from the Catania, Sicily: http://ctvibe.com

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Escaped Lunatic

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Re: Internet Servers
« Reply #13 on: August 06, 2010, 05:45:55 PM »
witopia was good to me for as long as i had it... however, i just made the switch to 12vpn

Any chance I can talk you into giving a "compare and contrast" writeup?
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Pashley

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Re: Internet Servers
« Reply #14 on: August 06, 2010, 06:34:52 PM »
I have not used any of these, but I'd choose Witopia just on the basis of their "about us" page.

"Founded in early 2003 by former UUNET Managers, we ..." UUNET was the first commercial Internet Service Provider, initially funded as an experiment by a Unix user group. A very good company.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUNET

I'm paranoid by profession, and by inclination. My first question about a VPN provider is "Can I trust them?" Might they be a nasty trick by, say, the US or Chinese gov't to get all our data? It is not a complete answer, but what I see on Witopia's pages is reassuring.

The solution for the serious paranoid is to get your own server at some hosting provider somewhere and set it up to do your VPN, web cache, DNS cache, ... This is unlikely to be blocked even if Great Firewall administrators start feeling testy about VPNs and block the commercial services.
Who put a stop payment on my reality check?