Google has left China. Foreign search engines in China

Google has shut down its search site in China. The google.cn page is now automatically redirected to the Hong Kong-based site google.com.hk, the company said on its official blog. Thus, the company fulfilled its earlier promise and stopped censoring search queries from China.

The Chinese Internet is fenced off from the rest of the world by a virtual wall. Local authorities, at will, restrict users' access to certain sites or parts of them (in particular, they block access to search results for certain search queries). Chinese sites, which are fully accessible to local users, are required by law to independently censor their content. Until now, Google has done the same. For example, an international Google search for "Tiananmen Square" (in June 1989 there were peaceful protests, which were brutally, with numerous victims, suppressed) showed pictures of tanks, but the Chinese site google.cn did not. The founders and top managers of the company have repeatedly stated that the need to engage in censorship is contrary to their beliefs, but justified their presence in China by the fact that, even in a truncated form, the search engine makes information more accessible.

Starting March 22, China's Google search moved to Hong Kong and thus became a de facto foreign site for most of the country's inhabitants - Hong Kong is outside the Great Wall.

The conflict between Google and the Chinese authorities surfaced on January 12, 2010, when Google's director of legal services, David Drummond, issued a statement on the company's official blog. The statement said that a number of Gmail accounts belonging to Chinese human rights defenders and activists were regularly viewed by third parties. The fact of massive surveillance, Drummond wrote, coupled with restrictions on free speech on the Internet and the blocking of many foreign sites, forced Google to reconsider its attitude towards censoring search results in China.

The Chinese government has refused to make concessions to the world's largest Internet search engine. A week ago, authorities sent Google partners in China a letter warning them to continue censorship even if Google abandoned it. The country's investment climate will not deteriorate as a result of Google's departure, China's official Xinhua news agency wrote on Monday.

Due to the additional load on the company's Hong Kong servers, searches in Chinese may be somewhat slower, Google warned. How much the search results for Chinese users will change is anyone's guess: Google's self-censorship has been replaced by the official censorship of the Chinese authorities. The company hopes that China will "treat this decision with respect", that is, it will probably not take any special repressive measures.

In any case, China is one of the few countries in the world where Google has less than half of the Internet search market. Most (over 60% of the revenue) comes from the local search engine Baidu. Baidu shares have risen in price by 47% since January 12, when it was announced about the upcoming departure of Google, and are currently worth $ 570.

Since there is no "legal" way to access Google from China, you will need to use a virtual private network, or VPN. A VPN is a program that allows you to pretend that you are accessing the Internet from a different location than where you actually are. In this case, we pretend to access Google from Russia, where it is allowed, while still remaining in China, where it is prohibited.

Steps

Part 1

Virtual private network

Download a VPN to mask your IP address. A virtual private network (VPN) masks the content you want to open by redirecting access to it over a private (and usually encrypted) connection. Many free VPNs have bandwidth or total data traffic limits per day. If you wish, you can buy a subscription to a larger VPN for $ 10 (600 rubles) per month. If you use it often, it will more than pay for itself. To split the subscription price, share your VPN account with your friends.

Visit https://en.greatfire.org/ to check if a particular site is blocked or restricted in China.

It is worth noting that the Chinese segment of the Internet does not return Western search results. Most Chinese Internet users do not care about this state of affairs, as they prefer to visit sites whose domains are located in China and which the Chinese government does not block. For example, Baidu is a much more popular search engine in China than Google and is not being blocked by the Chinese government. Moreover, Baidu only displays search results from China, while blocking results from the rest of the world. Many say the Chinese government has banned Google and other sites to prevent Chinese people from falling into this global loop.
- By searching on Baidu instead of Google, you only find what only the Chinese are looking for. If you search through Google, you will be presented with search results from around the world.
- The same goes for videos: if you search on Youku instead of Youtube, you will only find what the Chinese are looking for and publishing. You may find several foreign videos posted by the Chinese, but such services still have their limitations.
Use a VPN. technically not prohibited. The Chinese government has never claimed that using a VPN to bypass the Great Firewall of China is illegal. Not a single person has been jailed for using the VPN either. Despite this, China still blocks sites from most major VPN services. If you visit a site whose domain is located in China, then you should know that at the request of the Chinese government, all sites have agreed to disclose information about where you access the site from and what you do on it.

Part 2
VPN selection
1. Check out this list of popular VPNs. By the time you read this article, some of these providers may already be blocked by the Chinese government. Before you download a VPN, take a good look at it and make sure it hasn't been blocked.
  - Fqrouter: Works well on Android. This free app is ideal for superuser devices. If you connect your phone to a laptop via a USB cable, you will have access to unblocked internet on both devices. This VPN has a stable proxy server and a wide range of different features.
  - SuperVPN: Suitable for Android. The first 30 days are free. After the trial period, you can get one hour for free, but to do this, you will have to reconnect to the service every hour.
  - ExpressVPN: Designed for fast, stable performance in China. Many different applications can be used with it. The service servers are located in Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and the US West Coast. VPN money can be returned within 30 days without giving any reason. ExpressVPN accepts PayPal, most major credit cards, Bitcoin, Unionpay, Alipay, Webmoney, and CashU.
  - VyprVPN: Works on Windows and Linux. Every month you get 500 MB for free, but you will have to pay to exceed this amount. Works well with OpenVPN when configured correctly. Use the "Chameleon Protocol" that the service offers. It is specifically designed to bypass the Great Firewall of China. VyprVPN also accepts Alipay and recently lowered the cost of its services.
  - 12VPN: headquartered in Hong Kong. They have extensive experience with The Great China Firewalls and work with many Chinese users. The money can be returned within seven days. The main disadvantage is the lack of a peer-to-peer network (download via torrent).
  - VPN.AC: Various features for Chinese users, including the ability to make OpenVPN traffic look like regular SSL traffic. The service provides a peer-to-peer network service with China Telecom and China Unicom.
2. VPN services come and go. From time to time, the Chinese government closes some VPN providers, mostly due to violations of the law, but if you have already downloaded the program, this will not affect you in any way. Today, China blocks all VPNs at the protocol level (including corporate VPN services). However, there are other VPN providers out there that use camouflage techniques to hide their traffic.
  - Check with your locals for the best VPN to use right now. Many users will be able to recommend their favorite and free VPN services.
  - It rarely happens that a previously downloaded VPN becomes useless. But if you find that the provider of your choice has been closed, and new users can no longer connect to it, do not worry, but try another VPN.
3. A VPN can make some Chinese sites inaccessible to you. For example, many online stores will list Chinese prices, which are usually much lower than foreign ones. But this is only if the IP address indicates that you entered the site from China. If you go through a VPN, the site will hide these prices from you, since it will assume that you came to it from another country, for example, from Russia.
Part 3
Working with VPN
1. Choose which country you want to mask your IP address in. After you download and run the VPN, select the country you want to connect to. For example, to the USA or South Korea. When the connection is established, go to any site blocked in China: Google, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Netflix, and so on. When in China, try to connect to a VPN server located in Asia (such as China, Hong Kong, or Bangkok). A server on the US West Coast (such as Los Angeles, Portland, or San Francisco) is the second most suitable choice.
  - Chinese users often visit sites located in mainland China, so the VPN server must be located close to the country to keep the connection speed high. On the other hand, Western users should choose a server that is located as close as possible to the country where the server is located. For example, select a Russian IP address to visit a Russian site.
  - Western sites will load faster if the VPN server is closer to the site's country than China. On the other hand, Chinese sites with a Western IP will load very slowly as you have to redirect traffic to the other side of the world and then back again.

Back in 2010, Google, having decided not to betray its principles, left China. Local developers weren't too upset about the news and launched their own search engine, Baidu. There was even an alternative to the famous international video platform Youtube. And now Google has decided to return to the Middle Kingdom.

In 2018, executives said they were returning to Beijing to pursue AI research in Asia, with DeepMind returning to the Chinese market. All legally, because they plan to cooperate with the authorities in China. In support of these intentions, the company organized a large five-day festival this year dedicated to the rivalry between artificial intelligence and the human mind. All this was considered on the example of the game of Go, known in ancient China.

In fact, this festival showed not only the confrontation between the computer and the person, but also the differences in the principles of the American corporation and the Chinese government. In the People's Republic of China, all modern developments are used in a very specific way. Basically, all these advances in the development of artificial intelligence are aimed at making it easier to keep track of everyone who lives in the Celestial Empire. Considering that last time Google "left" China precisely because of such a desire to control and censor everything, it is surprising that now the company's representatives are not only ready to return to the market, but also agree to help in research aimed at mastering all of that. the same artificial intelligence.

But at the same time, the return of a large global company was quite expected. Indeed, China has a very large audience that can bring in billions. Therefore, it would be a mistake not to try to conquer her again. In theory, Google will not have problems in order to re-interest users with its information products. Indeed, even now, despite the presence of the so-called, which does not allow the use of search engines and social networks prohibited by the government, many young people prefer to make a choice in favor of foreign search engines. Although, in opposition to this, you can put a huge number of local applications that are used by millions. For example, WhatsApp has successfully replaced Wechat, Twitter has been replaced by Weibo, and on the Chinese analogue of YouTube Youku, videos are getting so many views that many English-speaking bloggers may regret not knowing Chinese and cannot change the site. Therefore, in terms of the opinion of the "public", everything is rather ambiguous.

Things are a little different with representatives of the authorities. Already now, the two sides seem to have come to some kind of solution that will satisfy everyone. The negotiations are at one of the last stages. So, most likely, Google will return to China again as soon as possible. But at the same time, the products that will be provided in the People's Republic of China must meet all the requirements. So, for example, Google Play used to have many different complaints because of their content. Basically, these were some kind of games with unacceptable animation or forbidden plots. Therefore, now the representatives of the company are demanding that the Chinese be given access only to those games and applications that will be checked by the relevant authorities. This entire system has already been worked out over the years, so all that remains is to involve foreign developers in the process. It turns out that the application from Google will work on the same principle as the local counterparts.

A few words should also be said about local products. Manufacturers of branded Chinese smartphones were not very happy about this news. After all, all of their products were created with built-in services from local developers. These are the same Chinese analogs of Google Play, from where for several years local guys have been actively downloading approved games and applications for themselves. Now they will have to rebuild again.

Many Europeans and Americans sincerely do not understand why Google is ready to make big concessions just in order to conquer another country. But, in fact, all the explanations are quite simple. The director of the company explains this by the fact that they want to be present in every corner of the world, so that all people on earth can use convenient services. Sounds a little presumptuous, and hard to believe.

It is rather a matter of financial interest and desire to develop. Google is one of the most successful companies of our time, which has already conquered many cities and countries. But at the same time, now it begins to seem that they have already reached some limits, and they simply have nowhere to grow. This is confirmed by the fact that the company's shares periodically fall, and its representatives are increasingly mentioned not in connection with some cool new developments, but associated with various rumors and scandals. So, if you do not start actively changing something, then most likely everything will develop in the same direction.

Therefore, the Chinese market provides a lot of opportunities for development. So, in order to conquer the Celestial Empire, the company's representatives are really ready to make concessions. Several large companies have already done this before them - Apple and Facebook. In fact, Google is trying to follow the same path. Indeed, for both corporations, the return to the Middle Kingdom was an important event, and brought not only more money, but also popularity.

And finally, a few words about Baidu. The return of such a strong competitor caught the representatives of this Chinese company by surprise. Now this search engine owns about seventy percent of the market. Users regularly bring huge sums of money to the company. After all, they work on the same principle as Google. They have their own service for listening to music and watching videos online, their maps and even a service for exchanging messages. The developers do not stop and constantly come up with something new. They invest money to regularly update their services and develop some additional projects.

Therefore, it will be very sad if such a strong and interested in development company loses in the fight to a foreign competitor. However, no matter how Google representatives expected that their rivals would be in panic and tears, this most likely will not happen. In the same way as the failure of the company after the arrival of Western competitors. Analysts say that, most likely, Google will take a part of the market, but it will definitely not regain its former popularity. It is easier for the authorities to work with a local corporation, and users over the years have already become accustomed to local analogs of products from Google and even love them.

Thousands of expats, returned Chinese, web developers, travelers, students and the like would hope not, but things are not so well with Googles China relationship, it would appear. Most Google services including search, at any domain (.com, .com.au, .com.hk etc ..) have been returning “This web page is unavailable”. Whilst it’s not uncommon for certain searches to be unavailable, or for Google to be unavailable on weekends, it’s unusual that the whole of Google be out of action, the whole of the time.

The outage, if you like, extends to Gmail, Maps, Translate and just about everything Google do. Which, as you could imagine is somewhat frustrating to many, especially expats. However, Bing and Yahoo are available as they have complied with local requirements. The reason for the 'outage' is unknown with neither Google nor the Government making any statement, some speculate it's due to the US / China relationship, the sensitive time of year, giving local services more of the market, Google not complying with local requirements , whatever the reason, it makes life tough for many that depend on the services it offers.

Most foreigners that have settled in China no doubt have VPN services to enable access to their favorite sites, so for many it's not such a big deal bar being a bit of hassle to pay for a VPN connection every month and the fact that some services are slow at times ..

So what are the alternatives?

Translation Tools:
For translation, there's loads of tools available for both PC and phone (see), plus there is http://www.bing.com/translator/ (which has a very handy link you can add to your bookmark bar to easily translate web pages on the go) but unfortunately none compare to the service offered by Google for both daily use and for learning.

Another option which works well is Baidu's translate, fanyi.baidu.com, which will auto detect the language you input and translate as required. There’s more language and translation tools / apps listed.

Update 2018 - another useful map APPs for Android is OsmAnd - offline maps based on Open Street Map.

Email
Gmail is out, so really that puts most people in the position of one option, which is to use a VPN or redirect your mail which would be somewhat of a hassle .. Outlook is working OK, as is Yahoo Mail.

Play Store for Android
There are local alternatives to Play Store for Android but nothing comparable or perhaps none that offer the same level of trust. Another reason that makes VPN a necessity although there have been rumors of Google setting up an APP store in China, let's hope.

VPN
Using a VPN is the obvious solution but it’s far from a perfect one if you’re flicking between local sites and foreign sites once logged into a VPN you’ll find local sites impossibly slow to load. Having VPN on your mobile and PC at least gives access to google maps, Facebook, Twitter and so many other English language sites. To be honest it’s staggering how many sites are blocked.

update 2018: VPN's are under pressure again with many being closed down. These two are operational.

I use Express at the moment on both mobile and laptop, usually works quite good, lots of server locations, and plays video OK, sometimes you may have to pause the video and let it load up before watching, downloading torrent files is OK too. The VYPR service from works just as well and both services have simple and easy to use interfaces.

The other solution is to learn to read local characters and switch to using local services. Good luck with that.

So, I guess it's a wait and see game as to whether Google returns to China…. Many hope it can.

This post was first published on Jul 21, 2014 and last updated Sep 2018

Baidu has confidently surpassed its competitors. Today it is ranked 1st in China, 8th in North Korea, 10th in Hong Kong, 15th in Japan, 27th in Taiwan and 82nd in the United States. The Baidu search engine is as popular in China as Google is in Europe.

Google competitor from China

Baidu is considered one of the largest Internet companies in the world. It was founded in January 2000 by former students Erik Xu and Robin Lee, who graduated in America. They managed to attract about $ 12 million in investments. Their goal was to create a domestic Internet company that could compete with American "monsters" such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.

The name is literally translated "a hundred times", "a thousand times" or "countless times." It is taken from the last lines of Xin Qingzi's poem "The Green Jade Table at the Lantern Festival." It says: "I searched hundreds of times in the crowd, suddenly turning, she, she is there, in the dim light of a burning candle."

The poem tells about a man who is looking for his jade dream. According to the developers, the Chinese search engine Baidu symbolizes the constant search for the ideal. In this regard, the name of the search engine is sometimes translated as "dream search".

Golden shield

Informally, the project is called "The Great Firewall of China" (a play on words, meaning both the ancient Great Wall of China and as a network firewall). This is a virtual shield that filters Internet content in the PRC. The development of the project continued for 5 years. And at the end of 2003, the "Golden Shield" began its work.

Also, in addition to the "shield", China uses DNS blocking technology. There is a "black list" of sites, access to which is completely closed. Web pages are filtered by keywords that are indirectly or directly related to the state security.

Chinese Baidu, Sogou and Soso are popular search engines not only in their homeland, but also in Europe. The same cannot be said about Google, Bing and Yahoo, which are rapidly losing their leading positions in the PRC.

Achievements

How popular is baidu.com? About 50 thousand Internet users visit it every day. It is in the top 10 most popular and profitable sites on the Internet, second only to such giants as Google, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo and Wikipedia.

In mid-2006, China's top search engine launched the Baidupedia or Baidu Baike project. In the first 3 weeks, she bypassed the Chinese Wikipedia and became the leader in the country. Baidu's encyclopedia is subject to total censorship, like the search engine itself. At the beginning of 2017, it contains about 14 million articles. In other words, there is more information in Baydupedia than in Russian, English, Chinese and German Wikipedia combined.

In 2013, Baidu, together with the German company Avira, launched its own antivirus program, Baidu Antivirus.

The company's president, Zhang Yaqin, announced his ambitious plan in 2016. In 5 years, he intends to start mass production of cars (self-driving).

Competitors

In the Chinese market, Baidu is undoubtedly the leader. According to experts, it is used by 65% to 85% of the PRC population. But despite such popularity, this "giant" has competitors: So.com, Sogou.com and Soso.com. These Chinese Internet search engines are competing for customers and dreaming of becoming the leader.

So.com was launched 12 years after Baidu and now owns 17% of the market. Owned by Qihoo 360, their software is targeted primarily at owners of "pirated" or illegal copies of Windows in China. 360 programs bypass authentication and allow you to install OS updates.

Qihoo is actively collaborating with Nokia and Google on mobile search and plans to expand into European markets. The company recently bought shares in its rival Sogou, which could increase its market position by 10%.

The Chinese search engine Soso.com is owned by the largest Internet service provider Tencent. The company is the creator of such successful projects as WeChat and QQ messengers, and owns the Riot Games company. In mobile search, it confidently takes the second place (15% of the market).

Foreign search engines in China

The Bing.com system, despite the support of Microsoft, is not popular in the Middle Kingdom. It is used by no more than 1% of the population of the country and only to search for information on English-language resources.

Due to total censorship, the Google.com search engine refused to work in China. In 2010, the company closed its representative office in the country and relocated to Hong Kong. Google's share of the Chinese market has dropped significantly and currently stands at 3%.

With Google's departure, Chinese search engine Baidu has strengthened its position in the domestic market. And with the discovery of the Japanese version, it became the second search engine in the world.

A web browser is a software application for accessing and viewing information on the Internet.

Hardware platform: processor, memory, speed

Notebook and organizer

Runtime and memory size