Subscribe via RSSStrong VPN Review – A VPN Solution that Saves Me
April 23, 2009
I'm a webmaster. Ever since I came to China I stuck with terrible Internet connection. That's why I wrote this page: How to browse faster in China. Now I found a solution for my DSL problem, it's Strong VPN, a paid VPN service located in USA and Europe. Here is my long story.
The conditions
Over here the DSL is very fast connecting to local (China) websites. But to internationally websites, it's nearly impossible to get through. That's why I complained about that writing China DSL too slow.
Not only slow, China blocks almost anything in English. Seriously, Wordpress.com, Blogspot.com, YouTube, MySpace, Flickr. What else that's famous in US and the whole world, is not blocked by China Firewall. They even blocked Facebook for some time.
Poor DNS is also a big problem in China and Vietnam. My own website is "address not found". At first I thought binh.name is blocked, and I was thinking "Why? Did I do anything against China?". Then when I changed the DNS to 203.12.160.35 I realized it's just China ISP has really poor DNS server that doesn't even know half of the World Wide Web. Same thing happened in Vietnam, too.
First attempts
Web proxy
I've been trying with different type of free web proxies. Those worked at first, but slowly the China Firewall start to block all the good ones. Other than that, they are displaying too much advertisement that obstruct my view.
USA-VPN.com
I once used USA-VPN.com for nearly a month. I was very satisfied with that VPN service while I was in China, when it worked really faster than normal DSL connection. And the pricing was really cheap, only $5/month pay by online money.
But it failed me when I came to Vietnam... totally not working at all.
Decision - Strong VPN
I've been suffering this problem for 2 year until now, when I decide to spend money and pay for a VPN solution. Strong VPN made my life better. Do you want to know more about VPN? See this Wikipedia VPN definition.
Pricing
Strong VPN is not cheap at the price of $15/month. A normal web hosting only charge $6/month. However, not facing financial loss of not being able to connect, is priceless. So as long as of my concern, Strong VPN is inexpensive.
Usage
I'm not using Strong VPN just in China, but also in Vietnam. For some reasons, the connection here also not so good to International sites. And I believe, as long as I have money to pay for Strong VPN, I will keep using the service as far as I go and whenever I need.
Advantages
There are 5 main advantages of Strong VPN in comparison with the previous services I used:
- It has American IP. Perhaps this is the reason why I got through when the normal connection could not. So that's it's unblocked. Most of the time when I am stuck, I use Strong VPN to unblock it
- It has multiple servers. At first attempt I failed to connect. After testing all the server I found out the vpn-in1 is the fastest, then I used it. For other people it maybe different server though.
- It has lighting fast support. I got difficulty at first tries, and when I got on to the Live Support, I was surprise each time I got through in just < 1 minute. Even in the middle of the US night, or at US day time, they are still there to help.
- It's easy to connect. Just a single click from the start menu, I got connected to Strong VPN. The initial VPN setup is straight forward too.
- It takes Paypal. It was really hard for me to find a VPN that accepts PayPal. Strong VPN really saves me with this. Many VPN services only take other e-money that cost me a lot if I have to buy those currency.
Disadvantages
Life is like that, always there are things to be complained about. Especially it's me, the critics guy. There are also 5 disadvantages of Strong VPN, namely:
- First attempt didn't work. The assigned me a server that I could not connect to. I freaked out and had to chat with their live-support immediately.
- No automatic fast server assignment. With so many servers available, they could make a software to assign new users to the fastest connection automatically based on user IP.
- No server comparisons. They have the speed test, but I'd preferred those test be done on one page instead of making so many clicks. I had to spend over 2 hours just to open and close the pages. So hard to note down the speed.
- High monthly fee. The pricing for VPN as general is around $15 nowadays. For me that's very high because hosting only cost me $5/month, domain $10/year.
- High setup fee. I was really freaked out at this, too. They charge $20 installation fee if I prepay less than 3 months. So I had to pay $45 for first 3 months, to get the $20 waved.
Recommendations
I never thought about paying that much for a VPN server just to connect to the US sites. But since I'm making a decent amount of money online, that cost is minimal compare to what VPN brings me.
If you face the same or similar problem I'm facing, I suggest you try Strong VPN. I'm trying it out for 3 months. If it still works as it is right now, I will keep using it for longer.
If you find out a better VPN solution, please share it with me. Thanks in advance.
Hi,This article is very good. I have another vpn solution----popvpn.com.For your reference.
I checked out popvpn.com and here is my opinion: It will need much more work to come anywhere near to service provided by StrongVPN. PopVPN is sure cheaper then StrongVPN and I can see why. Even the design looks like for kids how can the service be of any better?
Thanks for sharing (spam). This is a good example for my reader that quality and price go along.
Strongvpn's pricing seems very high. If you're looking for US IP, I would give Witopia a try, http://www.witopia.net. they provide their own secure DNS as well which does help speed in China as you said. strongvpn has hong kong server for quick speed to Chinese websites so I can see advantage there, but doesn't help much for US content.
@Robert,
Thanks for sharing.
I didn't know that StrongVPN has HK server. I tested and used the New York server and speed could max out 2Mbps on my 1Mbps DSL when the speed is at highest ... but rest of the time it's slow though, and seem like Google and eBay give slowest speed when using StrongVPN.
The HK one is unfortunately a Premium VPN. So indeed StrongVPN is one of the most expensive VPN solution ever found.
I will checkout WiTopia and see if it's better.
You should try http://www.solvpn.com. They have no setup fee and offer fast and openvpn VPN service. It is cheaper than stongvpn.
@TonyG: Thanks for suggesting. No it's not cheaper than strong vpn. Strong VPN $15/month and solvpn is $55 per 3 months, which means over $17/month already. And one month payment is $20... but you got a good point there in that Strong VPN OpenVPN service is more expensive.
Did you really try it?
ever tried secure-tunnel?
Nice review of strongvpn, I really think they are a little expensive, I have tested different VPN companies and can tell you that one of the best at the moment is http://www.vpnpronet.com their servers are very fast and customer service is the best.
Hi Binh,
Read your call for better VPN solutions. Please have a look at https://12vpn.com/
Not only is the price lower, but it also offers additional features such as split routing. This allows you to maximize performance by keeping Chinese sites local, while accessing international sites through the VPN.
Regards,
Niels
I've just tried http://www.expressvpn.com -- it works but i can't download -- the connection becomes so slow. finally, they told me they can't fix it because they think my ISP is "throttling bandwidth"
have you run into this?
I'm with topway cable in Shenzhen -- I can switch to DSL from China telecom -- but there are only 2 choices.
Is it worth trying a different VPN or just give up?
BTW... do you have web programmers in China? Any of them good at RoR and Ajax?
Thanks,
LG
currently i'm testing proxy vs. vpn solution with a friend of mine in kunming. proxy isnt a good solution, understandable cause the requests are normaly raw and the ports are easy to block. in this time he uses a server of me with vpn (tls & ssl) and works perfectly. a good solution could be a caching proxy in china, which is connected thru vpn to the whole inet. just my impressions ...
ps: good work binh
Does anyone have any knowledge of Express VPN and how it works in China?
Regards,
Paul
Wow if you use solvpn.com there is a $15 set up fee.
I really like Road Warrior VPN. There is no set up fee. They have been very professional. When ever I have a question they are pretty quick to respond. When ever I connect to the VPN I don't even notice any slow down.
I’m not a computer whiz but I thought I would share my experience with Express VPN. I lived in Shenzhen for 6 months and signed up with Express VPN so I could get facebook and those kind of sites and it worked fine although very slow in the evenings. So slow that it was impossible to watch a youtube video. The other downside to this VPN is that it is based in Hong Kong I believe and this is a problem trying to watch Hulu and other western goodies. It is only $10 bucks a month though and if you just need the basics then it might work for you. I have signed up with a real promising company though http://www.surfbouncer.com/ . Check out their website it’s very easy to understand and the download is easy and fast. You get an alternating US IP address and the whole works for 14.99 and that’s a small price to pay to watch the Office in China every week in my opinion.
Ryan
BTW no setup fee
I am using Witopia now from Chengdu, China. It is fine for unblocking but speed is an issue - only 200 kbps max. I need about 800 kbps for my US-based Slingbox. Can I get that from StrongVPN?
Been with SolVPN.com for a year now. Excellent bandwidth and true OpenVPN service. They recently reduced their pricing to almost $11 USA for 1 year VPN. $15 per month.
Highly recommended....
I'm not an expert by any means - but Express VPN ($12.95/mo. & no extra charges) does the job for me. I live and work in China 9 - 10 months/year (home is the U.S.); and Express VPN does the well. Got great service when I changed to Win 7 too.
Regards,
I was in China myself so we know how to help customers there, I've been to all the major cities and noticed which locations work best for VPN. In Shenzhen I found the Chicago US VPN worked the best even though ping times were higher than to the West Coast, I can't explain it but the only way to make my VOIP quality better was to use Chicago (Seattle, Vancouver and San Jose servers were not good for call quality even with lower ping times).
The same thing goes for most cities in China, but there are some cases where VOIP works better on the West Coast, it really depends on the city you are in. Also remember that China Netcom (in the North) and China Telecom (in the South) all have different routing and peering agreements, so this does play a factor.
When I was in Guangzhou I found that routing to the East Coast was bad, Guangzhou does not have very good connectivity. I moved temporarily to the Seattle server and the speeds were much better.
I have been with Solvpn.com for almost a year now. They are very good. Recently they have reduced their pricing which makes it very attractive. Good uptime, speed, and support. No setup fee.
http://www.solvpn.com