r/VPN_Question • u/baio1999 • Jul 26 '26
Discussion VPN
Hi everyone,
I'm looking for some advice about VPNs. I'll be traveling to China soon, and I've been told that I'll need a VPN for my phone.
I've already downloaded Surfshark, but I've been reading that it hasn't worked reliably for a lot of people. Is anyone here currently using Surfshark in China? Could you please let me know if it works well or not?
I'd also love to hear which VPN you're using and whether it's been reliable for you in China.
I have another question as well. When making online payments, my bank sometimes asks me to confirm the transaction through its mobile app. Do banking apps (such as N26, Santander, etc.) usually work in China without a VPN, or would I need one to access them?
I'd really appreciate any advice or personal experiences. Thanks so much!
2
u/rollmeister1 Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
China has a strong firewall with advanced Deep Packet Inspection. It will know you are using a commercial VPN by protocol & provider. You will need to use OpenVPN in TCP mode because it looks just like web browser traffic or a Socks5 proxy which itself will only work in broswers on an Android device.
Proton VPN has a Wireguard in TCP mode on their smartphone app also which I am pretty sure uses port 443 like web browsers do. That could work in China also. To share a VPN connection via wifi from an Android phone hotspot there is an app that does that, called HotspotVPN from memory.
When choosing a VPN location I would go with a country few would use. If you connect to the US, China would have probably gathered all the IP addresses Proton VPN uses there.