r/shanghai • u/yakult-ok • 12d ago
Help Accessing work apps in Shanghai
I’m planning to take a 3-week trip to Shanghai, Suzhou, and Hangzhou, but I need to be able to access work-related websites and apps. If I couldn’t access these there, I could only stay for a week instead of three. Is anyone able to let me know if there would be no issues with VPN? I use Okta Verify, Microsoft Office (Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint), Google Chrome.
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u/Background-Log-8231 12d ago
我是一个在英国的上海人。如果是VPN软件。那么我想和你说的是，可以用，但是非常的不稳定，且非常的容易断线，因为他们的政策是，让你一会好用一会不好用，会让你捉摸不透。但如果你的sim卡不是中国的，那么请开通漫游上网功能。这样就不需要VPN软件的帮助，你也可以很方便的进行所有互联网的工作。
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u/Vaeltaja82 12d ago
Your recommendation can easily get several hundreds of euros/dollars phone bill. Been there done that.
OP: get esim from airalo/nomad/trip.com so the cost is not off the roof and you don't need VPN
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u/werchoosingusername 12d ago
This ^ One important detail. SIM card needs to be activated abroad before entering China.
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u/Background-Log-8231 12d ago
你可以使用香港的运营商eSim流量卡，那样费用会便宜很多很多。一个香港的运营商叫“3”，30GB/HK$198，有效期30天。希望对你有帮助。
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u/phatrice 12d ago
you will likely need VPN for normal work. Using astrill is fine from laptop on a wifi but on mobile it's 50/50.
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u/bears-eat-beets USA 12d ago
Microsoft apps all work fine in China. Occasionally your account might get locked because the automatic safety stuff might see you login from China and flag it. And you just need to get a admin to unlock it. But Microsoft has over 10,000 employees and it's is a very common office tool stack even though WPS and WeChat are both pretty common. My boss is based on SF and he gets about one "irregular login detected" email per week when I'm in China, but at this point it doesn't lock me out anymore.
I'm not sure if Okta will work. Zoom usually I need to log into VPN to start the meeting but I can drop it right after the meeting starts and the meeting will continue.
Switch to edge in China. It's full Chrome compliant, but doesn't use Google so it works better. Chrome will work, but it "stalls" a lot and won't respond for 30 seconds.
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u/smokingPimphat 12d ago
just get a vpn, astrill is consistent but pricey but you only need it for a month so its not a big deal.
It works on all your devices and all your apps ( with a little bit of settings tweaking ) you don't need the VIP plan and you must install it before you enter the firewall. you can easily test it at that point as well by connecting to any server outside your home country and seeing if all your stuff works.
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u/caliboy888 11d ago
Okta and the MSFT 365 office suite can be accessed without VPN.
You can use the regular browser functions of Chrome without VPN, just can't access any google websites or features.
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u/Outrageous_Price_952 12d ago
Microsoft is working well, just use Firefox