I feel even worse that Astrill worked for you! I have a long-standing battle with Astrill. They refused to pay me several thousand dollars in advertising they owe me, so I always tell people to NOT use them! Oh well. At least you have now got a service that is working.

You said one thing that I also found to be true. Everyone’s configuration is slightly different, so you may need to experiment with different services. Of course, you can try some other ones from my site as well – hopefully they are still working next year!

Thanks again for taking the time to leave feedback. It will help future VPN users in China.

as promised I will give you some feedback on my time with VyprVPN. In the beginning I have to say it’s very fast! I can stream youtube and BBC iPlayer without waiting. And there are a lot of servers available.
I’ve chosen VyprVPN so that I can install it on my DD-WRT router and there is a manual on their side. You have to enter some codes and configure it all by your self, what I did. But in the end it didn’t work.
When I asked them for support, they told me that they only support a few routers (you can see them on their website) which cost all around 100$ and more. Although all DD-WRT router work the same with OpenVPN and PPTP they refused to help me.
The next thing was that sometimes a service like PPTP doesn’t work and I had to switch to L2TP. The next day I couldn’t use L2TP and had to use OpenVPN and so on. But I have to say that this could be also MY COMPUTER PROBLEM, as the connection with my tablet was fine.

The non running router was a deal breaker and I switched to Astrill, which many of my colleagues use here in China. Some of them for more than 6 years. It’s cheaper than VyprVPN but not as fast. Sometimes you have to try different servers to get a fast server to stream youtube without waiting. But they provide their own program in the DD-WRT router software. It works with all routers (if you have the very latest firmware) and it has an easy to use interface. No manually entering codes just select the server from drop down list and set some other options like which sites you want to run through VPN.

I tried also their “RouterPro” feature which costs you 10$ a month extra and should allow your router to run on higher speeds. They write on their site that OpenVPN has limited speed and they recommend this add-on for connections above 20 Mbit/s. But so far I couldn’t experience any difference between normal OpenVPN and RouterPro and I have a 28 Mbit (acc. to speedtest.net) connection.

Let’s see how it works the next year.

For your situation I would get two plans so you and your husband can connect at the same time, and just install the software on all of them. I doubt you’ll be able to rock a phone, tablet, and laptop at the same time! Both 12VPN and PandaPow are good choices. I think PP has a better app, but 12VPN is still a classic favorite of mine.

To address your current StrongVPN situation, are you using OpenVPN or PPTP? If you’re on a $55 PPTP package, then that could be your problem. PPTP doesn’t have a great track record in China. I know that you need PPTP for the phones, but you may want to consider OpenVPN for your laptops, or you can even get OpenVPN for Android if you root your phone.

Also, my husband and I are tech junkies and between the two of us, we have 2 desktops (win 7 & win 8), 3 laptops (win7), 3 tablets (2 androids, 1 Win8), and 3 phones (2 iPhones, 1 Blackberry). Is there any service that you would recommend for people with multiple devices? It’s ideal if it allows simultaneous connections!

Thanks for commenting

Now that you mention VyprVPN, it’s a good choice too. Actually, if I had to choose one, I would choose VyprVPN. I didn’t mention it before because most people are turned off by their price because they only have the $20 option for users in China, and no discounts for 1 year of service. You can see from the comment above that everyone’s looking for a freebie!

But they have a professional grade service, fast VPN servers, good customer support, and the DD-WRT router support you need. So yeah, VyprVPN for you, buddy. If you have a different router, then StrongVPN.

BTW, you get a $5 discount every month by signing up through my site, so you are charged $15 instead of $20, ie you save $60 per year.

that was a really fast answer. I just claimed my refunds from Overplay and Hidemyass. I hope they are as fast with refunds as they were with charging my credit card

What experience do you have with VyprVPN as you claim it as the most reliable service. They also have router support and claim to be very fast.

I really don’t want to waste any more time with VPN services that doesn’t work in China or are very slow. I just want to choose one and stay with it for the next years.

So if you have to recommend one provider without caring about the price and just choose for speed and reliability, which one would it be?

12VPN, StrongVPN or VyprVPN?

If it works I will take it for granted to come back and tell you about my experience.

Thank you

Both VPN services you listed are good, but they don’t work in China, and these guys don’t know, or don’t care.

So if you’re looking for a VPN service with advance router settings, I suggest 12VPN or StrongVPN. Both have their main domains blocked in China, but I have mirror site links on the my home page that you can use. Be sure to tell them that you are in China when you sign up.

Also, those VPN services you talked to were not very honest: They have been blocked in China since 2011! The earliest trouble was March 2011, then many services came back online. There was more trouble in December 2012, but all seems to have recovered alright since then. Both 12VPN and StrongVPN have battled with the GFW and lived to tell the tale.

BTW both are fast. I think StrongVPN is faster, but some packages are more expensive, and 12VPN’s customer service is WAY better.

Good luck, and if you have time, come back to let us know what happened!