Since I moved to China, there seem to be places on the net that are completely inaccessible. I just get connecting to .... and then, eventually, a time out. (tried Opera, Mozilla, Konqueror, Lynx)
The most important one to me is Sourceforge.net - so much stuff I want ;^)
I don't know if anybody else has this problem - the same PC with the same setup worked fine at home in West Africa. I can't ask my ISP because nobody there speaks English or French.
Is it because I'm trying to access from China? Seems a bit unlikely.
Any ideas?

Geocities is also impossible & sometimes Google.

That's what I hear - Chinese Government bans as much internet traffic as it can. I bet there are some ppl from that region, they can give a trick or two.

Well, living in a communist country, might be a possibility that they do block sites or don't allow access to certain particular sites.
Just my guess though.

Maybe you can get one of those "anonymous" sites software, and see if it allows you to browse to those places via that site. The way one worked back in my conpiracy days was it would appear that you only visited www.anonymous.com (or whatever it was called) and then a second browser that was sort of like an "online form" popped up. You then would use it to surf, and no history/cookies or anything. Sort of like an advanced VNC I guess would be the best way to explain it.

Anyway, maybe something like this would work if it's still available?

Cool

Well, it would appear to be www.anonymizer.com since my work has blocked access to it. Although since my work has, good luck to you.

Possibly have a Chinese speaking friend contact your ISP for you, or find just anyone to do that who speaks both Chinese and English or French.

Cool

Thanks for the suggestions. I looked around - not so easy with good old Google blocked - and found several possibilities. Most of them either wanted money or were links to porn sites. Eventually I came across Scrale - www.scrale.com. Very straightforward, faster than a direct link to some places that are not blocked & a pretty good search engine.

"The Old Fart Was Smart" -- Don Van Vliet

So scrale works then? I mean, you can access sites via scrale that you couldn't normally?

Cool

i've read about the great firewall of china in quite a few different articles - and they almost always point out ways to get around it. i seem to remember something called triangle boy or triangle something that lets you get around it. try a web search about the firewall - that might help give you a few leads outta there.

You could try see if these proxies *in* China (AFAIK) work to unblock access.
* 210.82.165.4.. # 3108;210.82.165.4:8080;VIA:1.0 PROXY
*218.30.19.116.. # 3108;218.30.19.116:80;VIA:195.74.192.154
*211.163.56.77.. # 3108;211.163.56.77:80;VIA:1.0 JININGRSJ
*211.162.108.49.. # 3108;211.162.108.49:80
*61.159.235.36.. # 3108;61.159.224.11:80

I'll try that when I get the time. All I need now is a way to get my girlfriend here from Africa in a near total absence of money - really must get that novel finished ;^)

"Somebody called me Sebastian" ??

If you work at a nuclear power plant, you could destroy a large monitoring machine. Then have your gf shipped over in the box with the large machine. At least it worked for Homer

Cool

Yeah, right!
And if I was in a R.A. Lafferty story I could just fall through and walk home underneath.

"I may be hungry but I sure aint weird"

Anyone read that China now blocks google... such a shame they block a great resource engine.

Yes. Google is now definitely blocked. I think I'm going to get a bit angry soon. Anybody know of a good (or not so good) job for an ageing maniac in Europe or West Africa.

"And all this without a human hand at the controls"

I thought about it & what really bothers me is *WHY* Google & Sourceforge? I mean, if you want to keep out the garbage then just block anything with 'msn' in it. Right?

"Of course I'm going to drive home officer. I'm far too drunk to walk."