Tbh, seeing a news site get blocked in Turkey last month made me look into VPNs

I was trying to read about the local elections from a hotel in Ankara, and the whole page just went blank. Honestly, it took me 30 minutes to find a decent VPN that actually worked there. Has anyone else had to do this just to get basic info while traveling?

3 comments

3 Comments

cole_davis471mo ago

@taylor82 yeah that's basically how it went for my buddy who was in Istanbul last fall. He was trying to check CNN Turk and bbc turkce from his hotel wifi and both just gave him a blank white screen with some warning in turkish. He literally had to ask the front desk guy if he knew any workarounds. The front desk guy just shrugged and said "everyone uses this one vpn service here" and wrote the name on a napkin. Crazy part is my friend later told me that half the people in the hotel lobby were probably using the same vpn just to check their email.

taylor822mo ago

My buddy got stuck in China for work and his usual news apps just stopped loading. He had to ask around the office for a VPN that could get past the local blocks. It's wild how normal it is to need a workaround for basic internet access.

the_tyler2mo ago

Wait, he had to ask his coworkers for a VPN? That's the part that gets me. It's not like he could just look one up, because the sites that talk about them are probably blocked too. So you're just stuck hoping someone in the next cubicle has a secret link. That's like needing a password for the water cooler.