YJ just sent me a new fix that seems to work on ALL blocked sites in China, even system-level blocks. It’s called Hotspot Shield by Anchor Software and appears originally designed to hide IP addresses and other information for travelers using WiFi in airports and the like. The ability to view blocked sites seems to be a pleasant–and very useful–side effect.
You install the program and it appears as an icon in your toolbar. When it’s activated, it seems to be able to skirt its way around most blocks. I just tried China Digital Times, it worked fine and YJ even used it to view Duowei News, a site that previously had been unviewable by any other means that we’ve tried. It appears to allow users to leave comments and use sites as they normally would.
Now for the bad news…when using Hostpost Shield, it does have a bothersome pop-up that appears at the top of your screen. This can be easily closed, but it’s kind of annoying. Also when I was installing it, my protection software kicked out a piece of Adware software that seemed to be attached. The pop-up is no less annoying then the anonymouse free version