Unfortunately it’s still trial and error. Check out e.g Ovpn, Astrill, Mullvad though. You can always email and ask different providers as well. Though it’s best it you set it up before visiting China. A HK sim through Airalo or similar also works.

Yeah, I’ve heard Shanghai for example has zones where the GFW is much more lax?

It’s better to pay for a VPN provider that is verified to work in China. And no, they won’t kidnap you for using a VPN as some people write here. It’s a non-issue just to bypass the GFW. The issue is when you write to a Chinese audience things that the CCP do not like.

You don’t have to set up your own VPN. Many public providers work.

It’s crazy that this is an opinion that people really have. I don’t like authoritarian states and I have a lot of issues with the CCP, but this isn’t true at all. Loads of native Chinese living in China uses a VPN. They don’t care about it.

They have. I don’t know what people are talking about in this post. It’s bypassable easily, and the CCP won’t kill you for it. There are so many Chinese using aVPN themselves to bypass GFW

Crazy that there’s an instance about Ascendance of a Bookworm. I’ve just been reading this!

Great comment, agree!

Yeah, I think I agree with you tbh

One of the worlds greatest wonders

Cool. I’m currently using MacroFactor. How does this compare?

Love your nick lol

Actual Budget is amazing!

I’m not even convinced that Loops was a good idea to begin with. Yes, sure, always nice to have fediverse alternatives of mainstream apps, but short-form videos like those on Tiktok wouldn’t have been successful if not for Tiktoks algorithm which is much, much better than even any of the competition. It’s really good at discoverability and being addictive. And Loops doesn’t have anything like this (and even if this is good depending on who you ask, it definitely doesn’t give Loops an advantage). Who even is the target audience of Loops?

Mbin has better support for microblogs and Mastodon federation than Lemmy. I also prefer the default front-end of Mbin to Lemmy, but Lemmy has better alternative frontends and apps. I think it’s great to support Mbin as well.

I’ve been self-hosting Actual as an alternative to YNAB and I’m completely sold. It’s really great, especially with bank account syncing activated. If you like envelope based budgeting I’d definitely go with Actual.

I wish PeerTube was a reasonable alternative to YouTube but I have a hard time imagining it will ever be.

Category targets are available and are more flexible than YNAB, but it’s still in an experimental phase so it’s not fully integrated into the GUI. Check here: https://actualbudget.org/docs/experimental/goal-templates/ I’ve had zero problems so far though.

I love Actual. So, so good. I cancelled YNAB in favor and can’t ever think of going back. Aside from not having to pay $100 a year you’re also not supporting the Mormon Church (YNAB is a Mormon-run company).

Even if it’s not as popular, I’d say the community might still be more solid in some cases. And that people are more responsive, especially with quality answers. I’ve noticed you’re chastised way more on reddit if you ask a “stupid” question.