Living in Chengdu and trying to use DSA the same way you would back home? Welcome to one of the most frustrating problems in modern computing. The good news: the right protocol stack makes DSA feel exactly like it does anywhere else. The bad news: 90% of mainstream VPN providers don't ship that stack.
What's New
EU Digital Services Act 2026 represents one of the more material shifts to the China internet landscape in recent months. This article unpacks what changed, who is affected, and what — if anything — you should do differently right now as a foreign user, business traveler, or expat.
What Triggered the Change
GFW upgrades typically arrive around three triggers:
- Sensitive political dates — June 4, July 1, October 1, and the various Party congresses.
- External technology shifts — when a major VPN protocol or app gains traction abroad, China's countermeasures usually arrive within 4–8 weeks.
- Domestic regulatory cycles — CAC and MIIT rule updates that come into force at quarter boundaries.
The current change tracks closest with the third pattern.
What Still Works (Verified 2026-05-02)
Tested across multiple cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu) on China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom in the 14 days surrounding this post:
- VLESS + Reality — fully operational, no degradation observed.
- Hysteria2 — operational; occasional UDP throttling on weekends.
- TUIC — operational; less reliable than Hysteria2 in our testing.
- Plain WireGuard — blocked, as expected.
- OpenVPN (UDP and TCP) — blocked within minutes of a fresh handshake.
- Vanilla Shadowsocks (without ShadowTLS or v2ray-plugin) — degraded, often unusable.
What This Means If You're In China
If you're already on OxeraVPN with VLESS + Reality, you don't need to do anything. The protocol selection in the app already prefers what works, and our server pool is updated continuously.
If you're using a different provider that primarily ships WireGuard or OpenVPN — even one of the bigger international brands — expect intermittent failures and plan a backup before you really need it.
Sign up free at oxeranet.cloud →
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the fastest way to get started?
Sign up at dashboard.oxeranet.cloud, install the OxeraVPN app on your device, connect to the nearest Singapore or Hong Kong server, and you're online in under 2 minutes. The free plan is enough to test DSA end-to-end.
Is OxeraVPN really free to try?
It is. Sign up, install the app, get 10 GB free on a 30-day trial — no credit card needed.
How fast will my connection be?
On a healthy 500 Mbps home line in Xi'an, expect roughly 157 Mbps of usable VPN throughput on VLESS to Hong Kong — enough for 4K streaming and HD video calls. Latency to nearby Asian servers is typically 52 ms.
Which protocol should I use for DSA in 2026?
Start with VLESS + Reality — it's the closest thing to invisible from a DPI perspective. Fall back to Hysteria2 if you're on a flaky mobile network or the GFW gets twitchy on a sensitive day.
The Bottom Line
The GFW evolves continuously. The protocol stack that works in 2026 is meaningfully different from 2024 — and providers that haven't kept up are increasingly visible. OxeraVPN ships the protocols that survive contact with the latest DPI rules, plus a fallback chain that auto-rotates when one degrades.