China’s “Golden Shield Project”, popularly known as the Great Firewall of China, censors and bans digital content — and therefore can often be a barrier against sharing files to and from China. Filecloud’s cloud services can help you and your company legally share the documents and files through secure servers, so you’ll never have to worry about restrictions and data loss.

As China emerged as the manufacturing hub for the global market, the need for data sharing in a secure environment became imminent. Therefore, global businesses working with China need to invest in a Dropbox alternative.

Since the Dropbox is banned in China, the Great Firewall of China prevents Chinese citizens as well as visitors from using and accessing several thousand websites and cloud computing services because of a lack of compliance with government regulations. Not only Dropbox, but box, Google apps, and many other cloud service providers are either banned or censored in China. What can you do? Well, you can either jump through several hoops to access Dropbox or choose an alternative service provider like FileCloud.

Limitations of Dropbox in China

Due to the ban, there are several complicated steps to access Dropbox from China. These are:

• Get access to the internet through any of the available platforms, including Wi-Fi, international roaming, local sim card, and rented local phone. However, Wi-Fi is freely available only in cities, international roaming is costly, local sim cards take time, and rented phones are difficult to locate.
• Get a VPN in place. Ideally, visitors should set up the Virtual Private Network or VPN before they visit China because it can be very challenging to set it upon arrival.
• While it takes about an hour or so to set it up, the problem lies within the limited capacity of one VPN service for constant Dropbox access.
• Travelers suggest people heavily dependent on Dropbox, to subscribe to at least 2 VPN services for smooth functioning. VPNs are not cheap, 2 VPN services might seem like a loss if you do not consider it to be an investment serving a better purpose.
• The last step is to log on to Dropbox. Yes, you can use Dropbox and other censored services through VPN now. However, sometimes the simultaneous use of Dropbox and other censored services might not be possible.
  Nevertheless, even when you can make Dropbox work in your favor in China, you must remember that because of the ban, most businesses there do not use Dropbox.

If your client is based out of China, chances are, they do not use Dropbox. Not only that, but file transfers can also be slow, and the connectivity can be interrupted regularly.

So what are the alternatives? Let’s look at Efficient Dropbox alternatives in China

• FileCloud is considered to be one of the best cloud service providers for file-sharing in China. FileCloud does not require a VPN, and it is extremely secure. The service also offers unlimited storage and several file-sharing options.
• Sharefile by Citrix is readily available in China. You do not need a VPN for file transfers. However, customers have been facing a lot of issues trying to access their documents and files through Sharefile, according to recent reports. The prices are high, and the features limited.
• Box also provides compliant cloud services in China. However, the process can seem cumbersome because you can either use a VPN for the access or a manipulated link through which BOX is readily available in China.
• Egnyte is another reputed company offering cloud services in China. Nonetheless, while the file transfer is fast and does not require a VPN, the connectivity for syncing files up is often slower than acceptable for enterprises.
• An alternative from China is Baidu Wangpan. This is a local cloud service provider in China. While file sharing is possible through Baidu Pan, the process is extremely slow for non-VIP members and even if you invest in a VIP subscription, this might not be the one-stop-shop for a smooth flow of information.

At FileCloud, we believe that your team, partners and vendors should be able to work from anywhere in the world, and you should be able to travel to the end of the world and still be connected. The tides of business wait for none, so do not lose sleep over file access problems and choose the right cloud solution for the best results instead.

Read more about how FileCloud storage compares to Egnyte storage and discover the best option for your needs.