Get Dropbox working in China

You may be aware that the popular file-sharing software Dropbox is intermittently blocked in China. This is probably because dissidents could use Dropbox to share their secret plans for political naughtiness.

Whatever the reason, it’s a bit of a pain if you rely on Dropbox to get various things done, like I do. You don’t actually need a VPN or proxy to get Dropbox working in China consistently though - you just need to edit a file so that your computer has the correct IP address with which to access the Dropbox servers.

In Linux, you need to edit this file:

/etc/hosts

For Windows, the file you want is:

C:WINDOWSSYSTEM32DRIVERSETCHOSTS

In either case, open the file in a text editor and add these lines at the end:

# Dropbox servers 174.36.30.73 www.dropbox.com 174.36.30.71 www.dropbox.com

Restart and you should find that Dropbox can now connect and operate normally. Comment below if you have any questions!