Trying to make users in China able to access my Bubble app

tao · 2020-07-10T10:33:38.664Z

Hi Bubblers,

Some of my users are in China and they often could not access my Bubble App (not Bubble’s fault, most of the western websites are not able to open properly in China)

Before Bubble figures out a way to install one server in China, I planned to use Bubble with Alibaba Global Acceleration service for users in China to access my Bubble App. (https://www.alibabacloud.com/product/ga)

However, Alibaba’s service requires me to set the domain pointing to an Alibaba China IP Address, and then pointing Alibaba’s US IP Address to my Bubble App’s IP address.

I have tried setting up this but could not make it work - once I put domain name into the domain setting, Bubble requires my domain pointing to Bubble’s cloudflare address.

Any suggestions or experince to make it work for their users in China? Really appreciate your feedback.

Best regards,
Edward

mvandrei · 2020-07-10T10:41:39.545Z

Thinking on top of my head, you could do the following:

Setup yourdomain.tld with bubble and cloudflare
Setup a subdomain china: china.yourdomain.tld to point A record to China’s server, and from there to yourdomain.tld

Noty sure if you can setup a redirect or a CNAME. Can you show all your options from alibaba’s dashboard?

tao · 2020-07-10T11:20:41.482Z

Thank you for your quick reply mvandrei. I really appreciate it.

I have tried that but it didn’t work - the problem is not with Alibaba’s ability of redirect or CNAME, it could do both. The problem is with Bubble side, once Bubble see the domain name is not matching (yourdomian.tld vs china.youdomain.tld), it shows “404 Forbidden” or “DNS resolution error”.

I have let Alibaba’s US Landing point pointing to “yourdomain.tld” , which is registed with Bubble , and “china.yourdomain.tld” pointing to Alibaba’s China Starting Point.

Here is the screenshort of that DNS resolution error from cloudflare.

image1456×464 31.2 KB

Best regards,
Edward

mvandrei · 2020-07-10T11:41:39.069Z

Edward, you just made your DNS and your own IP address public.

I don’t understand how this will work. If china is blocking external websites, how a redirect through alibaba would make it happend? It still reaches outside china.
And you cannot copy bubble to alibaba server so… not sure if you’re gonna achieve what you want.

Let’s assume I don’t get it and move forward and break it down:
http://lvyue.smarteds.cn/

lvyue is the record setup in alibaba right?
and you redirefct thath to smarteds.cn ?

Or do you use http://lvyue.smarteds.cn/ to redirect o anotherwebsite.COM/NET/ORG etc?

Because if that’s the case, again, it won’t work. It will get stuck in the great firewall of china, when the user is redirected.

You cannot ‘cache’ bubble app onto another server.

Am I missing something?

mvandrei · 2020-07-10T11:50:13.905Z

After doing a bit of research, it appears that the great firewall of china is blocking google, facebook and other social media from the west, or east for that matter, depending on how you wanna look at it lol.

So you need to be sure you don’t have ANY integration of those in China.
Then, you could do a simple local hosted .cn website that has an iframe of your .com orr other international TLDs that you have on your main domain.

https://www.comparitech.com/privacy-security-tools/blockedinchina/ check with this if your domain is blocked or not.

    <?php
list($host) = explode(".",$_SERVER["SERVER_NAME"]);

$var ="<iframe width='100%' height='100%' style='height: 100vh; border: none;' src='https://appName.bubbleapps.io/></iframe>";
$var .= "<style>";
$var .= "body {margin: 0;}";
$var .= "</style>";
echo $var;

?>

Where you can replace appname.bubbleapps.io with your main domain.
Now you only have to place this code in your index.php file in your .cn domain.
It will load a full screen, no scroll bar, windowsless/box-free iframe of your main domain inside you .cn domain.

Hope it helps

tao · 2020-07-10T14:02:13.341Z

Hi mvandrei,

Thank you so much for your help and the iframe code. I will try that route and see if that could work.

Best regards,
Edward

Mrs · 2021-04-25T05:38:46.944Z

Hi Guys,
Is the anyone found a solution to this topic?
I looking to start on Bubble but i would like to know if the chinese users will have acces to the first testing version.
In case of, is there any chinese alternative solution of bubble?
Cheers
Sabri

andrew · 2021-09-10T05:12:44.525Z

This is an old topic but as someone that has used bubble off/on over the past few years there are two problems to working in China. If you are careful with these you site will run in China.

Google Fonts. If you use any fonts in your app (pages, components, styles, plugins) that use google fonts. The system will try to load those fonts and your site will need to timeout before it will load.
Plugins that use hosted js libraries/files on google (or other blocked) domains. This would include any type of google analytics, etc. Again you will need to wait for those to timeout before your page will load.

#1 can be solved by being very careful not to use google fonts anywhere. You can use custom hosted fonts or just default to arial. Use the inspect to check for your site to load google or other blocked domains.

#2 is hard to solve if you use third party plugins. So just check each one and/or work with the plugin developer.

davidxi.career · 2023-03-31T18:10:41.786Z

Hello Everyone，
I’m a Chinese student who is trying to use bubble.io to construct my first application, but I don’t know if this problem is solved. If the application I constructed by bubble can be accessed by the Chinese users?
And if there are any suggestions or experience to make it work for their users in China? Really appreciate your feedback.

Best regards,
David

jonathan21 · 2024-05-17T11:05:24.206Z

Was this problem solved? I am in China and I suggest using CDN service in China. If you need help, you can contact me.