Statement on the purchase of products in mainland China

Dear all,
We regret to make the following annoucement. Due to current legal and policy restrictions in mainland China, we are unable to provide VPN and AdGuard Home features in our CN version products sold in mainland China. We understand that this may cause inconvenience, but we have to comply with local regulations. If you purchase GL.iNet devices from tmall.com or taobao.com, your devices will be CN version.

We have added this information to our product pages on TMall, our official store in mainland China, since 10 a.m. (GMT+8) on March 22, 2023, to ensure that customers are informed.

Since the implementation of this policy, we have received feedback from customers who purchased the CN version of our products to use overseas, asking for solutions to switch the systems to our Global version.

For customers who purchased CN version products before the release of this statement, please send an email to support@glinet.biz or reach out to GL.iNet staff members via private message (please do not send to multiple staff at the same time) on the GL.iNet forum, and provide the following documents for version-switch request:

  • Proof of purchase indicating the time of purchase and product model
  • Proof of use of the product outside of the mainland China area, such as the delivery address

However, we would like to clarify that we will not be providing any solutions regarding version-switching-related inquiries for customers who purchased the CN version products after the release of this statement.

We kindly request those who have obtained a solution to not publish or share any part of our version-switching solution.

We would also like to caution our customers that due to differences between our CN and Global versions, future version switches may not be possible. Therefore, we suggest avoiding purchasing our products from our mainland China website if you require future version switches. We reserve the right to take down any posts about the version-switching solution without further notice.

Thank you for your understanding and support.

Warm Regards,
GL.iNet

Release Time: 4:30 a.m. (GMT/UTC+0) on April 27, 2023

4 Likes

Does this definitely only affect products bought inside mainland China? Is there way to check on the product if it is a CN or global or other version?

1 Like

If the interface includes VPN features, it is not the CN version. There is no difference in features between the other versions.

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To be clear, we only sell CN version to customers who directly purchase from tmall.com and taobao.com. If you didn’t get your GL.iNet router with Chinese packaging and Chinese instructions , yours is the Overseas version.

If I buy the router on AliExpress, which version I will get. I'm going to buy here https://www.aliexpress.com/store/5100113

Only tmall and taobao will give you a CN device.
AliExpress is the international version - if you live outside of China, ofc.

Thank you for the quick reply. Much appreciate.

Just to be clearly in case I buy the router on the Aliexpress store from this page Where to Buy - GL.iNet (i'm outside of China) I will get global version without further manipulation to activate vpn of some other hidden features?

Just redacted my comment from the other post related to this. Im sorry if it caused any troubles.

As an FYI to others, I purchased the router on Lazada in Thailand and got the China version. So these Chinese versions are showing up in more places than just tmall and taobao.
There was no indication on Lazada describing that I would receive the China version.

Hello, just today i bought my first GL-inet travel router GL-SFT1200 here in taiwan. I didn't know that chinese version has no VPN feature. I travel a lot the most feature that i needed on this travel router is negative. Please help me how to update my device to global version. Thanks