Google was available in China… but just for 2 hours

Following a six-year-old ban of the search giant from China, Google services found a way through   over the weekend - but only for a couple of hours.

The South China Morning Post reported that just before midnight, or around 11.30pm on Sunday to be precise, it was possible for Chinese users to access Google's search engine, but a mere 2 hours later it was blocked in no time, at around 1.15am on Monday.

Though "Pingwest" a technology blog believed that access was available from around 20h00 or 21h00 on Sunday, along with some of their other services, such as email & Google photos.

There has been no official reports as to why Google was briefly available to the Chinese, but a number of local media reports propose it was due to Google implementing in some new I.T Infrastructure within region. The new equipment had IP addresses which weren't recognized by the” Great Firewall” and were therefore not blocked.

China has blocked Google since 2010 after the tech giant refused to comply with government censorship requirements.

The so-called "Great Firewall" - a term used to describe China's online censorship program - is used to block non-compliant services.

According to reports, other foreign websites such as Facebook were still blocked.

Reports from The South China Morning Post stated that users took to Chinese social media sites Weibo and WeChat to suggest that the glitch was a return of free speech.

"At that moment, I even believed that Google was unblocked and that free speech had come back to China again," Li Yue, a Shenzhen-based IT engineer, said.