He has never been contacted by any Chinese government authority and does not plan to take measures to cope with the website restriction.

The ban began as early as August 12 when a user notified Ho of the ban, the developer told TechCrunch. One can still access the full site from Chrome and DuckDuckGo in China. Notepad++’s home page, on the other hand, remains unblocked through these local browsers. These services flag the page as containing content “prohibited” by local regulators. Tests by TechCrunch found that the Notepad++ ban only applies to its Download page - which showcases the special editions and thus politically sensitive language - when one tries to reach it from Chinese browsers developed by Tencent (QQ Browser and WeChat’s built-in browser), Alibaba (UC Browser), 360 and Sogou. In his release notices for the two editions, Ho openly voiced his concerns over “human rights” conditions, respectively in the Xinjiang autonomous region and Hong Kong.

The website of Notepad++ is banned in China as of Monday, “obviously due to” its release of editions named “Free Uyghur” and “Stand with Hong Kong,” the source code and text editor announced on Twitter.įirst released in 2003 by France-based developer Don Ho, free-to-use Notepad++ operates on Windows and supports some 90 languages.

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