homecomputerlab

Proxy servers can be useful for a number of things including:

• Anonymity
• If you are at work/overseas(china) and certain websites are blocked
• If you find yourself in a public place using unsecured wifi and would like to encrypt your internet traffic
• Are abroad and would like to use regional web based services ie: BBC iPlayer

SOCKS Proxy’s are typically layer5 seeing as though they run over the session layer. To set one up just create an SSH tunnel to your home server using the following command:

ssh -D 1234 user@homeserver

All you need to do now is set your web browser to use a proxy with localhost on port 1234.

You could also setup your home ssh server as an HTTP proxy using squid if this is a more suitable option.