Original link: http://martinjr.net/2010/06/29/quick-and-easy-socks5-ssh-tunnel-set-up-with-putty/

Whenever I’m on travel and needed to check my mails I always feel uncomfortable doing it over hotel internet or free WiFi establishment such as Coffeebean or Starbucks. Worst if I don’t have my notebook with me, NEVER EVER access secure sites from public computers, most of them contains keyloggers or some nasty trojan horses/viruses.

The best way in my opinion is to sign up with a vpn service provider, install the dialing application on your notebook (again, not on public computers, keyloggers damn it!) and surf with much relief. Such service is not expensive, roughly $5-$10 per month or higher if premium service is included such as selections of multiple country IPs, your own personal IPs, etc.

Now in my case I have several VPS accounts (for web hosting), I can easily turn one of them into a secure proxy in a few seconds. Below is a quick and dirty tutorial 

What you will need
1. Download Putty
2. Your notebook
3. Your web hosting account (which allows shell access)

Step 1 Configuring Putty
Open Putty application. Enter your hostname or IP and connection port, this is usually 22 unless your host changed them.

Once that’s done go to +SSH on the left menu of Putty and select Tunnels. Enter “8080″ for source port, select “Dynamic”  and press “Add”. You will see “D8080″ being added.

Then go back to Session on the left menu of Putty and select “Open” to connect to your host. Enter your username and password. Once logged in you can minimize Putty.

Step 2 Configuring Firefox
Open your Firefox browser, go to “Tools” and selection “Options” a popup window will appear. Select “Advanced” then “Network” and click on “Settings”. A 2nd window will appear. Select “Manual proxy configuration” and under “SOCKS Host” enter 127.0.0.1 with port of “8080″. Make sure “SOCKS v5″ is selected and press the “OK” button to close both windows. That’s it! You’re done!

Check your IP now