You’re reading this because you want to access stuff like facebook or youtube, but can’t. Why? Because you’re in fucking China where the internet is slow and meaningful online content (like porn) is blocked.
There’s a few ways around it—such as VPN service, Proxy Server, SSH Tunneling, etc. I’m not going to explain how they all work. If you want to know, then google it. (well, obviously I really don’t know, and just being being an ass to hide my stupidity).
But, I will show you how to SSH Tunnel today, which is I think is a bit more reliable and under-the-radar than VPN’s when web surfing in China e.g., not being able to connect to hotspot shield in china because it’s been blocked. They’re generally a bit cheaper than finding a VPN service. Pretty much, what you are doing is connecting to a using a unix/linux server and getting that to work as a proxy for you.
So this is what you’ll need:
-Firefox browser
-Foxy Proxy add-on for Firefox (the free version will work fine–http://getfoxyproxy.org/
-SSH Client like Putty–http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
-A Shell acount, which means login/password to unix or linux system. If you’re currently a Uni/College Student outside of China, see if your institution offers shell access. Otherwise, you can find a paid/free one (as low as $4 or $5 a month). Though, note many of the free ones don’t allow SSH Tunneling, but here’s one that does, albeit at a stupid, slow pace–http://www.cjb.net/shell.html
or a site that lists paid servers http://www.egghelp.org/shells.htm
Okay, got all that?
STEP-BY-STEP (instructions first, then the accompany illustrations in case you’re confused)
1) Download & Install firefox, foxy proxy, and a ssh client.
2) Get a shell account somewhere. For my example, I’ll use the cjb one from above.
3) Open your SSH Client. For my example, I’ll use putty.
4) Then click on that +SSH Tab you see at the bottom left corner, then select Tunnels. Check throw in a port number (I suggest any 5-digit number). In my case, I used 47527. Then Check Dynamic and hit add. You’ll see it saved in that box as shown here. Remember that port number for later!
5) Go back to Session and type in your host name and port number. In my case, it’s shell.cjb.net and port 22. Make sure SSH is selected. Now, it’ll be a good time to save this configuration. Name it whatever you want under saved sessions and hit save. You should see appear in that little box below. We’ll go ahead and close putty for now.
6) Open up firefox. If you installed foxyproxy correctly, you’ll see the foxyproxy buttom on the bottom right corner. Right click on it to bring up the menu and select options.
7) Select add a new proxy, name it whatever you want, and then hit the proxy details tab. Make sure manual proxy configuration is selected. In Host or IP Address field, type localhost. Then for the Port, type whatever port number you had back in step four. Make sure to check Socks proxy? and SOCKS v5. Click Ok and then close the options menu.
8) Open up Putty again. Select that saved configuration that you just saved and double click on it. It should start connecting to the shell host. It’ll then ask for usename and password and you should eventually tell you that you’re connected!
9) Go back to firefox, right click the foxyproxy button and select the proxy you just named. The button should then change color.
10) Hopefully it works! Try connecting to http://whatismyipaddress.com/ if you can and if it shows a different country other than the country you’re internet-ing from, then you’ll know it works! If you’re using shell.cjb.net (the example I used), then you may need to reload the page 4 or 5 times before it works (I TOLD YOU IT WAS SLOW!), but it’s free.
At this point, you can go back to the foxyproxy options menu, edit your proxy so that you’re only using your proxy for certain sites. But, personally I just use a second browser app, google chrome, for all my non proxy needs.
