Using ssh tunneling to tunnel your browser requests.

You will need :

• A ssh server - a machine with access to the net which has ssh server installed on it. We will use this server to forward our requests. You should have access to the server.


• A ssh client - installed on your machine.


• A web browser - preferably firefox or internet explorer. Most basic browsers do not support socks proxy.

creating the tunnel :

The way to create the tunnel is

ssh -D 8888 <your_username>@<your_machine_ip_or_host>

What this command does is it hands over requests to localhost port 8888 to the server that you have specified. Ofcourse, you will have to login and authenticate yourself for the requests to reach the server. You can do this on whichever server you have access to. Using localhost would be the best.

Configure your browser :

To set socks proxy on firefox go to
Edit->Preferences->Advanced->Network->Settings

Enter socks host as localhost and socks port as 8888. And bingo now your requests are being tunneled from your browser to the ssh server through a ssh tunnel. And from there to the web server.

You can use www.whatismyip.com to check the external ip address of your machine.

You can use foxy proxy extension in firefox to have different proxy settings for different sites.

firefox 2.0 is out

Can be downloaded from http://developer.mozilla.org OR from http://www.mozilla.org/projects/bonecho/all-beta.html

Major features in firefox 2.0 from the end user view point are

User experience

• Inline spell checking for text areas lets you compose with confidence in web forms.


• Microsummaries provide a way to create bookmarks that display information pulled from the site they refer to, updated automatically. Great for stock tickers, auction monitoring, and so forth.


• Extension Manager user interface has been enhanced.


• Search engine manager lets you rearrange and remove search engines shown in the search bar.


• Tabbed browsing enhancements include adding close buttons to each tab, adjustments to how Firefox decides which tab to bring you to when you close the current tab, and simplified preferences for tabs.


• Autodetection of search engines allows search engines that offer plugins for the Firefox search bar to offer to install their plugins for you.


• Search suggestions allow search engines to offer suggested search terms based on what you've typed so far in the search bar.

Security and privacy

• Anti-phishing feature to warn users when the web site you're looking at appears to be a forgery.