How an SSH Tunnel Works
SSH, which stands for “secure shell,” isn’t designed solely for forwarding network traffic. Generally, SSH is used to securely acquire and use a remote terminal session. SSH also uses strong encryption, and you can set your SSH client to act as a SOCKS proxy. Once you have, you can configure applications on your computer – such as your web browser – to use the SOCKS proxy. The traffic enters the SOCKS proxy running on your local system and the SSH client forwards it through the SSH connection – this is known as SSH tunneling. This works similarly to browsing the web over a VPN – from the web server’s perspective, your traffic appears to be coming from the SSH server. The traffic between your computer and the SSH server is encrypted, so you can browse over an encrypted connection as you could with a VPN.
(Googled some explanation Brief explanation below)
tl;dr. You can use the server's ip as a proxy. Since you're paying for it you will always have that IP address.
Can be useful if you're IP banned like me and don't want to use those free proxies that keep dying. Also you can keep the account secure since it's always logging in from one single IP address.
Things needed:
Firefox Browser
A Hosting/VPS/Dedicated Server
I didn't post any "cheap" companies because i'm not quite sure I'd be breaking any Neocodex's rules. I've contacted some really cheap VPS provider that only charges 3-4$ a year for a really low specs VPS. Which if you use them to access Neopets or some other sites by SSH Tunneling should be more than enough. Link of a ticket i sent them : http://i.imgur.com/Jjo2hEd.png
If you have some shared hosting you might be able to use that IP. I know for a fact that Hostgator unfortunately doesn't Unless you have a VPS package hosting. I didn't search deeper into this subject as I have a couple servers of mine so... I can help you finding some cheap ones if you wish
How it is done:
Open Putty
Under Host Name (or IP Address) type in your server's IP
Then on the left side click on Connection -> SSH -> Tunnels
On the Source Port you can type anything such as 9870, 9090. Doesn't really matter as long as it's an unnused port.
Under Destination click on Dynamic (reffer to the image above)
Finally click Add
Then go back to the first screen we seen by clicking on "Session" (scroll up )
And finally hit "Open"
You'll be asked for a login. Well that's your server's login Can't really help much there.
Once you've logged in
Open your Firefox and click Tools -> Options -> Advanced
You'll see something like that and just click on "Settings"
Then configure your proxy settings like that:
Make sure you're using the same port as you've used on Putty. In case it doesn't work you can try to use "localhost" (without quotes) instead of 127.0.0.1 . Either way it should work
Stopping DNS Leaks
By default, even with a correctly configured SOCKS proxy set up in firefox there will be DNS information leakage when firefox looks up domain names.
To force domain names to be resolved remotely, avoiding this information leakage do the following:
Go to the Firefox address bar and type in about:config and hit enter
Press "I'll be careful, I promise!" to dismiss the warning about changing settings
Type in "network.proxy.socks" to narrow down the available options
Double Click "network.proxy.socks_remote_dns" to change its value to "true"
Changes take effect immediately and you can now close the tab, secure in the knowledge that your DNS requests are not bypassing the SSH tunnel
Lastly you can check if your IP is in fact changed by using some IP checker website like : http://www.ip-adress.com/ip_tracer/