Howto: Safe portable browsing

Two of the applications I use most are Portable Firefox and Nutty. Portable Firefox is a portable version of the popular web browser, and Nutty is an SSH client (modified Putty).

When I’m traveling, I am often using those apps from my memorystick that is plugged into a computer that I can’t trust, over a network I can’t trust. I cannot be sure whether someone is monitoring my browsing or not. With these steps, you can create an encrypted tunnel between the computer you’re using, and your home server. All the traffic goes through that tunnel, and you appear to be browsing from your home computer. Plus, you browse through proxy that does ad filtering (amongst other things).

You need to download Portable Firefox and Nutty into your memory stick. You also need a (Linux) server where you can install software and connect using SSH.

Step 1: Set up Privoxy

First, we are going to set up a proxy on the home server. On Ubuntu Linux, you can find it on repository and install it like this:

apt-get install privoxy

You can propably install it as easily on other Linux distributions as well using their package managers. Next, edit the configuration file /etc/privoxy/config with your editor of choice, and find part ‘4.1. listen address’. Set up listen address something like:

listen-address localhost:8118

Tip: If you want to play around with proxy settings later, find section ‘4.4 enable-edit-actions’, and uncomment line

enable-edit-actions 1

Step 2: Set up Nutty

Fire up Nutty, and go into Connection -> SSH -> Tunnels. Add new forwarded port with these values: Source port: 12345, Destination: localhost: 8118 and press ‘Add’. Now go into the session screen, and open an SSH connection into your home server. You need to log in for the tunnel to be created.

Step 3: Set up Firefox

Ok, so you’re ready to start Firefox. Go to Tools -> Options (this is for Windows version of the Firefox), select ‘Advanced’, and click on the ‘Network’ tab and push ‘Settings’. Now select ‘Manual proxy configuration’ and type these values: HTTP Proxy: localhost, Port: 12345.

Done! Now you’re surfing through SSH tunnel using proxy that protects your privacy, manages cookies, controls access, and removes ads, banners, pop-ups and other obnoxious Internet junk. You can be more safe that your browsing activities is not logged and your retain your privacy where ever you are.

If you want, you can also install Quickproxy Firefox Add-on for easy one click access to switch between tunneled connection, and direct connection if you should need one.