To use your own server as a proxy: You have a couple options.

Easiest way: plink

Using your SSH server as a SOCKS proxy using port forwarding in PLINK.

  1. Have plink ready and create a shortcut like this: plink USER@HOST -pw PASSWORD -C -T -D 127.0.0.1:PORTNUMBER -N
  2. Change USER with your real username, HOST with your IP address, PASSWORD with password you need, PORTNUBMER with a port number you want.
  3. Start the shortcut and your SOCKS proxy is now ready.

You can check explanation of each parameter here

If you are using FoxyProxy Free version, you can create a new proxy using these settings below (assuming you set port on 12345):

FoxyProxy Settings

Other options

PuTTY

Using your SSH server as a SOCKS proxy using port forwarding in PuTTY.

Only problem with this option is you have to keep PuTTY open as long as you want to proxy, is there an alternative? Well… there is this (very long setup and requires many programs) and this (looks easy, haven’t tested it though, uses plink, not open source).

Squid3

Using Squid3 as an HTTP proxy (and a SSL proxy if you build it with SSL support) (using with or without FoxyProxy). There is this tutorial (which I could not make it work), so good luck with that.

I tried to configure Squid3 to use it as a HTTP proxy but I could not do it. (Too many damn directives)

Squid3 tips

  • There is no https_access directive, only http_access but there is https_port.
  • SSL won’t work because http_access deny CONNECT !SSL_ports in the default configuration file blocks it.

FoxyProxy Plus

Because free version of FoxyProxy (poor man’s FoxyProxy) doesn’t support authentication on SOCKS proxies, you can use FoxyProxy Plus ($20) to use your server as a SOCKS proxy with authentication (no port forwarding)

I don’t recommend this option.

Please don’t forget to request enabling authentication for SOCKS proxies in Firefox. (The bug report has been there for 13 damn years!)