How to surf securely in a wifi hotspot

We all know that our wifi packets can be easily sniffed by people, thereby making our surfing not private. So how do we surf in privacy without much hassle in a wifi hotspot. Easy. First you need:

1. A server where openssh is running
2. putty
3. Firefox

Step 1: Configure putty for an ssh session to your server
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Step 2: Configure a secure tunnel
a. Click tunnels
b. Under “Add new forwarded port” type 7070 (or any port number)
c. Click Add Button
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Step 3: Connect to your remote host
Just double click your connection profile

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Step 4: Confifure firefox to use your proxy

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Step 5: Ensure that your DNS request also goes through your proxy
In firefox open the about:config page
Change network.proxy.socks_remote_dns to true

On a linux host you could to the following: ssh -qTfnN -D 7070 remotehost instead of using putty. Thanks to thinkhole for this great article