Case
I own a singular VPS hosting account at Hostgator and also a shaired hosting account. This question is mostly intended to gain knowledge, so I would so much appreciate a good explanation than a how-to.
I truly apolagise for mentioning their name but I had to say it so that someone who knows has the required information to help me.
With any type of their accounts, an SSH login is provided but, only with VPS Hosting root access to the same is available.
What I want to do
I want to create a private tunnel to encrypt my browsing data between external servers and my home PC so that my ISP cannot modify or read the data that belong to me.
Question
If I have SSH supported by provider on the server side, does it mean that I have SOCKS5 too?
What else is needed for me to set-up my secure tunnel to find way out using my existing web server account?
If SOCKS5 doesnt come for shaired hosting servers for free or if its not possible, how can one use Socks5 with such servers and establish a secure connection?
SSH supports creating a SOCKS tunnel with the -D option. See http://wiki.vpslink.com/Instant_SOCKS_Proxy_over_SSH for for more details on how to use it. But, this will only be a SOCKS4, not a SOCKS5 tunnel, which means that DNS lookups still will be done outside the tunnel.