I like to keep my browsing habits and info private while using public wifi connections, and the way I do it also happens to get around blocks
. I don't condone using it as such, but I use this setup to keep my data secure while it's traveling over unsecured networks:
1.) Install
Hamachi on both your home PC and your laptop.
2.) Create a passworded network in Hamachi and connect both of your computers to it. The icon next to the name of your computers should both be solid green.
3.) Double click on your home PC in Hamachi from your laptop and see if you can get a ping. If you can't your firewall may need to be configured to put the Hamachi IP of your laptop in your "trusted" zone.
4.) Install a basic
proxy server(there are many others out there, but this one is simple and works) on your home PC. Turn on the SOCKS and HTTP proxies, leave the others off, and bind the proxy to the Hamachi IP of your home PC.
5.) Now you need to configure your programs to connect through the proxy, for browsers and IM clients, this is fairly straight forward. For other programs I suggest
FreeCap to "socksify" the program to work with a SOCKS proxy.
Note: The security of this setup also relies on you having a NAT enabled router(if you have broadband, and you have a router between the modem and you(or the modem may be a router itself), you're probably good to go). I wouldn't suggest trying this if all you have at home is dial up.
Now if everything works like it should you ought to have a secure connection to your home PC from your laptop that you can use for almost anything.
Google is your friend for troubleshooting.