[rick_perez]

An easier alternative is to tunnel everything through a SSH connection.

I use putty tunneling+proxifier (on windows) and a python script on my ubuntu box (The name is escaping me at the moment).

It's very simple to setup, doesn't require a ton of configuration, and can be just a secure as a VPN connection.

I've never been a fan of OpenVPN. Configuration is cumbersome and performance wasn't that great.

[terrywang]

SSH Tunnel - Dynamic (port) Forwarding works, it can even be shared by IPs within the same network (ssh -g on clients / GatewayPorts yes on sshd) but it requires per application configuration (set as SOCKS5 proxy, Firefox requires extra configuration to use remote host to do dns lookups by setting -> network.proxy.socks_remote_dns yes).

NOTE: some tips written down previously ;-) https://sites.google.com/site/imterry/computer/tools/ssh

In countries like China (and more) where massive state-sponsored Internet censorship is in place, the unusual SSH traffic pattern can be easily detected and IPs of the SSH server blocked in less than a hour. That's why IPsec (strongSwan) and OpenVPN start to become popular among Chinese netizens and skills have been developed (networking, security etc...) LoL