[jsjohnst]

SSH has a Socks compliant proxy built in. That said, you are right, you are basically shifting responsibility to the SSH server you are connecting to so you have to trust it the same way you would a VPN provider. As such, it’s essentially the exact same and so GP was clearly misguided.

[erikb]

You can provide the ssh server yourself. Which is not so hard. And security is something different than avoiding tracking. Avoiding tracking is very simply done by not using a centralized proxy which is maintained by someone else (like in VPN). When you are really under attack it's very different and in that case you couldn't trust VPN either. Even the VPN client would be a danger.

[kibwen]

Though this can provide an extra level of defense against MITM, if you trust your personal connection to the internet less than the server's connection to the internet.