Windows 10 - Using SOCKS5

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Read more about how our VPN works here.

 

These instructions will demonstrate connecting to our GBR service using the SOCKS5 protocol.


 

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SOCKS5 is a proxy protocol that can be used to establish network connections across the internet. It provides no additional security or privacy, but it can allow you tunnel other protocols over SOCKS5 and thereby possibly tunnel out of a restricted network. Please find below a couple of examples showing how you can use SOCKS5 on your Windows system, it is by no means exhaustive, but rather just a sample of what you can do. 

 

The examples below demonstrate connecting to our UK cluster using SOCKS5, but you can connect to any countries, subject to having the relevant subscription.

 


Example 1: Using Firefox with SOCKS5

 

If you wish to use Firefox over Socks5, you can install the the FoxyProxy Firefox add-on.

 

Open Firefox and go to Add-ons, Get Add-ons. click on See More Add-ons at the bottom and you will go to a search page, enter Foxy Proxy in the Find add-ons field. Click on Foxy Proxy Standard and then click on Add to Firefox. You will then see a confirmation box, click on Add.

 

 

Once you have added Foxy Proxy, you will see the small Foxy Proxy icon in the top right hand corner, click on it to open the Foxy Proxy menu and then click on Options

 

You should now see the Foxy Proxy setup page, there will be one entry called Default, click on the Edit button next to it.

 

 

Change the Title from Default to MPN GBR (or anything else you like).

 

 

In the Proxy Type drop down, choose SOCKS5

 

Change Send DNS through SOCKS5 proxy? to On

 

In the IP address field, enter the cluster you wish to connect to, in this case, gbr.mypn.co

 

Enter the Port number – 1080

 

Enter your username and password and then click Save.

 

Now you have added the definition, but you still need to tell Foxy Proxy to use it. 

 

On the main setup screen, click on the drop down that says “Turn Off FoxyProxy” and change it to “Use proxy MPN GBR for all URLs (ignore patterns)”.

 

 

That’s it, you should now see an MPN icon over the Foxy proxy icon in the top right hand corner. 

 

If you now go to an IP checker page, ie https://www.my-private-network.co.uk/ipinfo you should see that you are in the country of your choice.

 

 


Example 2: Using Putty with SOCKS5

 

Putty is a very popular SSH / Telnet client for Windows and you can use it to tunnel your connections over SOCKS5.

 

To configure Putty to use SOCKS5, open the Configuration window and go to Proxy.

 

 

Change the Proxy type to SOCKS 5

 

Enter the proxy hostname, ie gbr.mypn.co and the port – 1080

 

Set “Do DNS name lookup at proxy end” to Yes

 

and lastly enter your Username and Password in the relevant fields.

 

That’s it, Putty will now tunnel over SOCKS5.

 


Other Software

 

There is plenty of software that can be used with SOCKS5 on Windows, some of the others that we would suggest checking out include SocksCap, Vuze, ProxyCap and uTorrent. 

 

Please do not forget that SOCKS5 offers no security or privacy protection, for that, you must use our VPN service.

 


Any Problems?

 

Unfortunately it doesn’t always go to plan! 

 

If you have any problems or can’t get connected, please email us at [email protected]. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible to assist you.