To anyone who desires this level of security but doesn't want to have to go through the trouble of a VPN, using SSH tunnels works just as effectively. Assuming

To anyone who desires this level of security but doesn't want to have to go through the trouble of a VPN, using SSH tunnels works just as effectively. Assuming you have access to a remote Linux/BSD box, you can (from Linux) `ssh -D 1025 remote.host.address` then proxy your browser's SOCKS proxy to localhost:1025. On Windows, using PuTTY, one can simply go into the Tunnel menu, hit the "Dynamic" radio button, type in 1025 and click "add" to achieve the same effect.