How can I mirror a remote web page on my local browser?
June 3, 2010 2:37 PM Subscribe
I don't want to remote control my PC's desktop (via LogMeIn), I just want to remotely web browse...
There are times when I would like to use the web browser on my remote / firewalled PC, but I don't want to remote control the entire desktop. What would be great is if I could render a remote web page in my local browser. When I click a link, have the request get sent through my remote browser, and the results get mirrored on my local browser again. Is there any product that will do this?
There are times when I would like to use the web browser on my remote / firewalled PC, but I don't want to remote control the entire desktop. What would be great is if I could render a remote web page in my local browser. When I click a link, have the request get sent through my remote browser, and the results get mirrored on my local browser again. Is there any product that will do this?
You can get this by setting up a remote proxy over SSH. The missing 10% in the simple solution is DNS; if all your are tunneling is the http traffic, the DNS requests will still go thru the local system, which will reveal where you are going, if not the content once you get there. This guy covers tunneling both your http and your DNS traffic.
posted by nomisxid at 2:53 PM on June 3, 2010
posted by nomisxid at 2:53 PM on June 3, 2010
To answer your question exactly, X11 Forwarding will do what you want. You will run the browser on the remote machine, and only the browser's "window" will be forwarded to your computer over SSH.
Likely that option will be more work than you actually want to put in, unless you're running a linux box (or cygwin setup) at home already.
Remote desktop (over SSH) would be more efficient if you're using windows, and the whole thing really does need to run on the remote machine.
A local browser in a private browsing session sending requests over an SSH tunnel would be the most user-friendly solution, but does open you to the possibility of "spying" by whomever owns the computer you're using.
posted by Lafe at 2:54 PM on June 3, 2010
Likely that option will be more work than you actually want to put in, unless you're running a linux box (or cygwin setup) at home already.
Remote desktop (over SSH) would be more efficient if you're using windows, and the whole thing really does need to run on the remote machine.
A local browser in a private browsing session sending requests over an SSH tunnel would be the most user-friendly solution, but does open you to the possibility of "spying" by whomever owns the computer you're using.
posted by Lafe at 2:54 PM on June 3, 2010
Perhaps GoToMeeting or some alternative presuming you want something free. I know in GoToMeeting you can share a particular window. I've heard of DimDim, but haven't tried it yet. Skype has some screen sharing capabilities, too.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=&q=gotomeeting+alternative
posted by iamgoat at 6:02 PM on June 3, 2010
http://www.google.com/search?hl=&q=gotomeeting+alternative
posted by iamgoat at 6:02 PM on June 3, 2010
You could setup a VPN and route all internet requests through the VPN.
posted by reeddavid at 7:47 PM on June 3, 2010
posted by reeddavid at 7:47 PM on June 3, 2010
You could run openvpn on your remote machine, connect and pass all traffic (DNS included) through the VPN.
posted by roue at 7:48 PM on June 3, 2010
posted by roue at 7:48 PM on June 3, 2010
Response by poster: Thanks for the help; I'll try some of these out.
posted by blahtsk at 1:31 PM on June 4, 2010
posted by blahtsk at 1:31 PM on June 4, 2010
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My solution in the past has been to SSH to a remote Linux or Unix machine, and use the Lynx (text-only) browser. But I suspect this isn't quite what you're looking for. (Works great, though!)
posted by ErikaB at 2:44 PM on June 3, 2010