SSH socks proxy not working with Firefox on a Mac

Question

I have the ssh client on my Mac set up to connect using a certificate to a remote linux server.

I'm trying to get my browser to surf through the remote server using a local ssh socks proxy.

The command I issue is the simple:

ssh -D 9999 me@myremoteserver.com

When I change my Firefox proxy settings to localhost on port 9999 (for all protocols), pages load completely blank with no error message or hint what is going wrong.

However, if I change the system's proxy settings (through system preferences->network->advanced->proxies) to SOCKS 5 with localhost and port 9999, Safari can surf perfectly via the remote server.

Any ideas what's the problem and how I can get Firefox to work properly in this setup?

Answer 1

It's only a SOCKS proxy, not HTTP/SSL/FTP/Gopher as well. Try telling Firefox about the proxy only in the SOCKS setting.

Answer 2

Nerdling is right, you are probably using the same settings for all protocols.

Try unchecking the box, enter localhost/9999 for the SOCKS host, and either leave the HTTP proxy host empty or set the port number for it to 0.