Suggestions for safe, effective Proxy servers

Hi,

I'm in a serious jamb!
Looking for good suggestions for an anonymous proxy to use (hopefully w/ Firefox 2.x). Free would be OK, but I won't use it all that often. I've only read a little about TOR - that's about it. I've read some aren't really that anonymous.

Need to get this up & running FAST.
Completely new to proxy for anonymity, but have a general concept of how they work (gets complicated). The simpler but effective, the better for me. I'm not trying to outfox the FBI here!

I use Firefox mostly. Only plan on using the proxy occassionally, so speed is not too important.

My purpose is not anything illegal - but because of a "cheater" (hint: it's not me). I think cheater may be trying to have a "pro" - even from the legal profession - trying to monitor / find out what it is I'm trying to find out about cheater, so they can get an upper hand in court - if it comes to that.

IMPORTANT: Also, I wanted to set up a different (anonymous) email acct on yahoo, gmail, hotmail, whatever -- to correspond w/ legal aid, or just receive "tips" from friends on cheater's actions. I don't want that acct to be traceable to me, so all those emails can't be subpoenaed if it gets requested through legal discovery.

Maybe there's a way to do that w/ the "untraceable" email acct even if I don't use a proxy? (I STILL need the proxy though). Will I still need the proxy to keep my ISP from having records that I was using my "secret" email acct

Thanks & my kids will thank you.

 

Contact me offlist. I'll help you.

steve period topletz at xerobank dot cee oh m