Are these people trolling or are they just tossing out tech terms they know nothing about?
Unless someone is on the Internet already then a proxy, VPN, HTTP, etc won't work.
For totally free stop at any coffee shop / place to eat / library. Many cities also offer some sort of free service. Do a search for "Free wifi near me" and there are websites dedicated to this.
you can use a VPN and a proxy and adjust it to your local internet provider configuration I would think its only wireless you can connect instead of DSL or fiber.