View and vote on the article here: Anonymity Tools - Proxomitron
Anonymity Tools - Proxomitron| Category | | | Summary | This is the Second in a weekly series of tutorials from CAU knowledges bank! This week we have a tutorial about "Anonymity Tools- Proxomitron" Enjoy and look forward to More articles From the Knowledge Bank!
|
| | Body | Proxomitron is a webfilter with special features. It enhances your anonymity while you surf the Internet. Basically, it acts as an http proxy server, except it filters all the information between you and the Internet, besides changing your IP. Proxomitron is highly configurable, meaning you set it up to do exactly as you desire. For example, you won't see your screen filled with those annoying pop-ups and ad banners. Also proxomitron lets you view all the messages exchanged by your browser and the sites that you visit - and not only that, you
can even alter, add or delete these messages(known as http header files). The main thing is that you can "lie" to the sites that gather this kind of information about you.
The http header file contains information about you, such as your operating system, web browser(and version) date and time of your visit, your e-mail address, your IP, last visited site and so on. Many people don't like this information given out. This is the main feature of Proxomitron(in my opinion) and we'll be discussing more about it.
Installation
----------------
Proxomitron can be either installed using a Windows Installer or just by extracting the necessary files from a .ZIP file. It doesn't modify your registry or any other files on your computer outside the folder you installed it. Remember, when you see the Proxomitron icon in Systray, that means it is active. If it isn't active it won't be able to filter all the information. In order to make it active, just run the program.
Configuration
-------------------
1. Browser configuration
If you use Internet Explorer, right click on the IE icon, and choose
"Properties"(or go to Start>Settings>Control Panel and click on Internet Options). Then choose Connections>Lan Settings and check the "Use a proxy server" box. Then click on "Advanced" and type "127.0.0.1" under the HTTP entry and "8080" for the port. Now IE is set up to work with Proxomitron.
If you use Netscape Communicator, run Netscape and then choose
Edit>Preferences>Advanced>Proxies. Click on "Manual Proxy Configuration" and then "View". Under the http entry type "127.0.0.1" and for port "8080". For other browsers locate where to set the HTTP proxy entry. Set it to "127.0.0.1" with the port "8080". You can type "localhost" instead of "127.0.0.1" also.
2. Configure the Proxomitron
First make sure the default config file is loaded. Click on "File>Load Config File" and choose "default.cfg".
Let's configure Proxomitron for anonymous surfing. In the main screen we have two sections: "Active Filters" and "Edit Filters".
It is recommended to check all boxes in "Active Filters"(Freeze GIF Animation is not that important so do as you wish with it). Also, uncheck "Use remote proxy" whenever you don't want to use a proxy server.
Now let's set up Proxomitron to use a Proxy Server. In the "Edit Filters" section, choose "Proxy". Click on "Add" and type in your proxy using the following rule: "proxy.host.name:port comment text here". Right click on the proxy list (or the selected proxy) and choose "Advanced Proxy Settings". Proxy rotation, when enabled, will automatically switch to the next proxy in the list every n connections. Be sure that all proxy servers in the list are reliable if you decide to use this feature. If you use a proxy which requires authentication,
complete the appropriate form and check the box above.
Next is Useragent configuration. In the main Proxomitron window choose "Headers" from the "Edit Filters" section. Check the "Out" box of any Useragent you wish. Be sure to check only ONE of these. You can choose from the following : Lynx, Netscape, Opera, on Linux, Windows, Macintosh, BeOS. For example let's say you are using Windows. Check the "Out" box of the "UserAgent Netscape Linux". Now all the sites that gather information about you will think that you are using Linux for an Operating System. Also, you can send these websites some bogus information. Choose any Useragent filter(make sure the Out box is checked), click on "Edit", and in "replacement text" type in anything you want. One more thing, some sites(like www.hotmail.com) may complain if they see that you use a "browser they do not approve".
Other Header Filters that we will be discussing are: "Cache-Control: always cache (in)" and "Expires: always cache (in)". Using these filters can prevent wasted page reloads and speed up surfing, but it may also mean you may have to hit your browser's reload button to see if a page has been recently updated. These two filters have the "In" box checked, meaning they are activated. You can leave them as they are, but I'd recommend to un-check these two.
The "Referer: Hide where we've been (Out)" filter tells the website the URL of the last page you visited(It is activated, by default). Also, by default, it sends the webpages own URL instead. It is recommended to leave it activated.
"URL-Killer: kill-a-URL (out)" is a filter that completely blocks connections to certain sites. These specific sites are listed in "\<Proxomitron Directory>\lists\URL Killfile.txt". Feel free to add or remove any websites from that list.
"URL: Alias Redirector (Out)"- This is a very useful feature of Proxomitron(it is activated, by default). This filter allows you to quickly jump to URLs in the "URL Alias List" file.
For example, go to "\<Proxomitron Directory>\lists\URL Alias List.txt", add "ca/ $JUMP(http://www.cyberarmy.com/)". Open your browser and type ".ca", then ENTER. This will jump to "www.cyberarmy.com". Other websites can be added using the same rule("<shortcut name here>/ $JUMP(<URL here>)", and type ".<shortcut name>" in the browser).
Okay, on to the default Web Filters. Click on "Web Page" in the "Edit Filters" section.
"Banner Replacer" replaces ad banners with a transparent GIF image, surrounded by a border. It is not activated, but if you are disgusted by all the banners you've seen enable it by checking its box. Several other banner filters(such as "Banner Blaster (limit text)", "Area Map Ad Blaster parts 1 & 2", "Kill JavaScript Banners", "Kill JavaScript Banners") are enabled, in order to cut ads using different techniques. All these filters are enabled, so, if you like ads uncheck their boxes.
"Un-Prefix URLs" - Many sites (especially search engines) may try and track what links you click on their page by running them through a "redirector" GCI script. This filter is enabled, meaning it will stop these sites from gathering this information from you. You'll have to add other specific sites, that do this by clicking the edit button after selecting the filter. Add the specific word in
the "URL match", separating from the others with a "|".
Pop-up filters such as "Kill all pop-up windows" will kill all the JavaScript pop-up windows. It is enabled, by default. However, when used with "OnUnload unloader" and "Restore pop-up windows after page loads"(which are both enabled by default), will kill all spam pop-up windows, also allowing more appropriate pop-up windows to work. If you do not want any pop-up windows, uncheck these last two filters.
"Link De-Obfuscator"(activated, by default) - If you hate pages that hide the real URL a link is pointing to by placing some text on the status line instead, this rule will show those links.
"Hide Browser's Referrer from JS" - this is a very important feature of
Proxomitron. It hides all the information(such as email, personal information, last visited site, etc) that JavaScript may try to grab. It is enabled by default. Also it is recommended to enable the next two, "Hide Browser's Version from JS" and "Hide Browser's Identity from JS". Click on "Edit" and change the default version or the default identity to your likings in "Replacement text"(like '2.1' with '1.0' or '3.5' and 'shonenscape' with anything you want).
"Allow right mouse click" - Some sites disable the right click menu in your browser, this feature fixes these JavaScript tricks. It is not activated by default, so it is recommended to enable it.
"Kill window.external methods" - Some JS commands can change your bookmarks and more, this feature disables that. It is enabled by default.
Note: After making these changes go to the main Proxomitron window and click on the green disk button (not the blue disk, which reloads the config file). This will save the changes you've made.
Conclusion
----------------
Proxomitron is a very good webfiltering tool, probably the best one. For more information on all features, view the Proxomitron help files. Some of these might prove useful to you and will probably make your surfing more relaxing. I'd like to thank Scott R. Lemmon for creating such a great tool.
Note: by rayden
|
|
This article was imported from zZine. (original author: dutchie99)
There are no replies to this post yet.
|