Surf anywhere you want, any time you wantOkay, so have you ever been a school or work and not been able to visit the sites you want because of web filtering restrictions? Do not worry, there are a few easy methods, the easiest of which I will show you here. Proxy Servers A proxy server is in its most basic state, a middle man. Your traffic goes through them to get to where it is going, and traffic on the way back goes through it before getting to you. A proxy server has many uses, but in most cases it is used for anonymous (however you spell that) browsing. To access a proxy server all you need is to find one, gets its IP address, and the port it has open, and plug that information into your proxy settings in your browser. That is it, its a pretty simple process. How do I find a proxy server? Well there are online lists, but they are sometimes out dates, or overused and slow. You can use tools to scan for open proxies, but you don't know if you should be using those or not. They may be owned by someone who doesn't want you using it. If you want to find them online just type in google "free http proxy list" and you should get plenty of results. Or, you can use my proffered method. Set up your own proxy server. In my opinion the best option (if you have a fast internet connection that is always on at home) is to set up your own proxy server. It is very very easy. I recommend a proxy server called privoxy. It is good, fast, and easy to configure. Once you download and install it, you only need to make one or two changes. Quick overview of how to configure These are the steps that we need to accomplish for your proxy server to work properly. -Find the LOCAL IP address of your computer at home -Configure Privoxy to listen on your network adaptor for all connections -Assign desired port to privoxy -Configure your router (if you have one) to forward proxy requests to the computer running privoxy. -Configure any firewalls you may have. If you know how to do all that stuff, go ahead and set it up. If you need more help read on, I'll do the best I can to help you out. Find the LOCAL IP address of your computer at homeOkay, your computer, depending on if you use a router or not is either going to have two IP addresses, one external and one internal. Your external address is what the rest of the world associates with your network. The local address is what any computer on your network associates with that exact computer. Computers in the outside world cannot see your local IP, and your local computers don't use your external/public IP for anything. Assuming your running windows XP it is pretty easy to find your Local IP. Simply go to start->run type in cmd and press enter. That should bring up a black window with some text. Now type the command ipconfig. You should get a listing that looks something like the following. Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 10.10.110.195 Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 10.10.110.254 That part that says IP address is go figure&. Your IP address. That is how computers on your local network see you. More importantly that is how your router sees you. (Note, if you dont use a router and you are directly connected to your modem and you are the only computer on your network, then your public and local IP are the same. You wont have to configure your router, because you dont have one!). You now know your local address. This can change when you restart your computer, there are ways around this but for the most part, I would just keep your computer on. Configure Privoxy to listen on your network adaptor for all connectionsOkay, fire up Privoxy. Then go to options menu and edit the main configure file. You are looking for the line that says listen-address 127.0.0.1:8118 You can use the find command in notepad to find that line. It is about 3/4ths of the way down the page and it does not have # before it. Anything with a # before it is not a command, it is just some info left by the author of the program. You want to change that 127.0.0.1 to whatever IP address you got in the last step. That number after the : is the port. A port is simply like a door into your computer. There are about 65,000 of them. Most of the time they are closed, and dont do anything. There are special ports like 80 which is usually used for web traffic, and 110 which is used for POP3 email, and many many more. Ports over number 1024 are not well defined, as in there are very few services that use them. So choosing a port number over that number is a good idea. (Techno-logical note: If the network you are trying to browse from is very secure, they may only allow a few Outgoing ports. If that is the case, your job could get harder. You need to find what outgoing ports they allow and set your privoxy to listen on that port, and set your router to that setting also. Determining if the network has outgoing filters is beyond the scope of this article. Google it) Once your port number is chosen (it doesnt really matter what number you choose in most cases, just greater than 1024 and less than 65,000. Privoxy is now configured to accept all incoming traffic on your designated port. Now you just have to tell your router to forward all traffic to that computer we have set up. Configure your router (if you have one) to forward proxy requests to the computer running privoxy.Okay, we are getting close to the end of our journey. One of the last steps if configuring your router. A router is what it sounds like. It routes traffic from one destination to another. It says, where is the traffic coming from, and where is it going? Based on that information it gets traffic to were it is supposed to be going. But what about special types of traffic, or situations were the destination may not be known. Consider this, when you are at work or whatever, and connect to your home network to use your proxy, your request is going to hit your router. If you and your router were to converse it would sound like this. You: Hey home network, hows it going? I would like to use my proxy server. Your Router: Hey its going pretty good. So you want to use the proxy? Awsome. What IP and port is that located at on my network. You: Well I know I am trying to connect on [Port you use for privoxy] Router: Thats cool, but I dont know what IP on my network is hosting a service for that port. Both of you: Crap. See how since you cant specify what computer and port, and since the router doesnt know, we have to manually tell the router where that requested service is at. We do that by what is called Port Forwarding or Virtual Servers . To set it up, log into your router (How you do this varies greatly on brand and version and your network setup) and find a tab or link that says something about port forwarding or virtual servers. Virtually all routers support this feature, it has to be there someone. Oh yeah, some Linksys routers call it Applications and Gaming also. Once you find that tab, the rest is easy. It will probably ask you for a name, a port (maybe a range of ports) a protocol, and IP address to forward it to. It should get setup like this. Name: Proxy Port Beginning: Whatever port you told privoxy Port Ending: Whatever port you told privoxy Protocol: TCP Host: Address of computer running privoxy. There may be an enable checkbox you have to click. There may also be an option called private port range, again that is just whatever port you told privoxy to use. If it says port, use the port for privoxy. If it says IP, use the port for your computer that is running privoxy. Once that is set up the router conversation goes something like this. You: Hey home network, hows it going? I would like to use my proxy server. Your Router: Hey its going pretty good. So you want to use the proxy? Awesome. What IP and port is that located at on my network. You: Well I know I am trying to connect on [Port you use for privoxy] Router: Cool. You are using port [Port you use for privoxy], I have an entry in my tables that says that [computer you use at home to host privoxy] is hosting the service that corresponds to that IP. I will forward your traffic there. You: Thanks. Router: May you browse in peace. There you go. Your router is now configured to forward traffic like it should. Configure any firewalls you may have.I have no idea what firewall you may be using. So just find out yourself by reading the manual, or for easiness sake turn it off. Thats bad security practice, but almost guaranteed to work. Just fool around with it until it works is all can say. Find your Public IPWhen you got to tell some computer to use your proxy server, you need to tell it where your proxy server is located at. This is done by specifying the public IP of your home network. If you recall earlier we talked about your Local or private IP. Now we are working with your Public/external IP. The easiest way to find your IP is to go to www.whatismyip.com That should return to you the IP address of your home network. Remember that address; write it down, youll need it whenever you want to use your proxy server. Configure your browserThe idea here is that you need to tell your web browser to use your proxy. This setting is going to be found under connection settings. You just want to tell it to use an http proxy. Exactly where this setting is varies from browser to browser, version to version, but it should be found under connections or something of that sort. All you do is plug in your home networks IP address (the public IP we found in the last step) and the port you have privoxy set up on. That should be it, you can now surf anywhere you want through a secure connection coming from your house. Remember, it is just like you are at your home computer, so if you do anything illegal it will get traced back to your home computer. Times When this wont workMost of the time, this solution will work. Some times when it wont are. - If for some reason the network you are on has no outgoing open ports. - If you have a very slow home connection, it may be too slow to be useable. - If the computer you are trying to browse on does not allow you to change connection settings in the browser. (You could try installing a different browser, like Firefox) Besides those times, this solution should almost always work. As long as you can set up a proxy, and you can connect to it, you should be able to browse freely. TroubleshootingThis is a semi complex system you have set up, so troubleshooting can be&. Troublesome. There are some common things to look for though. -Make sure your home firewalls are either configured to allow proxy server traffic, or are turned off. -Make sure your windows firewall is either turned off or configured. -Make sure your local IP address now is the same as it was when you set up privoxy. -Double check your port numbers in privoxy, and on the router. -Try using a different port number, maybe for some reason the one you chose is causing a conflict. All I can really say is check, and double check every setting. Make sure the Port number and IP address are the same in your router, and in the privoxy setup. Make sure the IP you entered is the actual correct one. SecurityKeep in mind, your proxy server is open to the public. Anyone who finds it, can use it. There isnt any good way I know of to stop people from using it. Once you get it up and running, I would turn firewalls back on, and configure them properly, firewalls are awesome. When you arent using your proxy, turn it off. Enjoy!
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