Have you ever tried to manually configure a proxy on your smartphone?

If you haven’t yet, then you’ve saved yourself from some headaches. Indeed, most of the smartphones available on the market don’t allow you to manually configure proxies for your browser without having to do some special tricks (rooting your Android or jailbreaking your iPhone). If you have found some other solutions, I’m eager to know about them. And you’re highly invited to mention it in the comment section of this article. I’m sure you’ll help a lot of our readers out there.

Opera Mini – the most popular browser for smartphones

As of today, the most commonly used solution for “easily” setting a proxy on smartphones was to install Opera Mobile browser. That feature pushed Opera Mobile browser as being the most popular browser that smartphone users have adopted. That is mainly because it allows some geek smartphone users to get free internet on their phone.

But the battlefield is changing as other browsers are beginning to get into that “market” where users would be able to manually set proxies for their browsers. Recently, Firefox has ported the popular browser to the mobile world, and have introduced a way to sync it with the desktop Firefox installation.

This is actually a smart move as a lot of desktop users have adopted Mozilla Firefox as their primary browser. Competition is going to be rude in this field, especially when Android powers the biggest part of Smartphone market, and that Chrome is the de facto browser for any Google device.

ProxyMob – new Firefox addon

So I told you that ProxyMob, a firefox addon has been launched so as to allow users to manually configure the proxy. In fact, the guys at ToR project have developed a proxy manager for Firefox Mobile that comes very handy for us users who love using proxies from our smartphones. It is called ProxyMob (here) and it definitely brings one missing feature to Firefox mobile. Indeed, with the implementation of Firefox on Android devices, there was no easy way to set proxies. This is one of the reasons why Opera Mobile is very popular with Smartphones.

Simply said, ProxyMob is only a GUI interface that allows accessing the parameters of Firefox Mobile. It’s a pretty simple feature. I’m just wondering how come it hasn’t been implemented earlier. Anyway, the race to finding proxies that haven’t been yet blocked by mobile operators can follow-up again.

Now, I can see you asking yourself “how come this topic can lead to having free internet access from a mobile phone?“. Remember the trick that most geeky guys use with Opera Mobile for “extending” the free internet Facebook access that most mobile phone operators? Got it? … No clue? …

In fact, if you search on the internet, you’ll see that those geeks use mobile opera by manually setting some proxies while they use a data plan that their mobile phone operator gives them that has the feature of accessing Facebook freely. By using that trick, not only they can access legitimately Facebook freely, but via the proxy feature, they can also access some other internet resources for free.

So as a simple example let’s say that you have been kicked out of a forum and want to be able to continue posting by running a proxy and changing your IP address. You can set up FoxyProxy so that your proxy remains inactive until you go to the website that you are banned from.

As soon as FoxyProxy recognizes the URL you have predefined, it automatically opens the website using a proxy and will keep it active until you leave the site. This idea of selectively turning on your proxy for certain websites can save you a lot of time if you are manually turning your proxy on and off. Or on the other hand, it can save you a lot of bandwidth if you are the type of person who leaves your proxy on all the time.

As you can see, the idea behind FoxyProxy is simple, but it allows you to do some powerful things. However, you don’t always have to use FoxyProxy in this way. You can still use it to set up proxies and manually turn them on and off like you would with other proxy add-ons.

Setting up FoxyProxy

1. Download FoxyProxy standard and restart Firefox when you are prompted after installation.
2. After you re-open Firefox you will be prompted with the following message, “Would you like to configure FoxyProxy for use with Tor?” Just click No. You can always do this at a later time.
3. Open the FoxyProxy options window by going to, Tools > FoxyProxy > More > Options in the browser menu.
4. In the FoxyProxy options window, you will see a Default proxy which is your direct internet connection. You can add your custom proxy by clicking on the “Add New Proxy” button.
5. Give your proxy a name by filling in the “Proxy Name” field.
6. Next, go to the “Proxy Details” tab and select “Manual Proxy Configuration” where you can add a proxy IP address or hostname and port number.

   

7. If you would like to set up your proxy, so it only runs for specific websites, then goes to the “URL Patterns” Tab and continue reading below for help in setting up a pattern.

How do you define which websites will run through the proxy?

Those of you who are familiar with wildcards and regular expressions will feel right at home. But even if you’re not familiar with them, you will be just fine if you follow some examples.

Let’s say that you would like to set things up so that your proxy is only activated when you go to YouTube (unblocking Youtube is sometimes necessary). The home domain for YouTube is:

https://www.youtube.com/

But what happens when you go to other pages on the YouTube site? The URL’s change.

https://www.youtube.com/browse?c=23

https://www.youtube.com/members

https://www.youtube.com/shows

So how do you set things up so that the proxy remains active for every YouTube URL? It is where wildcard expressions come in and save us. In computer syntax, the * symbol has a special meaning. It is called a wildcard symbol, and it’s a placeholder that can stand for a string of characters of any length.

In this example our URL pattern to add to FoxyProxy will be:

https://www.youtube.com/*

Let’s put this to use in our case. Click “Add New Pattern.”

The URL pattern to add is https://www.youtube.com/*

You can activate the URL pattern you set up by right-clicking the fox icon in the bottom right corner of your browser window and selecting “Use proxies based on their pre-defined patterns and priorities.”

A simple wildcard character (*) at the end of the YouTube URL tells FoxyProxy to keep the proxy activated for any URL beginning with “https://www.youtube.com/.” So now you can browse around the YouTube site, and the proxy will know to remain active. Once you navigate to a different site that does not start with the URL you have set above, the proxy will be deactivated. The great thing is that you can add lots of predefined URL patterns for each proxy by substituting a different domain name in place of YouTube.

FoxyProxy Matching URL Patterns For Watching UK Online TV

One of the best features of FoxyProxy is that it allows you to set up pre-defined “rules.” Thus, FoxyProxy can automatically switch between one or more proxy servers depending on which website you’re browsing.

You can set up this proxy management tool so that your proxy remains inactive until you go to certain websites. As soon as FoxyProxy recognizes the URL you have predefined, it automatically opens the website using a proxy and will keep it active until you leave the site.

If you have access to a good UK proxy, you could use FoxyProxy to watch UK TV online. Below you can find several rules/patterns for different UK online streaming sites:

BBC iPlayer

*https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/4/mtis/stream*

ITV

*mercury.itv.com*

Where to find working proxies to use with FoxyProxy?

The downside of FoxyProxy is that it depends on proxies that you need to find yourself.

The problem: where to find working proxies to be used with these add-ons?

The solution: proxy list sites or premium proxy services.

You should know from the start that there is no such thing as fast and reliable open/free proxy. Most open proxies have a short life (from several days to several weeks), and they provide low speed due to the high traffic demand. Do not expect to watch Hulu using a free proxy! (If you find such a proxy let me know )

Still, open proxies are good for anonymous browsing and unblocking websites like Facebook, MySpace, and Orkut.

So, where to find good proxies? Here is a list of sites that provide pretty good, tested proxies:

• SamAir.ru
• Xroxy.com

Go to any of this sites and select an HTTP proxy (IP address and the port – IP: port) from the desired country. If you want to unblock Facebook, for example, the best choice would be a US proxy.

Important! Make sure you always choose high-anonymous proxies. (Q&A: What type of proxy should I use?)

FoxyProxy 2.13 main features

Eric Jung – the creator of FoxyProxy, has worked hard to improve the add-on and fix bugs. FoxyProxy 2.13 is now available for download!

Here are the most important features added or bugs fixed in the last versions:

• Ability to remove the “FoxyProxy:” prefix in the status bar with a “hidden preference” (i.e., no GUI currently).
• Log sorting by clicking on a column.
• Open log URLs in tabs.
• Copy URLs of log rows to the clipboard.
• Ability to delete log rows.
• Fixed launching of URLs on Sonbird and other platforms.
• Fixed “Copy Selection” so it copies patterns, too (as it did in 2.8.14 and before).
• Translation updates.
• When adding a new proxy, the Proxy Details tab is now the default tab. It contributes towards the faster addition of new proxies (one less click).
• Warning message for “You didn’t enter and enable any whitelisted (inclusive) URL patterns …” now has a “Do not show this message again” checkbox for better usability to people who use FoxyProxy like SwitchProxy (i.e., load all URLs through one proxy at a time).
• Revamp of “Do not show this message again” checkboxes so they can more easily be added for all sorts of annoying, recurring questions in FoxyProxy.
• Fixed longstanding bug whereby regular expression special characters ($, ., +, (, ), and ^) couldn’t be used in URL patterns
• Ability to sort patterns by clicking on the column headings.
• Ability to disable resetting of icon colors after URLs have finished loading via a “hidden preference” (i.e., no GUI currently).
• Change the attribute /foxyproxy[@resetIconColors] from true to false and restart Firefox. It enables you to quickly see which proxy was last used (instead of having to use the FoxyProxy Logging tab).

Conclusion

So to sum things up, this add-on not only improves upon Firefox’s basic proxy settings but it also gives you a lot of extra functionality, so you have more control over your browsing experience. An add-on like this is a must-have for a lot of people as we begin to see proxies becoming more popular and more web content being censored depending on a users geographical location.

Two thumbs up for Eric Jung who is the FoxyProxy creator! You can find more URL pattern examples on his website.

Scott Mulligan shares “internet knowledge” and helps you better understand the greatest invention that is The Internet. He blogs at ScottMulligan.ca.

Note: If you are looking for free Google Chrome proxy extensions take a look at this list.

Update: The SwitchProxy is no longer available. However, you may still hide your IP address in Firefox with other free add-ons.

SwitchProxy Firefox add-on lets you supervise and switch between several proxy configurations promptly and without any difficulty. You can also use it as hiding IP tool to protect your computer from snooping eyes.

When we work with more than one proxy on a normal basis, we all perhaps know how irritating it is to keep track of each of them, not to talk about the number of clicks it takes us to switch between them. SwitchProxy is a Mozilla add-on which we use to systematize and organize all proxies which we want to work with. With SwitchProxy you can insert, edit and delete proxies which you work with from a distinct master list. When you want to use one proxy, you just pick it from the master list and click apply.

SwitchProxy has an anonymous feature or one may say a secret feature, an anonymizer uses a file of proxies that it at random switches between at definite intervals. Many people use anonymizers to guard their IP addresses and protect themselves from hackers, online tracking, and other website prying techniques.

How to use SwitchProxy Firefox Add-on

Here is exactly how to use this add-on to hide your IP:

Step 1. Download and install SwitchProxy.

Step 2. Press Add button
Step 3. Choose Anonymous from proxy configuration type dialog and press Next

Step 4. In the next window, you can add proxies, either manually (one by one) or by loading from a proxy list (check our recommended proxy lists). Also choose a name for your proxy configuration, for example, MyProxy, and then press Save.

Step 5. From the toolbar, choose MyProxy from the dropdown list and then press Apply.

Step 6. Check your IP to XMyIP.com and you are done.

Step 7. In order to add more proxies to your configuration press Edit. In order to create a new proxy collection/configuration press Add.

Step 8. To restore your original configuration select None from the Proxy drop-down and press Apply.

SwitchProxy for Firefox 3.0

As you probably know already, the SwitchProxy add-on does not work with Firefox 3.0. Jeremy Gillick has not updated this great add-on from November 2006, so, obviously, there is no update for Firefox 3.0.

So, what to do if you upgraded to Firefox 3.0 and still want to use the SwitchProxy add-on? 

Here is what you can do:

1. Use Multiproxy Switch, which is based on SwitchProxy, and it can work on Firefox 3.0 (I will come back with more details about this add-on in a later post).
2. Use the upgrade for Firefox 3.0 proposed by random($foo). Here is the direct download link for SwitchProxy for Firefox 3.0.

I hope that Jeremy Gillick will find time to upgrade SwitchProxy in the near future, as it would be sad to have this great add-on dead and buried.

SwitchProxy proxy list

In order to hide your IP, you need first to find some good anonymous proxies. There are a lot of sites, like samair.ru or proxy4free.com, that list tens of fresh proxies every day. Unfortunately, SwitchProxy is not able to import proxies directly from these sites, so you have to add them manually. Not very comfortable!

Recently, I found a proxy list that can be used with SwitchProxy. A guy from a forum wrote a script which parses the Xroxy anonymous proxy list and returns them in a format that can be imported by the SwitchProxy add-on.

The URL to this list is: http://www.shroomery.org/ythan/proxylist.php

Here is how to get this list imported by SwitchProxy:

1. Open Firefox. Go to Tools -> SwitchProxy -> Preferences
2. Press Manage Proxies
3. Press Add (add a new proxy configuration)
4. Choose Anonymous and click Next
5. Import the proxies from the provided URL. Here is how:

6. Save the configuration
7. When you want to browse anonymously you just have to go to Tools -> SwitchProxy and select the desired configuration (Xroxy in my case)

I hope this helps :).

Happy surfing!

Clear all your browsing history

If you are a Firefox user, most of the time, you would enter your credentials for checking your e-mails, hanging out on Facebook, watching the news, and the list goes on. Then you keep on reminding yourself to clear all browsing history when you’re done with the practical CTRL+SHIFT+DEL keystrokes.

On recent Firefox versions, you can decide to only clear the last hour browser activity or everything … I personally found out that choosing to clear the latest hour history isn’t “safe enough” as I clearly lose track of time once I am on the internet, I don’t know about you.

The same feature is available on Google Chrome by hitting “Ctrl +H”, then clicking on “Edit items”. The “good” thing about Google Chrome’s history feature is that you can pinpoint and choose whatever history you want to delete. Ain’t that a great feature if you only want to leave the impression that you didn’t do anything nasty on the computer by leaving the browsing history “untouched?”

What’s next?

Clearing the history can be a good idea only if you remember to do it when you’re done. However, chances are that you’re borrowing someone else’s computer because you just had a few spare time to use. And, as if Murphy’s law never fails, you usually have to hurry up leaving that computer for different reasons:

• an urgent phone call that kept you away for a long time;
• the pal you’ve been waiting for just showed up and asked you to hurry up because you’re late for another meeting …

Then what? There’s a high risk you would forget clearing your browsing history. Even worse, you would even ask the computer owner to close your sessions. Meaning, you’ll be leaving the responsibility for protecting your own stuff to a third party … Hmm, that’s bad… Chances are they’ll take a sneak-peak into what you did first – you know- trying to find out the nasty things you may have done …

Use Private/Incognito Browsing

So, how do you protect from those “unpredictable hurry” that don’t even let you clear your browsing history when working on someone else’s computer (or on a public computer?).  If we stick with the two browsers mentioned above, here’s how you’d do it:

– On Mozilla Firefox: at your initial launch, quickly hit “CTRL+SHIFT+P” (or go to “Tools- Start Private browsing”)

– On Google Chrome, still at your initial launch of the browser, hit  “SHIFT+CTRL+N” (or got to the Settings menu, and click “new incognito window”)

Whether on Firefox, or on Chrome, a new window will then open – do your own things from this window as it won’t record your browsing history, nor your password, nor your site preferences. You’re safe, at least on the browser side of things. Because you never know if there’s a keystroke recorder on the computer, or if there’s a network sniffer somewhere on your network …but that’s another story.

Now, when the urgent call rings, or when the pal you’ve been waiting for just steps by and push you to leave, all you have to do is close the browser window and that’s it … No sessions to close, no browsing history to clear …You can leave the floor with peace of mind… However, you should keep in mind that private browsing mode does not hide your public IP address.

Back to you

Hope this helped you… Now we’d love to hear about the experience of using other people’s computer while maintaining privacy. Share in the comment section.

How Tor Works

A user of the Tor network runs a proxy server on his computer. Internet-facing software can then access Tor through a SOCKS interface. Once inside a Tor network, the traffic is sent from router to router, the Tor software periodically negotiating a virtual circuit through the Tor network, ultimately reaching an exit node at which point the cleartext packet is forwarded on to its original destination.

Viewed from the destination, the traffic appears to originate at the Tor exit node The Onion Router (Tor) is a free software implementation of second-generation onion routing – a system which claims to enable its users to communicate anonymously on the Internet. [Via Wikipedia]

The best Tor-Based Tools

To connect to Tor network easily you need to use an application that performs most of the configuration steps. Here are the best tools that use Tor network to hide your IP address and achieve online anonymity:

1. Vidalia Tor Bundle

Vidalia is a cross-platform controller GUI for the Tor software. Vidalia runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux or other Unix variants using the X11 window system.

>> Vidalia Tor Download

2. OperaTor – Opera + Tor

OperaTor is a portable software bundle which allows you to browse the web anonymously. It combines the power of the Opera Browser, Tor, and Polipo. With OperaTor no data will be stored at the computer you plugged your portable memory into.

>> OperaTor Download

3. TorFox – The Anonymous Browser

Torfox is a simple secure portable open-source browser based on The Tor Project and Mozilla Foundation technologies: an anonymous browser which allows users to browse web pages hiding their IP address and other parameters which may be used to identify user data.

>> TorFox Download

4. Xero Bank Browser

xB Browser is a free and open-source anonymous web browser that can be used to securely and anonymously surf the internet, and bypass firewalls and website censorship.

The main advantage compared to other anonymous web browsers is that the xB Browser requires no configuration or technical knowledge in order to achieve anonymity. xB Browser is open-source so you can feel safe knowing what goes into our code. Additionally, it is even portable on a USB stick so you can take it to work, school, or on vacation.

>> xB Browser Download

5. Portable Tor

PortableTor allows you to connect to the Tor anonymous internet system from any computer with your flash or thumb drive. This allows you to browse the internet anonymously from public locations, such as internet hotspots, library, or school computers, and public terminals.

PortableTor has all of the features as the regular Tor, except without actually installing the application.

>> Portable Tor Download

6. Incognito

Incognito is an open source LiveDistro based on Gentoo Linux assisting you to securely and anonymously use the Internet almost anywhere you go, e.g. your home, work, university, favorite Internet café or local library.

Incognito can be used from either a CD or a USB drive and has several Internet applications (Web browser, IRC client, Mail client, Instant messenger, etc.) pre-configured with security in mind, and all Internet traffic will be anonymized.

>> Incognito Download

7. Tor Browser Bundle

The Tor Browser Bundle lets you use Tor on Windows without needing to install any software. It can run off a USB flash drive, comes with a pre-configured web browser and is self-contained. The Tor IM Browser Bundle additionally allows instant messaging and chat over Tor. If you would prefer to use your existing web browser, install Tor permanently.

>> Tor Browser Bundle Download

8. TorButton

Torbutton is a Firefox add-on that provides a button to securely and easily enable or disable the browser’s use of Tor. It is currently the only addon that will safely manage your Tor browsing to prevent IP address leakage, cookie leakage, and general privacy attacks.

>> TorButton Download

9. FoxTor

FoxTor is a Firefox add-on that provides an easy and convenient way to browse the web using the anonymous and encrypted TOR network. This offers greater privacy compared to regular proxy services or extensions.

>> FoxTor Download

10. TorChat

TorChat is a peer to peer instant messenger with a completely decentralized design, built on top of Tor’s location hidden services, giving you extremely strong anonymity while being very easy to use without the need to install or configure anything.

>> TorChat Download

11. Torcap

Torcap is a tool that allows any network application to connect through Tor, even if the overlying application doesn’t support SOCKS. Torcap works by injecting a DLL into every process running under the current user. This DLL then hooks Winsock API to intercept DNS lookups and TCP/IP connections.

>> Torcap Download

What do you think of our list of the best Tor-based tools? Do you know other good Tor tools?

Share them with us!

Make sure you also read: Pros and Cons of Using Tor.

If you haven’t heard of Cocoon yet then I can assure you that soon you will be hearing about the same just because it’s free now! Though there might be plenty of security browsers and add-ons that filter off the information as per user requirements hardly any one of those do their job perfectly. Learn about the free Firefox add-on Cocoon.

Cocoon is now free

Cocoon is one such add-on that does just that and does it smartly. It is famous for its abilities to funnel through the web to deliver the information without revealing the user. Till last week Cocoon used to charge for its services but as of now, it is free to use. While browsing, the Cocoon add-on forces all the Internet connections via protected SSL connections that pass through Cocoon’s servers. These servers are said to be designed by United States’ National Security Agency.

The makers of Cocoon wanted to grow Cocoon henceforth they decided to make it free as this will increase the user base and help the developers enhance it as per user suggestions. Cocoon has been installed more than 10,000 times as per the Santa Barbara-based Virtual World Computing, the makers of Cocoon. This number will surely grow as and when the news of free Cocoon rolls out on the Internet.

Cocoon for Internet Explorer and Android version of Firefox still to come

Cocoon for Internet Explorer and Android version of Firefox are under development though there are no words from the developers of Cocoon regarding their release.

Bermant, Cocoon Chief Executive Officer, and co-founder say he believes Cocoon is on the right side of history, both in terms of what the technology powering the add-on is and how Cocoon implements it. “The future of VWC and Cocoon, on the whole, is that we’re filtering from above, and that’s what I see the world should go to,” he said. “Somebody said to me, ‘Oh, you’ll have terrible latency problems [when browsing],’ but in fact, we don’t. We have no latency problems.”

How does Cocoon look like?

Well, Cocoon installs itself as a toolbar in your Firefox. The add-on can be turned on or off by using the universal button on the left of the toolbar. Cocoon also offers the lock/unlock and pause button right next to on/off button. You might find it a bit difficult to edit settings as the drop-down that offers edit settings feature isn’t easy to spot.

Mesmerizing features of Cocoon.

Cocoon is bound to grow due to some of the amazing features that it brings to your Firefox browser. Here, we will jot down some of the lucrative ones:

• As already explained, Cocoon hides your IP address and you start using the Internet via a U.S. based IP address. Just enable Cocoon and note down your IP address and then disable Cocoon and validate your IP address again. This can help Netflix users watch video from outside the U.S. as Netflix blocks content to non-U.S. based IP addresses.
• All the user data is stored in a cloud and can be accessed by the user only via a secure connection. The downside of such a feature could be the risk of your password being compromised. Once your password is compromised then all your browsing information will be available to the user who has your password.
• Cocoon comes loaded with unlimited on-demand e-mail “mailslots” that will keep your e-mail address private to the outside network. The mail slots feature will let you create a new email address for a new account registration. The user behind Cocoon can create a temporary email address that will be deleted after the user is done with its purpose on the particular website. One temporary email address cannot be used for two different website logons.
• The anti-cookie feature of Cocoon protects you from stalking advertisers. This is somewhat similar to Internet Explorer’s tracking protection.
• Cocoon has a note-taking feature using which users can type notes as and when they visit the Internet. The notes can be used for future references.

What do you think of Cocoon, the most secure Firefox add-on? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Salman Siddiqui is an expert technology analyst. His vast experience of freelance writing is backed by his passion to swim against the tide. 

How does Ghostery work?

The extension embeds itself into your status bar and shows you a list of all tracking scripts in a small notification rectangle in the upper right-hand corner of each page you visit.

Tracking the visitor details is very common on modern day websites. Since the vast majority of websites are advertising supported, you’ll see the notification on every page load if you keep it enabled.

What Information is Tracked About You?

Most web site record:

• IP address
• Location
• Browser agents
• Visitor path

Take a look at our What is my IP address page to see what I am talking about.

This information is used to find out more about the visitors’ online behavior on the site and sometimes are also used for displaying advertisements based on the tracking data.

The tracking is done by special tracking services like Google Analytics, StatCounter etc., which provide tracking javascript codes to the webmasters. The code is integrated into the source code of the web pages. And when a visitor downloads a page from the server, the javascript code informs the tracking website about the details of the visitor. The info is recorded and categorized to be presented to the owner of the website.

Should You Be Worried?

As this is common practice nowadays, you probably shouldn’t. 99% of the websites you visit have tracking codes. But if you are really concerned about your privacy issues do not really want to disclose slightest details about yourself, then yes, this tracking can reveal a lot of information about you.

Conclusion

If you’re worried about your privacy online, this extension is definitely for you.

>> Download and install Ghostery