Proxomitron: highly flexible, small but very powerful, local HTTP web-filtering proxy

Proxomitron: highly flexible, small but very powerful, local HTTP web-filtering proxy

Proxomitron is one of the essential tool, everyone should use. It is better than Privoxy and Ad Muncher

I request you to post filters, questions, etc., in this thread.

Originally posted by katatonic
Is it just me or using a proxy (Proxomitron, in particular) degrades significantly Opera's cache performance?

It seems to me that when I use Proxomitron as a proxy, Opera's cache works much worse than when there's no proxy. If I open a page with many images (Proxomitron running, proxies enabled) and reload the page several times Opera seems to make many more requests on each reload than if I do the same without a proxy.

For example, I tried this page: http://www.opera.com/docs/screenshots/
I reload several times with proxies enabled. Each reload takes 2 to 3 seconds, and all the images are visually redrawn. Opera makes 28 HTTP requests on each reload (the log in Proxomitron shows this).
Then I disable proxies and start reloading the same page again.
Each reload now takes 0-1 seconds, there's no image redrawing. By looking at the statusbar in Opera, it seems as though Opera is making a single request to the server - just to receive a response that the document hasn't expired, I suppose. Visually the whole "Press F5 - Page fully reloaded" cycle takes much, much less time.

And the same thing happens for virtually every page, it is clearly noticable when the images are more than 2-3.

I have set Opera to check cached documents every 5 hours, images - 24 hours, others - 10 hours, HTTP 1.1 is enabled for proxies (and doesn't seem to be relevant), toggling "Local connections persist for" in Proxomitron also doesn't change anything.

This thing has stopped me from using Proxomitron for now. I would really appreciate it if you can confirm or give me a tip on how to fix this behaviour.

Perhaps you had the Header Filter "If-Modified-Since: Always reload pages (Out)"
enabled...that will force a complete reload (I like to have a complete reload so I use it...but if you don't want it and it is checked it can cause this behavior.

Also, if you find yourself refreshing alot, reduce the checked documents
frequency to a lower value.

Checked the header filters. Everything seems to be geared towards maximal, most aggresive caching. I'm pretty sure that when I'm reloading the page actually almost no requests reach the remote server - however, Opera makes too many requests to the local proxy and that's why I generally see a decrease in performance (I'm on a P3 733, not so fast machine).

When I get home, I'll run Apache locally and check how many requests Opera makes to it with proxies disabled and what happens with proxies enabled. I'll try the test with some fully transparent local proxy - no filters at all.

Originally posted by katatonic
Checked the header filters. Everything seems to be geared towards maximal, most aggresive caching. I'm pretty sure that when I'm reloading the page actually almost no requests reach the remote server - however, Opera makes too many requests to the local proxy and that's why I generally see a decrease in performance (I'm on a P3 733, not so fast machine).

When I get home, I'll run Apache locally and check how many requests Opera makes to it with proxies disabled and what happens with proxies enabled. I'll try the test with some fully transparent local proxy - no filters at all.

That could very well explain why I don't see any issues, I'm running a pretty high end machine, and local connections are not even an issue for me (they take 0 time in human noticible increments). I used to run on a P3 600, but that was a long time ago, I might misremember though I don't recall any slowdows, however this was Opera 6.x and and prox 3.5-4.2 or so??

Proximodo ought to hopefully fix some performance issues when it gets out(supposedly 2x as fast).

It seems to me the problem is rather on Opera's side than on the proxy's side. If this is the case I wouldn't hope for a quick fix...

Any change that you guys know if/when JD5000 is going to update his filters? I'm definly looking forward to an update.

I also heard their are other filters that I can use, are these worth trying or just in Beta stage right now?

Originally posted by DolfhinDC
Any change that you guys know if/when JD5000 is going to update his filters? I'm definly looking forward to an update.

I also heard their are other filters that I can use, are these worth trying or just in Beta stage right now?

Well, JD seems to update infrequently now, maybe once a year. Grypen (my install linked in my sig) however is based on JD5000 latest stuff, and is updated weekly usually. You might want to check it out.

Originally posted by jp10558
Well, JD seems to update infrequently now, maybe once a year. Grypen (my install linked in my sig) however is based on JD5000 latest stuff, and is updated weekly usually. You might want to check it out.

Yeah i'm using Grypen's right now and it seems to work quite nice

Let's hope for a update quite soon, it has been some time.

Ok. I made some tests with a local web server and Opera makes the same requests to the web-server (with proxies off) and to the proxy (with proxies on) on each request, so the problem is not in Opera. However, at the slower connection at home the decrease in speed when reloading a remote page thru Proxomitron is even more noticable. So it seems to me Proxomitron is simply not as effective in making and maintaining http connections as Opera and clearly slows things down on not-so-fast internet connections or computers.
The alternative - AdMuncher - is faster and doesn't slow down anything, but I still decided to give Proxomitron a try at work, because its free in contrast to AdMuncher.

katatonic: the problem is not really with Proxomitron, it is that Opera's management of connections-per-server cannot work when the only "server" is the proxy itself. The proxy would have to know what the values of the client were to work effectively and perform as transparently as possible. AdMuncher doesn't work as a proxy and thus doesn't suffer this issue. But AdMuncher, at least when I tested it, was less efficient CPU wise than Proxomitron; though I expect it has improved greatly since I last tested it over a year ago.

oh, and how did you measure on the local server - remember Opera ALWAYS bypasses proxying the local server unless you manually edit opera6.ini (8beta2 has a GUI interface - but I think it is broken).

Originally posted by non-troppo
katatonic: the problem is not really with Proxomitron, it is that Opera's management of connections-per-server cannot work when the only "server" is the proxy itself. The proxy would have to know what the values of the client were to work effectively and perform as transparently as possible. AdMuncher doesn't work as a proxy and thus doesn't suffer this issue. But AdMuncher, at least when I tested it, was less efficient CPU wise than Proxomitron; though I expect it has improved greatly since I last tested it over a year ago.

oh, and how did you measure on the local server - remember Opera ALWAYS bypasses proxying the local server unless you manually edit opera6.ini (8beta2 has a GUI interface - but I think it is broken).

By using my external IP address. The GUI really seems broken.

Regarding AdMuncher, I can't say I've noticed any higher CPU usage with it, maybe I haven't payed attention. But at least there's no visual difference when using it.
Btw, the way AdMuncher intercepts connections from the browser seems like a more convinient way to implement such filtering functionality than a proxy, and also faster. I wonder if the developers of Proxomitron or Proximodo consider implementing this as an alternative (despite the Prox prefix in the names...).

Originally posted by katatonic
By using my external IP address. The GUI really seems broken.

Regarding AdMuncher, I can't say I've noticed any higher CPU usage with it, maybe I haven't payed attention. But at least there's no visual difference when using it.
Btw, the way AdMuncher intercepts connections from the browser seems like a more convinient way to implement such filtering functionality than a proxy, and also faster. I wonder if the developers of Proxomitron or Proximodo consider implementing this as an alternative (despite the Prox prefix in the names...).

Mmmm. Well proxomitron is no longer in development. As to proximodo, IDK if they would or not, they want to clone proxomitron. How exactly does admuncher work anyway?

I have to say, I like the proxy setup because then I can easily chain proxies together. I also don't experiance any better performance just using Opera - probably because the time saved in not downloading ads, even on my college connection, overwhelms the slight slowdown of using a proxy. It also may be the caching proxy I have between Opera and Proxomitron, that does make a big difference over prox alone or just Opera IME.

I will say that you are the first person who has noticed this slowdown with Prox that I've ever talked to.(When running for one PC. I knew one person who did experiance a slowdown using prox as the exit server for his LAN for 4 machines.)

I don't know how exactly it works, but all you need to do to in order to use it is to run it. I suppose it registers some sort of a hook for http connections. So when you run it it automatically starts intercepting connections from the browsers (and other internet programs) and filtering ads.
When you exit it it shows a message "The following apps are routed through AdMuncher: Opera, are you sure you want to exit?" or something like that. And when you truly exit it, Opera continues to work normally, only there's no ad-filtering. You don't have to inform Opera to stop using proxies or anything like that. In fact you never have to do anything in Opera at all for AdMuncher to work.

Also, you can set it to use an HTTP proxy so you could still chain proxies.

Right, but I usually chain Opera -> Allegrosurf -> Proxomitron -/sometimes/-> Privoxy -> Tor (or other privacy program). Anyway, use what is good for you. I'm happy with proxomtron, and will continue to recommend it wholehartedly to anyone who asks.

I tried both Proximitron and Ad muncher, and I really prefer ad muncher.

a question to proxo users.
i have finally started reading the proxo files and decided to play around a bit.
quoting the info on proxo's cookie list:

# For basic cookie control using "Disable JavaScript (and meta) cookies"
# and "Set-cookie: Make all cookies session only" works pretty well.
# This will allow most cookies but make them temporary (and mostly harmless)

what i want :

..This will allow most cookies but make them temporary 'except the ones defined in my cookie list'

i thought it wld be the default behaviour, but it isn't. if i define a site as *opera.com/*(i hope its right) in the cookie list,the cookie is till made temporary by proxo and i hav to login again. after restarting opera.
am i doing something wrong or is there any other way of doing this?
c ya

Originally posted by chesss
a question to proxo users.
i hacv finally started reading the proxo files and decided to play around a bit.
quoting the info on proxos cookie list:



wgat i want :


i thought it wld be the default behaviour, but it isn't. if i define a site as *opera.com/*(i hope its right) in the cookie list,the cookie is till made temporary by proxo and i hav to login again. after restarting opera.
am i oing something wrong or is there any other way of doing this?
c ya(sry for typos- its rather dark right now)

Mmmm, try just [^/]++.opera.com/ for the cookie list. It should work the way you specify - or it does with my filterset anyway, been a LONG time since I used the defaults.

thats wprks jp except for gmail. [^/]++.gmail.google.com/
guess i'll hav to dig in a bit deeper.

btw what does [^/]++ exactly mean. i haven't seen '^/' anywhere in matching rules

Hey! I just downloaded Proxomitron Naoko 4.5 and, well, I'm very confused... I've never used a program like this and I was reading through here but got very confused. Could you please point me to a complete newbie's guide? I don't want to do something wrong and mess things up, hehe... since I don't know what I'm doing. Maybe someone could send me their setup that only blocks ads, since that's mainly what I want this for... (til I learn about it, anyway). Thanks in advance!

--Melly

Originally posted by Ninde
Hey! I just downloaded Proxomitron Naoko 4.5 and, well, I'm very confused... I've never used a program like this and I was reading through here but got very confused. Could you please point me to a complete newbie's guide? I don't want to do something wrong and mess things up, hehe... since I don't know what I'm doing. Maybe someone could send me their setup that only blocks ads, since that's mainly what I want this for... (til I learn about it, anyway). Thanks in advance!

--Melly

Well, check my sig. It mainly blocks ads, and optimizes some things for Opera. It does do some alterations to google though.

Unzip the proxy folder somewhere, run proxomitron.exe. Point Opera to localhost port 8080 for HTTP proxy and away you go.

Hi,

I'm using Proximitron for a few years now and I'm happy with it I've always used JD5000's filters (now using the Gryphen's filters) is their any advantage in using sidki's filters? I have searched but found almost nothing recent on this subject.

Thanks in advance.

Originally posted by jp10558
Well, check my sig. It mainly blocks ads, and optimizes some things for Opera. It does do some alterations to google though.

Unzip the proxy folder somewhere, run proxomitron.exe. Point Opera to localhost port 8080 for HTTP proxy and away you go.

Thank you! I just downloaded this and am very happy with it, except for the changes to Google. How can I remove those changes to Google? I love the little icon in the upper left that opens the menu with options to add the page to block filter, which I didn't see with any other configs.

Originally posted by Tamil
Kye-U's Security Pack 4.32 (April 30, 2005)

I downloaded this, but should I use it since Opera is my only browser? A lot of the fixes are for Mozilla. Pages seem to render slower with this than the old config I was using (JD Basic) too, but I dunno if that's just me.

Originally posted by Ninde
Thank you! I just downloaded this and am very happy with it, except for the changes to Google. How can I remove those changes to Google? I love the little icon in the upper left that opens the menu with options to add the page to block filter, which I didn't see with any other configs.

See my reply to you here:
http://my.opera.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=89621

I downloaded this, but should I use it since Opera is my only browser? A lot of the fixes are for Mozilla. Pages seem to render slower with this than the old config I was using (JD Basic) too, but I dunno if that's just me.

No. It's already included with my set(well grypen's) and it would cause "bad things" to duplicate it.

As to pages possibly rendering slower, that may be as this set does far more than JD Basic did. I haven't used JD basic ever though, and I stopped using the Advanced about a year ago, so I can't compare well.

Speed wise, I might suggest greater caching. If your PC is beefy, you might even want another, more agressive caching proxy like Allegrosurf or maybe squid. I use Allegrosurf 4.4(pretty old, but works well) to significantly speed up my browsing, even on broadband.

If you decide to try this, what I do is :

Opera --> Allegrosurf --> Proxomitron

That works very well for me.

Originally posted by jp10558
See my reply to you here:
http://my.opera.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=89621






No. It's already included with my set(well grypen's) and it would cause "bad things" to duplicate it.

As to pages possibly rendering slower, that may be as this set does far more than JD Basic did. I haven't used JD basic ever though, and I stopped using the Advanced about a year ago, so I can't compare well.

Speed wise, I might suggest greater caching. If your PC is beefy, you might even want another, more agressive caching proxy like Allegrosurf or maybe squid. I use Allegrosurf 4.4(pretty old, but works well) to significantly speed up my browsing, even on broadband.

If you decide to try this, what I do is :

Opera --> Allegrosurf --> Proxomitron

That works very well for me.

Thank you so much for your help! I'm also on broadband but don't consider my computer beefy (P3 1ghz, 512mb ram) but I may try that. I have cache set to 20MB, I think, right now. It isn't a considerable slowdown, only a few seconds, and unticking 'freeze gif animation' seemed to speed it up some.

Is it possible to use Proxomitron with that new web accelerator that google provides?

i haven't been able to use google accelerator with proxo.
But if u r using proxo u may not need any accelerator, that's what they say.

Proxomitron SIDEBAR!!

how come nobody mentioned this before:

http://maxthon.tarapages.com/plugins/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=459

Proxomitron_Sidebar+ consolidates the major proxomitron blocklist functions, as well as translations of web pages, scrolling, and other capabilities. Basic functions of this plugin: Blocklist: simplifies both the adding of web pages to any given Proxomitron blocklist file, and the bypassing of these filters for the current web page. Translate: Use the drop-down menu to translate the current web page or a highlighted section of text to any language supported by Altavista babelfish. Misc. Proxomitron Screen: View Source & Bypassed Source, Debug information, as well as current blocklists and recent URLs accessed. Scroller: Uses MyIE2 inbred scroller to provide one-button access to 3 speed scrolling of the current web page. Kill Gif: Kills regular and animated/blinking gif files. Bottom buttons allow quick access to duplicating of current web page, creating new blank page, and the killing of current web page. Not compatible with Maxthon.

basically its a a kind of proxo menu in a sidebar. didn't work for me though. Maybe its not for opera.

Grypen has updated his set - get it here or get my (slightly) Opera modified version from my sig.

Tamil,

I can understand why jp10558 would need a direct download link to his own files, but just speaking for myself, I would prefer a link to a website, rather than to the download itself. I like to read about something before downloading it.

I'll reply here - the Grypen Link I listed goes to the relevent changelog for the Grypen set at castlecops - you can easily back out to the general forum if you need more info than the changelog.

My files, which as i said are very slightly modified with Opera in mind (by this I mean some UA Spoofing and that's about it) are in a standard zip file, so you could vet the entire thing with a text compare program between mine and Grypen's to see the (very few) changes I'd made.

Both sets are signed with the respective GPG key, so you can verify identity - and I will vouch for Grypen (I've signed his key), though I suppose there's no more reason to trust me vs him. KYE-U is also a trusted member of the community, though I do question whether some of his filters are worth the bother (and his "solution" to the IDN problem - disabling such URLs).

For so many years, even though its now old and with no updates.
Promoxomitron kicks ass.

Proximodo on the other hand needs a lot of work to even catch up.

Its too bad the Author of Proxomitron did not release the code
to the opensource community.

New filterset version out. Grypen 8/28/2005 - available at castlecops or the Opera MOD one in my SIG.

i have a few questions regarding the latest proxomitron grypen set and opera 8.50 revenue model.

basically, i understand that opera gets paid now by google, amazon and ebay for searching through the built-in search bar. so, making these searches, we get money for opera.

now, i have a question:

in the latest grypen set there is an option under web page filters/ section "browser info" where there is "fake: referrer in js" which is set to on by default. does that mean that when i do a google search for example, google can't see it's being made through opera and therefore opera doesn't get it's money for it?

also: is it the same whether we search through search bar OR the adress field through "g search term" for example?

thanks man

I'd recommend Proxomitron to everyone (although I'm not an expert).

i use Proxomitron to freeze GIF animation, i get only first frame of GIF files,
which admuncher just can't

SIDKI'S SET


I have recently started using Sidki's excellent set and am very impressed by it. I highly recommend it to all proxo users to give it a try. Non-proxo users are also invited , since it adds many features in Opera(look at menu) Surprisingly sidki's set isn't even mentioned anywhere in this forum . Anyways its brilliant.

Have a look at the menu that u can get on every page:

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/6634/sidkimenu19cp.png

The Menu appears when you put the mouse on the Proxomitron Menu icon.
Left-click anywhere on the page and the icon, a triangle inside a circle, will
appear.  Scroll the window with the mouse and the icon will disappear, until
you left-click again.  If you left-click the icon it disappears and will only
return to that page after a reload.

MAKE SURE to read the help files in the folder : sidki-etc - !!!very Important!!! .
Also make sure you don't miss the include exclude file. Ask any questions you have.

Proxomitron download page
Direct download
Sidki's Forum at castlecops
Sidki's site

HTH
PS: @tamil can you add a poll for which config ppl are you using .

Edit: i am so obsessed with proxo now. Started me blog about proxo

Originally posted by chesss:

SIDKI'S SET


I have recently started using Sidki's excellent set and am very impressed by it. I highly recommend it to all proxo users to give it a try. Non-proxo users are also invited , since it adds many features in Opera(look at menu) Surprisingly sidki's set isn't even mentioned anywhere in this forum . Anyways its brilliant.

Have a look at the menu that u can get on every page:

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/6634/sidkimenu19cp.png

The Menu appears when you put the mouse on the Proxomitron Menu icon.
Left-click anywhere on the page and the icon, a triangle inside a circle, will
appear.  Scroll the window with the mouse and the icon will disappear, until
you left-click again.  If you left-click the icon it disappears and will only
return to that page after a reload.

MAKE SURE to read the help files in the folder : sidki-etc - !!!very Important!!! .
Also make sure you don't miss the include exclude file. Ask any questions you have.

Proxomitron download page
Direct download
Sidki's Forum at castlecops
Sidki's site

HTH
PS: @tamil can you add a poll for which config ppl are you using .

Edit: i am so obsessed with proxo now. Started me blog about proxo

I like this set, but I don't like how he coloured the links and added hover underline... how can I remove this in proxomitron? I don't wanna mess something up hehe.

I don't like how he coloured the links and added hover underline... how can I remove this in proxomitron?

Strange i never noticed that before . Well its obviously one of the web filters, i cannot tell which is responsible.