New to proxies

[isochar]

I've been doing research on them, and am at a bit of crossroads. It seems like it's beneficial to be completely running behind one, but what's the purpose of doing so if only one application is using them? Furthermore, they really seem to be a major PITA since I cannot find any outstanding software and a reliable, fast anonymous public server. (Let alone more than one so a proxy chain can be formed)

Running with that train of thought, is there any *good* software to help me proxy all my internet applications? One partially-working attempt is ProxyCap.

Also, Should I have any concern for honeypots and hackerpots? If so, are there any public proxy lists that are confirmed valid and are actually fast?

TIA!

[breezer]

A proxy is effectivly a buffer between you and the internet.

Why do you want/need a proxy.
Using NAT could keep you safe with a simple firewall (Norton?).

They add another level of protection to your network.
A web proxy should lower bandwidth requirements.
A web filter can be added to remove those naught sites (that i've been told about)

Check sourceforge, I'm sure there are various solutions there.

If you want to use a public proxy the best will probably be your own ISPs (unless they are called NTheL)

Breezer

[MultimediaMan]

SmoothWall does all of these things...

You can set the Proxy up to about 200-500MB and really lower your average bandwidth usage...

[isochar]

I currently do have software firewalls on all my machines, as well as a hardware firewall for the entire network. I can setup a dedicated Linux machine to run Smoothwall and serve as the proxy, but I was looking through the documentation and saw no mention of some specific features I was looking for....

- proxy chaining
- automatic updating of the proxy list to see which ones are "best", depending on the criteria I specify
- automatic switching of proxies when they are unresponsive
- encryption between me and the destination for all outgoing and incoming traffic

Is there another piece of software for Win/linux that accomplishes this?

[Taz]

This might be what your looking for

http://www.multiproxy.org/multiproxy.htm

[isochar]

Thanks for the link Tax, but I couldn't get that working well.

*edit* Seems that Multiproxy didn't like working behind the hardware firewall. As soon as I pointed it to the right IP it worked OK. Problem is that it seems to only work for browsers... (no irc, ftp, p2p, etc)

I've also tried other similar software such as ProxyChain and SocksChain. All of them have been far from an enjoyable experience...

Would there happen to be something similar for Linux with possibly more features and reliability?

Also, I've searched through huge lists of proxies, but all of them ping like shit. I don't want to get paid anonymous proxy since it sort of defeats the purpose. Could someone guide me in the right direction?

[Gurm]

Well, if you want anonymity as well as proxy... I recommend A4Proxy.

As usual, it's HTTP only. But it's an EXCELLENT transparent proxy. Takes a little setting up, but once it's running, every single request can go to a different 100% anonymous proxy. Their list is updated several times a year, and all proxies are tested for anonymity before acceptance.

I highly recommend it, as I said.

- Gurm

P.S. If, however, you are looking for FTP proxies, or News proxies, or general-purpose TCP/UDP proxies... I can't help you much.