Software for the net-censored

findProxy.pl scans through recent virtualave proxy logs to find proxies which work where you are

redir binary for nether.net only!

netcat (binary for windows) is the best all-round network utility for learning and quick tests.

netcat (source for *nix) has the source code, a good manual and some scripts - all of which are not in the windows version

Perl redirector/relay/bouncer/repeater. This puppy should be able to run just about anywhere (where Perl is installed); any ISP, win9*, winNT, win2000. You should be able to run it and play with it on your home computer and then ftp it to an external account when you're confident you know how to make it work. It can be used to redirect TCP connections on any port past port blocking via an open port. It can even be used for web browsing, but in that case it's a bit slow (like using a slow proxy) and it doesn't handle the multiple rapid connections made by your browser loading a complex web page, so you lose some of the small images etc. I'm working on that.

anonymous Perl proxy. A forking Perl proxy which runs almost anywhere (needs LWP). Some basic code to remove identifying info from your web browser.

preforking Perl proxy. A Perl proxy which preforks some slaves to ensure it's response is fast and reliable. This guy works well. Good for heavy-duty browsing on any port you want to get through your firewall blocking. Anonymity code could be easily copied from anonProxy.pl.

proxy autoconfiguration file. An automatic proxy config file for IE and Netscape for the UAE (but easily modified for other countries). It does automatic failover from a speed-ordered list of proxies, some ad-zapping, and ensures a specified proxy is selected for Outlook Express use when downloading hotmail (to ensure use of a proxy which understands PROPFIND). Points to note:

• change the country at line 5 if you need to. Note that the script is not fully parameterized. For example changeing this will not change the list of usable proxies wherever you are :-)
• change the number of proxies at line 4 to match the list further down.
• ad zapping takes place at line 16 - add your own URL fragments. This allows you to specify pattern matches for the requested URL to ensure that the most common advertisements don't get downloaded by your browser. It's a bit ugly this way and is actually slow (the right way to do this is to have a dedicated proxy which only serves, but doesn't
• proxy selection for PROPFIND (hotmail for OE) is at line 27. It ensures that a proxy which understands PROPFIND is selected, no matter what's in the list further down.
• remember you need to feed this to IE from a web server. I tried it as a file - no go. I tried it from netcat - no go. If anyone can sort that out, I'll be very pleased. Netscape's happy to be fed a file.
• i haven't tested the proxies for a long time - the order is probably bad, and I suspect some don't work at all any more.
• the worst thing about these is that if you make changes, and introduce a syntax error in the script, your browser probably won't tell you and it will then ignore the script and try to get everything directly - that will just time out for all the UAE, KSA users. Hard to debug. Be careful.