Network settings: Proxy

Proxy servers

A proxy server is a special server, that acts as a gateway between your computer and the Internet. Instead of having to establish a connection to a server possibly on the other end of the world, a browser only connects to the proxy. The proxy server has a cache of the most popular pages, so there is a chance the page you requested is already there. If not, the proxy server retrieves the document for you. This will decrease the traffic on the network, thus speeding up websurfing.

Sometimes, the proxy server is the only way to connect to your provider, thereby acting as a firewall.

Configuring a proxy

First, choose the protocol you want to define the proxy for. Use the chooser for this, it has 4 options:

HTTP
FTP
Gopher
Telnet

Then type in the address of the proxy in the proxy field. Make sure it is in one of these two forms:


   http://proxy.foo.bar
   http://proxy.foo.bar:8080

where the name and port number may differ, of course.

If the address doesn't start with "http://", AWeb will prepend this to the address.

Limited proxy usage

Some proxies can't handle submitting forms with METHOD=POST, or authorized pages correctly. If you have problems with such pages, try selecting this checkbox. It makes AWeb handle these pages directly, without going through the proxy.

Programs

Settings requesters

Cache