[clug] Dealing with HTTP proxies on random networks

[Martin Schwenke]

>>>>> "Mikal" == Michael Still <mikal at stillhq.com> writes:

    >>> My laptop roams between three networks regularly. One has
    >>> tranparent HTTP proxying, one has no proxying, and one has an
    >>> environment where you _have_ to use their HTTP proxy.

    >>> Does anyone know of a package which will manage that for me so
    >>> I don't need to do the three clicks in Firefox to change my
    >>> proxy setup when I change network?

    Mikal> Then again something which worked for everything by magic
    Mikal> is cooler.

I use laptop-net to manage various setting when I'm on different
networks, based on IP address.

For HTTP proxying, I use a combination of wwwoffle and privoxy - the
browser knows about wwwoffle via a proxy.pac file, wwwoffle chains to
privoxy, privoxy is configured to have the correct outgoing proxy
setup for the current network profile.  When laptop-net changes
profiles it first copies a file containing privoxy forwarding
information for the current profile.  Then a script is run that merges
that snippet into privoxy's configuration file, before restarting
privoxy.  A bit fiddly, but once setup it works well.

The only downside is that privoxy doesn't handle FTP, but I don't use
much of that...  However, I do manage to live in a mostly ad and
cookie free world...  :-)

When my proxies get in the way, I also use the SwitchProxyTool Firefox
extension to turn them off.

peace & happiness,
martin