Thanks to the help page writer here on BHW, here's the proxy tool FF plugin help details for everyone to read:
Proxy Tool
Free Proxy Tool Addon/Plugin
Firefox 3 and Firefox 4+ (beta)
Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server; Mac OS X; Linux +
Latest Proxy Tool Version: 1.16
Proxy Tool is an user-friendly proxy tool that completely replaces Firefox's limited proxy features. It has many features that will make it your best friend when surfing the sites anonymity.
Features:
- Can import up to 100 tested/working HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS proxies from various proxy list providers such as
http://proxylist.co
- Easy to understand the pop-up menu with basic, yet powerful features.
- Delete Flash cookies/site cookies manually or automatically.
- 43+ millions different user agents (world's largest) for browsers, including iPhone and iPad browsers.
- Spoof HTTP referrers, which can be editable (up to 10). Disable automatically on 2nd page.
- Mouse-over Tooltip to display the proxy/actual site details.
- When entering IP
ort proxy (HTTP or SOCKS) in text box, the proxy settings are updated automatically.
User Interface:
The user interface is very simple and has an intuitive way of managing your proxy related needs. After you install the plugin, the first thing you may notice after Firefox is restarted is the red "H" button at the bottom right side of the browser.
That button is Proxy Tool's default button and shows that the proxy service is stopped.
To activate the proxy, simply click on the red "H" button to green "H" button as shown here:
If you hover that red/green button, a nice set of useful network details pop-up window is displayed:
So, let's examine the features!
HTTP Referrer:
First, let's see what's up with this Referrer feature. Some sites require you to come from a specific web address in order to access a specified page. With this amazing tool you can easily set the referrer, by choosing one of the listed websites, or by adding your own using the Edit List option. You can add more items to the list by copying and pasting them, or by entering them one-by-one by yourself. The addresses must be in the domain.extension format. No leading http:// or other stuff. You can enter up to 10 referrers.
User Agent:
The next thing we want to look at is the User Agent feature.
User Agent is, as defined by Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Agent
"In computing, a user agent is a client application implementing a network protocol used in communications within a client-server distributed computing system. The term most notably refers to applications that access the World Wide Web, but other systems, such as the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), use the term user agent to refer to both end points of a communications session."
Basically, User Agent is a "signature" of a client that's used to access websites on the Internet.
Examples:
Internet Explorer 6:
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.1; Windows XP; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)
Firefox:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:2.0b7pre) Gecko/20100925 Firefox/4.0b7pres
By looking at this intuitive menu, you can notice that Proxy Tool offers you a good set of User Agents to switch to, including the option to randomize those User Agents, which means a random User Agent will be selected for you. A lot of versions are available for each client/browser, so you have plenty to choose from.
Proxy Type:
Further, you can choose the Proxy Type you intend to use. You can select between HTTP, SOCKS4 and SOCKS5.
These 3 proxy type options also have shortcuts, in case you need fast switching.
Shift + H for HTTP(s) Proxy
Shift + K for SOCKS4 Proxy
Shift + O for SOCKS5 Proxy
Though this protocol was developed long ago enough, it is rather new (compared to the HTTP proxy). SOCKS allows to work with any (version SOCKS 4 - with TCP, SOCKS 5 - with TCP and UDP) protocols. A socks proxy simply transfers data from a client to a server, not penetrating into this data contents (therefore it can work with HTTP, FTP, SMTP, POP3, NNTP, etc.). As SOCKS (as it was already marked above) transfers all data from a client to a server, nothing adding from itself, from the point of view of a web-server, a socks proxy is a client. Therefore anonymity of this type of proxy servers is really always absolute.
Edit Proxy List:
You can edit/import the proxy list by selecting the edit proxy list from the menu, or press Shift+L for faster accessibility. This will bring up a new window, where you can add/edit you own proxies in the IP
ort format, or IP
ORT,COUNTRY_CODE[,CITY].
You can add up to 100 proxies which is plenty to choose from, if you use our service for proxy listing, that provides you access to the best daily-updated fresh proxies out there. By purchasing a subscription on ProxyList.co or other private proxy providers here, you have a daily source of verified proxies you can use with this plugin. The providers should allow you to download .txt files of proxies, which you can use to copy and paste into the proxy list editor. You can either download detailed list, download IP
ort list or download a special .txt file for ProxyTool, in the IP
ORT,COUNTRY_CODE,CITY format, so you can directly paste the contents in the proxy list editor and complete this fairly simple operation fast and efficiently.
Removing Site Cookies and Flash Cookies:
ProxyTool also has two options of
Removing site cookies (this enables you to delete the normal cookies any website sets on your computer) and
Removing flash cookies (this allows you to delete the flash cookies sites deposit on your computer).
Alternatively, you can press
Shift + C to remove all flash/site cookies at once
Resetting Proxy Tool Firefox Addon to Default:
Sometimes you made the mess with the settings and want to start over with default settings. In that case, you can reset all proxy tool settings to default mode by pressing
Shift + D.
Proxy Tool System Settings:
In the
Settings window, you can customize the plugin to Use default referrer after page is loaded, Clear all cookies on new proxy OR new window/tab as well as Rotating proxy on every new window/tab. That basically means that when you'll open a new window/tab, according to your preferences, cookies will be cleared and/or, the current select proxy will be changed.
Shortcut List:
* Shift + I - import proxies
* Shift + L - edit proxy list
* Shift + D - reset to default
* Shift + F1 - help
* Shift + H - proxy type: HTTP
* Shift + K - proxy type: SOCKS4
* Shift + O - proxy type: SOCKS5
* Shift + E - turn on/off
* Shift + C - delete flash & site cookies
* Shift + R - rotate referrer
* Shift + S - rotate proxy
