Proxy Server
What is a Proxy Server?
A Proxy Server, or in our case, Squid Proxy Server is software that caches Internet data. It does this by accepting requests for objects that people want to download and handling their requests in their place. In other words, if a person wants to download a web page, they ask the proxy server to get the page for them, this then connects to the remote server, requests the page and then transparently streams the data through itself to the client machine, but at the same time keeps a copy.
This results in faster download speeds to your machine and anyone else who looks at the same website.
How do I configure my browser to use the Proxy Server?
The instructions below are for different versions of Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer
Select Network Preferences from the Edit menu and then Preferences. Expand the Advanced Category and click on Proxy, click the radio button next to Manual Proxy Configuration and then click on the View button. For each protocol that your Squid server supports (by default, HTTP, FTP, and gopher) enter the Squid server's hostname webservice.mcb.net or and put the HTTP port number for the Squid server 3128 in the Port column. For any protocols that your Squid does not support, leave the fields blank.
Here is a screen shot of the Netscape Navigator manual proxy configuration screen.
Netscape V4.xx manual configuration
Select Preferences from the Edit menu. Expand the Advanced Category and click on Proxy, click the radio button next to Manual Proxy Configuration and then click on the View button. For each protocol that your Squid server supports (by default, HTTP, FTP, and gopher) enter the Squid server's hostname webservice.mcb.net and put the HTTP port number for the Squid server 3128 in the Port column. For any protocols that your Squid does not support, leave the fields blank.
Select Internet Options from the View menu. Click on the Connection tab. Tick the Connect through a Proxy Server option and hit the Proxy Settings button. For each protocol that your Squid server supports (by default, HTTP, FTP, and gopher) enter the Squid server's hostname webservice.mcb.net and put the HTTP port number for the Squid server 3128 in the Port column. For any protocols that your Squid does not support, leave the fields blank.
Select Internet options from the tools menu. Click on the Connection tab. Tick the box for using a proxy server. For each protocol that your Squid server supports (by default, HTTP, FTP, and gopher) enter the Squid server's hostname webservice.mcb.net and put the HTTP port number for the Squid server 3128 in the Port column.
Select Internet options from the tools menu. Click on the Connection tab and then click LAN settings. Tick the box for use a proxy server. For each protocol that your Squid server supports (by default, HTTP, FTP, and gopher) enter the Squid server's hostname webservice.mcb.net and put the HTTP port number for the Squid server 3128 in the Port column.
Here is a screen shot of the Internet Explorer proxy configuration screen.
Microsoft is also starting to support Netscape-style JavaScript automated proxy configuration. As of now, only MSIE version 3.0a for Windows 3.1 and Windows NT 3.51 supports this feature (i.e., as of version 3.01 build 1225 for Windows 95 and NT 4.0, the feature was not included).
If you have a version of MSIE that does have this feature, select Options from the View
menu. Click on the Advanced tab. In the lower left-hand corner, click on the Automatic
Configuration button. Fill in the URL for your JavaScript file in the dialog box it
presents you. Then exit MSIE and restart it for the changes to take effect. MSIE will
reload the JavaScript file every time it starts.