Proxy Auto Configuration now skips 127.0.0.1

If you are using our PAC files, and Google Desktop Search, you will notice you no longer get an error message, because we no longer try to proxy anything where "127.0.0.1" or "localhost" are the domain name. Our PAC file now looks like this (for the us.proxy.pac file), which is just a bit of Javascript:

function FindProxyForURL(url, host) {
if ((host == '127.0.0.1') || (host == 'localhost')) 
  return "DIRECT";
else 
  return "PROXY us.pickaproxy.com:8125";
}

"DIRECT" in this context means do not use the proxy, but rather make a direct connection.

On another note, we also are now showing a list of all Tor proxy servers ("exit nodes") that we never use, for reasons of security and/or reliability.  You will have to be looking at the "Tor speak" version of our site (at http://www.pickaproxy.com/?speak=tor) to see this list, but it is shown below the "Top 10 Fastest (Running)" list.  And you will notice that we have added "AoF" to this list because of reliability problems we have noticed in the last few days.  Any changes to our "ExcludeList" will now be shown automatically in this way, so we will not be announcing each and every change on this blog or in our RSS feed.