Proxy Auto Configuration "PAC" files now available

You can now use our pre-set "PAC" files to specify your proxy settings, which simplifies things a bit. Instead of setting your proxy to tryout.pickaproxy.com and port 8123, you can now specify the "Use automatic configuration script" option (if using Internet Explorer) or the "Automatic proxy configuration URL" option (if using Firefox) or the "Use automatic proxy configuration" option (if using Opera) and use https://www.pickaproxy.com/tryout.proxy.pac as the Address and name and location of the script file. 

• us.proxy.pac is equivalent to us.pickaproxy.com and port 8125
• uk.proxy.pac is equivalent to uk.pickaproxy.com and port 8126
• fr.proxy.pac is equivalent to fr.pickaproxy.com and port 8129
• ru.proxy.pac is equivalent to ru.pickaproxy.com and port 8130
• cn.proxy.pac is equivalent to cn.pickaproxy.com and port 8131
• ca.proxy.pac is equivalent to ca.pickaproxy.com and port 8132
• de.proxy.pac is equivalent to de.pickaproxy.com and port 8133
• nonCN.proxy.pac is equivalent to nonCN.pickaproxy.com and port 18231
• nonDE.proxy.pac is equivalent to nonDE.pickaproxy.com and port 18233
• nonUS.proxy.pac is equivalent to nonUS.pickaproxy.com and port 18225

We will add more functionality and flexibility to our PAC file support at a later time. The plan is for subscribers to be able to define multiple proxy options within a single PAC file for their own use, and to allow PAC files to be updated from our https://www.pickaproxy.com web site so that you do not have to muck about with proxy settings on your computer, other than to do the initial, one-time change to use your PAC file.

Comments

[F]

Does using this new PAC script setup encryption of data between my browser and the Tor network, or do I still need to add another layer of encryption such as stunnel?

[Wesley]

No, this PAC script is just a simpler/different way of telling your browser which proxy to use. The main advantage of using PAC files is that you can avoid mucking with your proxy settings on your local computer each time you want to change them - and if you have multiple people pointing to the same PAC file you can easily change proxy settings for all these people just by changing the PAC file content.

We showed the PAC file address as https://www.pickaproxy.com/us.proxy.pac to make sure the communication between your computer and our PAC file is secure - and therefore cannot be "sniffed" by anyone watching your communications or watching our server.

[Wesley]

Continued...

But after the PAC file is read once it is not usually read again.

So yes, you would need to setup and use stunnel for full-time encryption of data between your computer and our pickaproxy.com server.

[Gezza]

I'm stumped on how to get this to work. I set Firefox's Automatic proxy configuration URL to https://www.pickaproxy.com/uk.proxy.pac, and pressed RELOAD, OK twice, then entered URL BBC.CO.UK. This gives "The connection has timed out". I tried a few variations and different PACs, but all with the same result.

Have I missed something obvious? Is there an idiot's guide available?

Thanks Gezza

[WebMaster of pickaproxy.com]

Gezza: I get the same issue when I try this from Canada, but when I make a direct connection to http://bbc.co.uk it works fine. You are likely taking the correct steps and the problem is something else: it could be that the BBC is rejecting access to it's site from all Tor network nodes; it could be that there are not enough proxy servers running right now in the UK. I will try to track this down with more evidence over time.

[Gezza]

Much appreciated Webmaster.

I played some more. IE7 works fine with the PAC, though I strongly suspect it does not look like a UK ip address. Firefox simply doesn't work at all with the PACs.

[Justin Goldberg]

That's funny, considering that at one point almost every article on the bbc's site about china was about censorship. So much so, that it's chinese readers complained about it!