LocalProxy overview

LocalProxy (LP) is an intelligent, adaptive, censorship avoiding data switch and proxy for general TCP/IP (and even some UDP) services.

Normally run locally, it allows connections from various clients, often a web browser, and switches it's requests to remote servers (often web servers) using several specified communication strategies ('commStrat's). It preferentially uses the fastest/uncensored of these commStrats via various hosts with appropriate capabilities, to speed/unblock the user's network access. At startup, localProxy 'compiles' firewall rules, service type properties, hosts available (and their capabilities) and the users overriding configuration to produce a built configuration suitable for use in the user's network environment. A pretested database of thousands of proxies is provided for LP to use in this build; the user may add/modify these by use of a personal configuration file.

LP runs internal tests for it's HTTP service (by 'spidering' the web) so that it learns the best commStrats and proxies to use, independently of the user's browsing.

A portable GUI is provided to control the running instance (back-end) of localProxy (whether it is running locally or remotely). The GUI allows the user to see graphics depicting the current running configuration, error statistics etc., to start and stop the back-end, to modify it's operation and to log all data passing through.

Miscellaneous utilities are also available to allow diagnosis, scanning, sorting and categorizing of proxies by capabilities for eventual inclusion into the localProxy database.

LocalProxy ignores content, except to detect HTTP status code errors, detect 'access-denied' pages without the appropriate status code, and to modify URLs (if requested via CommStrat 2) to bypass URL based proxy censoring.

The back-end log screen allows the user to see the current status (speed estimates) of all paths (and sockets) tried.

LocalProxy gives the user several benefits:
To gain these benefits, the user must make some sacrifices: