FuckProxy vs IIITLANBrowser

Just now got a scrap on orkut from Ankur Khare thanking me for FuckProxy. I am always delighted to hear such compliments. But I noticed he was using it from his home. I was surprised how could FP work from outside campus as I had specifically disabled it for requests from outside IIIT on Monga's request. Actually it has a bug and it works from everywhere. Need to fix that.

FP is not meant to be used from outside. If you are outside, use IIITLANBrowser. It provides a login mechanism so that only IIITians can use it. Also, FuckProxy url redirect mechanism is set for inside campus. I guess people manually change urls to view pages through FP. Why to take that pain when you have an option?

Welcome to the launch of IIIT LAN Browser 1.0 and FuckProxy 0.2

So all my readers( thats only me, I guess :P But isn't this blog meant for me only?) , I did some good work in this winter vacation. I released FuckProxy 0.2, the upgrade for the old 0.1 and made a new firefox extension IIIT LAN Browser. See my post here that kind of advertises it :D

This is the change log for FuckProxy 0.2:
1. Fixed a few bugs.
2. Added better support for ftp.
3. Added auto-update feaure.
4. Changed the position of FP Button as the previous position was interfering with the toolbars of delicious,etc.
5. Now typing "http" in the address bar is not a compulsion.

IIIT LAN Browser is an extension for the LAN Browser CGI proxy I had earlier. It provides the same functionality but much more easier to use now. Apart from that its much much more robust. The earlier version used to throw errors on half of the sites because of bad parsing. But this one does not parses at all. It directly uses the DOM Tree generated by firefox! So no problem at all. I guess no CGI proxy in world would have as robust parsing as this one.(Well if I dont't parse at all and use Firefox's work, then obviously it will be robust :P ).
I also added login functionality so that only iiitians can use it. You need to enter your 200 login and password to use it. Have fun...

PS: I have been always saying "PHP sucks, Python rocks". But looks like its not so true. However good python may be, but when it comes to making sites, PHP has the greatest no. of functionalities available. Python does not even have basic Session support!

FuckProxy Update

FuckProxy has been updated to work with latest firefox version 2.0.0.1.
I have kept the old version number, so in order to install it, please uninstall the previous version first.
I am thinking of enabling the auto-update option so that firefox automatically looks for updates as it does for other extensions. But that will take time.
Also FuckProxy has been disabled for requests that are from outside IIIT intranet. This has been done to prevent possible misuse of IIIT resources.

Enjoy!!

FuckProxy project now has a comment page

I added this beautiful comment page for the FuckProxy Project. Please feel free to post your comments, suggestions, bugs there. Your comments are valuable to me.

Technorati: FuckProxy

FuckProxy fucking my exam...

Well.. my endsems are getting fucked coz of this FuckProxy project. I am wasting all my time on it instead of reading for the exams. Or may be its the other way around, I am working on it coz I don't want to read the stupid books. Whatever... the point is that my endsems are getting fucked.

Technorati: FuckProxy

TODO list for the FuckProxy Project

This is my current TODO list for the FuckProxy project:-

1. relative urls starting with / in css scripts not working correctly. e.g. google image . Needs to be corrected.
2. Need to put FP button in url hbox. Define size etc. for it. make a good image. make a transparent image.
3. Give options for whether user want the FP button on tool bar.
4. Add "view this page without fp" and "view link target without fp" to right click context menu.
5. squirrel mail not working. Don't know why. something has to be done.

Exams are on. No time...

Technorati: FuckProxy

Bad News for the FuckProxy Project

Well... it seems like IIIT Network is coming back to normal. That means my whole week effort on this FuckProxy Project is going to be waste. No users for this project now :(

Anyways, its good that network will be back. Slow speed is making our lives hell. I learned quite a lot while working on this project. Will continue this project if network is not back in time.

Technorati: FuckProxy, iiit, network

Now FuckProxy comes with a cool toolbar button!

Yes. I added a "FuckProxy Go" toolbar button just after the go button. This button will take you to the typed url through FuckProxy.
Had to spend 6 hours on it. Wasted my whole night. I am saying wasted because, just in 3 hours I have my endsem exam. And I haven't even started reading. Spent all time for a stupid FuckProxy Button.

Technorati: FuckProxy, iiit, internet

FuckProxy 0.1 Beta is released again!!

Yeah... This time FuckProxy is a firefox extension and not a greasemonkey script. So easier installation and easy to use!
So what are you waiting for? Get FuckProxy.
For those who don't know what is FuckProxy project, here is a brief description:-
Most of the time IIIT's proxy(204) goes down even when the ISP link is perfect. In such cases internet can be accessed using 200. FuckProxy firefox extension lets you do that by using 200 as a CGI Proxy.
Adds a "View this page with FuckProxy" or "Open Link Target with FuckProxy" option to your Firefox right-click menu, depending on where you click. Also adds a "View with FuckProxy" Button for the address bar.

There is one more good news:-
I have succeeded in my search for a IIIT system that connects to net without proxy. I am testing it for speed and then I will include it in my project.
Enjoy!!

Technorati: cgi, FuckProxy, iiit, internet

Finally FuckProxy 0.1 Beta is released!

I have been saying in the last 3-4 posts that FuckProxy is almost complete. Well now it is fully complete and I have formally released FuckProxy 0.1 Beta.
For more on "why and what of FuckProxy?", visit my previous post.

I found that most of the time IIIT's proxy(204) goes down even when the ISP link is perfect. In such cases internet can be accessed using 200. This Greasemonkey(what is Greasemonkey) script lets u do that by using 200 as a CGI Proxy.

How to install?

1. Install Firefox (If you don't have it)
2. Install Greasemonkey Firefox Extension (If you don't have it, and restart Firefox)
3. Install FuckProxy

Thats it. Now whenever 204 is down, click on Tools->Greasemonkey->User Script Commands->Enable FuckProxy. And start browsing!
[Note : When you install FuckProxy for the first time, remember to refresh any one of the page. Or open a new tab and type some url.]

If you want to stop using FuckProxy then click on Tools->Greasemonkey->User Script Commands->Disable FuckProxy.

Have Fun!!

PS: Then name FuckProxy was coined by my friend Bharat Joshi. Thanks to him for providing me with such a creative name.

Technorati: cgi, FuckProxy, iiit, internet

One Alternative down

Out of the two alternatives that I came out with in my last post, the second one is down.
I searched for ways to how to change the url just before it is fetched. But could not find satisfying solutions.
But the first option is still alive. In fact, I got a few promising solutions. This site lists a few http proxy servers that have been made in python that do not need superuser privileges. The one that I downloaded requires python 2.4 and our 200 is still in the old age of 2.3. So I will have to select some other one. Lets see...
And yes FuckProxy is on its way. Its almost complete.

Technorati: bakwas, FuckProxy, http, iiit, internet, python

Alternatives to FuckProxy

My mind travels faster than speed of light. FuckProxy is not even complete and I have already thought of two more approaches to tackle this same problem. And did I mention that the FuckProxy project is my 6th approach for creating a proxy. Well... none of them was perfect and so I keep trying newer and newer approaches. FuckProxy is a totally new approach that uses greasemonkey. And its almost over. Beta version is just coming.
Well... now the alternatives:-

1. I heard newer versions of python have some built-in library for creating proxy servers. I could run such a proxy server on 200 and bingo nothing else needs to be done. This is not the proxy that I have been making for so long. This one is not like anonymous proxy, but exactly like the 204 proxy using port 8080. The only possible glitch could be the requirement of superuser privileges. I have not seen yet whether it needs super user privileges or not.

2. I could make a firefox extension that changes each url just before it is fetched. This will be very easy if I could find how to do it. No more parsing the page source or DOM.

I have also thought to improve FuckProxy. I could install my proxy cgi scripts, that is presently on 200, on several other iiit systems that have direct access to internet and my greasemonkey script could use all of them at random to balance the load, enhancing the user experience!

Technorati: cgi, FuckProxy, bakwas, iiit, internet

FuckProxy Project is coming out fine

The FuckProxy project is coming out fine. Its almost over.
Its actually a combination of python cgi + greasemonkey script that lets IIITians to browse net even when 204 is down.
What and why?
Recently, IIIT Hyderabad appointed stupid system administrators which are unable to manage IIIT's servers properly. It has been observed that 204 (our proxy), goes down frequently even when the ISP link is perfect. So I thought why not create a proxy on our 200 that would allow users to browse net even when 204 is down. Note that 200 connects without proxy(204). So one could easily browse net using 200!
But there is still a problem. 200 itself is so slow that it delivers mail late by 1-2 days sometimes. So, my FuckProxy script gets extremely slow. So, I am searching for some other system in IIIT that connects without 204 and is not slow. Then I will use that machine for my FuckProxy script.

Another idea that is striking my mind right now is:-
IIITs net connection has gone extremely slow. Again thanks to the stupid sysadmins. I think that if this problem is due to misconfigurations with the proxy server and not due to the ISP link being slow, then I could use my FuckProxy script with some decent IIIT system that connects without proxy to provide better speed!! It would be so good. But first I have to search for such a decent machine. Lets see...

Technorati: FuckProxy, iiit, internet