Start AdCruncher™ by simply double-clicking on the .exe file. The first thing you should see is an empty window with some menus and a toolbar. Click on the "New" toolbar icon (or select "New" from the "File" menu) and a property sheet dialog box with four tabs should appear. This is where you define the properties of the proxy you're about to create. (Don't worry, it's simple.)
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Proxy Properties
- Settings tab...
The first tab labeled Settings is the most important. This is where you actually define the proxy.
In the "Name" and "Description" fields just enter whatever values you want. These fields are just the means by which the program identifies one proxy from another (since you can, if so desired, run multiple proxies at the same time, although they each have to be on a different port).
- Options tab...
On the "Options" tab there are two sections: "Proxy Options" and "Timeout settings". The proxy options section contains four checkbox items: "Auto-start this proxy", "Pipeline requests to HTTP/1.1 servers", "Enable 'Referer' filtering" and "Enable transparent proxying."
- Misc tab...
On the "Misc" tab, there are two sections: "Statistics" and "Acceptable Clients (allowed to connect)". Don't worry about the "Statistics" settings right now; they're not that important. We're mostly concerned with the "Acceptable Clients" section:
This is where you enter the IP address(es) of the client browser(s) you wish to allow to 'connect to' (i.e. use) AdCruncher™ Proxy.
When you click on the "Add" button, an "Allowable Client(s)" dialog box appears where you can enter your desired IP address range or IP address address and subnet mask value:
Simply fill in the dialog box with the desired values and click the 'OK' button to enter it into the list. Enter as many entries as needed to cover all of the clients you wish to allow to use your proxy.
In the "Accept client connections from" fields, enter the name of the computer (or IP-address of the network adapter) where the browser requests will be coming from (usually "localhost"), and the same port number you plan to configure your client browser to use. (usually 8080, but, if you plan on enabling the "Transparent Proxying" feature, then you must use port 8080.)
Leave the "Connect to servers" option set to "directly" unless you know for sure you actually need to use the "Proxy Chaining" feature. (For details regarding the "Proxy Chaining" feature, see the "Miscellaneous" web page)
The "Auto-start this proxy" option, as the name implies, will cause AdCruncher™ to automatically open and start this proxy whenever it runs. Please note, however, that this option does not take effect until you first "Save" the proxy after defining it.
The "Pipeline requests to HTTP/1.1 servers" option will, as the name implies, send each browser request directly to the remote server without first waiting for a response from the previous request. If this checkbox is cleared, then AdCruncher™ will wait for the response to come back from a previous request before sending the next one. It is recommended you keep this option enabled (checked) as is seems to provide the best overall performance when communicating with HTTP/1.1 servers.
The "Enable 'Referer' filtering" option will cause all HTTP "Referer:" headers to be removed from the request that gets sent to the remote server. (See the "Referer" section above for more information on why this may or may not be inportant to you.)
The "Enable transparent proxying" option can only be used when the transparent proxying feature is installed. Once the transparent proxying feature has been installed, selecting this option will enable the proxy to use it.
IMPORTANT: See the special instructions in the "Installation" section on how to install and uninstall this feature if you plan on using it. If you enable this option, it is up to you to make sure the proxy is configured to use port 8080.
The transparent proxying feature is currently hard-coded to always go through a proxy at port 8080, and if there is no proxy running on that port, it won't work! Future versions will allow you to specify whichever port you wish, but the initial release of this feature requires the transparent proxy to be on port 8080.
In the "Timeout settings" section you can specify a default timeout value (in seconds) for both requests and responses. This option is designed to compensate for those situations where the web page you're trying to access is on a slow server and takes longer than the normal amount of time to load. For most people you can leave these settings at their default value.
Once you have finished configuring all of your proxy's properties, then simply click on the "Proxy Properties" dialog box's "OK" button to start the proxy. When the proxy starts, a child window should appear within the main window with the name and description of the proxy you just defined. Within this window, the proxy will display a 'tree' view of its progress as it runs. Right now all you should see is a little blue icon with a white "i" inside it beside the name of the proxy you just defined. This simply indicates the proxy is active (running).When you eventually begin accessing web pages with your browser you'll see other tree items appear beneath this item indicating what the proxy is doing. It's not really important to know what those tree items mean right now. Suffice to say that when they do eventually appear, they simply mean your proxy is working and accessing the files that your browser is requesting.
But before that can happen, you'll probably need to configure your browser to actually use AdCruncher™ Proxy (unless you're using the Transparent Proxying feature of course, in which case you don't need to configure your browser at all). Refer to the "Configuring the browser" section further below for information on how to configure your browser to use a proxy if you're not going to be using the Transparent Proxying feature.
- Settings tab...
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Program Options
Selecting "Program Options" from the "File" menu brings up a Program Options dialog where you can set various options related to the program itself and not to a specific proxy. The dialog only has one tab labeled "Options" which contains two sections: "General" and "Autostart list":
The "General" section only contains two options: "Startup minimized to system tray" and "Enable DNS Caching".
Checking the "Startup minimized to system tray" option will prevent AdCruncher™ from displaying its main window whenever it starts. Instead all you'll see is its icon in the system tray area. Double-clicking the icon in the system tray area will redisplay the main window again, and right-clicking on it will display a menu containing most of the same menu items found in the main window's menus.
The "Enable DNS Caching" option, when checked, causes AdCruncher™ to remember the IP addresses of each web server it accesses so it can quickly reconnect to them whenever needed without having to ask your ISP's name server (DNS server) each time. It should (in theory anyway) help speeds things up, but the gain may not be noticable. It's just that it seemed silly to me to have AdCruncher™ keep asking what a domain's IP address is each time when it just asked that same question a few seconds (or milliseconds!) ago, so I decided to have it "remember" what the answer was so it didn't have to keep asking the same question over and over again. <shrug>
The "Autostart list" section contains a list box with all of the pathnames of all of the proxies which AdCruncher™ should automatically start whenever it itself is started.
Entries are normally automatically added to this list whenever you "Save" a proxy with the "Auto-start this proxy" option checked, but you can manually add new entries to the list by clicking the "Add" button to display an Open dialog from which you can select which proxies you wish to be auto-started.
To remove an entry from the list, select it and then click the "Delete" button. Note however that the preferred way to add or remove entries from the auto-start list is to simply change the proxy's properties so that the "Auto-start this proxy" checkbox is either set (checked) or cleared (unchecked) and then "Save" the proxy. This will automatically add or remove the proxy in question from the auto-start list. Thus, under normal circumstances, you shouldn't ever need to manually add or remove entries from this list via this particular dialog box.
Please note too that when you add a new entry to the list through this "Program Option" dialog, the proxy will be automatically started whenever AdCruncher™ itself is started, regardless of the proxy's "Auto-start" option. If you add a proxy to the list that is not configured for auto-starting (i.e. its "Auto-start this proxy" option is not checked), then when AdCruncher™ automatically starts the proxy, the "Proxy Properties" dialog will end up being displayed*. In order to automatically start the proxy "silently" (i.e. without having the "Proxy Properties" dialog displayed), simply make sure the proxy itself has the "Auto-start this proxy" option checked.
* The "Proxy Properties" dialog will also be displayed if AdCruncher™ detects any errors or discrepancies in the proxy's configuration settings when it tries to auto-start it.
Configuring your browser to use a proxy server (which is what AdCruncher™ is) is really pretty simple.
First off, if you've installed the Transparent Proxying feature, then you don't need to configure your browser at all. (That's the whole purpose of the transparent proxying feature after all!)
If you don't plan on using the Transparent Proxying feature however, then you'll need to manually configure your browser to use a proxy in order for AdCruncher™ to do anything. (Don't worry, it's pretty simple.)
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Internet Explorer 5.x
If you're using Internet Explorer (IE), either right-click on the Internet Explorer icon on the desktop (and select "Properties" from the context menu that appears), OR double-click the "Internet" icon in the control panel, OR select "Internet Options" from Internet Explorer's "View" menu. -- Any of these techniques should bring up the browser configuration dialog box:
Then click on the "Connections" tab to display your connection properties:
On the "Connections" tab there is a section called "Dial-up settings" where a box listing all of your dial-up connections should be listed (although most people would have only one entry listed: the one you use to dial into your ISP with). Next to this box are three buttons labeled: "Add", "Remove" and "Settings." Make sure the entry for your dial-up connection is selected in the list box and then click on the "Settings" button. This should bring up another dialog entitled "Xxxx Settings" (where "Xxxx" is the name of your dial-up connection):
In the middle of this dialog box there is a "Proxy Server" section with a checkbox labeled "Use a proxy server". Check that checkbox and then click on the "Advanced" button. This will bring up the "Proxy Settings" dialog where you can enter your proxy's settings:
If AdCruncher™ is running on the same system as your browser (which is the usual case), simply enter "127.0.0.1" into the HTTP protocol field and enter 8080 into the port field. (Note: you only need to configure the "HTTP" protocol and not any of the others. AdCruncher™ only understands HTTP and not any other protocol).
Then simply click the OK button a few times until all dialogs have been dismissed.
IE 5.x should now be set to go through a proxy on port 8080 whenever it needs to access the internet using the HTTP protocol (which is the protocol that a browser uses to access Internet files).
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Netscape Communicator
For Netscape users, the process is very similar. Select "Preferences" from the "Edit" menu. In the dialog box that appears, expand the "Advanced" section and click on the entry for "Proxies".
Select the "Manual Proxy Configuration" option and then click on the "View" button. This will bring up a "Proxy Configuration" dialog box.
In the "Proxy Configuration" dialog box, enter "localhost" (or 127.0.0.1) in the "Address for Proxy Server to Use" field (for only the HTTP protocol). In the "Port" field, enter 8080 (or some other reasonable port number). Click OK and OK again.
Netscape should now be set to go through a proxy on port 8080 whenever it needs to access the internet using the HTTP protocol (which is the protocol that a browser uses to access Internet files).