Re: Annoying loop situation

[Scott Bennett <bennett@xxxxxxxxxx>]

     On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 20:16:39 -0400 Roger Dingledine <arma@xxxxxxx>
wrote:
>On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 10:33:07PM +0100, Bob Williams wrote:
>> > You probably want to disable torbutton and configure your non-tor proxy.
>> >  Then when you click to enable torbutton, your tor settings are enabled.
>> >  When you disable torbutton, your privoxy configuration is still intact.
>> 
>> Well, that's the odd thing. I start with torbutton disabled (red message on 
>> the Firefox status bar). I then go to Firefox > Edit > Preferences > Network > 
>> Settings and select Manual Proxy Configuration. (I notice that it tells me to 
>> Disable Torbutton to change these settings, but it's already disabled). I 
>> select 127.0.0.1 port 8118 for http and ssl, and port 9050 for socks. When I 
>> click OK, Torbutton becomes enabled :(
>
>That's because Torbutton watches your proxy settings and tries to make
>sure that whatever status it's displaying matches your current proxy
>settings.
>
>That is, if anything ever changes your proxy settings so your Firefox
>is now configured to use the settings that Torbutton would use when you
>click 'enable', then Torbutton will change status to show you that your
>proxy settings are pointing to Tor.
>
>It looks like you're using Torbutton to point to Privoxy, but you're
>using Privoxy directly rather than pointing it into Tor. That's fine
>(as long as you know what you're doing), but Torbutton can't tell the
>difference.
>
>Hm. Back in the day when Torbutton was just a proxy toggler, it made a lot
>of sense to have Torbutton update its status to reflect what your proxy
>settings 'really' are. But now that Torbutton does all sorts of other
>application-level things, it is plausible that you might want to have
>your proxy settings set up in a way that looks identical to Tor, yet you
>don't want the other application-level protections that Torbutton adds.
>
>But then, isn't this a really special case? For example, if you run your
>Privoxy on a different port, then you won't confuse Torbutton.
>
     Bob might try adding another plug-in to firefox, say, switchproxy or
foxyproxy.  (I think there's at least one other around, too, but I don't
recall its name.)  Having another plug-in that is really dedicated just to
choosing which proxy configuration should be active at the moment might
help him get around some of the problem.  These plug-ins also allow the
user to set up a variety of proxies/proxy configurations to choose from
while using firefox.


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
**********************************************************************
* Internet:       bennett at cs.niu.edu                              *
*--------------------------------------------------------------------*
* "A well regulated and disciplined militia, is at all times a good  *
* objection to the introduction of that bane of all free governments *
* -- a standing army."                                               *
*    -- Gov. John Hancock, New York Journal, 28 January 1790         *
**********************************************************************