Using different LANs/proxies without manual editing of browser settings?

Anybody know how to do this - I have my browsers configured to use UTV's caching proxy server while connecting from home. However when I use another LAN (e.g. work) which is not connected to UTV broadband then that proxy no longer works. Up to now I've been manually changing the relevant setting (e.g. configuring a different proxy or a direct internet connection) as required and then changing it back when I connected at home but that's a pain. Is there any easy way (without using proxy server configuration URLs etc.) to have this happen automatically? I doubt it but maybe somebody else knows? Thanks.

As youre a fan of firefox, you may appreciate the [broken link removed] addon, ok, you still need to change the proxy, but once youve got your prxies configured, its only 2 clicks on the menu bar as opposed to a full url change which is a pain. Ive been using switchproxy for some months and find it a nice tool.

car said:

As youre a fan of firefox, you may appreciate the [broken link removed] addon, ok, you still need to change the proxy, but once youve got your prxies configured, its only 2 clicks on the menu bar as opposed to a full url change which is a pain. Ive been using switchproxy for some months and find it a nice tool.

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Hi car - only saw your reply now. Thanks for the tip. I will try that extension out since I am indeed using FireFox.

Using a proxy server in an ISP situation doesn't add a whole lot of benefit in my view. It *might* be beneficial where the far end service you are using is down a slow link and you can benefit from accessing a cached version of it form your ISPs proxy server, but these days almost everything is down the end of a fast link, and if it is down a slow link then what are the chances of someone else on UTV accessing the same resource recently enough to have it remain in the cache.

A possible benefit might relate to hiding the browser/clients address & other details from the far end, but at the cost of presenting this information to the ISPs proxy along with all your other browsing patterns.

z

zag said:

Using a proxy server in an ISP situation doesn't add a whole lot of benefit in my view. It *might* be beneficial where the far end service you are using is down a slow link and you can benefit from accessing a cached version of it form your ISPs proxy server, but these days almost everything is down the end of a fast link, and if it is down a slow link then what are the chances of someone else on UTV accessing the same resource recently enough to have it remain in the cache.

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In my experience using a caching proxy can significantly speed up access usually with no impact in terms of inadvertently getting out of date information (especially if the site constructors code their HTML and meta tags carefully to control caching appropriately). With many sites now plugin and graphics heavy but often with only small text based portions of pages actually changing on a regular basis using a caching proxy means that all the unchanging fluff (graphics, Flash content, Java applets scripting etc.) can be downloaded from the proxy (if not already cached at the browser) and only the mutable text content downloaded from the target site. That's the theory but my experience in practice also backs it up. Where I have the choice and all other things being equal (e.g. not worrying about security issues such as data being eavesdropped at the proxy etc.) I would always choose a proxy based connection over a direct connection.