The Un-Official Proxomitron Forum

Gang;

You all know that I drill down into Shell Extension City every day. Too many gems are unearthed by that site that I think are appropriate for our mindset, so I'm gonna repeat them here from time to time, as I find them.

A few days ago, I posted a link to a Firewall FAQ in another thread started by Ralph. I'm gonna throw out three more links here, and if you wanna discuss them, or others you've found, I humbly suggest that you start a new topic with an appropriate subject line. Replying here might not be easy for some folks to remember where they saw "that special comment" about Product X.

Remember, everything that you find at Shell Extension City is either freeware, or sometimes shareware.

Delltalk TWEEKZ - This turned out to be a page full of small utilities. What I was searching for was an Index.Dat cleaner. This one appeals to me, so I'm passing it on to you. The proggie's name is iecache2.js, and is a little over halfway down the page. But check out his other stuff, some of it looks interesting.

Lock Jar - This is one of several utilities too, but the rest of this author's stuff is game oriented, so I didn't check it out. (YMMV. [rolleyes]) Lock Jar is a cookie control app with a friendly GUI. If you aren't using one now, this might change your mind - it did mine. [lol]

Regular Expressions Coach - OK, this has gotta be one of my favorite reference works. Yes, it is aimed at the PERL world, but everything said here applies to Proxo's regexp too, as well as javascript (you did know that js does regexp, right?). Plus, it's got an semi-interactive debugger (you can single-step through the parsing process); nice to not have to try your code in your app, just test it right in the Coach. Lots of other good things to say, but go check it out for yourselves.

OK, that wraps it up for today. Now to get back to the HoneyDo list, before she realizes that I've been screwing around on the computer instead of working!


Oddysey

Quote: Lock Jar is a cookie control app with a friendly GUI. If you aren't using one now, this might change your mind - it did mine. laugh.gif 

Since most, if not all, of us are already using Proxomitron, why do we need another cookie control app?

Siamesecat;

Quote:

Quote:Lock Jar is a cookie control app with a friendly GUI. If you aren't using one now, this might change your mind - it did mine.  [lol]

Since most, if not all, of us are already using Proxomitron, why do we need another cookie control app?

Well, it's like this: No matter how complicated your filters become, without a lot of headaches and loss of sleep, you won't be able to control, let alone even find out about, your true cookie situation. You won't know which cookies are coming from where, nor even how (via HTML, javascript, php code, etc.). With LockJar, I get an alert that says such-and-such a site is trying to store a cookie, and it's being initiated by Method X. If I've previously said "accept all temporary cookies", then I don't see this, that's par for the course. But what if I only want to accept temp cookies from certain sites, and not from any others? Proxo can't do this easily, at least not in my opinion.

For me, Proxo fills a need - it does just what Scott claimed it would do - let me view websites like I want to see them, not as their authors want me to see them. After that, all bets are off. Scott made no promises that Proxomitron will do anything else; it all just happens to fall under Providence, and we have to take it as it is, love it or not.

That said, the Proxo community has done some very amazing things, there's no question about that. But when someone has already written a proggie to do a specific thing, and it performs flawlessly, then why try to bend another proggie (Proxo) to do that same thing? That's my line of reasoning, simple enough.

So here's my offer to you: Show me a filter set that can do what LockJar (or others) can do, with approximately the same interface, and I'll gladly go for it. Got one in mind that I don't know about? Make no mistake, this isn't a snide remark - another tenet I try to live by is run as few proggies as possible in the background. If I can depend on Proxo, which is already running, to do what LockJar does, then I wouldn't have to run the two of 'em, only the one that does everything I need to have done.

But you're correct, I don't consider myself a good enough programmer to want to invest the time and effort to make up such a filter set, so I ask you, one and all - enlighten me!


Oddysey

Quote: You won't know which cookies are coming from where, nor even how (via HTML, javascript, php code, etc.). With LockJar, I get an alert that says such-and-such a site is trying to store a cookie, and it's being initiated by Method X. If I've previously said "accept all temporary cookies", then I don't see this, that's par for the course. But what if I only want to accept temp cookies from certain sites, and not from any others? Proxo can't do this easily, at least not in my opinion. 

I have one site which I allow to set cookies with Javascript, so I have its host name (but not the name of the allow-cookie list) in the URL match line of the JS cookie filter. I make no exceptions to turning JS cookies into session cookies. I use the cookie list with the header filters, both incoming and outgoing. I also make only 3 exceptions to converting those to session cookies. I know pretty well from that how cookies are being set (enough for my purposes). I also use the filter that filters cookies by content, for headers, both incoming and outgoing.
I have a browser with a built-in cookie viewer which will show me not only persistent cookies, but also session cookies. I'm happy with that setup. Even if the odd unexpected cookie gets in, it does not get out.

I guess I'm with "cat"...

Why run TWO programs to perform ONE task - ie, block cookies?
Proxo blocks them flawlessly...

I d/l'd LockJar for the curiosity of it - a curiosity that was quenched in two minutes... I uninstalled it already...

For one, my Proxo config only allows three cookies...
Okay, two... plus all ht_tps:// cookies...
The vast majority of "needed" cookies are NOT needed - they can actually be "faked" with Proxo...


LockJar? I just don't get it... Should be called LockJaw...

I'd like to turn the table - prove to me why LockJar is worthy of running in the background to perform what Proxo is already doing... Because I ran it, surfed a ton with it, saw absolutely nothing - not even on the two sites that I allow cookies...

I had Cookie Wall installed by Analog X but unloaded it since it seemed unnecessary with Proxo using Sidki's cfg plus JakxIV .

S'cat;

I hadn't even considered the part about a browser with a built-in cookie viewer and controller. Not bad, if everything else is to your liking. I might consider that some day, just not at this time.


All;

Yes, I suppose one could operate in the blind, but I like to see what I'm being bombarded with. Maybe I'll get tired of it, and go back to just letting Proxo do it's generic job.

I dunno, maybe it was the interface that dazzled me for a moment - call it OldTimer's disease, OK? :o


Oddysey