Faster web browsing with TCP/IP Proxy Tunnels

Web proxying is the most popular use of Mailtraq apart from email handling. It allows several machines in the local network to share a single Internet connection for web browsing. However there are two ways of setting it up, which make a big difference to how fast the web browsing goes.

Which method you use depends on a number of issues, including your ISP.

The first method is to set up an HTTP Proxy service in Mailtraq:

Under Options | Services, click Add and choose the 'HyperText Transport Protocol'.

In the dialog, check the 'Provide HTTP Proxy Service', and uncheck the 'WWW Server' and 'Web Administration Service' checkboxes.

Make a note of the Port the service will be running on - for this usage it's conventional to run it on 8080.

This method gives you full logging and content control over what is being browsed, but this control tends to slow things down. If you're connecting over a modem, and several people are browsing at once, the inherent bandwidth limitation of the connection means this isn't an issue, but if its a fast connection, and there aren't many simultaneous users then you might want to consider the second method:

The second method is to use a TCP/IP Proxy Tunnel:

This needs a proxy service to be available from your ISP, so it isn't open to everyone. Demon Internet in the UK provide such a service, and we'll use them in the example below, but they aren't the only ones:

Under Options | Services, click Add and choose the 'TCP/IP Proxy Tunnel'.

Set the Port the service will be running on - for this usage it's conventional to run it on 8080.

On the Proxy tab, set the remote host to:
   www-cache.demon.co.uk
and the port to:
   8080

For both methods, client machines are set up to use a web proxy, on the Mailtraq machine, on port 8080. If you are using the TCP/IP proxy tunnel method, you can set the browser to 'Use HTTP 1.1 through a proxy' (found in the Advanced settings tab in the Internet Options dialog in Internet Explorer), which will speed
things up even more.