Suggestion: Learn-Mode
Hi,
I've been using FoxyProxy for a while now, but I'm still struggling to find it truly useful. The problem is that I have a number of sites that need to go through proxies, with every other site going over the regular internet, which you'd think would be the primary purpose of FoxyProxy. But this is actually exceedingly difficult to configure.
The problem is that if I want to put any website through a proxy, that website pulls data from 10, 20 or 30 different domains, which all have to be configured. If I'm accessing PayPal through our proxy server (it's part of our PCI compliance that we do all sensitive work through our own VPN proxy), I can't simply configure *.paypal/*, because they also pull from www.****paypal*****.com and several other sites. If I need to access Wells Fargo, they also pull from several other domains. It could be sensitive data, or not, I don't know, but it all needs to go through the proxy. These are the easy ones. Sites like Hulu pull data from dozens of domains. These are a *nightmare* to set up in FoxyProxy.
Yes, you can make a blanket selection of routing ALL URLs before you load that page. But then why use FoxyProxy? The point would be that FoxyProxy knows how to route the entirety of a particular website through a particular proxy.
Right now, the only way is to enable logging, and then painstakingly set up rules for every single domain that was accessed during a page-load. And even so, FoxyProxy doesn't allow you to simply right-click a domain and add it to a proxy. It is utterly manual.
What I suggest is this:
How about a Learn-Mode? You turn on Learn-Mode, access the website in question, disable Learn-Mode, and now FoxyProxy has added all 30 or 40 domains accessed by this site to a single preset in the format of *.domain.com/*.
I feel like FoxyProxy otherwise doesn't really live up to its promise of routing certain sites through certain proxies, because sites are rarely just a single domain. Especially very large sites are split over multiple domains, and sites that do GeoLocation could be doing the IP check on *any* of those sites. So right now, the only assured way to do this is to change to All URLs before switching to a site. But then why have rules at all?
I'd be a lot more productive with FoxyProxy with such a feature.
Best,
Per
Per, Excellent idea. I will
Per,
Excellent idea. I will add a "Learn Mode" as soon as possible. Perhaps also giving the ability to select a bunch of lines in the log and create default patterns for them *.domain.com/* would be useful?
Thanks,
Eric
Hi Eric, Excellent,
Hi Eric,
Excellent, thanks!
Simply adding it to the logging function might be the least intrusive way. Then perhaps it could be an after-the-fact function that does something like "Add domain patterns based on selected log entries" as a right-click function.
The second argument for building it into the logging function is that you would likely want to tweak the entries anyway. For example, a website might load objects from doubleclick.net or somewhere else that it makes no sense to pull through your proxy. Or, you might be standing on Google.com just before you load the website, and when that Google sends some AJAX query, that would also (unintentionally) get learned. So I think it's probably impossible to use a Learn function without having to tweak the results.
Then the workflow would be that you enable Logging, load your website, go back into the log, Select All, right-click and say "Add domain patterns based on selected entries". Then you'd disable logging, and take a look in your domain patterns to see if there's anything that shouldn't be there, i.e. google.com.
One thing that occurred to me is whether you want to be able to control whether the subdomain is included. When I'm adding things to go through a proxy, I'm interested in every single subdomain including WWW. I would *much* rather like to see *.wellsfargo.com/* added, than getting a list of */login.wellsfargo.com/* and */secure.wellsfargo.com/* etc. etc. Since the point is to funnel the entire website through the proxy, I personally feel that the subdomains are irrelevant, and the rule pattern should be created for the entire domain, including all current and future subdomains. For the few people with a specific need of certain subdomains, surely they can edit their patterns after the fact.
Finally, this will cause a lot of patterns to get created, and I'm wondering if it might be prudent to start arranging patterns in folders? Some websites consist of 10 or 20 domains, and the pattern list could become incomprehensible. This would also allow the user to group patterns and enable/disable them in groups.
Best,
Per
Hi Per, I'm two steps ahead
Hi Per,
I'm two steps ahead of you :)
1. I've already implemented it as part of logging (I had the same idea). It's 99% complete. I'm putting this into FoxyProxy Plus for now; I might put it into regular FoxyProxy later.
2. The pattern template is changeable, just like it is for QuickAdd and AutoAdd. So if you want *.domain.com/* but someone else doesn't, he only has to edit the Training Pattern Template.
Folders are a great idea; it's been suggested before, but you are right... now it will be a big deal.
I will post here when I release this.
Eric