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The author defines Proxomitron a "universal web filter" - which it is. The problem is... well, here, a brief philosophical excursion is in order. What Proxomitron does, in essence, is, it sits between your browser and the Web like a proxy, and then modifies on-the-fly the HTTP requests sent by your browser to the servers on the World Wide Wait and, conversely, the information sent back by the Web servers to your browser. So, in principle, as an idea, Proxomitron is great. And maybe it eventually will be great, someday. It allows you to receive all web pages modified at your will, enabling you, for example, to strip them of any cumbersome graphic banners before they even reach your browser, thus speeding up things quite a bit (a nice idea; on the other hand, I can't help thinking that this wouldn't be an issue if the average web page wasn't crammed with blinky-flashy-spammy banners in the first place). This is done by the so-called Proxomitron web filters which, to put it simply, essentially perform an on-the-fly search-and-replace on all web pages you visit. The problem is, these web filters (I'm not talking about the Header filters, which are, on the contrary, very useful) are just static pieces of code whereas web surfing is by its very definition dynamic and unpredictable. You surf the Web precisely for the reason that you don't know how the next page will look or what information it will contain. How could you dream, then, to design filters able to cope with this intrinsic unpredictability of the Web? The answer is, you can't. Which is excellently demonstrated by Proxomitron itself and by the fact that its web filters never do what they are supposed to. Or, to be more specific, they do exactly what they are supposed to: it's the Web that never does so. Webmasters simply don't always follow the standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium. So my experience with Proxomitron so far has been rather frustrating: just when you disable graphics, for example, you surf to a web site that relies heavily on graphical information; then you disable javascript popups, and the next thing you know is, you stumble upon a site that uses javascript popups for menus or other essential stuff; so you end up continually enabling Proxomitron and bypassing it and enabling it again, until you disable all the fancy filters and only keep the filter that cuts out ad-oriented servers, such as the good ole ad.doubleclick.com. The irony is, this filter is not even a real filter - it is only an implementation of the famous hosts file (the file that lists all the sites your browser should bypass). Well, even as an implementation, it's not one of the best (in fact, Webcelerator does a better job, at least for me). To conclude: why do I keep Proxomitron on my system, then? Well, actually, mainly for its Log window feature which displays all headers and other information exchanged by your browser and the particular Web server, and for the fact that for Proxomitron there are a bunch of third-party filters and extensive, regularly updated hosts lists available, which is not the case with Webcelerator and other corporate software. And, yes; I still have a faint hope that someday, maybe soon, better Proxomitron filters may be developed. I can't help thinking that the idea behind Proxomitron is, as such, a genial idea.
Software Review - Pros
A witty help file that is sheer pleasure to read. And definitely the Log window feature, allowing you to monitor and debug all HTTP data (even headers) exchanged between your browser and the various web servers. Great for debugging your proxy configuration, HTTP mail etc.
Software Review - Cons
I would put it this way: Proxomitron is an excellent, bug-free software package - with really lousy filters. As yet.
Sadly enough, the author has stopped supporting this baby as of June 2003.
User Report - Tips, Tricks and Tweaks
General
Do keep the number of enabled filters to a minimum. Their benefits generally wane in comparison to the possible problems, delays, and forced page reloads that await you. Or, better still: if you got the nerve and the knowledge, write your own Proxomitron filters. Or - best option, given that there's probably no such thing as a perfect filter, nor will there ever be - design a simpler way (a keyboard shortcut?) to temporarily bypass Proxomitron. The one filter I would heartily recommend though, is the Kill selected URL filter, which is, in fact, a header filter, and not a web filter at all. It is rather more comprehensive than the corresponding Webcelerator feature and - if combined with the graphics (ad-banner) killer filter - much more selective and refined, giving you better control over what gets displayed and what not and, consequently, enabling you to surf a bit faster. The only other filter you could probably keep active at all times is the Flash animation killer. Finally, as a humble suggestion: I am sure there is a filter almost everyone would like to have and which alone would probably make Proxomitron worth installing: a filter that would go through all the links on a loaded page one by one and mark the unavailable/unreachable ones (404 errors etc.) with a special color or in some other way. So, filter writers, take yer javascript and off to work!... ;)
