On Wed, 1 Aug 2018 16:19:09 -0000 (UTC), Arlen Holder wrote:
>
> 1. Freegate (reputed) anti-censorship web proxy
I tried this years ago. At that time I don't like it because when it's
actived, it changes the system proxy setting which is already used for other
proxy. There's no setting to change that behaviour, and other things which
are not preferred. Now it's quite a bit better. Most of the things are
configurable. There are a view things left which I don't like:
- The application EXE file is obfuscated by unknown EXE packer/encrypter, so
it's difficult to know the honesty of the software.
- My firewall detects that it does DNS lookup directly to Google DNS, rather
than using the DNS servers which were configured on the system. I don't use
Google DNS or any standard DNS. I use DNSCrypt.
> 2. Ultrasurf (reputed) privacy security freedom
This is new to me. After testing it, I found out that it's pretty similar to
FreeGate. In general, it's a decent proxy, but it still has disadvantages
similar to what FreeGate has. Some of the notable things:
- Network connections to the remote proxy server (the proxy client) is
handled by two other instances of itself, instead of just the main instance.
So, there'll be 3 "u.exe" processes. There should be no reason to spawn
another instances of itself to do other tasks unless they're frequently
crash.
- This one is a surprise. The main instance of the application always tries
to download "u.exe" file when the application starts, and use that to spawn
the proxy client processes, instead of existing one which is already in the
computer. Turns out that the downloaded "u.exe" file is actually different
than the "u.exe" of the main application. This different "u.exe" can be used
to efficiently spy users, since it always get updated.
> 3. Polarity (reputed) private surfing
This is also new to me. It's a WebKit-Trident combo web browser. But in
terms of functionality, IMO, it's just a normal web browser without any
clear aim in mind. It doesn't have any built in predefined proxy like Tor
Browser, Brave, and Opera Blink either (which is ready to use).
IMO, Polarity is still not yet ready for daily use. There are actually
several significant problems with it (at least on my Windows 7):
- The portable version won't even run (with useless "Unexpected error" error
message). Only the installer version is runnable.
- It still tries to connect to a server even though the auto update is
disabled, and ad blocking and web filter are already disabled (assuming that
they use an updatable database).
- All browser settings completely fails to be saved.
- The uninstaller also completely fails to to do its job. I have to manually
delete the folders and files, including the software uninstall entry on
application list of the Programs and Features control panel.