Image courtesy of questionmarc.wordpress.com

SMARTBRO PHILIPPINES USERS ONLY — If you’re a Smartbro user, you may often be frustrated at how slow your browsing speed is. By slowdowns, we mean a tolerable 30kbps to a tricklish 1 kbps. That’s right, there are times when Smartbro reaches a crawling thousand bytes per second only. While proxies don’t necessarily speed up your traffic or magically boost your bandwidth, they definitely help reduce the time it takes to load a web page or an internet resource.

So basically, what does a proxy do?

Proxy diagram courtesy of www.computerrepairmaintenance.com

[A proxy is ] an intermediate server that sits between the client and the origin server. It accepts requests from clients, transmits those requests on to the origin server, and then returns the response from the origin server to the client. If several clients request the same content, the proxy can deliver that content from its cache, rather than requesting it from the origin server each time, thereby reducing response time.

http://www.php-editors.com/apache_manual/glossary.html

So basically, a proxy is a web server which mediates between the client (you) and the target web server (the site you are requesting). Often times, your own connection to the target server is slowed down by unnecessary traffic coming from other users connecting via the same route. A proxy can help by acting as a gateway or alternate route, which you can use to connect to your target. Lots of times, proxies offer a faster access time than your ISP’s default.

Working proxies for Smartbro

The following proxy servers are reportedly working for Smartbro users, and there are claims that they indeed help speed up browsing (I can attest to the first one!):

• proxy.smartwifi.com.ph (port 8080)
• proxy.smartbro.net (port 8080)
• proxy.meridian.ph

Configuring your proxy

It’s pretty easy to configure your proxy, and would take an average ‘net junkie roughly 5 minutes to finish.

On Firefox,

1. Select Tools from the menu, then Options…
2. On the main selection tab, select Advanced, and then Network on the secondary tab
3. Select Settings… under Connection
4. Choose Manual Proxy Configuration
5. Enter the proxy you have chosen on the HTTP Proxy box, and check Use this proxy server for all protocol, and enter port 8080 on the Port box
   

   Firefox Proxy Configuration Window

6. Hit OK, and restart Firefox.
7. All done! You should now hopefully experience 35-70% faster browsing speed.

On Internet Explorer,

1. Select Tools from the menu and choose Internet Options
2. Select Connections from the tabs list
3. Click LAN Settings
4. Check Use a proxy server for your LAN, and enter your selected proxy on the Address box; enter 8080 on the Port box
5. Check Bypass proxy server for local addresses
   

   Internet Explorer Proxy Configuration Window

6. Hit OK, and restart Internet Explorer
7. All done!

How to revert?

In case something goes wrong and you need to revert, you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to get back to your default settings.

On Firefox, follow steps 1 to 3. Select No Proxy.

On Internet Explorer, follow steps 1 to 3. Uncheck Use a proxy server for your LAN.