Choosing default proxy. A4Proxy offers you a lot of proxies and you can pick any one of them by right-clicking on it and selecting “Set As Default” on the context menu that will appear. The option “Use a new proxy on each request” (Proxy Options tab) must be disabled for this to work. See also: Details on proxy rotation.
Using Favorites. The Favorites list is intended for situations where you often switch between proxy servers manually. For example, you have a fast server which is blocked by some websites, and a server which is not blocked but slow. You can add both of them into favorites, and then you will be able to switch between them very easily, using the local menu of the tray icon. Usually you add only a few proxies to the favorites list.
Direct Connection. When A4Proxy is in the Direct Connection mode (Options menu), all options on the Proxy Options tab are grayed out. In this mode proxy servers are not in use and you are not anonymous, as A4Proxy connects to the sites directly and anonymous proxy servers are bypassed. You should un-select the Direct Connection option in A4Proxy Options menu. Also note how the tray icon changes to indicate the current mode.
Default or Rotate. Whether it is better to use a single default proxy or enable one of the rotation options, e.g. “use a new proxy on each request”, depends on the particular situation. For ordinary surfing it is usually better to use rotatin along with limiting the number of proxies which are rotated (“Use 10 proxies from 0 position”). You should check proxies from time to time and sort them by speed, so that the fastest are at the top (click on the “Response Time” column header; the smaller the numbers, the faster the proxy).
However, sometimes it may be more convenient to select one particular proxy and use it all the time. In this case, choose the fastest. You can also find the fastest proxy for a particular website (using the Check URL feature) and use that as the default proxy, e.g. if you are planning to download a large file from this particular website. Also, sometimes you may need to use a proxy located in a particular country; in this case you can also select a single proxy and use it as default. See also: Details on proxy rotation.
All options on the Proxy Options tab are disabled (grayed out). It means that A4Proxy is in the Direct Connection mode. In this mode proxy servers are not in use and you are not anonymous, as A4Proxy connects to the sites directly and anonymous proxy servers are bypassed. You should un-select the Direct Connection option in A4Proxy Options menu. Also note how the tray icon changes to indicate the current mode.
How to select a group of proxies to check/delete them all in one go. For example, how to select all bad proxies so that you can delete all of them? Here’s the procedure:
1. Sort all proxies by their status by clicking on the column header with a green dot (second from the left). Alternatively, you can click the column header for the column “Bad Response” (all bad proxies have an X in this column and all others have nothing). This operation will group all bad proxies together.
2. Click on the first bad proxy in the range.
3. Scroll the list with your mouse (not with cursor keys) until you see the last bad proxy in the range. Now press down the SHIFT key on your keyboard and click that last proxy with your mouse. Release the SHIFT key. All proxies between the first and the last are now highlighted, and you can check them again or delete them or do anything else by clicking the right mouse button and selecting the command you want from the context menu.
If you want to select several non-adjacent proxies, you can use the CTRL key. Press it down and click a proxy; it will become highlighted. Release the CTRL key. Scroll the list and click another, again with the CTRL key pressed; the other proxy will be highlighted too, now you have two selected proxies. Repeat this and you will be able to select any number of proxies. If you want to group them together, you can click the MoveToTop or MoveToBottom buttons located on the right of the list (small buttons with triangular arrows). If you want to un-select a proxy, click it again with the CTRL key pressed.
All these operations are typical of most Windows programs which have similar lists of information. E.g., if you use MS Excel, or any other spreadsheet software, the CTRL and SHIFT keys will work in the same way there too.
You can click on any of the column headers in the proxy table and as the result sort the proxy table by the corresponding parameter, e.g. FTP or HTTPS support. Then you can select and manipulate them as described above.