The full version of A4Proxy is supplied with a big pre-checked proxy database. However, if you want to have more proxies to choose from, you can always add your own lists. There are many websites on the Internet dedicated to proxy servers, you can look for them using a search engine like Google or Altavista: enter something like “anonymous proxy list”, “public proxy” etc and you will have a lot of links. Be prepared, however, that some of the proxies you find will be non-anonymous or non-working. It is important that you check them with A4Proxy for anonymity and speed.
You can add proxies individually, one by one, or process whole lists of them in one go. You can also make A4Proxy download proxy lists directly from websites.
Select “Add Proxies & Proxy Lists” in the File menu in A4Proxy. Now you can import individual proxies manually, import proxy lists from text files, folders, or directly from the web.
Importing proxies manually one by one
Enter the proxy IP/name and port, separated by a colon and click the Add button. The program will check if the proxy actually exists (without testing its anonymity or speed), and if so, it will be added it to the temporary list. Then you can enter another proxy and so on. When you finish, click OK. A4Proxy will check the main database for duplicates and tell you how many have been actually added.
Add Proxy dialogImporting a text file
If you want to add some proxy servers from a file, you must make sure first that the file will be understood by A4Proxy. The requirements are very simple: there should be only one server per line, and each line should contain the name of the proxy and its port in the following style:
proxyaddress1:port
proxyaddress2:port
proxyaddress3:port
…
When you are ready to import your file, select Add File button in the Add Proxy dialog and choose your file in the dialog box that will appear. The location of the file will be added to the Proxy List Location table. Select the newly added entry and then click the Auto-Import Selected button. It may take some time to process a large list, so be patient. When the program finishes testing the proxies, click OK. A4Proxy will check the main database for duplicates and tell you how many have been actually added.
Importing folders with proxy lists
Instead of adding individual files to the Proxy List Location table, you can add a whole folder. A4Proxy will try to import all files it finds there. In order to add a folder to the list, click the Add Folder button, select the folder you want to add, click OK. Select the newly added entry and click the Auto-Import Selected button. A4Proxy will read and import all files from the folder. This is a convenient way to import proxy lists you find on the web. You can download them regularly with any website grabbing tools, putting in the same folder, then periodically importing the whole folder into A4Proxy.
Importing proxy lists directly from the web
Instead of local files or folders, you can make A4Proxy add a web page containing proxies. Click the Add URL button and enter the full URL of the page which lists proxy servers. The URL will be added to the Proxy List Location table. Select the newly added entry and click the Auto-Import Selected button. A4Proxy will connect to the website, download the page and parse it, adding all proxies it finds into the temporary list.
Note that when importing proxy lists from the web, A4Proxy connects to the sites via the default proxy server (or, in the Direct Connection mode, directly). It does not spider the site, just downloads the single page at the URL you specified.
Note that you must always be connected to the Internet when you are adding proxies, even when you add them from local files.