Q: I would like to set a specific IP address to be sent to websites as I surf. I have read through the documentation and have modified the variables in the “Browser Options” to include the details mentioned, but upon testing (on my web page, viewing the IP) I always seem to be broadcasting the Proxy server’s IP, not the one that I put in the Browser Options.
A: Websites can detect the IP addresses of the people who visit them in two ways. First of all, websites can analyze the parameters of the “physical” connection, and in that case they will see either the IP address of your own computer (when you’re not using a proxy), or the IP address of the current proxy server from A4Proxy. There is no way do somehow fake or hide that address: as long as there is a connection made to the website, the website can see the IP address of the computer making that connection.
So it is important to understand that whatever you do on the Browser Options tab, your connection is still physically relayed through a particular proxy server. So technically there is no way for you to fool a website 100% unless you have a proxy server which has the exact IP address you want to show to the site.
You can, however, send an additional piece of information containing a fake IP address. A4Proxy generates a fake IP when you select one of these options: “Simulate HTTP_CLIENT_IP” or “Simulate HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR_IP” (Proxy Options tab). The presence of these variables in the request tells the website the following: “the request is made through a non-anonymous proxy server, and the IP address of the client is x.x.x.x”, where x.x.x.x is the fake IP address generated by A4Proxy.
As a result, an anonymous connection made through an anonymous proxy server appears for the website as a connection made through a NON-anonymous proxy, and there is an IP address which looks like a true IP address of the client.
Now, that doesn’t mean that every website will actually bother analyzing the “Client-IP” and “Forwared-for-IP” variables. Some websites analyze such info and others don’t. Those who do analyze it will be fooled, and those who don’t, will only register the IP address of your proxy server.
Instead of sending a random fake IP address, which is the default behavior of A4Proxy, you can also make it send one and the same specific IP address in the “fake info” field. In order to do so, you must first enable one of the simulate-ip options mentioned above, and then create an request modification on the Browser Options tab, to replace the random fake IP address generated by A4Proxy with the IP address of your choice.
If you select “Simulate HTTP_CLIENT_IP”, then you must modify “Client” variable. If you select “Simulate HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR_IP”, then you must modify “X-Forwarded-For” variable.