How to set your Web browser for Riverland Internet's proxy
Note! You probably should not set this up.
Since July 2005, very few people using Riverland Internet should use the web proxy. A few years ago it was helpful. Since then, our network has changed and broadband has become more common. Now the proxy is only rarely helpful, and only for people dialling in to our Renmark number.
If you have ADSL broadband, or dial our Waikerie or 0198 numbers, please do not use our web proxy. Even if you can get pages through it, it will slow your access.
For almost everyone, the setting we recommend is "No proxy server" or "Direct connection to the internet", which is the default setting.
If you are still reading... there are instructions for:
General information about proxies
Netscape version 4
Netscape (versions 2 and 3)
Internet Explorer version 5
Internet Explorer version 4
Internet Explorer (versions 2 and 3)
What is a proxy?
What are these manual and automatic settings?
Is it working?
Proxy problems
The proxy server at Riverland Internet is a way to give you faster access to WWW pages.
(Proxies at other Internet sites may work differently, e.g. to allow you to access the Internet through a firewall. However, we don't do that at Riverland Internet - our proxy is all about improving the speed of your web browser.)
Our proxy is like a large cache of WWW data - HTML files, GIFs, JPEGs, etc. When you want to see a Web page, your browser asks the proxy for the page. If the proxy already has it, it returns it to your browser. This is much quicker than getting it from the Internet - the proxy server is a computer in Renmark, while the original website might be somewhere in Europe or Japan.
Of course, not every page on the Web is on the proxy. Often, the proxy will have to get the file for you from the original server. But once it has done that, the file will be kept on the proxy for anyone else to access. The most commonly-requested files are already on the proxy. So, roughly half of the time, using the proxy is faster.
Manual and automatic proxy settings
With a manual proxy setting, your browser always goes to the same place (proxy.riverland.net.au) when requesting a web page. This is usually OK, but if the proxy is too busy to answer or has crashed, you'll get no results.
With the automatic proxy setting, the browser has more choices. It is like having a list of proxies to use - if the first one doesn't respond, your browser will decide to use the next one in the list. Later, it will re-try the failed one to see if it is working again. So one faulty or slow proxy server won't stop your web-surfing.
Also, because the browser gets the automatic proxy configuration file (the list of proxies) from the webserver each time you connect, your proxy settings will always be up-to-date.
The automatic proxy configuration is the best one: use it, if your browser allows it. The manual proxy setting still allows you to use the proxy, but is not as flexible. And remember, your browser still works with NO proxy settings, it will just be slower!
With these programs, you can use the automatic proxy setting or the manual setting. This setting is for the auto proxy, which is usually better.
- In the Options menu, go to Network Preferences
- Select the Proxies tab
- Click on the button for Automatic Proxy Configuration, and type into the text box:
www.riverland.net.au/proxy.pac
- Click OK, and try it out.
You can also use the manual proxy setting for Netscape.
This program can use the automatic proxy setting:
- In the Edit menu, go to Preferences.
- There is a list of items on the left side of the dialog box. Next to the word "Advanced" in the list, click the + (plus) until you can see "Proxies".
- Click on the word Proxies. Then, the right half of the dialog box will have three choices - None, Manual and Auto proxy settings.
- Click the radio button next to Automatic proxy setting, and in the small text window next to it type the following:
www.riverland.net.au/proxy.pac
- Click OK. Try it out.
You can also use the manual proxy setting for Netscape.
Internet Explorer (versions 2 and 3)
Only recent versions of Internet Explorer can use the automatic proxy. These instructions will help you work out the best setting for your copy of the program.
- Open Internet Explorer. In the View menu, go to Options.
- There should be a tab labelled Advanced. If there is, click on it, and follow the instructions here..
If there is not an Advanced tab, you'll have to use the manual proxy setting: read on.
Explorer - Manual proxy setting
- In the Options window, click the Connection tab and wait for it to open.
- If there is not a Connection tab, you can still use the manual proxy - click here.
- Make sure there is a tick in the check box for "Connect through a Proxy Server".
- Click the "Settings" button next to the "Connect through..." checkbox.
- In the "Proxy Settings" window, in the text box for HTTP, type the address
proxy.riverland.net.au
- In the "Port" box for HTTP, type the number
8080
- If there is one, remove the tick from the box marked "Use the same proxy for all services".
- (optional) If you want to set it up completely for the best speed you can get, do these steps too:
- Paste the same information in for the FTP and Gopher proxy addresses:
proxy.riverland.net.au and port 8080
- It's quicker to get files direct from the Riverland Internet website than to do it via the proxy, so in the box labelled "Exceptions", type
www.riverland.net.au
- You've finished. Click OK and try it.
Explorer 2 - manual proxy setting (continued)
You probably have Internet Explorer version 2 - its proxy settings are entered through a control panel.
- Click the Start button. Under Settings, you should open the Control Panel window.
- Double click the Internet icon. Click the Advanced tab.
- Make sure there is a tick in the box marked "Use Proxy Server".
- In the Proxy Server textbox, type in:
proxy.riverland.net.au:8080
- In the box marked Bypass Proxy On, type in:
www.riverland.net.au
You've finished. Click Apply, then OK, and try it out.
Explorer - Auto proxy setting (continued)
You should be looking at a window titled "Options", and have clicked the "Advanced" tab.
- At the bottom left corner, there should be a button called "Automatic Configuration..."
- If there is not an Auto Config button, you'll have to use the manual proxy setting: click here.
- If there is an Auto Config button click it. It brings up a text box - type into it, just like this:
www.riverland.net.au/proxy.pac
If you are online when you do this, you can click the "Refresh" button to change the settings immediately. Otherwise, click "Ok".
- You've finished - try it out.
(Note - although the window doesn't say "proxy" anywhere, this is the place to enter the auto proxy setting. Our auto-config file changes only Explorer's proxy setting, although this method can set up other things too.)
Explorer 4 can use the automatic proxy setting.
- Open Internet Explorer.
- Under the View menu, select Internet Options.
- Click the Connection tab.
- Click Configure, and type in the URL for the auto-config file: exactly like this:
www.riverland.net.au/proxy.pac
- Click Refresh, and click OK twice
- You need to restart IE4 (quit it then open it again) to make it use the new setting, then try it out.
Internet Explorer version 5 and above - manual proxy setting
- Open Internet Explorer.
- Under the Tools menu, select Internet Options.
- Click the Connection tab.
- In the Dialup Settings box, click on the line for the dialup connection you use to call Riverland Internet.
(If you followed our setup instructions, it will be called Riverland Internet or something similar.)- Click Settings.
- If there is a tick for "Automatically Detect Settings", remove it.
- Make sure there is NO tick for "Use Automatic Configuration Script"
- Put a tick in the box for "Use a proxy server".
Now type in the address for the proxy server: exactly like this:proxy.riverland.net.au
and in the small Port box on the same line, type in
8080
Click OK as many times as needed. Try some webpages, to ensure that it's working.
Internet Explorer version 5 and above - auto proxy setting
Explorer 5 can use the automatic proxy setting.
Note: This script configures ONLY the proxy settings, you'll still have to put in the settings for email, dialup, etc.
- Open Internet Explorer.
- Under the Tools menu, select Internet Options.
- Click the Connection tab.
- In the Dialup Settings box, click on the icon for the dialup connection you use to call Riverland Internet.
(If you followed our setup instructions, it will be called Riverland Internet or something similar.)- Click Settings.
- If there is a tick for "Automatically Detect Settings", remove it.
- Make sure there is a tick for "Use Automatic Configuration Script"
- Type in the URL for the auto-config file: exactly like this:
http://www.riverland.net.au/proxy.pac
Note: You don't need a tick in "Use Proxy Server" for this to work.
- Click OK, Apply, and OK
- You have set it up, now you can try it out.
Netscape manual proxy configuration
- Options - Network preferences - Proxies
- (or, for Netscape 4, Edit - Preferences - Advanced - click the plus sign - Proxies)
- Select Manual Proxy Configuration. Click the View button next to it.
- In the HTTP Proxy textbox, type in:
proxy.riverland.net.au
and in the small Port box on the same line, type in
8080
(optional) If you want to set it up completely for the best speed you can get, do these steps too:
- Paste the same information in for the FTP and Gopher proxies:
proxy.riverland.net.au and port 8080
- It's quicker to get files direct from the Riverland Internet website than to do it via the proxy, so in the box labelled "No proxy for:", type
www.riverland.net.au:80
Click OK and try it out!
Web browsers are all different: we can't include detailed information on how to set up ALL of them. However, the general idea is always the same.
Automatic proxy setting - if your browser can use it:
www.riverland.net.au/proxy.pac
Manual proxy setting - supported by almost all browsers:
- (basic setting) Set HTTP protocol to use
proxy.riverland.net.au port 8080
- (optional) Also set FTP and Gopher protocols to use
proxy.riverland.net.au port 8080
- (optional) Don't use proxy for
www.riverland.net.au port 80
How do I know if it's working properly?
You can usually tell if the proxy is working by watching the messages on the status line of your browser. If it says "Contacting proxy.riverland.net.au" or "Connecting to 203.18.28.218" when it gets a page, then it's going through the proxy.
It's hard to be sure if the proxy is speeding up your web accesses, because your browser has its own disk cache and probably a RAM cache too. The best you can do is try a few familiar sites, maybe from your bookmarks or Favourites, and see how it goes. If you get all the pages at the usual speed or better, and there are no (proxy-related) problems, then the proxy is working.
Remember, sometimes (about half the time) you will be requesting webpages that are not in the proxy, and if that server is slow, you will still have to wait. The proxy isn't helping you in this case - but the next person who wants that page will get it from the proxy. And it's definitely faster when the page comes from the proxy.
Outdated files. Because the proxy keeps the files it gets from other websites, it does not always know if the original file has been changed! Sometimes you will get a file which you think MAY not be up-to-date. If you want to check that it's up-to-date, click the "Reload" or "Refresh" button on your browser - this will always go to the original source of the file.
You have to wait a long time for a page. This may or may not be the proxy's fault. You can try the same page without using the proxy - turn OFF the proxy setting in your browser, then click the Reload button. If the page arrives quickly when you don't use the proxy, then the proxy is at fault in some way. Please let us know (preferably by email) what URL (web address) and when you were having the problem, and the date and approximate time.
Quite often, you'll find that the page still arrives slowly when you don't use the proxy. In that case, you're looking for a page which isn't already in the proxy's cache - the proxy has to go and get it. You should turn the proxy back ON in that case - the proxy should never slow you down, and will give faster accesses to the pages it does have.
"... could not load your Auto-Proxy Script" error message. If you're using the automatic proxy setting, you might see this error message. When your browser starts, it tries to reload the auto-proxy script, but it can't. It will give you the option of using the previous script. That would be OK - the script doesn't change often - except that you don't have a connection.
Unless you're browsing files that are stored on your hard disk, this means that your dialup connection didn't work. Did the modem dial out? You need to dial up to get pages from anywhere other than your hard disk.
Proxy weirdness? Like any piece of software, sometimes the proxy gets too busy or confused and refuses to give you anything, and it might even give you the wrong pages. If you think the proxy might be at fault, turn OFF the proxy in your browser and try reloading the same page. If the page comes across correctly this time, the proxy was causing the problem. If it doesn't, something else is wrong, so you should turn the proxy back ON.
As always, if you're having problems or don't think it's working properly, call Riverland Internet on 85 866 425 (work hours) or email the webmaster.
