Tidal Pool Software

General

The General view allows you enable/disable MacProxy, change the active proxy, and set options.

MacProxy can be enabled/disabled from either the General view or from the menulet. The Enable MacProxy checkbox is disabled if there are no proxies currently set up under the Proxies tab. This setting is saved across restarts so if you enable MacProxy and shutdown your Mac, it will re-enable itself on startup.

To change the active proxy, select the proxy from the proxy popup menu. The menu displays all proxies created in the proxies tab. The change takes effect immediately.

Enabling Resolve Host Names will forward DNS name resolution requests to the proxy. This works by returning "fake" IP addresses (e.g. 0.0.3.131) for domain name requests and then passing along the host name to the SOCKS proxy. If this option is enabled/disabled, applications must be restarted since the cached DNS database will be invalid.

Checking Show MacProxy in the menu bar will display a menu bar item (or menulet) for MacProxy. This allows you to control and view the current status of MacProxy from within any application.

The Enable Logging checkbox turns on/off the logging feature. This can be useful for troubleshooting problems and watching the connection status of applications (and their network usage). Click the Open Log File... button to display the log in the Console application. The log is located at:

~user/Library/Logs/MacProxy.log

Select Check for updates automatically to periodically check for new MacProxy updates.

Proxies

The Proxies view allows you to add, edit, and delete proxies.

To add a new proxy, click the + button. Enter the proxy details including a username/password, if applicable (see below for finding compatible SOCKS proxy servers). MacProxy currently supports SOCKS protocol versions 4, 4a, and 5. SOCKS versions 4a and 5 include DNS name resolution support (version 4 does not). SOCKS version 5 also includes UDP support (versions 4 and 4a do not).

To delete a proxy, select the proxy in the list and either click the - button or press the Delete key.

To edit a proxy, either select the proxy in the list and click the edit button (at the bottom on the right) or double-click the proxy. Any changes made to the proxy settings will take effect immediately.

The Register view shows the application registration and provides a button to uninstall MacProxy.

To register, type in the serial number provided when you purchased MacProxy. The view will display Registered once a valid key has been entered.

To check for any MacProxy updates, click the Check For Update button.

To uninstall MacProxy, click the uninstall button. This will disable MacProxy, move it to the Trash, and quit System Preferences.

Menulet

The menulet provides a way to control and view the current status of MacProxy from within any application.

The icon and the first menu item show the current MacProxy state (enabled/disabled). The icon will appear black, if enabled, and grey, if not. To enable/disable MacProxy, select the second menu item, either Turn MacProxy On or Turn MacProxy Off, depending on the current state.

If MacProxy is enabled, the next set of menu items show the current status. This includes the current number of active connections, data bytes sent, and data bytes received.

The next set of menu items is the list of proxies (if any). The currently selected proxy has a checkmark to the left of its menu item. To change the current proxy, simply select another proxy from the list.

The last menu item is MacProxy Preferences.... Select this to launch System Preferences and open the MacProxy preference pane.

SOCKS Proxy Servers

MacProxy does not include access to a SOCKS proxy server. Many organizations, including businesses and universities, have internal proxy servers set up that may be available for use. There are also many public (free and pay) SOCKS proxy servers available for use. You can find these by searching for "SOCKS proxy servers" in any major search engine. Finally, it's possible to set up your own SOCKS proxy server running on a computer at home, for example, and connecting to it from work or while traveling.