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Is there a way to access only certain sites via a proxy (i.e. imgur in the UK)
This is what I was thinking. imgur is blocked in the UK, but so many places use/have used it in the past that it makes browsing the web annoying. I also don't want to go through a VPN all of the time though.
So can I set up an idling VPS to be like a proxy for imgur, and then in my device hosts file I point imgur.com to that IP, and then when I visit an imgur link it will go via my VPS?
or does this already exist? I feel like if it were that easy, someone would have done it already
Thanked by 1oloke
Comments
sniproxy?
@backtogeek supposedly is working on browser extension
Also https://github.com/mendel5/alternative-front-ends?tab=readme-ov-file#imgur
Yes that would work - although depending on your latency to the vps you might not want to use the dns-part, but just the proxy part
With my router this one is easy to setup. Just up some vpn (can add multiple vpns) and add https://imgur.com to include list and thats it. Every site which i open would be from my home ip except https://imgur.com which would be from the vpn. My router is GL-MT3000 / Beryl AX - GL.iNet. 70$ little devil.
With this setup you can do it, but need to know how to work with iptables and routes.
Foxyproxy can do per site/url proxy.
https://libredirect.github.io/
You can make it redirect iframes and hotlinked images as well.
Also, Rimgo* is a great use for idlers
Great project
Proxifier is great and simple to use. It's SOCKS only, you can setup any rule you like based on exe, host, port, routing through different proxies, as well as exceptions, etc.
I have an nginx container that just proxies those domains without breaking tls, then have the DNS for them set to the IP of the container. works flawlessly
If you're always SSH'ed into your VPS, and don't trust anyone, proxy.pac is the answer.
Foxyproxy or proxifier will work for you.
I'd be sceptical if this can work with a standard VPS, Imgur is already very happy to block most VPN IPs, so I suspect they would block many datacentre ones as well. You might need a residential proxy.
You'll know if you hit that because you'll get "Imgur is temporarily over capacity. Please try again later." and a 403. It's a misleading error message, but that basically means you're blocked.
Might be worth a try though.
Foxyproxy can filter by domain.
You can configure a PAC file in the browser.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_auto-config
The PAC file is a JavaScript file that defines a
FindProxyForURL(url, host)function.This function is invoked for each URI the browser wants to access.
You can implement this function to either return DIRECT for resources not needing proxy, or return an HTTP proxy for resources needing a proxy.
We've been using this since high school and it never let us down.
Yeah, I've had a system like this in place for a particular work related site that needed a whitelisted IP. Must admit I never thought of using it for imgur, but now I will look into it!
@hostnoob if your main usecase is your personal computer, I'd suggest looking into v2ray and clash, it's what Chinese people use to route western sites through a proxy while leaving the rest untouched.
Since you're in the UK you can expand your ruleset to include other stuff other than imgur, like warez sites, through the proxy as well.
Advantage of this is that it can work system wide if you want, so you can even route entire apps or processes though it (you will need root)
Thank you all.
I ended up just making a simple Chrome extension to an unused VPS and then using nginx as a proxy
It's working fine
You need an extension like this one: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/easyproxy/
Search for something like "proxy switch" and "proxy toggle" on Firefox Add-ons site, there are multiple options available.
The link above is from my old bookmarks (I have more), but I intentionally picked the simpler plug-ins (mostly on/off).
What you described is the task I've been looking to solve for the last 8 or 9 years.
Despite the numerous open source projects these days, millions of developers on GitHub, etc., there's still no browser extension for self-hosted VPNs.
If you self-host, the only option is putting all your traffic into the tunnel.
That's correct.
However the error is not 403, but 429. Which makes little difference user-wise.
I get a 403, so it likely can be either. Probably the same block but for different reasons.
I'm not in the UK (far from it in fact) but this is the result from the VPN servers I use, so maybe some are rate limited under 429 and some are outright blocked under 403.
Only Imgur truly knows of course.