There has been a new project or project going on since July 2017 over at the The Un-Official Proxomitron Forum. A member named 'amy' started a thread called:

"Recovering" Proxomitron's Source Code..."

http://www.prxbx.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=2312

This may not have much interest to most people not using Proxomitron but it has brought life into part of that forum.

There is a member over there named soccerfan who may well be the same member here with the same name.

Her last two posts in December ...

amy - Dec. 04, 2017

RE: "Recovering" Proxomitron's Source Code...
Time for another update:

Most of the code for the page filter dialog is understood now, along with some of the filter loading/saving. I see the code for serving local files (did you know Proxomitron has its own web-server? Very useful for hosting files to inject into pages) coming up, so I'm probably going to see the rest of the network stuff soon... that will be a refreshing change from all the UI stuff I was going through.

I'd estimate progress is currently at ~66%; not very certain, but definitely over 50%.

... and this post from Dec 19th

amy - Dec. 19, 2017

RE: "Recovering" Proxomitron's Source Code...

Going through a lot of the network code now... yes, this is the part which will need to change for IPv6 support. I've found where the filtering/matching happens, but haven't really looked in detail at that yet. The end of the year is close, not sure I can finish by then, but I'll certainly try (and keep going even if I don't)!

... so anyone interested or using Proxomitron may want to follow this project.
Could be a very interesting 2018 for Proxomitron and that forum.

The Un-Official Proxomitron Forum

http://www.prxbx.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=4

callahan



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/24/2017 08:49PM by callahan.

Hi Callahan & Thanks for sharing this info !!
Lots of SSL confusion these days - it is quite the mess.

Some sites have become useless due to security mismatches & it is possile that those who run those sites do not even know it.

Several sites that I have used quite regularly over time no no longer open at all - or fail to load fully in any of my several browsers.

If Proxo can help with 'fooling' them into working again, that may be a very good help.

Happy Merry Whatever You Enjoy !!

Yes, I am following the thread over at the Proxo group. It looks promising at this time.

I just hope I can understand it all ... I started using Proxomitron when Scott Lemmon was still alive and that was with Windows 98SE.

It carried over to WinXP very nice but it needs some work in 2017. I think Scott Lemmon was 32 when he passed away in 2004 ... he had closed his project down. Here was a notice from his sister:

Sad News Concerning Scott Lemmon
Computer Cops is reporting the death of Proxomitron's creator, Scott Lemmon.

"This afternoon presented itself with grave news when Scott's sister notified me that her brother, Scott R. Lemmon, passed away on the first of May, 2004. Many of you know Scott as the author of Proxomitron, the local web proxy that changed so many peoples lives on the Internet. TechTV presented a whole segment on the Proxomitron application. Scott's genius is very evident in his legacy to the World Wide Web in fighting spyware and protecting their privacy thru Proxomitron. Everyone loved Scott and his work. A simple search of the full P word at Google reveals 259,000 matches. His work touched so many lives"

RIP, Scott and thank you for all your hard work. You made surfing much safer.

----------------------------------------------------------

It was sad news in 2004 or just a shock when I heard the news. His work lives on and still does work quite well today but 2018 might be very special.

callahan



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/25/2017 12:06AM by callahan.

Yep, t'was quite the brilliant invention & I remember using it back then as well.
Mostly (for me) it was in efforts to clear the old netscrape of annoying flashy things that were very distracting.

With newer browsers it seems that uBlock & ABP - as well as having some sort of flash blocker take care of most visual annoyances.

I've re-tried Proxo several times since for short periods, but it has never turned into a daily use, resident sort of thing for me.

Still it will benefit many folks if it can be fixed up & modernized so I really hope that it does get all fixed up.

I posted here about Proxomitron being revived, updated last December. The member over there working on this project has released a major new update a few days ago.

Amy has named the project 'Proxomitron Reborn' and has: Certificates generated with correct names and HTTPS working. I am not going to say much about this new release as I am still trying to figure my settings out. I am understanding this new update better than I did 24 hours ago ... but I think I have more steps to cover.

So anyone that likes or once liked Proxomitron ... hit on the link (Page 06) below and start reading ... on Page 08 now.

http://prxbx.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=2331&page=6


Dec. 10, 2018

Amy

RE: Proxomitron Reborn

4.6.0.0 has been released! This version contains the following changes:

- Add missing update of Host header after redirection
This was a bug I introduced, which managed to creep its way through all the -Reborn versions. Thanks to rasczak for spotting it!

- Certificates generated with correct names
No longer deal with unfilterable HTTPS pages or "host name does not match" warnings/errors from browsers! The Proxomitron now generates certificates, signed by its own root, for each hostname to satisfy browser checks.

- $REM() pseudocommand
At the request of mizzmona, the $REM pseudocommand allows including commentary in filter expressions. Within the parentheses, write anything which will be ignored completely by the matching engine. Ensure to balance inner parentheses, or escape them and other special characters.

- Add HTTPS to local.ptron
Simply set the port in the new HTTPS settings tab to an unused one (e.g. 8443), restart Proxomitron, and visit e.g. https://local.ptron:your_port/.pinfo/ or any local path to see files served over HTTPS! https://localhost:your_port/ and https://127.0.0.1:your_port/ will work too, thanks to the Subject Alternative Names in the certificate that it generates. If you don't need this option, set the port to 0 and it will stop listening for HTTPS. The new configuration file keyword is SslPort in the Global section, and its default is 0.

- HTTPS configuration options for cipher suite selection and certificate error bypass
Also present in the new configuration dialog tab are two fields which correspond to two new keywords in the global configuration file section: SslCiphers and BypassCertErrs.

The former allows controlling the cipher suites which Proxomitron's SSL client (as presented to external sites) advertises support for; its format is a string that is documented at https://www.openssl.org/docs/man1.0.2/apps/ciphers.html . Leave it blank to use the default, which is currently "ALL:!eNULL:!aNULL:!EXP:!DES:!RC2:!SSLv2:!PSK:!aECDH:!CAMELLIA:!SEED:@STRENGTH". This is useful for the advanced users to fine-tune their TLS/SSL configuration.

The latter is a flexible way to specify sites which you do not want to be warned of certificate errors with; you can use any of Proxomitron's filtering language to construct an expression which will be matched against the hostname. This means you can use blockfiles too! Leaving this field blank (the default) means it will not match any hostname, and thus the behavour will be unchanged from before.

- Add details to certificate error dialog
The certificate error dialog now shows the entire certificate details instead of only the name and its validity period dates. Useful for troubleshooting certificate errors.

- Add root certificate generation
This is the biggest new feature, and is accessible from the bottom button in the new HTTPS configuration tab. If you have an existing certificate in use, you can still click this button and look around; it will warn you that if you try to generate a certificate, it will replace your existing one. This new dialog allows you to specify some fields of the certificate to be generated, and if you have an existing certificate it conveniently duplicates the same information from it and lets you generate a new one with a validity period of another 5 years. You can choose the key size and algorithm, keeping in mind that not all browsers will support the more advanced ones, and that this certificate is only used to "fool" browsers into behaving since Proxomitron does most of the work of encryption and validation now. It makes sense to choose the most "insecure" that browsers will accept, because it improves performance. If you click Generate, it will create/overwrite the proxcert.pem and proxcert_certonly.pem files, and then after restarting Proxomitron and installing the certificate as a trusted root in the browser(s) you use, you can start experiencing real SSL filtering!

Enjoy! As always, please leave your feedback here and I will try to respond when I can.
...

Cool news, bro! Thank you!

There have been several bugs and other problems showing up in the new version. Amy has said she may have a newer version out shortly ... with these items being fixed.

Probably would be v4.6.0.1 so check there every so often. A lot of the discussion going on is a bit over my head but I like Proxomitron for what I understand about it.

Someday when the final good working version appears, it will be a gem. Each new version release just gets better and better.
...

I get the impression Proxomitron is similar in quality to Privoxy proxy. Any knowledege of the comparison? I've used Privoxy for perhaps 16 years.

No I don't know much about Privoxy proxy ... I've seen it mentioned but you are probably correct about them being similar.

Those guys over there would of course know ... JJoe and the bunch are super helpful.

I've been with Proxomitron since before Scott Lemmon passed away in 2004. It nice to see it sort of 'reborn' after all this time.
...

A Christmas gift from Amy at the Proxomitron forum ... newer version.

Dec. 25, 2018, 10:15 PM
RE: Proxomitron Reborn

4.6.0.1 has been released! Merry Christmas!

Changes in this release:
- Generate certificate serial number from hostname
- Always add SAN to certificates
- Fix buffer overflow in request parsing
- Fix adding manually entered blockfile entries
- Fix parsing of CONNECT URLs
- Fix listener startup message

http://prxbx.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=2331&page=9

Update on Page 01 - First Post ...

http://prxbx.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=2331

She also mentions about some major changes ... if she has the time next year and can 'figure' everything out correctly.

"amy Wrote: Your suggestions have been logged for version 5.x improvements."

...

A new version update was released yesterday (Dec 28). It looks like these 'little updates' could occur frequently over the next few months ... as problems are being discovered and fixed.

I don't know how many people are following this or have an interest in Proxomitron. I think the people that do use Proxomitron can just bookmark the site and check for updates every week or two. Lots of heavy discussion going on over there ... most of it is 'over my head' ... but these are the right people involved for a better version of Proxomitron in the future, maybe by the end of 2019. I left all the discussion in the post by Amy of the new update, it's interesting reading.

Page 10:

http://www.prxbx.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=2331&page=10

------------------------------------------

Yesterday, 03:40 AM (This post was last modified: Yesterday 03:52 AM by amy.)
Post: #138
amy

RE: Proxomitron Reborn

4.6.0.2 has been released. It contains one fix:
- Make generated certificates version 3.

(Dec. 26, 2018 02:17 AM) whenever Wrote:
I'm afraid you all didn't get my point. What I'm talking about is if to make the resources at https://local.ptron available via 443" rel="nofollow" >https://127.0.0.1443|8443). My opinion is NO because it has security risks and the original version doesn't do it either (the resources at http://local.ptron is not available via http://127.0.0.1).

Yes it is, you just have to specify the port.

In other words, original Proxomitron had one listener (on port 8080 by default) which serves both the proxy and the internal webserver. In 4.6 I added a second listener which behaves exactly the same as the original one, except it's wrapped in a TLS socket.


(Dec. 27, 2018 04:40 AM) JJoe Wrote:
Good news is, I hope I know what the problem is...

Subject Alternative Name (SAN) is an X.509 version 3 certificate extension.
The generated certificate claims to be version 1, so Opera (and probably Chrome) just says no.

Such picky browsers... Fixed in 4.6.0.2.


(Dec. 26, 2018 02:17 AM) whenever Wrote:
It occurs with Scott's original too, and I can reproduce it on my PC (win10x64).

- Start the program freshly
- Click its icon on the tray to make its main window appear
- Press and hold the Alt key

The controls would appear and respond when you click their positions.


(Dec. 26, 2018 04:40 AM) mizzmona Wrote:
Yeah, it's been noted for 5.1 since about 2005, at least...

(Depending on OS) At initial program startup, pressing "Alt" key clears UI face. Minimize & reopen to restore.

Sorry, completely forgot to mention it. D'oh!

I have not been able to reproduce this (on XP 32 bit --- maybe I need to get a VM of a newer OS and try it...) but I bet it's related to all the code Scott added for custom drawing of textures and such. You can see M$ is showing increasingly less care for custom-drawn controls and UI customisation in general, so the one way to fix this is probably to remove all that custom drawing code and default back to the OS drawing when textures are disabled. I personally don't use the texture option, but I really don't want to remove the option for everyone either.
...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/29/2018 12:26PM by callahan.

Good news perhaps ??

Quote

Over the last year a project has been underway to decompile the original code so that it could be rebuilt and development continue.

Have a look at what has so far been achieved and download the updated program made from the new compiled source.

Most recent reply by the dav (Feb. 10, 2019) :
https://prxbx.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=2331&pid=19636#pid19636



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2019 02:21AM by smallhagrid.

Since I'm logged in ... a quick post from the Proxomitron Forum ... Amy released a new update on April 22.

Apr. 22, 2019
Post: #168
amy

RE: Proxomitron Reborn

Happy Easter! Proxomitron has been Reborn Again -- 4.6.0.4 released!
Changes:
- Use appropriate protocol for local.ptron resources
- Local filtering fixes (related to ports, local.ptron vs localhost/127.0.0.1, and HTTP vs HTTPS)
- Fix log window pressing ctrl disables arrows and pgup/pgdn
- Fix crash when copying long headers from log
- Remove default port from URLs
- Fix activation of Apply button when page filters opened upon doubleclick

Due to the extent of changes to local filtering behaviour, please test this release very carefully and report back anything broken. I hope I haven't, but hope has not worked so well.