Charon

Charon is a proxy application that lets you scan, leech and test proxy servers.

If you want to download Charon, you can do so here:
http://www.project2025.com/charon.php

Below, is a detailed description on how to use this proxy application.

Configuring

Everybody has it's own setup, to work best for themselves. I will show you how i configure charon, and as it works for me, it should for you, too.

General Options
I have checked the "check IP before starting the test", to get your computer's IP address, which is then compared to the proxy's output, to see how anonymous it is. Second thing i have checked is "check validity of proxyjudge before test", which is self explainatory. Because we don't want to test proxies against a non working judge. The third, and last thing, is the "save proxy list on exiting". It is very handy when you forget to copy your proxies before closing charon.

Scan Options
The only thing i checked here is "filter proxies through bad list before testing". If, instead of scanning for your own proxies, you want charon to leech (copy) them from other websites, the "configure leechable pages" is the button you should click on, and add web pages containing proxy lists.

Connect Options
The "This ip address" text box should always show your computer's IP address. This is the IP address that is compared to the proxy output, and if they don't match, the proxy is anonymous. This is an important part, because having a wrong IP there, every proxy will result as anonymous. Luckily, charon does the job for you, so you don't have to write your IP address there manually. The proxy judge part depends on you. Either setup an internal proxy judge, or use a public one. I use external judges, which you can find on our website. Thread control depends on your computer and internet connection. Threads, means how many proxies at once does charon check, timeout means how long should charon wait for a proxy server to reply, and the retry part is the number of retries charon does when it finds a dead proxy. I have a setup of 30 threads, 15 timeout and 1 retry/dead. In the http proxies, i have checked all the three check boxes. To check the scanned proxies for http protocol support, connect support, and to resolve proxies IP address to it's hostname, to get an idea about what kind of proxy it is, and what is it's location. Under Common, i don't check any of the checkboxes, because i don't need more data. If you want to know the country where the proxy is from and get to the end of gateways, check the checkboxes. Socks proxies also depends on which proxy servers you are hunting for. If you are looking for Socks4 and/or Socks5, these are the checkboxes you should check. You can leave the "check against" to the microsoft site, as it is set by default.

Filter Options
I leave this as it is by default. If you want more advanced filtering, this is where you set it up.

Site Options
I don't use this method, but if you want to test proxies agains a website, you can do so here. Check the "test against site", add a website, and a keyword that is inside the website's source code. Charon searches for the keyword in the date the proxy returns, to see if the proxy works.

Judge Options
This is where you select an external proxy judge. Paste all proxy judges you found in the box, and press the "test judges". Once charon tested them, it'll show you their version and ping time. I use only judges of the type "azenv", and the one with the best ping time (low ping time is better, and faster). Once you've found a good judge, right click it, and select "move judge to the selected list". Make sure there are no other judges in the selected list. If there are, right-click them, and move them to the unused list.

Scanning

If you configured charon properly, you should now be able to get the proxy servers. Charon offers four methods to do so. First method is by pasting proxy servers from a website, by copying them, selecting charon and pressing ctrl+v, which will sort them in the list. Charon only supports IP:PORT proxy format for copy-pasting. Second method is by pressing the "check proxies" button and selecting "leech pages for more proxies", which will scan the previous selected websites for proxies and sort them in charon's list. Third method is by pressing the "check proxies" button and selecting "scan search engines for new proxies", which uses search engines like google, to find websites and scan them for proxies. The last method is by pressing the "check proxies" and selecting "scan ip range for proxies". It will connect to a list of IP addresses you selected, and check for open ports. As it is explained there, if you want to scan proxy ranges from 123.4.5.0 to 123.4.5.10 you can write "123.4.5.[0-10]:port". Port must be a valid port number between 1 and 65535. If you don't know what proxy ranges and ports to scan, you should ask on the forums. It is useless and very time consuming to scan for proxies on random ports.

Checking

Whatever method you choose, after waiting some time, you should now have a list of proxy servers. But, most of the proxy servers charon found, are usually already dead, so you need to check them for activity and anonymity. You do so by pressing the "check proxies" button, and selecting "check anonymity of all proxies". By doing so, charon will check each proxy listed, and once finished, you should be able to see the ones that work for you. You can scrol left and right to see more info about the checked proxies. You can use the "filter list" button, which allows you to delete proxies based on charon's filters.