Privax News
3rd August 2007
We have added a new website Web Proxy Pro to our network :)
Sorry for the delay, we had some DNS issues regarding the .pro TLD.
30th July 2007
We have changed another one of our servers and everything should be even more faster. I also forgot to mention that we have encoded all of our proxy URL's. This will cover up the site you are surfing so when someone looks at your history, or if a web filter tries to find out what site you are on they won't be able to.
Also sorry for not adding a new site, we've been super busy with other projects. I now have time to focus on adding more sites and will add a new proxy tomorrow!
24th May 2007
As promised a new site has been opened called Nuip.net :)
Also I forgot to mention that we upgraded the HideMyAss.com server and everything is running extremely fast!
10th April 2007
A new site has been added, don't you just hate limits? Try LimitKiller.com!
31st March 2007
We tend to think we make proxy sites fun, and this is why you should like BoratProxy.com! I think there is a problem in IE6, I'll try and fix it today :)
18th March 2007
SiteSurf.net is our latest site and has been added to the network :)
I will be adding a new URL form at the top of the Privax homepage, like our widget this will allow you to jump to a proxified URL quickly. I will also add a sort function as our list is getting pretty big - this will let you sort sites by date, name and popularity.
10th March 2007
ProxyBuddy.com is our latest site and has been added to the network :)
We have released the official Privax free proxy widget (well to be honest we did so a while back) which allows you to put our web proxy form on your website. More info can be found at www.privax.us/widget/ and if you have put it on your website please contact us and we may mention you in one of our news updates :)
27th Feb 2007
Secure Proxy is our latest site and has been added to the network :)
We have also been developing on something unique which should be released on Wednesday. It is a free proxy widget form for people to put on their website, it is really cool trust us! More info soon.
15th Feb 2007
HideMy.Info is our latest site and has been added to the network :)
We have been experimenting in changing our web proxy scripts from CGI to PHP as PHProxy Beta has been released. I have changed our largest site over to the new script (HideMyAss.com) and also all of the new sites (Surfaz and HideMyInfo) to see how well things perform. PHProxy is a LOT faster than CGI so this is a major change for us and we hope you notice the speedyness of each page load. The main reason why we used CGI over PHP originally was because it could login to sites and was more stable (had fewer bugs than PHP) however since the new release of PHProxy they have done an excellent job of patching the main bugs and things seem faster and smoother. I will not change all sites over to PHProxy as this is a beta, and after a beta is a final release, so it would mean having to change 20 odd sites twice in a row, but I will most likely change the majority of the popular site over the next couple of weeks.
If you read about our email newsletter idea a good while ago on this news page then you may be wondering why we haven't put it up. To sum it up, you enter in your email address and we auto notify you when a new site has been added. The main reason for us not to do this is due to the fact that a web filter company (such as WebSense) could subscribe and block the site(s) the moment they have been uploaded, thanks to our email notification! I hope you understand why we decided not to do this!
9th Feb 2007
We have a new server and a new site has been added, Surfaz.com! Another new one soon :)
7th Feb 2007
I have upgraded the HideMyAss servers ram, so things should be a tad faster. I have also ordered a new server so we can get some new sites up and stop this large ongoing delay! 3 sites will be up by sunday, 100% promise :)
29th Jan 2007
We are still alive! Sorry if our sites have been slow lately, our servers are a little overcrowded, and being faced with a $1400 server bill for last month it means we can not buy another server until our profit reaches us. Good news is we should be able to get another server up with a few new sites within the next week or so.
We also have plans to develop a software package which will help hide your IP and online identity with ease, this is in serious "thinking stages" so no information can be officially announced.
As for ProxyBoard.com, we should get that up in the next 30-60 days.
17th Jan 2007
I forgot to announce that a new site has been added the other day: SurfUndercover.com :)
Also sorry about the top URL form on proxified pages not displaying properly these past 3 days (only for around 5 sites), the problem is now fixed. I have also noticed that on some sites the top URL form which is actually hosted on Privax.us does not display properly either, this is due to your web filter blocking you from accessing Privax.us files (images, style sheets etc) this making the form not display properly. On all new sites I have pointed the top URL bar to an account which is not filtered but some old sites will cause some minor display problems (which do not affect anything apart from alignment and style of the bar) and when I get time I will fix them.
In other news I acquired the name ProxyBuddy.com so that site will be up before the weekend.
I have also started work on the mailing list which will E-mail people when new sites are added to the network, expect this to be up soon.
12th Jan 2007
Another new site is up, OurProxy.com - enjoy :)
Another new site will be up tomorrow (called Surf Undercover) so check back for updates.
I will be adding a new email feature to Privax which will email people when new sites are added to the network (as sometimes Privax.us is blocked, so it is hard to see the list of sites!). This will most likely be added over the weekend.
We have plans for a web proxy forum, the forum will consist of IP:PORT list forums, web proxy forums, webmaster forums (for proxy owners), and general proxy help. It will be called ProxyBoard.com but will NOT open anytime soon, most likely within 3 months, sorry!
8th Jan 2007
Wow so it has been 16 days without releasing a new site, I think that is a record ... unfortunately not a good record though.
Now the holiday season is officially over, I have added a new site called ProxyStart.com and will be adding at least 2 within the next 4 days.
Server wise we haven't had to buy any upgrades or actual new servers for a while, but now everyone is back at work and school proxyin' the net we shall see how well the performance kicks in :)
25th Dec 2006
So I woke up today (Christmas day of all days) to find one main server down, rebooted and now its up and running!
A few new sites will be up soon. Thanks!
23rd Dec 2006
New site has been added, Vulb.com :)
On another note we are working on a private web proxy service (our public network will continue to be our main focus), more info will arise in the new year!
Sorry for downtime which resulted in 4 sites being down for <1hr, things are sorted now!
21st Dec 2006
New site has been added, TexasProxy.com :)
Sorry for the slowness of new sites being added, but with Christmas and what not, we hope you feel it's pretty understandable.
We hope you have a happy xmas and look forward to the new year. This time next year, we should be on our way to having 100 sites :O
17th Dec 2006
Privax is now officially one month old! Since starting Privax things have gone extremely well, we now provide web proxies to over 50,000 unique visitors a day! Thanks to everyone who uses our web proxies, we hope you enjoy what we are doing and hope you will continue using our network when new sites are added.
15th Dec 2006
We have the new USA server, a nice 4gb ram and 4 x 3.0GHz to keep everyone happy this Christmas ;)
CantBustMe.com and InvisibleSurfing.com have been moved to this server and Proxrio.com which is a new site (created today!) has also been put on the new server. We may transfer more sites to this new server to help balance the load between our 3 main servers next week. The German server only has ProxyMafia.net on it for now.
13th Dec 2006
So the new German server is slower than expected (port speed more than anything) which isn't great news. The hardest part of running this network is finding the right server and offer fast performance. From now on I will stick to USA servers and will be ordering a new one this Friday and will move CantBustMe and a few other sites to it. The German server will stay for 2 months and cater for a few small traffic proxies (if any exist in this network! :/), I paid for 2 months so I can't let it completely go to waste (effectively got the first month free).
We are running this network out of our own pockets for now, the majority of the money we make from advertising so far will not come to us until another 2 months, but in order to keep creating new sites we need more servers which means a bigger dent in our investment funds, so I'm personally not going to deny that this is hurting the time we do things.
We are also thinking about creating a forum about web proxies (such as web based script discussion and IP:PORT lists) but I personally need to decide if I should make it part of privax.us/forum/ or base a new site dedicated to the forum. Whatcha think? Contact us :)
8th Dec 2006
New german server is up, whoo! The first site on the new server is Can't Bust Me! which I thought was a funny and relevant name! I will also be moving one or two existing sites to this new server to help balance the load over the weekend.
Since we now have 2 different server country locations I will be putting flags next to the server status on the network list.
4th Dec 2006
What a hectic 3 days ! We optimized one of our main servers over the weekend which explains the major downtime (12hrs?), so sorry about having 90% of the network down. Then there was a late RAM upgrade this morning (8am GMT) which meant the server went offline, but also meant it wouldn't automatically come back online until apache had been manually restarted (which I only noticed 6hrs after), meaning even more downtime. When the server was up today we then had load problems (incredibly laggy), so the apache optimization had to be modified to suit the traffic need. Fortunately, everything at this current time is running fairly fast, woohoo!
Browse.ms is having some DNS problems (Godaddy pissing us around as usual), but should resolve again within 24hrs.
We have a new European server (Germany) being setup by the weekend, should be fun seeing how the speed and bandwidth usage keep up. Nothing incredibly special, dual core, 4gb ram but will do for a few sites.
Before I forget, armyproxy.com has been added to the network :)
1st Dec 2006
Just a milestone post, we are nearly brining in 50,000 unique's a day across our whole network (although HideMyAss.com accounts for 40% of that) which is a great success, especially when we have only been officially open for around 2 weeks!
I'm upgrading the HideMyAss server when the billing runs out (around 20 days), so please understand why I can't upgrade it right this minute, i'd lose a lot of money.
On another note, i'm trying some new German servers at some point for some new sites, unlike the US servers, these German ones are unmetered, and when you burn through 6TB of bandwidth... unmetered would be very handy ;)
We have also set a target of making 100 free proxy sites by the end of 2007, this is around a couple a week or so. If you think we are mad ... you are probably right, but by that time WebProxyPro will be created thus management of the sites will be a hell of a lot easier!
30th Nov 2006
Another new site, a pretty fun one has been added, called ProxyMafia.net
On another note, sorry for the slow servers, despite adding another 3gb of ram things haven't improved, this most likely means I have found the threshold of the main server and it's time to buy another one, i'll have to see how things go for another few days.
29th Nov 2006
Added a new site to the network, kroxy.net - enjoy.
We have upgraded the ram on our main server since we were nearly using the maximum resources at peak times, things should flow smoothly again.
On another note 250.eu may be down, this is due to a DNS problem whilst transferring domain registrars (despite saying keep old NS's, the new registrar didn't) and the site should be up now, or later today depending on your ISP.
25th Nov 2006
3 new sites are up, these include Unblock.biz, EnablePrivacy.com and InvisibleSurfing.com
On another note, our combined traffic for the whole of the network caters for over 25,000 unique people a day! Wow, that's in less than 10 days! :) Please help tell all of your friends about our site, especially Privax.us so they have the freedom to choose which site they can use.
16th Nov 2006
We will be changing server companies before next month since we are having the odd problem with our current provider during our testing (the actual network sites were released before this privax.us site was open so we could test performance before we officially release). We plan to move HideMyAss to a german provider (testing the european market) and move the other 4 current sites to another USA based provider. No downtime should occur, although I will mention before and after we process the transfer!
Oh, we'll be making this news page content design more respectable soon, at the moment as you can see its nothing special ;)
16th Nov 2006
Privax officially launches The Privax Network. We have officially opened with 5 sites (find them here), we hope things go smoothly, so please tell all of your friends! We are very excited about the future and have visions of meeting our aim of 30-60 sites within a year :)