Step 1: Picking A Script
Jan 17th, 2010 Posted in Websites | no comment »This is the first step in my guide in Developing Proxy Sites.
Developing a proxy site is much easier than building a content rich site from scratch. Therefore, not surprisingly, many webmasters start out by creating proxies.
I am assuming readers of this article have a basic knowledge in how web hosting works. E.g. setting up a hosting account, setting up DNS servers, uploading files via FTP. If not, then you may have to google a few key terms to fully understand this article.
Starting a proxy site is really quite simple, especially if you use a basic script, basic template, and don’t worry about going overboard on ads in the beginning. For example, I made a very clean and simple proxy already as my first experiment, Clean and Simple.
The first step is to download a script. For my Clean and Simple example, I used Zelune, which is based on Curl. Some other popular ones are PHProxy (also based on php). I am featuring these three scripts, because they can be installed by simply uploading files. There are others, but installation is a bit more complex, and I am trying to keep this guide as simple as possible.
I prefer the Curl-based Zelune, because it the easiest on system resources, fast, and clean-looking. There is even an option for the user to hide the browsing bar, which none of the other scripts offer. However, the downside is that it lacks an admin dashboard or control panel, and it is somewhat complicated to put ads on the proxified pages (which is where most of the revenue comes from). In the future, I might create a tutorial to show how to do this if/when I figure out how to.
Pros: Light on system resources, fast, clean, can log in to secure sites
Cons: Hard to put ads on proxified pages
PHProxy is also easy to install and quite popular. It is similar to Glype, except there is no admin control panel option. Putting ads on the proxified pages is just as annoying for PHProxy as it is for Zelune. Therefore, out of these three, PHProxy would be my last choice.
Conclusion: My overall favorite is the lightweight Zelune because it is light on resources and allows for browsing more complex pages that require secure logging in. However, if you would like to put ads on the proxified pages without doing further research, Glype would be the ideal beginner’s choice, as it is the easiest to set up for that purpose.
