The following is a mini-tutorial written by rari57 regarding the upgrades made in Charon v0.5.4

Many thanks to him for doing this ... it's well documented that I hate doing this crap ;) .... so over to the guide ......

Explanation of the new features in Charon v0.5.4

Charon v0.5.4 is out with a lot of new features that give users the ability to do everything proxy related with only one tool. Its features for v0.5.3 are already covered at the author's website Project2025 and in its official support forums. This tutorial is mainly intended to highlight only the new features that come with v0.5.4.

In this tutorial, the new features built in are covered in detail first in the following sections, then follows the explanation of the main window that is used to start all the various tests. Please make note that the cursor arrow in the pictures below points to the new features implemented into Charon. Also, note that the action of mouse clicks to start various tests, to open up various dialog boxes, etc. are shown with [ -> ] , and Charon's features on dialog boxes are shown with [ " " ] for your attention throughout this tutorial.

1.General Options

"Save proxy list on exiting" - ticked (Default)

With this option ticked, Charon saves the last proxy list into the proxy.ini file in Charon's folder automatically when it is closed. But if you don't want your last tested list added into the main list of Charon, just untick it.

From now on the user may not lose the whole proxy list if the system or program crashes during a test as from now on the function of automatically saving is built into the new version. If Charon crashes, when starting it again, it will prompt you to load this automatically saved list.

2.Scan Options

In the new version of Charon, scanning is improved considerably. It is now possible to scan for IP ranges as well as leeching from search engines and URL lists. This scanning for IP ranges feature will let users to be able to find more proxies on the net. Also, now it is possible to manipulate URL lists without opening Charon's folder to access its related files. It can all be done from within the program.

"Configure Leechable Pages"

-> Click to open up the "Leeching options" dialog box which lets user to manipulate the leech pages URLs

"Leeching Options" dialog box (Fig.2.1) has two areas. "Pages to Leech" is the area that user prepared URL lists for leeching are manipulated and "Leeching history" is the area that lets users to manipulate the "Pages leeched for proxies.txt" file in Charon's folder. This is the file Charon writes the URLs into when it leeches proxies either from search engines or from user prepared lists.

2.1."Pages to leech" box

To load your URL list for leeching from a TXT file
-> Open your TXT file containing the web pages you want to leech from, select all and copy to clipboard(CtrlA/CtrlC)
-> Right click on "Pages to leech" area, click "Paste URLs from Clipboard"
-> Click "Remove duplicates" to remove repeated URLs from the list

To save your URL list for leeching into a TXT file
-> Select the URLs that you want to save, right click on the highlighted area, click "Copy URLs to Clipboard", open a blank TXT file and paste it in (Ctrl V)

To remove duplicated URLs that Charon had leeched from search engines and/or from your URL list for leeching
-> Right click on "Leeching History" area, click "Clean up List"

2.2."Leeching history" box

To save the URLs that Charon had leeched from search engines and/or from your URL list for leeching into a TXT file.
-> Sort the list by clicking on "Leeched" column, select the URLs that have high counts, right click on the highlighted area, click "Copy selected URLs to clipboard, open a blank TXT file and paste it in (Ctrl V)

Note - This can be the starting point to start making your own list of URLs to leech effectively in the future.

To update the "Pages leeched for proxies.txt" file in Charon folder without closing down Charon.
-> Right click on "Leeching History" area, click "Save list to the "Pages leeched" file"

To update the "Leeching history" list from the "Pages leeched for proxies.txt" file in Charon folder without closing down Charon and just after a leeching.
-> Right click on "Leeching History" area, click "Refresh list from the "Pages leeched" file"

To update your "Pages to leech" list from the "Leeching history"
-> Sort the list by clicking on "Leeched" column, select the URLs that have high counts, right click on "Leeching History" area, click "Copy selected URLs to the "Leech pages" box

Note - Sorting this list using both columns which are "Leeched" and "Date" will give you the fresh, with high count of proxy URLs which will help improving your own URL list.

After you are finished working in these areas, click "X" on this dialog box to close, then click on "Close" button to return back to Charon's main window. Your work is saved by Charon into its related files.

Note - No other tools are really needed to manipulate and update your URL lists anymore. All can be done just using Charon which makes this process much easier and effective with just a few clicks.

3.Connect Options

In the new version of Charon, the common tasks for http and socks proxies are grouped in a seperate box named "Common". These options can be unticked in order to increase the speed of testing, even on the fly, like many other options in Charon.

There are also minor changes in "Socks Proxies" section which can also be ticked/unticked on the fly, that is, while Charon is testing the proxies.

4.Judge Options

In the new version of Charon, the usage of external judges are improved considerably. Now, more than one judge can be used and this distributes the heavy load on proxy judges during the testing phase. This feature improves the testing capability of Charon. From now on, you don't have to worry if the proxy judge goes bad during a test, Charon will continue to test your proxies with the other working external judges, if more than one is set to be used.

In this version, Charon can test only the selected judges. You don't have to wait for all judges to be checked out, just select your favourite judges and test. Also, now it is possible to manipulate judge lists used by Charon. And due to these new features built in for more user configuration, besides the various options introduced to improve this function, note that the icon "Judge Tester" is changed into "Judge Options" in the main window as explained in section 5.

There is also another new feature built in to use external PHP judges for proxy testing which is user configurable. To use this feature, you have to upload the "Judge.php" file in Charon's directory to a PHP enabled server on the net. A password can be set to control access to this PHP judge and this feature improves the privacy of usage of the judge explained in section 4.4

"Proxy Judge Options" dialog box has two areas. "Judges selected to use" is the box Charon uses to test the proxies in its list. "Unused Judges" box is the area where the judges are stored. Charon is shipped with a lot of judges in this box, but never forget that judges go bad, so make sure you test them first before using them.

-> Click on "Test Judges" button to test all the judges in the "Unused Judges" box
-> Click on "Remove duplicates" button to remove repeated URLs for judges in the "Unused Judges" box
-> Click on "PHP Judges" button to open up the "PHP Checker Options" dialog box
-> Click on "Delete All Bad" button to delete the not working judges in the "Unused Judges" box
-> Click on "Close" button to return back to Charon's main window

Your work is saved by Charon into its related files.

4.2."Judges selected to use" box

This is the box containing the judges that will be used by Charon during testing of your proxy list.

To test judges in this box
-> Select the judges you want to test, right click on the highlighted area, click "Test selected judge(s)"

To load your judges from a TXT file
-> Open your TXT file containing the judges, select all and copy to clipboard(CtrlA/CtrlC)
-> Right click on "Judges selected to use" area, click "Paste judge(s) from Clipboard"

To save judges into a TXT file
-> Select the judges that you want to save, right click on the highlighted area, click "Copy judge(s) to Clipboard", open a blank TXT file and paste it in(CtrlV)

To get rid of the judge(s) that are not working anymore in this box
-> Select the judge(s) that tests as bad, right click on the highlighted area, click "Move judge(s) to the unused list"

4.3."Unused Judges" box

This is the box to used as a storage for all judges. The "Judges.ini file in Charon folder contains the information for both boxes.

To load your judges from a TXT file
-> Open your TXT file containing the judges, select all and copy to clipboard(CtrlA/CtrlC)
-> Right click on "Unused Judges" area, click "Paste judge(s) from Clipboard"

To save judges into a TXT file
-> Select the judges that you want to save, right click on the highlighted area, click "Copy judge(s) to Clipboard", open a blank TXT file and paste it in(CtrlV)

To add judge(s) to be used by Charon for testing of your proxy list
-> Select the judge(s) that test as good, right click on the highlighted area, click "Move judge(s) to the selected list"

Note - Do not rush into deleting a judge that was working for you as they may come back online after some time. Even though using a proxy judge is your own responsibility and preference, I would recommend AZenv judges (Ver.1.04) with low ping times to be used in Charon for testing due to their performance on speed and accuracy, that is, if you are using external judges. We mainly need to know if a http proxy is anonymous or not, and if we want to know what http variables it passes and/or blocks, Charon's scoring will help you on that which can also be configured in accordance with user needs.

4.4."PHP Checker Options" dialog box

This is the dialog box to enter the web address of the PHP enabled server that the PHP judge has been uploaded to for use in testing

-> Enter the web address of the server in "URL" area using http://
-> Enter the number of threads for testing in "Proxies at a time" area
-> Enter a password if you want this judge to be used by only you, this is optional (but must match the password that has been coded into the script) and click "Add to list" button to enter it into the list
-> To delete an URL from this list, simply press delete on your keyboard

When finished working on this dialog box, click "X" to return back to "Proxy Judge Options" dialog box. Click on the "Close" button to return back to main window.

Note - It is recommended by the author to use a low number of threads, like 3-5, for the test to be effective and fast.

5.Main Window

The new features that are implemented into Charon and covered above are reached from this main window by clicking on the related "Options" section icons. There are two more additions which can be reached by clicking on "Check Proxies" icon in the "Controls" section as seen in Fig.5.

To test proxies using an external PHP judge feature is reached from the popup menu by right clicking on the main window as seen in Fig.5.1. Also, as seen in the same figure, now, it is possible to save a TXT file in a detailed country report format. This TXT file generated by Charon will give you the good or selected proxies in the main list in a country breakdown format which can useful if you are looking for proxies that belong to a specific country(ies).

5.1."Check Proxies"

In the new version of Charon, leeching proxies from search engines and leeching proxies from URL lists can be started from here individually. In the older version, these function are controlled through the "Proxy Scanning Options" dialog box.

With the new version, the need to use other scanning programs is over as Charon has its own scanning function to scan the IP ranges. Scanning IP ranges may not be welcomed by your ISP and/or may be against your country laws, so this is your own responsibility. Also, be careful if you want to use this function. Go around the forums and look for the information on safe IP ranges for scanning and/or start building up a list for yourself.

To start the tests for proxies...

-> Click on "Leech pages for more proxies" to start the test for leeching for proxies from the URLs that are loaded in "Proxy Scanning Options|Leeching options|Pages to leech" box

-> Click on "Scan search engines for more proxies" to start the test for leeching for proxies from search engines

-> Click on "Scan IP range for proxies" to open up the dialog box
-> Enter your IP ranges to scan into the small list using the two formats specified or a combination of the two
-> Click on "Scan" button to start the test for scanning on the IP ranges entered into the small list

-> Right click on main window, click on "Test selected proxy(ies) with php checkers" to start testing your all/selected and marked proxies in the list

Note - During these tests mentioned above, if "Test proxies with current settings" and "Filter proxies through bad list before testing" options in "Proxy Scanning Options" dialog box are ticked, then, Charon will write only the good proxies into the main list. So, there is no need to run proxy tests again other than sorting your list for anon and non-anon for use.

The routine works like this, proxy is stripped from the web page(either from search engines, or from your URL list, or found by IP scanning), then it is filtered out against Charon's default filters, and then, it is added to the list after being tested using the proxy judge(s) specified, and only if it is good. With this feature all the process to finding, leeching, testing proxies can be achieved in just one run.

5.2.RBL Check

In the new version of Charon, it is now possible to check the proxies in Charon's main list against a list of blacklisted proxies such as "Blitzed". These organisations keep track of the proxies that are used for spam and/or abuse. The results are returned in the "Status" column and a blank response means a clean result for that proxy.

To run this test for all the proxies in the main Charon list..
-> Click on "Filter List" and click on "Run proxies through RBL check"

6.Multiple IPs support for multi WAN systems

In the new version of Charon, now it is possible to test your proxies using multiple IPs. If you have more than one line accessing the internet in your system, Charon will test the proxies for anonimity using these static IPs and in one run, that is, you don't have to run the test one more time for every IP you may have.

To use this feature during the above tests explained in section 4, enter your IPs manually into the area "Connect Options|This IP Address" separated by semicolons. Make sure the "General Options|Check IP before starting test" option is unticked.

Note - This feature can also be used in a multi WAN access system, such as a combination of a static IP and a modem line(dynamic IP). Charon will test proxies and give you accurate results for anonimity on any line you may have at the time of testing.