1. Proxy Installer for Windows Squid: Squid is a caching proxy for the Web supporting HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and more. It reduces bandwidth and improves response times by caching and reusing frequently-requested web pages. Squid has extensive access controls and makes a great server accelerator. It runs on most available operating systems, including Windows and is licensed under the GNU GPL.

2. Installation of Squid: Open up CMD by clicking Start > Run > typing “cmd” > OK. Type in the following commands, pressing Enter after each line. cd c:\squid cd sbin squid.exe -i Leave the cmd window open. This will install SquidNT as a Windows service – starting it when the computer first boots. In Windows Explorer navigate to C:\squid\etc. Rename the four files in there so that the.default extensions are removed from all of them.

3. C:\squid\sbin>squid -z We can now start Squid running. Open up Windows services by clicking Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services. You should see Squid listed there – right click it and Start. Next we will create the Squid cache directories. This should improve browser performance by caching websites locally reducing the need to download each item on the webpage. Create the directories by again using CMD to run the following command:

4. Configuring Browsers: Firefox (v2) Tools > Options > Advanced > Network tab > Settings. Click on “Manual proxy configuration” and enter the IP of the machine which SquidNT was installed. For the port use 3128 (the squid default). Internet Explorer (v7) Tools > Internet Options > Connections tab > LAN Settings Under the proxy server section click the “Use a proxy server for your LAN” box. For the server use the IP of the machine SquidNT was installed on and use port 3128 (the default for Squid). Testing Once the settings are saved in the browser of your choice then test to make sure you can still access websites. You can see the access logs if you navigate to C:\squid\var\logs\access.log and open it in a text editor.