Tor/Privoxy wrapped Mechanize

Tor-privoxy is a Ruby Mechanize wrapper to access the web with via Tor/Privoxy It allows to use multiple Privoxy instances, switch endpoints, switch proxy when you get 4xx HTTP code Useful for web robots, scanners, grabbers when accessing sites which may ban/block you unexpectedly

Using

The first step is to install the gem:

gem install tor-privoxy

To use in your application:

require 'tor-privoxy'

Create a wrapper and you get a Mechanize instance wrapped to use Tor and which is able to use another endpoint when gets HTTP 4xx

agent ||= TorPrivoxy::Agent.new '127.0.0.1', '', {8123 => 9051} do |agent|
  sleep 10
  puts "New IP is #{agent.ip}"
end

And use the agent as a ususal Mechanize agent instance:

agent.get "http://example.com"

Configuration options

Configuration options are passed when creating an agent, and consists of:

• IP/Host of machine, where Tor/Privoxy resides
• password for Tor Control
• a hash of Privoxy port => Tor port
• a block which is called when agent switches to a new endpoint

Author

Created by Phil Pirozhkov

Origin

Future

No Mechanize dependency, ability to work with any HTTP library Extend configuration options, allowing for fine proxy setting control Better "ban" detection, i.e. when you get Captcha et c.