How to create your own proxy server

When you use a proxy, you may access restricted sites, you may stay on internet as anonymous. Your logs, your activities are visible to proxy server’s company/owner. Proxy server developer or authorities can sell your data. For overcome this disadvantage you can use VPN. But most of the trusted VPN’s are paid. So, for stay secure, you can make your own proxy server and be anonymous. For that you can use any cloud platform.

With Google Cloud Platform (GCP):-

Using Windows Instance:-

Step 1: Go to https://console.cloud.google.com/

Step 2: Start a free trial. When you begin the free trial, Google creates a billing account for you and credits $300 to your account. The 90-day, $300 Free Trial period starts automatically when you complete your signup. To complete your Free Trial signup, you must provide a credit card or other payment method to set up a Cloud Billing account and verify your identity. Don’t worry, setting up a Cloud Billing account does not enable us to charge you. You are not charged unless you explicitly enable billing by upgrading your Cloud Billing account to a paid account. You can upgrade to a paid account at any time during the trial. After you have upgraded, you can still use any remaining free credits (within the 90-day period). Anything you do that would normally result in a charge is billed against this credit. You should be aware that if you do not upgrade to a paid account after the free trial ends, your Google Compute Engine resources might be removed. Removed resources are not recoverable.

Step 3: Create a virtual machine. Click on hamburger menu -> Compute Engine -> VM Instances.

Step 4: Click on Create.

Step 5: Set a name for instance.

Step 6: In Region select Netherlands from the dropdown. Because Netherlands has strict privacy laws and Netherlands has less internet censorship.

Step 7: In Machine Configuration under the General-purpose tab, in Series field choose N1 from the dropdown.

Step 8: (Optional) you can also determine the cores and memory size of your instance base on your requirements.

Step 9: In Boot disk click on Change.

Step 10: In Operating system field select Windows Server from the dropdown. In Version field select Windows Server 2019 Datacenter from the dropdown. Then click on Select.

Step 11: (Optional) choose disk type and disk size. Then click on Select.

Step 12: After setup the instance you can see your billing price for this instance.

Step 13: Click on Allow HTTP traffic and Allow HTTPS traffic checkboxes. Then Click on Create.

Step 14: Set a username and password for this instance. Click on RDP and select Set Windows password from the dropdown.

Step 15: Set a username and click on Set.

Step 16: Copy the password and click on Close. Now your Windows server is ready.

Step 17: Copy the External IP address of the instance.

Wait for a few minutes.

Step 18: Open Remote Desktop Connection. Press Windows Key+R and type mstsc and press Enter, it opens Remote Desktop Connection.

Step 19: Paste the External IP address and click on Connect.

Step 20: Type the username and paste the password, then click on OK.

Step 21: Select Yes.

A Windows session will be open. Now create an administrative account on this remote host or server. It depends on the platform. In Google and Azure, by default administrative account is set to disable. In AWS it is set to enable.

Step 22: On the remote host right click on Windows icon and select Computer Management.

Step 23: Select Local Users and Groups and then select Users.

Step 24: Right click on Administrator and select Set Password.

Step 25: Click on Proceed.

Step 26: Set a strong password and click on OK.

Step 27: Right click on Administrator and select Properties.

Step 28: Set Account is disabled checkbox to false and click on OK.

Step 29: Close this session.

Step 30: Again start a session. In IP address use the same external IP address. This time use Administrator as username and type the password that you have set for the Administrator account.

Step 31: Download and install a proxy server application in your server system. There are lots of proxy software available in the market but only a few are good and reliable. Some of the best proxy software for Windows are CCProxy, HAProxy, SmartProxy, VPN Book, Apache Traffic Server, WinGate, Squid, Nginx (Linux, Unix based). We will use CCProxy. Download CCProxy from this link: https://www.youngzsoft.net/ccproxy/. Download the free version. In free version it supports only 3 users to access the proxy. Install it on your server.

Step 32: Open CCProxy.

Step 33: Click on Options.

Step 34: Make sure that HTTP port is 808 and Auto Detect is on.

Step 35: Sometimes firewall would stop CCProxy. For better use of CCProxy, you need to close firewall. If you keep the Windows Firewall on, you need to create exception rule for CCProxy.

To browse the internet via this Proxy, we need to set up our browser to use this Proxy.

Step 36: (In Firefox) Go to browser setting. Choose Manual proxy configuration, and in HTTP proxy add your instance’s external IP, in Port add 808. Make sure to check the Also use this proxy for FTP and HTTPS checkbox. Click on OK, and you are good to go.

Now you can monitor traffic in your proxy.

Step 37: Open CCProxy.

Step 38: Click on Monitor.

Step 39: Now start browsing on Firefox. You can see all the traffics in CCProxy.

If you search your IP address in internet, you will see that instance’s IP address is your public IP address.

Step 40: (Optional) you can also allow only selected IP addresses or MAC addresses to connect to your proxy. You can also block URLs, Web sites, or contents. To do these click on Account on CCProxy.

If you close the remote session you can also use this proxy server. But if you close the CCProxy application, you can’t use this proxy. Hence, after setup your proxy, directly close the session without close CCProxy. Close the session not means that you stop your server. If you want to stop your server, you can stop it from Google Cloud Platform dashboard. Select your instance and click on the stop button.

When you stop an instance, it remains stopped, and does not respond, until you start it again. A stopped instance does not incur charges, but all of the resources that are attached to the instance will still be charged. For example, you are charged for persistent disks and static IP addresses according to the price sheet, even if an instance is stopped until they are deleted. To stop being charged for attached resources, you can reconfigure a stopped instance to not use those resources, and then delete the resources. After you are ready, you can come back and start the same instances again, with the same instance properties, metadata, and resources.