How do I get Firefox to use NDIS connection without disconnecting LAN?

[barcodelinux]

Before you ask, yes I posted this on the Mozilla forums but I haven't gotten an answer yet so i though I might give it a shot here.

I have an XP laptop (no admin rights). I have two network connections. One is my work LAN. The other is an NDIS Internet Sharing device (my droid via USB tethering). If both are connected and enabled, is it possible to choose which one Firefox connects through without disabling the other?

Is there an "about:config" setting or an extension I can download?

 

[MotoCache1]

Before you ask, yes I posted this on the Mozilla forums but I haven't gotten an answer yet so i though I might give it a shot here.

I have an XP laptop (no admin rights). I have two network connections. One is my work LAN. The other is an NDIS Internet Sharing device (my droid via USB tethering). If both are connected and enabled, is it possible to choose which one Firefox connects through without disabling the other?

Is there an "about:config" setting or an extension I can download?

What I'm going to suggest might not work depending on how your corporate network is configured. Someone will probably come up with a better plan than this, but this is my "off the top of my head idea".

Find a proxy server on the Internet that you like -- either one you're running yourself on a "real" IP address somewhere, or an open one somewhere, or even a paid one like Anonymizer. I would expect that the firewalls of most corporate networks won't let you reach such a proxy via their firewall/proxy, so if you configure Firefox to use that proxy, it will have no choice but to do so via its only direct connection to the Internet -- your phone. If you use Anonymizer TNS (Total Net Shield) you'll have the advantage of having everything encrypted along the way as well.

I haven't tested this, but if you try it and want to know if it worked or not, fire up your browser and go to http://www.ipchicken.com and see what IP you see. If it is the IP of your company's firewall/proxy, you're going out your corporate LAN -- if it is some IP you've never heard of, you're going out Anonymizer.

Let me know how it goes.

 

[barcodelinux]

Well, I actually have thought of that. Several months ago, I set up an ssh server set up at my house that I specifically use for ssh tunneling my Firefox connection. But I didn't want to have to do it that way for long simply because I didn't want my net admin to see a bunch of encrypted connections back to a certain ip, and then he would block that ip and I would be stuck back at square one.

That's why using another physical connection seemed like the best possible solution. The net admin couldn't block that because there was no way for him to see it.

The problem that I ran into was the dueling connections. I just want Firefox to use my tethered droid connection only and everything else (outlook, networked drives, etc...) to use the LAN connection.

I see apps like Proxoid but I am not sure that is what I need as I would need to install adb, and that is not an option due to lack of admin rights on my workstation. That and its no longer maintained so support is out the window there.

 

[MotoCache1]

Well, I actually have thought of that. Several months ago, I set up an ssh server set up at my house that I specifically use for ssh tunneling my Firefox connection. But I didn't want to have to do it that way for long simply because I didn't want my net admin to see a bunch of encrypted connections back to a certain ip, and then he would block that ip and I would be stuck back at square one.

That's why using another physical connection seemed like the best possible solution. The net admin couldn't block that because there was no way for him to see it.

The problem that I ran into was the dueling connections. I just want Firefox to use my tethered droid connection only and everything else (outlook, networked drives, etc...) to use the LAN connection.

I see apps like Proxoid but I am not sure that is what I need as I would need to install adb, and that is not an option due to lack of admin rights on my workstation. That and its no longer maintained so support is out the window there.

Perhaps I didn't explain my point very well. If you configure an HTTP proxy server out on the net, and if your corporate proxy (or whatever you use to isolate your corporate network from the Internet) won't pass traffic destined for another proxy, and then configure Firefox to use your personal HTTP proxy (at your house say), the only viable path to that proxy will be through the net connection provided by your tethered phone.