Enforcing browsing through a proxy - trhough a servlet, java script or custom application

Question

Hello, We have a proxy server that implements a set of functions. I would like to be able to enforce browsing through this proxy without setting the proxy settings in the browser. This is for demonstrating purposes, without the need to enforce the demonstrated party to change anything in the environment.

There are a few ways to implement it (I guess there are more):

1. let the users browse to a certain servlet that will be a "pseudo proxy". The problem in this case is that then the pseudo-proxy will have to rewrite all HTML internal links so they will go also through the proxy - not an option :-(
2. provide a page with a URL field and use java script tricks to make the request go through a proxy - could not find a way to do it yet.
3. create a custom browser - either .net based or java based that will use some "IE Control" assuming the control allows to set the proxy settings
4. "re-packaging" of chrome/opera/IE - creating a custom version of the broswer so when it is used it will go through the proxy

I will appreciate if someone encountered this need in the past and can contribute an idea how to implement it. Thanks

Answer 1

You probably want to google for 'Transparent Proxy' or 'Intercepting Proxy'.