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Ask Slashdot: Which Android Phone (and Carrier) For WiFi Proxy Support?
frisket writes "My current phone contract is about to run out, and I'm due a phone upgrade. My HTC Hero has been fine except for the notorious lack of Android proxy support for wireless connections, so I want a new Android phone which provides this. None of the phone companies hereabouts (Ireland) seems to know anything about this, and the forums offer conflicting advice. Is it true that wifi proxy support is disabled to force users to use their phone company's IP connection? What choices do I have (if any)?"
What is Wifi Proxy Support?
Root your phone and install a copy of Barnacle Wi-Fi tether. It works on just about any Android phone with a 2g/3g data connection, it is lightweight and easy to set up. At an MSRP of free, it won't break the bank. All hail our open source overlords!
Well, lots of people have addressed tethering. If you mean using a wifi hotspot that requires a proxy to actually connect to the outside world (think corporate environment here), then I've had real good luck with ProxyDroid from the market. It requires root, but that wasn't an issue for me anyway.
No wonder the phone companies haven't heard about it, since judging by the comments, no one on Slashdot has either. Perhaps you mean tethering?
I have a contract with Vodafone (Netherlands). It came with a HTC Desire. The phone came with an app called "Wifi Hotspot". It works perfectly.
My girlfriend has a Desire S. It also has the Wifi Hotspot app. So... where's the problem? You're in Ireland, not the US.
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
See this ticket - there are many user reports on which phones have it working and which don't in the comments:
http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=1273
Samsung Galaxy S2 in particular supports it with updates (2.3.4+), and is otherwise the single most awesome Android phone on the market today (at least until Nexus Prime is officially announced tomorrow).
Even with the Honeycomb support for WiFi Proxy, apps or may not be able to take advantage of the new proxy support, and might have to be updated (at least at that time, that was case). Common example: set a proxy on your XOOM and your could browse the internet, but the mail app, and other apps that relied on http connectivity, would not necessarily work without modification by the developer).
Motorola (and perhaps other manufacturers) have included proxy support in their phones. My Bionic has it, but I no longer need it, and haven't tested it. I'm not sure who else provides it. I think some of the other tablets, may be the Galaxy Tab include a way to set the proxy, but again, if the app doesn't know how to take advantage of it, it's gains you nothing, beyond web browsing.
Even the oldest of Blackberries I used supported proxy settings on WiFi. It boggles my mind that Google would allow such a glaring omission to last for such a long time, especially when it has a huge effect on Android's adoption in the enterprise.
I obviously didn't make it plain what I wanted to do. I want to be able to use wireless access points which run proxy servers behind them (all industrial and campus networks, for example). This is a standard setting on all devices except Androids, where the facility for specifying a proxy was left out. (Weirdly, it was included in the settings for 3G connections, where it is never needed, but omitted from regular wifi configs, where it is common. Go figure.) Regular wifi at home, in cafés, etc works fine: it's only APs that sit in front of proxies that cause problems.
Actually, it isn't everyone here is just misunderstanding his question. He wants to be able to connect his phone to the internet over wifi, but through a proxy server. This is probably the only way he can use wifi where he works.
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