How Java Plug-in Obtains Proxy Information

Because browsers on different platforms store proxy information differently, there is no generic mechanism to obtain proxy information. Here's how Java Plug-in obtains proxy information for three different browser-platform combinations:

Internet Explorer on Win32: Internet Explorer stores proxy information in the same set of keys in the windows registry. Java Plug-in obtains this information directly.

Netscape Navigator browser on Win32: Navigator 4 stores proxy information in the user preference file on the local machine. Java Plug-in reads and parses the user preference file to obtain the Navigator 4 proxy information. Netscape 6 has an API for obtaining proxy information. findProxyForURL(URL) returns proxy configuration information for the URL passed to it.

Netscape Navigator browser on the Solaris operating environment and Linux: Navigator stores proxy information in a file in the local machine. Java Plug-in reads and parses this file to obtain the proxy information. For Netscape 6 the process is the same as described in the previous section.

Java Plug-in obtains proxy information at startup time. If you change the proxy setting after Java Plug-in has started, you may force Java Plug-in to reload the proxy information from the browser through the p option in the Java Console.