windows - How do I find out the browser's proxy settings?

Question

I am writing a command-line tool for Windows that uses libcurl to download files from the internet.

Obviously, the downloading doesn't work when the user is behind a proxy server, because the proxy needs to be configured. I want to keep my tool as simple as possible however, and not have to burden the user with having to configure the proxy. My tool doesn't even have a config file, so the user would otherwise have to pass in the proxy settings on every command, or set an environment variable or somesuch -- way too much hassle.

So I thought, everyone's browser will usually already be set up properly, proxy configured and everything. This will be true for even the most basic user because otherwise "their internet wouldn't work".

So I figure that I can find out whether to use a proxy by looking at IE's proxy settings.

How do I go about this? More specifically:

• Is there one set of "proxy settings" in Windows, used by all browsers (probably IE's), or would I have to write different routines for IE, Firefox, Opera, etc?
• I know that I can probably read the values directly out of the appropriate registry locations if they are configured manually, but does this also work with "automatically detect proxy server?" Do I even have to bother with that option, or is it (almost) never used?

Before people start suggesting alternatives: I'm using C, so I'm limited to the Win32 API, and I really really want to keep using C and libcurl.

Answer 1

The function you're looking for is WinHttpGetIEProxyConfigForCurrentUser(), which is documented at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa384096(VS.85).aspx. This function is used by Firefox and Opera to get their proxy settings by default, although you can override them per-browser. Don't do that, though. The right thing to do (which is what everybody else does) is to just get the IE settings and assume that they're correct, since they almost always are.

Here's a sample of the relevant logic, which you should adapt for your needs:

if( WinHttpGetIEProxyConfigForCurrentUser( &ieProxyConfig ) )
{
    if( ieProxyConfig.fAutoDetect )
    {
        fAutoProxy = TRUE;
    }

    if( ieProxyConfig.lpszAutoConfigUrl != NULL )
    {
        fAutoProxy = TRUE;
        autoProxyOptions.lpszAutoConfigUrl = ieProxyConfig.lpszAutoConfigUrl;
    }
}
else
{
    // use autoproxy
    fAutoProxy = TRUE;
}

if( fAutoProxy )
{
    if ( autoProxyOptions.lpszAutoConfigUrl != NULL )
    {
        autoProxyOptions.dwFlags = WINHTTP_AUTOPROXY_CONFIG_URL;
    }
    else
    {
        autoProxyOptions.dwFlags = WINHTTP_AUTOPROXY_AUTO_DETECT;
        autoProxyOptions.dwAutoDetectFlags = WINHTTP_AUTO_DETECT_TYPE_DHCP | WINHTTP_AUTO_DETECT_TYPE_DNS_A;
    }

    // basic flags you almost always want
    autoProxyOptions.fAutoLogonIfChallenged = TRUE;

    // here we reset fAutoProxy in case an auto-proxy isn't actually
    // configured for this url
    fAutoProxy = WinHttpGetProxyForUrl( hiOpen, pwszUrl, &autoProxyOptions, &autoProxyInfo );
}

if ( fAutoProxy )
{
    // set proxy options for libcurl based on autoProxyInfo
}
else
{
    if( ieProxyConfig.lpszProxy != NULL )
    {
        // IE has an explicit proxy. set proxy options for libcurl here
        // based on ieProxyConfig
        //
        // note that sometimes IE gives just a single or double colon
        // for proxy or bypass list, which means "no proxy"
    }
    else
    {
        // there is no auto proxy and no manually configured proxy
    }
}