
Show HN: Potatso – Proxy tool on iOS - icodesign
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id1239860606?ls=1&mt=8&at=1010luhP
======
rahimnathwani
I've used Potato on iOS for quite some time, and don't know how I lived
without it (as SS is the only VPN protocol that works reliably where I live).
At the time, I thought it was the only SS client using the Network Extension
API, but I think there's another one.

The original Potatso included some GPL code, and the author proactively and
kindly made the repo available on GitHub (instead of only responding to source
code requests). This resulted in at least one 'developer' releasing their own
version under a different name, at a lower price. So the original developer
pulled the repo and created Potatso 2.

I bought Potatso 2, but have yet to use it. A few questions:

\- is there any performance or stability reason to switch to Potatso 2?

\- does Potatso 2 contain any GPL code? If so, is the source code available
somewhere?

Thanks again for creating this.

~~~
icodesign
Wow!!! Your words has lighten up my whole day!!! Thanks for your
encouragement.

I would recommend using Potatso 2 instead of Potatso 1 cause it's much more
stable and under heavy maintenance.

Potatso 2 doesn't contain any GPL code (that's why it's 2)

~~~
rahimnathwani
:)

Let me know if you ever visit Beijing and I'll buy you a beer or two!

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davidcollantes
Very nice! A heads up. The manual
([https://manual.potatso.com/](https://manual.potatso.com/)) goes from English
to Chinese — that is, clicking English, will take you to pages with headers in
English, but real text in Chinese).

~~~
icodesign
Nice catch. I thought Potatso Lite is quite easy to use and I didn't get time
to translate them. I will do it soon (probably after WWDC)

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AznHisoka
I immediately bought this from thr app store - solves a very crucial use case
for me.

Another app i am looking for and unsure if it exists: fiddler for ios. i want
to see all external http requests that are going out from ny phone from all
apps/browser/etc

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m12k
About your last request: I've previously used
[https://www.charlesproxy.com/](https://www.charlesproxy.com/) for analyzing
all traffic from my iPhone and it works quite well (you use your computer as a
proxy for the phone). There's a guide how to in the FAQ
[https://www.charlesproxy.com/documentation/faqs/](https://www.charlesproxy.com/documentation/faqs/)

~~~
marvel_boy
I prefer Mitmproxy [https://mitmproxy.org](https://mitmproxy.org) more than
Charles, and it is opensource.

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mnx
To each their own, but I can't imagine a CLI being more convenient than the
charles / fiddler GUIs for the kind of things I did with them.

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Macuyiko
Give it a try. I was in the same boat but found it's cli interface very well
done and easy to use, especially the curses based one.

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kiliankoe
mitmproxy recently introduced a web UI as well. It's still very early, but
definitely something to try out!

~~~
mhils
If you have feedback regarding the web ui: We are very receptive to that. :)

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timvdalen
I didn't realize you could do this on iOS. How does this work?

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icodesign
Yeah, this is really tricky. Apple has released Network Extension API since
iOS 9 which only exposes IP packets. What I did is to parse the IP packets and
redirect them into different proxies. (Most tough part though only one
sentence)

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timvdalen
Huh, interesting approach. Do you think Apple will allow this in the store?
Did you have any trouble with the approval process?

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cynix
It's already on the App Store so of course they must've allowed it.

There are several similar apps that do basically the same thing. The original
one is called Surge, but it's super expensive. Potatso is one of the cheaper
clones.

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sfeeney
why no ota support?

~~~
icodesign
OTA is explicitly marked as non-safe and is removed by Shadowsocks official.
So Potatso will no longer support it and I would recommend you change your
server.

