Connect your Laptop through Alfa GPRS (Lebanon)

Good news for Lebanese Alfa GPRS users:

I was wondering why Alfa GPRS (Prepaid Cards) prevents the access from your computer through your cell phone.

But actually they cannot prevent you, if you are able to connect from your cell phone to the Internet so you should be able to access the Internet from your Laptop. So how Alfa prevent Internet access from the Laptop?

The answer is easy, they just added some funny rules on Alfa firewall/proxy to reject any none-WinCE or cell connection based on some HTTP header sent by the browser.

So to bypass this funny rule all what you have to do is to impersonate your browser as mobile browser.

Summary about Alfa Network:

Alfa GPRS Network assign fake (private) IPs for the GPRS users, subnet: 172.124.x.x, and the users access the internet through Alfa proxy server: 192.168.23.50

Solving the problem:

I have developed a lite FireFox Extension to allow you bypass Alfa Proxy and to browse the Internet from you Laptop by simply connect to your phone via Wifi Router ( HotSpot mode).

1. Download and Install (drag and drop to firefox) my extension from: AlfaGPRS
2. Add Alfa proxy server 192.168.23.50 to FireFox: eHow
3. Make sure your Mobile can access the internet
4. Turn on your Wifi Router (Hotspot mode) and connect your laptop to your mobile (ie)
5. Voila! now you will be able to access the internet.

NB:

1. Try the WAP powered sites rather than full sites, example: m.google.com
2. When you want to navigate the net with regular internet connection you have to remove the proxy and disable the extension

Known issues:

• Problem with HTTPS connections
• Download file size limit 500K (limit by Alfa)

Good Luck :)