nOOb question --- Can I get my browser to use port other than 80 toweb browsing?

I'm not a technical guy, but I always curious about technology.

I read a lot, from many online sources, but as a non-technical guy,
there are things that get me very confused. I guess I am not smart at
all.

For example, I know that the Web Browsers, be it Internet Explorer or
FireFox or Safari, all use port 80 for web browsing.

I guess part of the reason they do that is because it's the common
standard, and part (as I read the materials from many online sources)
is because of security.

But I still want to know, as a user, can I change my browser so that
I'd use, let's say, port 3863, to browse, instead of the default port
80? (That is assuming port 3863 isn't reserved for any other
purposes.)

If the answer to the above is a "Yes", then I would like to know
further. Such as --

Let's say I change my browser so that it uses port 3863 instead of
port 80. Can I still successfully uses it to browse websites as usual?

But before that, how to make my browser, - let's say I am using
Internet Explorer, version 7, - how to get IE7 to use port 3863
instead of port 80, for browsing purposes?

Would changing from port 80 to port 3863 poses any security risk?

Is there anywhere online that I can get more information regarding
questions such as these?

I've tried to find the answer. Unfortunately, most of the sites assume
that their visitors are already technicaly savvy, unfortunately for a
dumb person like me, the more I read their articles, the more blur I
get.

I think what I mean is, is there any down_to_earth place online that
give dimwits such as yours truly a very basic idea of what is a port,
how to change port, how to forward port, how to change browser
configuration, et cetera ....

If you happen to know of such places, would you kindly share it with
this dumb fella, will ya, please?

Thank you !!

 

From: <>

| I'm not a technical guy, but I always curious about technology.

| I read a lot, from many online sources, but as a non-technical guy,
| there are things that get me very confused. I guess I am not smart at
| all.

| For example, I know that the Web Browsers, be it Internet Explorer or
| FireFox or Safari, all use port 80 for web browsing.

| I guess part of the reason they do that is because it's the common
| standard, and part (as I read the materials from many online sources)
| is because of security.

| But I still want to know, as a user, can I change my browser so that
| I'd use, let's say, port 3863, to browse, instead of the default port
| 80? (That is assuming port 3863 isn't reserved for any other
| purposes.)

| If the answer to the above is a "Yes", then I would like to know
| further. Such as --

| Let's say I change my browser so that it uses port 3863 instead of
| port 80. Can I still successfully uses it to browse websites as usual?

| But before that, how to make my browser, - let's say I am using
| Internet Explorer, version 7, - how to get IE7 to use port 3863
| instead of port 80, for browsing purposes?

| Would changing from port 80 to port 3863 poses any security risk?

| Is there anywhere online that I can get more information regarding
| questions such as these?

| I've tried to find the answer. Unfortunately, most of the sites assume
| that their visitors are already technicaly savvy, unfortunately for a
| dumb person like me, the more I read their articles, the more blur I
| get.

| I think what I mean is, is there any down_to_earth place online that
| give dimwits such as yours truly a very basic idea of what is a port,
| how to change port, how to forward port, how to change browser
| configuration, et cetera ....

| If you happen to know of such places, would you kindly share it with
| this dumb fella, will ya, please?

| Thank you !!

Simply put, only if the web server uses a different post such as 8080 as in...
http://www.site.com:88080
Otherwise YOU can't.

You have to use the port the server uses to host with and the default is TCP port 80 for
HTTP and TCP port 443 for HTTPS.

 

Whats wrong with a proxy ?

 

the default, if you do not specify a port, is port 80

try
http://www.google.com:80

just to check.. I googled for http url syntax, and got the RFC
fortunately. They document the internet standards.

RFC 1738 says
An HTTP URL takes the form:

the standard is that Web/HTTP Servers run on port 80.

so Web/HTTP clients have no choice.

But they may use other ports, for security. To hide a bit!

I think any port between 1-65535 is ok..
There is a convention that the lower ones. 1-1024 are for servers, and
the higher ones, 1035-65535 are the random type clients use at their
end after making a connection to a server at its port.

If you run the command netstat -an then you see.

Only if there is a web server running on port 3863, which is not going
to happen, unless you happen to know that there is. Because you or
somebody you know put it there and told you he had.

running a web server on a port people do not expect, would hide it
more.

it's not really up to the client to decide what port is used. The
server runs on whatever port, and the client has to connect to that
port to access it.

since the port is a TCP port, the subject is TCP/IP,
there is a book by Wendell Odom called Networking first step.. That is
good.
And one by Que called "using tcp/ip"..

A good idea is to set up clients and servers, and then you will
understand.. That is very simple to do..

VNC

a web server.. A simple one is BRS WebWeaver.

an FTP server, a simple one is BP FTP..

more advanced web servers, people tend to use! are squid. or apache.
More of a pain to set up.. Hence I mentioned the simpe ones. Ideal to
get the hang of ports.

a very simple FTP server that is good, is quick n easy FTP.. though
it may be slightly crippled..

set these things up on your LAN, so all behind your router.. So you
don't have to set your router.

see them running with netstat -an,
try tasklist (or task manager.. processes, view PID) and netstat -
aon see the process IDs relate to processes.

People do not tend to learn the things you have mentioned as
theory.. , they run into them in practice. And that is why they are so
badly explained on the web.

People typically have to forward a port if they are running a server.

So eMule is a great example.. it sets up servers and requires port
forwarding. You will see many sites on how to get port forwarding
running so eMule will work.

VNC is another one but people setting that up tend to be techies.
eMule has more idiot users so the explanations associated with it will
be simpler.

Even SSH and tunneling.. When I tried to figure it out, I found the
explanations on the net were CRAP.. but by messing around with it I
got it to work.. Similarly, a program called PCHelpWare.. It has a
forum, which is good, and one can search that.. But the program itself
was completely unintuitive, I figured out how it worked by clicking
the buttons and seeing what effect they had..

People generally cannot communicate.. And instructions are often crap.
They are a good guide though..
You will at least know what to experiment with..

Of course, instructions relate to a program. They are not theory.. I
just google around to read theory.. none of it is greatly explained,
but if you look at many many websites, then you can reconcile it..
Really though, the theory is not well explained enough, and therefore
you only really learn the theory by doing the thing in practice.

And the concepts you have mentioned, are things people have run into
in practice.. And the only things they read, were instructions.. And
they figure out what does what like a kid figures out a video machine.
Try things and figure out what happens and build up an understanding
of how it works.. And instructions can be a good guide...
or can even answer some problems!

if you are dumb then it may be for other reasons that you have not
shown. But it's not visible from anything you wrote here.

 

Late answer:
You got it all wrong. When you browse port 80, that is not
port 80 on YOUR machine, its port 80 on the OTHER machine. So when you
connect to google, you connect to www.google.com:80, but your port
will be the first available one after about port 1024.

Tell you what, download vstat from keir.net and you can see
for yourself.

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