most players on linux do not play http streams even after setting no proxy and all. Not to forget mentioning that firefox does not open live streaming sites 90% of the time.

here is how to do this using mplayer [credits: nareshov]

  • download and install squid
      ubuntu: $aptitude install squid
      gentoo: $emerge -va squid
      fedora: $yum install squid
  • replace the code of /etc/squid/squid.conf by the following code:
    Note: 1. replace username and password by your login-id and password respectively
    2. replace 172.31.1.227 (vsnlproxy) to any other (e.g 172.31.1.233 for relproxy)


    • http_port 3128
    cache_peer 172.31.1.227 parent 3128 0 no-query default login=username:password
    cache_peer 202.141.43.24 parent 3128 0 no-query default login=username:password
    acl all src 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0
    acl localhost src 127.0.0.1/255.255.255.255
    http_access allow localhost
    http_access deny all
    visible_hostname localhost
    never_direct allow all

  • Restart squid:

    • $/etc/init.d/squid restart

  • Export http_proxy

    • $export http_proxy="http://localhost:3128"

  • Ready to play streams using mplayer

    • for ibnlive news(video):
    $mplayer http://a1091.l2639552042.c26395.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/1091/26395/v0001/reflector:52042
    for bbc news(audio):
    mplayer
    http://a1149.l1305038288.c13050.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/1149/13050/v0001/reflector:38288