Use Apache as a forward http proxy server as a squid alternative for Windows with a basic username & password authentication. Don't use squidNT since it's not properly maintained and is literally ran under an emulator which is slow. Don't pay for http proxy servers, apache is free and faster. This script downloads and completely configures apach…

proxy_server.ps1

# This script downloads Apache Web Server and configures it to work as a forward http proxy server with basic authentication.
# In order to run this script you need to enable powershell scripting by opening the cmd as administrator,
# and running this command: powershell Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
# After that just right click to this file and click to "Run With Powershell"
# WebProxy runs on port 80, tested on windows 11.

# Check VCRedist current version
$OS= if ( ${env:ProgramFiles(x86)} ) {"\WOW6432Node"} else {"\"}
    $vcredist = Get-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE$OS\Microsoft\VisualStudio\14.0\VC\Runtimes\x86" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -ErrorVariable eVcRedist
if ($eVcRedist -Or ($vcredist.Bld -le 24215) ) {
    echo "Recent version of VCredist doesn't seem to be installed."
    echo "Download the latest from: https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/VC_redist.x64.exe"
    Read-Host -Prompt "(Press any key to close this window)" ; exit
}
else { echo "VCredist seems update." }

# Check if C:\Apache24 already exists
if (Test-Path -Path "C:\Apache24") {
    echo 'WARNING: There is already an Apache24 folder in C:\Apache24'
    $question = 'Do you want me to rename it as Apache24_old and continue?'
    $choices  = '&Yes', '&No'
    $decision = $Host.UI.PromptForChoice('', $question, $choices, 1)
    if ($decision -ne 0) { exit }
    if (Test-Path -Path "C:\Apache24_old") {
        echo "But there is already a Apache24_old folder, please backup or remove it before running this script."
        Read-Host -Prompt "(Press any key to close this window)" ; exit
    }
    New-Item "C:\Apache24_old" -Type Directory  | Out-Null
    Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\Apache24" | Move-Item -Destination "C:\Apache24_old" -Force  | Out-Null
    Remove-Item -Path "C:\Apache24" -Force  | Out-Null
}

# Download and extract the latest httpd-X.X.X-win64-VSXX.zip
mkdir tmp | Out-Null; cd tmp
echo "Downloading Apache."
$useragent="Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/107.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
(Invoke-WebRequest "https://www.apachelounge.com/download/" -UserAgent $useragent ).content -match '\/download\/.*?zip' | Out-Null
Invoke-WebRequest -URI "https://www.apachelounge.com$($Matches.0)" -UserAgent $useragent -OutFile .\apache.zip
Expand-Archive .\apache.zip
mv .\apache\Apache24\ C:\ ; cd .. ; rm -r -fo .\tmp
cd C:\Apache24\conf

# Configure Apache Web Server
$activate_module_list = "mod_access_compat.so,mod_proxy.so,mod_proxy_connect.so,mod_proxy_http.so,mod_ssl.so,mod_socache_shmcb.so".split(",")
foreach ($m in $activate_module_list) {
	$line=(cat 'httpd.conf') -match "#.*?$($m)"
    if ( ! $line){ continue }
	(gc 'httpd.conf' ) -replace "$line", "$($line.substring(1))" | Out-File -encoding ascii 'httpd.conf'
}
echo '
SSLSessionCache        "shmcb:${SRVROOT}/logs/ssl_scache(512000)"
SSLSessionCacheTimeout  300

<IfModule mpm_winnt_module>
    ThreadsPerChild        1920 
    MaxConnectionsPerChild   0
</IfModule>

ServerName localhost
KeepAlive On
MaxKeepAliveRequests 0
TimeOut 300
ProxyRequests On
ProxyVia On

<Proxy *>
    Order deny,allow
    Allow from all
    AuthType Basic
    AuthName "Password Required"
    AuthUserFile password.file
    AuthGroupFile group.file
    Require group usergroup
</Proxy>
' | Out-File -Append -encoding ascii -FilePath httpd.conf

# Create Users & Passwords
cd ..
$username = Read-Host -Prompt 'New Proxy Username'
.\bin\htpasswd.exe -c password.file $username
echo "usergroup: $username" | Out-File -Append -encoding ascii -FilePath group.file

# Finalise
echo "Configuration successful! You can now start C:\Apache24\bin\httpd.exe

Build Info:
- Default port of server is 80
- access and error logs are located in C:\Apache24\logs
- accounts password file is located in C:\Apache24\password.file
- accounts group file is located in C:\Apache24\group.file
"
Read-Host -Prompt "(Press any key to close this window)"