Fair enough, I never did find the sidekick proxy settings (not that I looked very hard, but I did look a little).

I am finally getting pretty good results with the Tmobile Sidekick prepaid plan. Actually, I am usually on the Pay by the Day plan, but today I decided to invest a big $1 and switch over to the Sidekick plan and give it another shot. I almost can't believe it, but I got set up very easily and I am thrilled that it is working. The key is to use Tor and don't set a proxy.

Here are some tips for others who want to duplicate my results.

1. Don't call Tmobile. On looking at your system, they will figure out you have a smart phone and will try to force you into another plan.

2. Just buy a Sim. I think I paid $5 or so for a Tmobile prepaid Sim from Amazon.

3. Follow instructions for setting up your phone from Tmobile, but never accept an option that involves calling them. If you are asked what kind of Nokia phone you have , use an ancient one like an 1100 or something.

4. You will be able to manage your account from www.my.t-mobile.com. I suggest that you start with the Pay by the Day option as I did. Get the phone working.

5. Install Tor, or rather the Tor Status application. It might be in extras-devel. The developer mentions he thinks it is optified.

6. This application puts an icon in your status bar so you can activate it. There is a site you can go to to make sure Tor is working.

7. Do NOT try setting a proxy. You can't set a Socks proxy, and you don't need one.

After I did the above, approximately, I could open a few web pages simultaneously and run app mgr at the same time, no prob.I haven't tried much else.

All this for $1!

I'll post additions, corrections when I run into them.

Edit: Web pages work fine, but some downloads don't, because the program doesn't understand that a proxy is involved. I can't download programs via App Mgr, for example. At first I couldn't use Feedingit to get rss feeds, but the developer changed his program, and now I can. The Foreca weather wouldn't work, but Omweather would.

All in all, I'm very happy with how it is working.

Hi
This looks brill as will be getting a t-mobile sim when when I visit the USA in May. I have setup a proxy at my home but this will save or give me a primary connection.

Question, what settings do I need to setup eg APN on my n900? I have a global config if it helps.

Scott

The Tmobile sim should add the proper apn. edit the internet connection and add yor proxy info. Be sure to check the use proxy option

For it to work for me I have to use the sidekick APN as mentioned in my previous post. And I have to use a http forwarding proxy (my own). I dont use Tor (is it a socks proxy prog or what?).

I cannot get it to work any other way.

HI

Using Tor - do I still need to set a proxy?

Scott

Hi,
have a question: I will be on holiday in LA-SF-Hawaii for a month in june and im wondering which option is best for me
to go with my N900.
I need a prepaid simcard with "unlimited"
3G data coverage and about 50 US $ for talk and text. It seems that it is a "jungle" to pick from. What would YOU get if you only needed a prepaid simcard for 30 days? And where is the best place to buy such a card web/store?
It would be very helpful and if any would need any info on the best carrier and coverage in Sweden i would be glad to help out!

Thanks
Shamrock

Answers:

Slewis1972: You don't need to set up a proxy after installing and enabling the Tor Status Area Applet.

Shamrock: Just go into a store such as Best Buy in the US and buy a prepaid T-Mobile sim. It will probably cost less than $10. I would just buy that card and after activating it I would go online to my.t-mobile.com and look at my account and decide what to do then, but you could also buy extra time while you are at Best Buy or whatever chain store you find. For one month, I wouldn't buy more than $50 worth of time at once -- I personally wouldn't buy more than about $20 worth because I'm cheap. Follow my numbered message above for more suggestions.

Tizbad2k: You are quite right, it is necessary to set up a proxy and other extra complications unless you use the Tor Status Area Applet that I mentioned. You can't do it any other way because you chose the hard way. The hard way was too hard for me, so I chose the easy way. You don't have to ask me about Tor. Google has lots of information for you.

Lemmyslender is WRONG -- if you use the Tor option as I am outlining, do NOT check the use proxy option. That will prevent you from working, in my experience. (I just triple-checked my settings to make sure.)

Geneven - what kind of speed do you achieve when using Tor? I've run a few tests with it from n900 to speedtest.net and it (obviously) varies a lot. best I saw was just over 1Mbps, but that was an exception, normally lucky if you achieve > 300Kbps download speed (from UK). How does that compare with your experience?

I've also got my home BB running a proxy and that will reliably give me 500Kbps assuming the T-mob bandwidth exceeds that figure. I'll suck & see once I'm in the states with a T-mob sim in the phone, but would be nice to see your results beforehand?

One more question - can you still use data on the T-mob prepaid SIM if you DON'T have the $1/day sidekick option enabled, & if so, what does it cost?

Slewis1972: I forgot to answer your apn question. My apn is epc.tmobile.com, but I think tmobile provided that; I didn't have to figure it out.

Pigro: I haven't done speed testing with Tor, because right now I just want something that works and is cheap. In a few months I'll investigate speed more. I have the feeling that sometimes Tor was speedy enough and sometimes too slow for my taste. On the subject of using data: You can NOT use data if you are on the pay by the day plan, so you have to specifically switch to Sidekick to use data. Another option available is "Pay as you go," recommended by some. I haven't messed with that, as "Pay by the day" meets my needs perfectly.

Followup comment. For readers, all these plans seem confusing. Well, you get three options when you sign up for prepaid, and you can experiment with different ones for $1 per try, so there is not much jeopardy.