I am wondering if anyone here has the experience of optimizing the common anonymous proxy surfing script before. My webhost complained that my script is driving up CPU usage so I am wondering how to optimize it.

I've got that script, and have heard of this problem before. In fact, I know of a host where proxy scripts are banned, unless only for personal use. Because of the nature these scripts work (grabbing data from a website, and then having the data downloaded from the client) they always will use up plenty of the ol' processer.

All I'd sugest would be either getting a VPS or dedicated server if you can afford one, or maybe trying expert-advice or getting a coder to do it.

Good luck

hosts dont like these types of things because it has to fetch every page every time the user requests one.
I doubt there is any way of optimising it (beyond what the creater implimented) due to the nature of what it is and what it does.

Didn't I just say that?...

Maybe we posted at the same time

Why do not use script that just takes ready made lists from 2 - 3 web sites and launch it when you need proxies?

What about implementing your own caching? If a particular site is static, and is accessed via your proxy script a lot, save a copy in a file on the server and serve that up next time. (If you are acting as a proxy for dynamic pages this isn't sucha good idea!)