I have been using Paros (and others) for a while now and this was an easy enough tool to use historically. Problem is that it hasn’t been maintained for a long time. One tool that I was introduced to a couple years back was the Burp Suite written by PortSwigger. This is a great application for doing all types of web testing. This has become my “go to” power tool for testing web applications.
This month (yes, I’m late with this one) PortSwigger is posting a feature per day for the new version that he is getting set to release. It looks very cool. The feature per day is his Month of Burp Pron (MoBP). I highly suggest that you check the site out to get an idea of what’s coming in the new version. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on this when it’s available.
Seriously, if you haven’t tried this tool before go download and try out the demo version of 1.1 now. For the full version there is a nominal cost involved that is well worth it.