Proxy Server

A proxy server can indeed be described as an intermediary type of computer which makes a connection between your computers to the internet. Generally, people use the proxy server to block access to some sites when they log in for internet use.

There are free, public proxy servers and those which are private and paid for.

Some advantages of a proxy server

There exists a firewall at this proxy server. It works to block access to some internet sites for a number of reasons. For this reason, you may not be able to run some kinds of Java applications. Hence, the proxy server also acts as a content filter. In an intranet set-up, the server is a security mechanism put in place by network administrators aimed at blocking users from accessing sites which are considered to be harmful. ISP’s use it in filtering requests so that users do not have to go to these harmful or even offensive sites.

The proxy server is also believed to improve performance. For instances, it caches some internet sites which a user has visited for a given amount of time. In the event that another user should request to use the same web page, the server uses the cached information to take him there rather than just search all over again for it. The time taken to access such sites is therefore reduced.

By using the proxy server, your IP address is not revealed to hackers who may take advantage of this. When accessing information from the internet, the data is given a temporary address which a hacker cannot use to get into your system.

Malwares and viruses are filtered before the contents of a webpage are delivered which means more safety for you online.

Disadvantages of proxy servers

Of course more and more people are livid about the state of their security when they use the internet. This means that they look to proxy servers as a means of hiding their IP addresses when they are online. However, there are several disadvantages that may befall you when using these servers;

The proxy server can be compromised; there are several proxy severs especially those which are public and availed for free. There may be instances where a malicious proxy server is created to track the activities of internet users. This is especially true in dictatorial regimes where control of internet use is rampant.

The proxy servers mostly handle HTTP user traffic and not FTP or SMTP. These are thus checked by systems like firewalls or others aimed at preventing intrusion.

One advantage that helps speed of internet access when using a proxy server is caching. Some people not that with caching, if you wish to access a given site, you may be forced to view only the old site profile stored. If a site has been updated, you may not see these.

  Free Proxy Server List

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http://quickproxies.com/

A Proxy Server has a ton of different uses and they work in many different ways, in this article I am going to explain the different ways in which a Proxy Server can function and also the different ways they can be used.

The three different ways that these proxies work are as follows:

Reverse Proxy Server:

A reverse proxy acts as an intermediary between the internet and the origin servers helping the origin servers. It makes the client side sites think that all of the requests are coming from itself when in fact they are coming from one or many other servers and all routed through it. It is referred to as a reverse proxy because it is helping the associated servers instead of the associated clients.

Reverse proxies have many advantages including: act as an application fire wall to mitigate attacks from malware etc., it can act as a load balancer by distributing info to multiple different servers, it can compress content thereby optimizing performance, they can hide the existence of the origin servers.

Open Proxy AKA Transparent Proxy:

An open proxy is a caching server that is accessible by any internet user. There are tons of open proxies in existence as they are the most common as they are widely used to conceal ones IP address. When someone is using an open proxy they become anonymous and therefore are popular with people wanting to do illegal things as it is harder for them to get caught.

The main benefit of open proxy servers is the anonymity, there are some draw backs too as there is a higher risk of malware infection, they can run very slow as many people are probably trying to download large file though them.

Forward Proxy Server:

A Forward Proxy or Normal Proxy regularly caches all requests. It works by listening for the clients requests for connectivity to a separate port. After the proxy server receives the request and gets the content it will store a cached copy of the content on the server and then forward the content on. If the same page is then requested by again by anyone then it will serve the cached copy again instead of sending another request. This can significantly decrease page load time thereby making it much more efficient.