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:

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. They are referred to as a reverse proxy’s 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) is a caching server that is accessible by any internet user. There are tons of open proxies in existence because they are the most common and they are widely used to conceal your IP address. When someone is using an open proxy they become anonymous and therefore they 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.

A Forward Proxy (normal type) regularly caches all requests. It works by listening for the clients requests for connectivity to a separate port. After the 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 again by anyone then it will serve the cached copy instead of sending another request. This can significantly decrease page load time thereby making it much more efficient.

Now you know the three main ways proxies work you may like to know all of the different variations of them and ways which they can benefit you.

Free web proxies: These are websites that have a proxy service embedded in it so you just go to the site and then surf the web from their browser. This will rout all of the internet traffic through their browser and make you anonymous but you should also be warned about their use. By using this free alternative you are placing all of your trust in the site you are going through, they can watch everything you are doing just as much as a hacker when you don’t use one. Your traffic is not encrypted either so your internet service provider (ISP) can still see everything you are doing and they are often times quite slow.

Free Proxy List: These are much like the Free Web Proxy except that you don’t use an embedded browser. You search the net for the list and then you configure your browser to use the proxy address and port number. This will make it look like your IP address is the IP of the Proxy address and is a little better than the free web one although they are also slow and very prone to breaking frequently. Because they often break they are not that useful for downloading large files and streaming as you will not finish it most of the time. There are also paid versions of proxy lists that are much better as less people are using them but they still break unfortunately.

VPN: A Virtual Private Server (VPN) is a paid service which is the best of the best. By paying a subscription fee you have access to your own private network of servers around the world and can access any of them with a click of the mouse. All of the internet traffic is fully encrypted and you are completely anonymous. The connections are very strong and in most cases very quick although quality varies greatly between companies so make sure you get a reputable service. You can easily stream video and large files without a glitch and some companies even boast that it will enhance online gaming by making your connection quicker to the game server thereby giving you an advantage.