WHAT IS A PROXY?

by Joana Jiménez and Laura Arranz

Today we’re going to explain what a proxy is and how you can use it. Proxies are services that can help you improve your privacy when you browse the web, often they are confused with VPN networks, with which you can get similar results. However, they are much more complete by not focusing solely on your browsing.

Let’s start, therefore, trying to explain in the simplest way possible what a proxy is exactly.

Definition

A proxy server acts as a gateway between you and the internet. It’s an intermediary server separating end users from the websites they browse. Proxy servers provide varying levels of functionality, security, and privacy depending on your use case, needs, or company policy.

Modern proxy servers do much more than forwarding web requests, proxy servers act as a web filter, provide shared network connections, and cache data to speed up common requests. A good proxy server keeps users and the internal network protected from the bad stuff that lives out in the wild internet. Lastly, proxy servers can provide a high level of privacy.

In this way, when you go to visit a web page, instead of establishing a direct connection between your browser, you can go around and send and receive the data through this proxy. The page you visit will not know your IP but the proxy, and you can make yourself pass through a surfer from another country other than yours.

Keep in mind that the only thing a proxy server does is hide your IP. This means that they do not usually eliminate any other type of additional identifier that can reveal your identity. So even if your IP is hidden, someone with access to your network and the data you transmit could spy on your traffic. If you want more security you will have to go for a VPN.

Advantages & Disadvantages

Advantages:

• More Control: We can restrict access to users and only output the proxy.
• Filters: Our proxy can deny requests from some places.
• Modification: As an intermediary that is, a proxy can falsify information, or modify it following an algorithm.
• Be anonymous: All users will be identified as one only then it is difficult to identify which one is which.

Disadvantages:

• The fact of accessing the Internet through a proxy, instead of direct connection, prevents advanced operations through some ports or protocols.
• Store the pages and objects that users request may be a violation of privacy for some people.
• I do not know if it would be a disadvantage, rather like a tip, DO NOT use users and passwords on your accounts when they use proxies because we do not really know how reliable they are.
• When getting public proxies some stop working at any time, therefore you may need to look again for another.

Differents kinds of Proxies

Now that we know what a Proxy is, we’ll see some types of it.

• Proxy Server. This is the one that process the users petition when it tries to navigate in a web. It sits between our browser and the real server. This way we could access a web anonymously and avoid IP restrictions. You could use it to bypass government censorship in some countries. Here you have a list of free proxies.

• Cache Proxy. Similar, but in this case it has in caché memory all the pages that were visited before and uses them like a first option. It’s recommended in places with poor internet access, but some people consider it less private because it keeps the information.
• Transparents Proxy. Your ISP (internet services provider) use this kind to for example: filtrate webs, by combining a Proxy server with a firewall.
• Reverse Proxy. Is similar to web Proxy but upside down. It stays belong the users petitions and the server to protect it, controls the traffic and works as a cache memory.
• Proxy NAT (network Address TRanslation). It changes or hides some IPs before petitions, so it is consider a masking technology. Even though this could sound strange, it is the usual way that our internet works in houses and companies when we have various computers and one internet connection.
• Open Proxy. All kind of connections and user could use them. It has been used for sending spam emails and some servers deny it access.

At this point, if you already want to begin with a Proxy Server, we could recommend two of them to you. The first is l, Hide.me, belongs to a security company. Remember to unclick all checkboxes to avoid any kind of tracking.

You also have VPNBook, it is simple and also free, but it could be that some websites don’t work properly.

On the Internet you have thousands of websites, but we recommend that you be careful because those websites can steal information from you or your computer.

It could be useful for you to know and use this technology, that is interesting not only for spies and criminals, but for internet users who want to approach a web from a different point of view and more privacy. And why not? … feeling a little bit like a hacker can be fun too!.