A company may route all traffic through an internal proxy in order to prevent users from accessing sites that are not work related and many even contain inappropriate content, as well as to record the activities of its users online. A proxy may also require a username and password for Internet access, preventing unauthorized users from spending time online on non-company business.
A proxy server can also cache commonly accessed resources, reducing the amount of network traffic and improving response times for users.
Since all traffic routed through a proxy appears to originate from that proxy, some users take advantage of this system for anonymity purposes. Using an external proxy can make it difficult for a third party to track your activities online. It is important to note, however, that the owner of a proxy can easily monitor activity that passes through it, so using an insecure proxy may open you up to many security risks. In addition, since your Web traffic must travel to the proxy server before it can navigate to the target server, this setup can introduce considerable amounts of latency and slow down your browsing session.
Bellow are some benefits why people use proxy server:. To use proxy server for the above advantages, you need to make proxy server settings on the client computers first of all. Suppose the proxy server address is " Port is If you are using Yahoo Messenger V Besides the above instructions, we have also prepared more instructions for you, please just refer to the client configuration section.
Why People Use Proxy Server A proxy server is a computer that acts as an intermediary between the user's computer and the Internet. But monitoring proxy logs can be a tricky business, cautions consultant Steve Armstrong, technical security director at UK-based consultancy LogicallySecure.
Some companies make the mistake of installing a proxy and then never looking at it again, thus wasting much of its potential utility, Armstrong says. But others spend too much time poring over logs. If employees are allowed to use the Web for personal surfing, too-close monitoring could result in privacy and labor law infringements by the company—if an employee is researching a medical problem on his lunch hour, for example.
In addition, if administrators closely monitor the activity of an employee for no very good reason—especially in the absence of clearly stated policies—and later try to bring disciplinary action for violations, unions or lawyers may be able to claim the company was victimizing the employee.
The alternative is to use the basic filtering capabilities of proxy server software to block users going to certain sites.
It works similarly to parental filtering on home networks. At the simplest level, if a restricted site is added to a list in the server software, when a user tries to surf to that site, the server denies the request and returns an error message. You could be purchasing software to install on a standard server. Many such products are open source, some of them free. It could be a proxy server appliance, purpose-built hardware with software pre-installed.
Or it could be a virtual proxy server appliance, a server that is logically separate but shares space on a physical server with other servers in a VMware or other virtualized server environment. Some proxy servers stand alone, others integrate other functionality. One of the functions most commonly combined with basic proxying is advanced filtering, Quin notes.
The type and quality of proxy server product you choose will depend on a number of factors, including perceived risk to resources behind the proxy, level of risk tolerance, and budget. Info-Tech itself uses open source proxy server software because it has reasonably high risk tolerance — being well stocked with IT and security skills — and relatively light caching and filtering requirements, Quin says. Larger organizations with hundreds or thousands of users, less risk tolerance and needs for more granular filtering or heavier-duty caching, may require a more robust solution, and may also be better off with one that tightly integrates with an existing Cisco, Microsoft or other network environment, Quin suggests.
They carry the benefit of giving users the power to swiftly and inexpensively harvest data. A residential proxy gives you an IP address that belongs to a specific, physical device.
All requests are then channeled through that device. Residential proxies are well-suited for users who need to verify the ads that go on their website, so you can block cookies, suspicious or unwanted ads from competitors or bad actors. Residential proxies are more trustworthy than other proxy options. However, they often cost more money to use, so users should carefully analyze whether the benefits are worth the extra investment.
A public proxy is accessible by anyone free of charge. It works by giving users access to its IP address, hiding their identity as they visit sites. Public proxies are best suited for users for whom cost is a major concern and security and speed are not. Although they are free and easily accessible, they are often slow because they get bogged down with free users.
When you use a public proxy, you also run an increased risk of having your information accessed by others on the internet. Shared proxies are used by more than one user at once.
They give you access to an IP address that may be shared by other people, and then you can surf the internet while appearing to browse from a location of your choice. Shared proxies are a solid option for people who do not have a lot of money to spend and do not necessarily need a fast connection. The main advantage of a shared proxy is its low cost.
A secure sockets layer SSL proxy provides decryption between the client and the server. As the data is encrypted in both directions, the proxy hides its existence from both the client and the server. These proxies are best suited for organizations that need enhanced protection against threats that the SSL protocol reveals and stops.
On the downside, content encrypted on an SSL proxy cannot be cached, so when visiting websites multiple times, you may experience slower performance than you would otherwise. A rotating proxy assigns a different IP address to each user that connects to it. As users connect, they are given an address that is unique from the device that connected before it. Rotating proxies are ideal for users who need to do a lot of high-volume, continuous web scraping. They allow you to return to the same website again and again anonymously.
However, you have to be careful when choosing rotating proxy services. Some of them contain public or shared proxies that could expose your data. Unlike a forward proxy, which sits in front of clients, a reverse proxy is positioned in front of web servers and forwards requests from a browser to the web servers. It works by intercepting requests from the user at the network edge of the web server.
It then sends the requests to and receives replies from the origin server. Reverse proxies are a strong option for popular websites that need to balance the load of many incoming requests. They can help an organization reduce bandwidth load because they act like another web server managing incoming requests. The downside is reverse proxies can potentially expose the HTTP server architecture if an attacker is able to penetrate it. This means network administrators may have to beef up or reposition their firewall if they are using a reverse proxy.
On the surface, proxy servers and virtual private networks VPNs may seem interchangeable because they both route requests and responses through an external server. However, VPNs provide better protection against hackers because they encrypt all traffic. If you need to constantly access the internet to send and receive data that should be encrypted or if your company has to reveal data you must hide from hackers and corporate spies, a VPN would be a better choice.
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