How Proxy Servers Protect Your Privacy

By Author: Victor Winters
Total Articles: 3698
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A proxy server protects your privacy by being the ‘middleman' between you and a real server. When you visit a website, it intercepts your requests to determine if it can manage your requests by itself. If it can't take care of your request, the proxy server will send the request to the real server. Thus, it provides you with indirect access to real servers.

Since real servers can't directly access your information (e.g. browser type, location, IP address, internet service provider), this information can be prevented from being discovered by the real server.

Proxy servers are used to avoid recognizing information from the requests of the user. These are called anonymous proxy servers. Nowadays, numerous anonymous proxy servers are already available on the Internet. You can find lots of free services.

With proxy servers, it is not only your IP address that is being protected. Making your computer and yourself more anonymous through the use of proxy servers is possible.

For instance, linking proxy servers can provide you and the real server with a higher degree of separation. This makes it more ...
... difficult for would-be attackers to track you down. Also, if you encrypt data right at the outset, you can have an advanced degree of protection.

Once data is received and before it is forwarded, a proxy server can effectively encrypt data. However, a proxy server that is receiving unencrypted data will make the data open to harm. Usually, free anonymous servers do not encrypt data. You may need to pay a little amount to avail this kind of service and this may be very well worth it for you.

If you want to utilize an anonymous proxy server, see to it that the one you will use is well known for the quality of its service (preferably with posted privacy policies).

It is very important to keep in mind that proxy servers can't guard you from someone who can access the computer you are using (e.g. those who nose around you). In this case, you should ensure that you take the necessary steps to safeguard your data by clearing and deleting cache, search history, and cookies from your toolbars and browser.