What is a Proxy Server?
A proxy server is essentially a server that acts as liaison between the users' computer and the internet. By employing a proxy server, web page owners and users are offered additional security that is hard to get with traditional internet access. In addition to providing increased security, a proxy server offers more administrative control and an improved caching service. As part of a gateway server, its function is to separate the venture networking system from the outside network while providing a firewall whose function is to protect the original server from any outside interference. A proxy server is able to assimilate the characteristics of the intended server and for all intents and purposes is virtually invisible to the average internet user. As liaison, the proxy server assumes the responsibility of receiving all requests and providing appropriate responses - just as the addressed server would. Technically, the proxy is, of course, not really invisible as its internet protocol address must be configured to connect to either the intended browser or specified protocol program.

How Does a Proxy Server work?
Basically, a proxy server is able to process internet requests such as web pages from users. The requests must first clear various filtering criteria and when they do, the proxy server is able to utilize its cache serving capabilities by accessing its previously downloaded web pages. If the requested page is contained in its cache, the proxy server will find it and provide the information to the user without ever having to access the internet. If, for some reason, the requested page is not part of the proxy server's cache, the proxy server will then use one of its own internet protocol addresses to access the required page from the internet and provide the page to the user requesting it, as if the user had actually accessed the page directly.

What are the Advantages of using a proxy server?
The primary advantage of utilizing a proxy server is it ability to provide more refined security options for its clients. In addition a proxy server's cache is able to provide more efficient service for all users. For example, if a particular internet site receives multiple requests from various users, the proxy server will store that internet site's particulars in its own cache which enables it to enact a faster return to the user because accessing the web every time the page is requested is not necessary. This, of course, offers the user improved response time which, in turn, makes the original site appear to be very efficient to the average user. Some proxy servers also have the ability to keep a log of all requests for particular pages.

Depending on the clients' needs, a proxy server can provide security, firewall and caching services either as a stand alone function or as a combination package. Individual computers can take advantage of particular proxy functions. In other words, a proxy server may be installed on a computer with a firewall server or the client may wish to have the proxy server act as a separate entity which would, in turn, forward all user requests through the firewall already installed on the computer.

Because any communication from the user to the requested page ends at the proxy server, there is a dramatic increase in the ability to isolate contact between networks. Acting as the real server, a proxy setting is designed not so much to forward data as to interpret the request, find the information needed in its own cache and return the page to the user requesting it without ever having to access the destination server.

In addition, a proxy server acts as a kind of buffer between the users' computer and the resources they are trying to access from the web. As the proxy server gathers and stores commonly requested files in their own database (or cache), the user is often provided with results at a much faster rate of speed, providing more efficient as well as more secure collaboration between user and target.

Because proxy servers are able to offer firewall, filtering, caching and connection sharing services, a lot of larger, corporate intranet and Internet Service Provider networks consider proxy servers to be a safe and efficient method of ensuring data privacy while increasing functionality. As an added bonus, there are some proxy servers - known as anonymous proxy servers - that have the ability to conceal the original owners' Internet Protocol address, which offers additional security from common internet vulnerability problems.

What exactly is an anonymous proxy server?
With today's internet it is possible for anyone to obtain data by monitoring any IP address. Information such as personal reading habits can be scrutinized and, in some cases, this information can be compiled so as to regulate the information a user receives from a particular site. In addition, unscrupulous marketers and advertisers can use this compiled data in order to inundate your email with unwanted spam and junk e-mail.

An anonymous proxy server is designed to conceal a user's Internet Protocol address. The obvious advantage to an anonymous proxy server is that unauthorized access to the users' computer is eliminated, thus providing a level of security unavailable through other channels. In addition, an anonymous proxy server prevents unscrupulous hackers from gaining access to any unauthorized information (such as IP address or other sensitive data) while providing the added bonus of the user being able to operate under a cloak of invisibility so that others (like hackers) are not even aware the information they obtain is being routed through a proxy server.

Anonymous proxy servers allow users to hide their IP addresses, thus restricting and, in most cases, eliminating the ability of others to track the sites a user visits or to develop profiles based on Internet use. By redirecting web traffic through a proxy server, chances of an online identity being compromised are greatly reduced.