Anonymous Proxy for Anonymous Surfing
The Internet is probably the quintessential reason this day and age is called “the information society”. Everything is right at our fingertips, and is so easy to access. Instead of spending hours researching in a library for your research paper, you could simply do a Google search and find endless pages of information. Instead of drudging between houses during a yard sale, one can head to Ebay and find bargains and deals galore.
Infatuated with this great new invention, no one stopped to worry about the dangers it could present. Internet crime began to rise. People panicked, and with only rudimentary knowledge, didn’t know how to protect themselves. Some just gave in, and assume you had to be a genius to stay safe and anonymous on while surfing the web.
Where there is strife, there is demand for some benefactor to come along and rescue the oppressed. This hero turned out to be something intangible, but nonetheless, effective.
Anonymous proxies to the rescue. An anonymous proxy acts a buffer between you and the website you are connecting to. The anonymous proxy changes your IP address, which throws off trackers and other potential criminals. An anonymous proxy is essential in getting past firewalls and other blocking programs.
For example, you are at work. Your workplace server blocks YouTube, which leaves you high and dry during a boring work day. When you access the Internet, the company’s server recognizes that you are trying to visit the blocked site, YouTube. When you go to an anonymous proxy site, you are able to then type in the site you wish to visit, (YouTube) and it will allow you access. This happens because the anonymous proxy is retrieving the sites for you. While you are surfing YouTube, clicking on other videos and such, the server logs will just say you are on the anonymous proxy site, over and over again. The anonymous proxy acts as a middle-man between you and the blocked site; it makes it look like you are only visiting the anonymous proxy site, and not the blocked site.
That was an example of the simple, and most common, web proxy. These are often free and easy to use. Bandwidth costs money though, so you are paying in one way or another. One way of involuntary pay is the use of advertisements. These sites must “re-write” all data off of the site you requested, so the server can be successfully fooled. In their re-writings, they oftentimes add in extra information. Most times, you’ll see an ad or two slipped in where there normally wouldn’t have been one. Another downside to using an anonymous proxy is the browsing speed. During this re-writing process, and the fact you are really going through two websites to get to one, your browsing speed can take a hit.
The most serious concern to keep in mind when using a free web proxy is also the most hair-raising. While you are hidden and anonymous from the rest of the web, and your boss, the anonymous proxy still sees all information that travels through their server. This is no problem if the anonymous proxy is legitimate, you can see where the issue would occur if it was run by a hacker. Always choose an anonymous proxy that is legitimate and trustworthy. If you can afford the small fee a professional proxy charges, this is even better. A business can be held accountable for their actions, but a random guy running a server in who-knows-where will be hard to track down.
If configured correctly and the right one is chosen, an anonymous proxy can keep you anonymous and safe online. Another important service a good proxy should provide is encryption. This will encode all of your data in such a way that your websites, and other data will be impossible to decode without the key, which only the proxy has. This way, you can be sure that only you and the anonymous proxy know your Internet activities, and all possible snoopers and hackers will be completely puzzled by the stream of unintelligible hieroglyphics.
Using a proxy can be the key to safe and anonymous surfing, but it is all about the selection process. Try to find a web proxy with good reviews and feedback, or, even better, a fee-based one with a great encryption service.
