Anonymous Proxy, Good or Bad
Some may raise some eyebrows when “anonymous surfing” is brought up. Why remain anonymous unless you’ve got something to hide? Well, maybe not the same stuff they are thinking of, but I sure wouldn’t want to propagate my bank account information to every Google user!
The Internet is a great and very helpful place, but we don’t have to sacrifice our right to privacy when using it. Some ISPs store all of your information for up to 2 years! Some government agencies in the UK store all of the information in a large database forever.
Maybe having an ISP know what you are doing is not a big deal, but it is the principle of the matter. Imagine if someone hacked the server; all information, every website, password, social security number ever entered in the last two years would be at their fingertips! A bit scary when it is laid out before you.
Your IP address is the key to your privacy. It shows who, and where, you are. If you surf anonymously using an anonymous proxy server, this information will be hidden; an anonymous proxy actually changes your IP. This way, it appears the anonymous proxy is trying to access the site, and not you; you remain anonymous.
There are some sketchy anonymous proxies out there though. Bandwidth costs serious cash, so one must wonder where the free proxies make their money. Oh yeah, they have access to all of your bank information. As you can imagine, this creates a bigger privacy problem than you had before!
It is much wiser to pay a simple monthly fee to operate an anonymous proxy. This way you know where they are making their money. On top of this, they are often faster and simpler to operate.
