How Does Proxy Server Work? [A Beginner’s Guide]


Proxy Server

&NewLine;<p>Proxy servers are intermediaries that forward the user’s request to the web servers&period; This is without compromising the location and IP address of the user&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>A general proxy server carries forward the user request through several physical or virtual routers with distinct IP addresses to hide the original IP of the user&period; But depending on the type and functionality&comma; the fundamentals can be altered&period;&nbsp&semi;In addition&comma; if you want to&nbsp&semi;<a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;rsocks&period;net&sol;">buy proxies<&sol;a><strong>&comma;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;strong>you first need to know about the exact meaning of the network and its needs&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<h2 class&equals;"wp-block-heading">Why do We Need Proxy Servers<&sol;h2>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<h3 class&equals;"wp-block-heading">Hiding IP Address<&sol;h3>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>An IP address is like a visiting card&period; Your physical information including ISP&comma; location&comma; or even street address&comma; can be tracked down with it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Your IP address doesn’t reveal this much information without being poked&period; Cybercriminals are the ones who take crafty measures to extract information from your IP&period; They usually come up with <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imperva&period;com&sol;learn&sol;application-security&sol;social-engineering-attack&sol;">social engineering<&sol;a> strategies with the gathered information to design scams&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>The scams often include impersonating someone with authority to extract money or information&period; Or worse&comma; they might try to impersonate you&period; Proxies protect you from exposing your real IP address to hackers&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<h3 class&equals;"wp-block-heading">Accessing Blocked Content<&sol;h3>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>You’ll often find yourself fiddling to access the content that’s been blocked in your region&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Consider Netflix&period; The content available for US users isn’t always available for UK ones and vice versa&period; This mostly is a result of the popularity of the content and shrinking server space&period; But&comma; <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;ipburger&period;com&sol;residential-proxies&sol;">proxies can help you access the unavailable content<&sol;a> by redirecting your IP address&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<h3 class&equals;"wp-block-heading">Web Scraping<&sol;h3>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Web scraping is the practice of extracting publicly available raw data from a web server through the means of an automated program&period; As web scrapers can be notorious and break the servers down with thousands of requests&comma; most websites try to keep these bots away by blocking their IP&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>However&comma; if you are scraping the web&comma; the <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;proxyscrape&period;com&sol;free-proxy-list">latest free proxies<&sol;a> updated every 5 minutes are the best alternatives&period; These web proxy servers redirect each of your bot requests through different channels&comma; ensuring zero trackability by updating the IP pool every few minutes&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<h3 class&equals;"wp-block-heading">Malware Prevention<&sol;h3>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Proxy servers can help prevent DoS attacks on your devices and servers&period; Reverse proxies block the malicious requests and only pass the legitimate ones to your servers&period; This way&comma; your data is kept secure&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<h2 class&equals;"wp-block-heading">How Proxy Servers Work<&sol;h2>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Although anonymity isn’t always guaranteed&comma; proxy servers work fine for general usage&period;&nbsp&semi; Let’s understand how each type of proxy server works&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<h3 class&equals;"wp-block-heading">Reverse Proxy<&sol;h3>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>If you are the user&comma; you don’t need to be concerned with reverse proxies&period; In case different websites are hosted on different servers&comma; web proxies redirect the user requests to the right one&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>These proxy servers are typically used to protect port information from the users&period; <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;cbtnuggets&period;com&sol;blog&sol;technology&sol;networking&sol;what-is-a-tcp-port-and-why-they-are-important">TCP ports<&sol;a> are like gateways that grant access to authorized connections&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Reverse proxy servers work as intermediaries between the open internet and the web servers&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<h3 class&equals;"wp-block-heading">Forward Proxy<&sol;h3>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>The most common type of web proxy server that you will stumble upon is a forward proxy<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>servers&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Forward proxy servers are a chain of routers that sit between the users and the web servers&period; Whenever you place a request&comma; the proxies take over&period; The proxies pass on the request to one of the dedicated routers that hold a different IP address from yourself&period; Then the request is passed on to another router and so on&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>When the request reaches the destination web server&comma; the server can only see the last IP address as your location&comma; and not your original one&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<h3 class&equals;"wp-block-heading">Web Proxy Servers<&sol;h3>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>In the case of forward or reverse proxy servers&comma; the path is forwarded to the web servers&period; But in the case of web proxy servers&comma; only the HTTP URL is passed&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>What it means is that whenever you browse the internet&comma; the web proxy server sends a GET request to the web servers and the answer from the server is passed through the proxy&period; You don’t talk to the server directly&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<h3 class&equals;"wp-block-heading">Transparent Proxy<&sol;h3>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Transparent proxies don’t offer any kind of anonymity to the user&period; But that’s fine because this type of proxy server is only used to store <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;developer&period;mozilla&period;org&sol;en-US&sol;docs&sol;Web&sol;HTTP&sol;Caching">websites caches<&sol;a> for faster access&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Usually in the past when the bandwidth wasn’t as fast as it is now&comma; transparent proxies were used to minimize the loading time due to distance&period; Physical distance&period; If the servers are too far away from your location&comma; the loading time can increase immensely&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>If a proxy server–storing the exact copy of the website–acts as an intermediary&comma; you can get access to the website significantly faster&period;&nbsp&semi;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<h3 class&equals;"wp-block-heading">Suffix Proxy<&sol;h3>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Suffix proxy servers don’t provide any additional anonymity&period; They just append or add the name of the proxy before the URL&period; It’s extremely easy to set up and use&period; The most prominent use of Suffix proxy servers is to access blocked content&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<h3 class&equals;"wp-block-heading">12P Anonymous Proxy<&sol;h3>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>MIx data encryption and forward proxies to get 12P anonymous proxy&period; The 12P anonymous proxy servers encrypt data on multiple levels before forwarding the requests through several routers in multiple locations&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<h3 class&equals;"wp-block-heading">Data Center Proxies<&sol;h3>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Data center proxy servers are unaffiliated with any ISPs and are indifferent about the traffic speed limits they impose&period; Also&comma; Data center proxies are usually provided by third-party vendors and provide private IP verification and privacy&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Aside from offering a faster network&comma; data center proxies secure your IP addresses and ensure that no data is taken from your hardware addresses&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<h3 class&equals;"wp-block-heading">Private Proxy<&sol;h3>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Private proxies are most popular among major enterprises&period; The private proxy servers let you use a specific IP address for a longer period&period; What it achieves is that you can surf the internet or your private servers anonymously without needing to log in repeatedly&period; Shared proxies keep changing the IP pool over a certain period&period; Private proxies are more convenient but costly&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<h2 class&equals;"wp-block-heading">The Bottom Line<&sol;h2>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p>Almost all types of proxy servers work the same way&period; The reverse proxy server connects the web server to the internet&comma; the forward proxy server connects the user to the internet&period; The web proxy server only passes the URL&comma; but the suffix proxy server appends to the URL&period; If your objective is to stay anonymous and browse safely&comma; proxies are one of the best alternatives&period;&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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