The Internet is truly a near-miracle. It joins us with people all over the world. It allows us to view information that we would otherwise be unavailable to us. Using it is probably easier than "easy as pie". And one of the things that helps us access the Internet, is the proxy server.

A proxy server is something like an interceder between the computer you are using and the server that you are trying to access. This concept becomes easier to understand once you think about how it works. Suppose there is a website that is accessed time after time from a particular computer. This site gets saved in the cache of the proxy server. So the next time that somebody tries to view that website, the page is pulled up from this cache.

The advantage of this style of functioning is that the process quickens significantly. This is because the proxy server is not required to visit the real server of that website to view it. The site has already been placed in the proxy server's cache.

Web proxies are proxy servers that limit their job to the Internet. Sometimes web proxies are used to intercede websites that are provocative or offensive. They also serve another, perhaps more important, function of blocking viruses that may be present on the webpages that are being accessed. In fact, a number of organizations make use of proxy servers to perform these very functions. A company could even intercede its employees from viewing a particular website by making use of a proxy server. Notably, the user himself is usually unaware of the work being done by the proxy server.

There are many other kinds of proxy servers that are available on the Internet. These include transparent proxies, split proxies and reverse proxies. Open proxies are proxy servers that are the haunts of spammers and Internet Relay Chat users.

There is also something called an anonymous proxy server. This helps provide anonymity, and hence, privacy, to the user. It does this by hiding the IP address of the user. As a result, the number of junk mails and spam that one would otherwise get a profusion of are decreased significantly. It is good to use an anonymous proxy server because it keeps you protected from hackers.

A lot more information about proxy servers is available on the net. But the next time you are able to quickly access your favorite webpage, remember that your invisible friend -- the proxy server -- is at work!


The author Ajeet Khurana recommends Squid Myspace Proxy, Web Messenger, and Unlock Myspace.