How to Configure a Proxy Server on an iPhone or iPad
When you configure a proxy server for a Wi-Fi network, your iPhone or iPad will use it when accessing that network. This is sometimes required to access the Internet on a business or school network, for example. Your network traffic will be sent through the proxy you configure.
RELATED: What’s the Difference Between a VPN and a Proxy?
Generally, you’ll use a proxy if your school or work provides it to you. You could also use a proxy to hide your IP address or access geoblocked websites that aren’t available in your country, but we recommend a VPN for that instead. If you need to set up a proxy for school or work, get the necessary credentials from them and read on.
Head to Settings > Wi-Fi to access proxy settings on an iPhone or iPad. Tap the name of the Wi-Fi network you’re connected to. Scroll down and you’ll see the “HTTP Proxy” option at the bottom of the screen.
By default, the HTTP Proxy option is set to “Off”. This means your iPhone won’t use a proxy at all when connected to the network.
To enable automatic proxy detection, select “Auto”. Your iPhone will use the Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol, or WPAD, to see whether a proxy is necessary on the Wi-Fi network and automatically configure your proxy settings if one is required. This feature is often used on business and school networks. If your current network doesn’t provide proxy details using the WPAD protocol, your iPhone or iPad won’t use a proxy, even if you select “Auto” here.
To use an automatic proxy configuration script, sometimes called a file, select “Auto” and enter the address of the proxy auto-configuration script into the “URL” box. iOS will instead use the proxy auto-configuration script instead of WPAD to enable your proxy.
If your network administrator or proxy service provider wants you to use a proxy auto-configuration script, it will provide you with the address of the file.
To manually specify a proxy server’s address and port, select “Manual”. Enter the address of the proxy server in the “Server” box and the port it requires in the “Port” box. Your organization or proxy service provider will provide you with these details.
If the proxy server requires a username and password—your proxy provider will let you know if it does—enable the “Authentication” option here. Enter the username and password the proxy server requires in the “Username” and “Password” boxes.
If your iPhone or iPad can’t connect to the proxy server—for example, if the proxy server goes down or if you enter its details incorrectly—you won’t be able to access websites and other network addresses.
For example, in Safari you’ll see a “Safari cannot open the page because the server cannot be found” message, and in the App Store you’ll see a “Cannot Connect to App Store” message. Other applications will display their own network error messages.
You’ll need to fix your proxy settings before you can continue accessing the Internet on that Wi-Fi network.
The proxy settings you configure are unique to each Wi-Fi network. In other words, if you want to use the same proxy on three different Wi-Fi networks, you’ll have to enable it separately for each Wi-Fi network, entering the server details three times. That’s because you may need to use a proxy while connected to the Wi-Fi network at your workplace, but not at home or on other Wi-Fi networks.
If you’d like to set up a global HTTP proxy that’s used when connected to all Wi-Fi networks, you’ll have to “supervise” your iPhone or iPad and create a configuration profile that enables a proxy on all connections. Apple considers this a feature for businesses, schools, and other organizations, so it requires enterprise-grade configuration tools.
RELATED: How to Put an iPhone or iPad into “Supervised Mode” to Unlock Powerful Management Features
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How to Configure and Use Proxy on iPhone or iPad – iPhoneHacks
Posted by on Feb 22, 2017 in How To
iOS has a feature that allows you to set up a proxy so that all the network requests from your device are forwarded to a proxy server. This is usually used on business and school networks and can also be used for hiding your IP address or accessing websites that are blocked in your region.
Configuring a proxy server on your iPhone is quite simple. All you need is the credential details of the proxy server, which will then be used to set up the proxy on your device. Here’s how you can configure and use a proxy server on your iPhone, iPad or iPod.
How to Configure and Use Proxy on iPhone or iPad
Step 1: Open the Settings app and go to WiFi.
Step 2: Tap the name of the WiFi network you’re connected to.
Step 3: Scroll to the bottom and you’ll find a section for HTTP Proxy. This is set to Off by default. You can either set it to ‘Auto’ for automatic proxy detection or ‘Manual’ for manually configuring the proxy settings.
If you select ‘Auto’, a new field is shown for URL. Enter the address of the proxy auto-configuration script into the URL field.
If you have the proxy server’s address and port, then choose ‘Manual’ and continue with the steps below.
Step 5: Enter the address of the proxy server into the ‘Server’ field and then enter the port number.
Step 6: If the server requires a username and password, turn on the Authentication toggle and enter the necessary details.
Step 7: Once you’ve entered all the details correctly, your device will now forward all the network requests to the configured proxy server. If you can access websites or the internet without getting any errors, it means that the proxy configuration is correct.
That’s all you need to do to configure and use a proxy on your iPhone or iPad. If you are unable to access the internet after enabling proxy, it means that the proxy credentials are incorrect or that the proxy server has issues.
What’s The Difference Between a Proxy and a VPN? – Varonis
The Internet can be a scary place: we’re under near constant attack from ransomware and botnets – on work computers, personal devices, even smart home devices like thermostats and baby monitors.
If you’re security conscious, you might be thinking about setting up a Virtual Private Network (VPN) or a proxy server.
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Proxy and VPN Defined
Both VPNs and proxies enable a higher degree of privacy than you might otherwise have, allowing you to access the internet anonymously by hiding your IP in various ways. But how they do that is quite different.
A proxy acts as a gateway – it’s ideal for basic functions like anonymous web browsing and managing (or circumventing) content restrictions. Proxy servers excel at IP masking and misdirection, making them good for viewing geographically limited content. They allow users to bypass content restrictions and monitoring, or enforce website content restrictions – so that you can’t log into certain web pages on company time.
A VPN client on your computer establishes a secure tunnel with the VPN server, replacing your local ISP routing. VPN connections encrypt and secure all of your network traffic, not just the HTTP or SOCKS calls from your browser like a proxy server.
VPNs are great when you need to use the WIFI at a local coffee shop: using a VPN instead of the potentially completely unencrypted local WIFI adds another layer of privacy – who knows who is lurking on that network, just sitting in the corner sipping coffee and waiting to steal your credit card digits?
Proxy and VPN Drawbacks
If you’re using proxy servers to mask your internet activity, you might see performance issues that prevent you from streaming or downloading the thing you are trying to get. High ping times and other traffic on the proxy server can cause web pages to load slowly. For this reason, some users pay for a private proxy server which limits the number of users that access it, speeding up your connections.
Proxies are also vulnerable to security exploits: they can be open to attack, allowing the bad guys to infiltrate networks or steal private data. Some proxies can still track (and store) your browsing habits, as well as recording usernames and passwords – rendering that promise of anonymity null.
VPNs can also suffer from performance issues, depending on proximity to the VPN server you’re connecting with. VPNs use a local client to create the connection to the VPN server, so any local CPU or memory issues will slow down the connections. VPNs are typically more expensive to use (and maintain) than a proxy server, and they are often more complex to manage.
Just like proxy servers, VPNs can’t guarantee anonymity while browsing. Neither of these services will always encrypt your traffic all the way to the web server. A VPN only guarantees an end-to-end encrypted connection if you use the HTTPS protocol when you go to a new web address. Your data will be encrypted to the VPN, but from that point on, it could be unencrypted to the web server. For some sites, this may be irrelevant: an information-only webpage with no login or payment options for example, but for any sites that require a login or online payments – or any sensitive data – make sure the website is enabled to use HTTPS. Remember, the S stands for moderately more secure.
Proxy and VPN Benefits
The biggest argument to use a VPN instead of a proxy is the total encryption for all traffic you get with the VPN. Dollar for dollar, a VPN is more secure than a similarly priced proxy. VPN providers maintain their own networks and you use their IP addresses for your connections. The top VPN providers advertise a logless policy, which means they don’t have data to provide to anyone about your browsing habits.
If you’re an IT business owner charged with the security of data and users, there are advantages to both, and you likely have both configured for your company. For users in the network, you might route traffic through a proxy server to log web traffic, protect the organization from malware or other attacks, and enforce a web content policy.
When users are operating out of the office, you will want to use a VPN to create a secure connection to access the company resources (email, internal shares, etc. ).
Proxy vs VPN: Which is Right for me?
Privacy and security matter these days, regardless of if it’s your company data or your own personal data you need to protect. Make sure you’re investing time and money into the correct tools for your security goals: both proxies and VPNs add an additional layer of security and privacy to your data.
If you want to enable your team to work remotely with secure access to the company resources, set up and maintain a VPN users to access the network with the VPN.
If your concerns are more around “what websites are my users hitting, ” a proxy server is a better tool.
To get the most bang for the buck (and to protect your data as a security-aware citizen), sign up for a well-regarded VPN service. For the most part, VPN services allow you to use servers in different locations to work around content restrictions. If you need to use a free proxy server occasionally for that purpose as well, just be aware of the risks.
If you’re just starting to implement your data security strategy on an enterprise level, there are more complex attack vectors to account for. Insider threats, APTs, privileged account escalations – along with plain old social engineering – are just as dangerous to your data as an unencrypted data stream.
Neither a proxy nor a VPN will protect you from 100% of the cybersecurity threats your company will encounter: they won’t stop an insider from stealing personal data, a ransomware attack, or a coordinated infiltration effort.
Varonis Edge adds perimeter telemetry to security analytics – monitoring proxy, VPN, and DNS to help bridge that gap: you’ll be able to see when an attacker breaks through a VPN, get alerts when sensitive data is uploaded to external websites, more. See how it works with a 1:1 demo – and discover how Varonis helps secure your data from perimeter attacks.
Frequently Asked Questions about ios proxy server
What is a proxy server for iPhone?
iOS has a feature that allows you to set up a proxy so that all the network requests from your device are forwarded to a proxy server. This is usually used on business and school networks and can also be used for hiding your IP address or accessing websites that are blocked in your region.Feb 22, 2017
How do I setup a proxy server on my iPhone?
Proxy and VPN Defined A proxy acts as a gateway – it’s ideal for basic functions like anonymous web browsing and managing (or circumventing) content restrictions. … VPN connections encrypt and secure all of your network traffic, not just the HTTP or SOCKS calls from your browser like a proxy server.Sep 28, 2020
What is a VPN proxy server?
Answer: A: Unless you are using an HTTP Proxy (Doubtful), HTTP Proxy should be set to Off.Apr 24, 2021