What is the Main Purpose of a Proxy Server | GeoSurf
25 Oct
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11:59
What is the main purpose of a proxy server?
Imagine that for some reason you have to appear in court. It’s not that you have committed a crime or broken the law in any way, but you still have to show in the courtroom as a citizen of your country and be legally represented.
To appear more serious and legitimate in court, it is best to be represented by a lawyer. They are experienced professionals and can be of great help in your particular case. They are there to defend your rights and make your experience in court as pleasant as possible. Their role is also to make the judge perceive you as more legitimate, understand your arguments in a clear way, as well as respect you and your citizen’s rights.
Now, let’s use this metaphor to talk about a proxy server. In this case, your IP address would be you as a citizen, the court/judge would be the server that controls your target website and the lawyer would be the proxy server.
If your request to access the desired website is submitted through a proxy, you are much more likely to get to that website. You need the proxy server in order to appear more legitimate to the target website even if your IP address is completely in accordance with the Internet’s rules.
The main purpose of the proxy is to hide your IP address or original location from the internet hackers, monitoring your network traffic and surfing the web as a local. Even though we, at GeoSurf, do NOT encourage such actions, proxy servers (proxies) are used for both legal as well as unauthorized purposes.
As you can see, your IP is vulnerable and insufficiently strong on its own. It can get blocked or attacked, which will negatively impact your online experience. This can happen for various reasons, which we have already covered in one of our previous articles.
Why is a proxy server required?
Even now after you have read our story about the lawyer representing you in court, you might be asking yourself the following question: What is the purpose of using a proxy server?
A proxy server can be defined as a computer system or an application that serves as an intermediary between a person who browses the Internet and the server associated with his or her target website.
In other words, such a server acts as a transition between your personal computer and another server the purpose of which is to allow or prohibit your access to a certain website.
Now, in case this sounds too complicated, we will try to explain what is the use of a proxy server in a more simple way. This type of server will allow you to enter websites by hiding your true IP address from your target website. It can also make your online session more secure and enjoyable. We will explain this in more detail in the next section.
How do you use a proxy server?
Now that you know why proxies are useful, we will list some specific situations when they might come in handy.
A proxy server hides your IP.
When browsing the web, your access to certain websites might be denied due to your IP address or location restrictions. In this case, a proxy will act as a bridge and mask your true address, making your target website recognize its address as your own.
It will block malicious traffic and websites.
Your proxy server will act as a wall between you and potential online attacks that might come from hackers or illegal websites looking to spread malware and other types of dangerous content.
It will log your online activity.
This might be very helpful if you regularly visit certain websites. A proxy server will recognize these as your favorites and make your access to them more reliable.
Should I use a proxy server at home?
Taking into account all the information that you have read so far, it is more than obvious that using a proxy server might be just what you need. Whether you want to use it for hiding your IP (which is the most common of all its uses) or any of the aforementioned benefits, we sincerely recommend that you try it.
Obtaining a proxy is very simple. The only thing you need to do is buy a proxy from an Internet Service Provider (ISP). We have various offers tailored to everyone’s needs and you will definitely find the one that fits yours. After a short time, you will get the number of proxies that you required and be ready to browse the Internet without having to worry about anything.
We are glad to have helped you realize why proxies are useful. Hiding your true IP, blocking malicious traffic and websites, as well as improving your performance, are only some of the reasons to get a proxy as soon as possible.
However, this article only touches upon the importance and benefits of having a proxy server. Only when you get one will you be able to fully experience all the advantages of proxy servers.
Get started with GeoSurf Residential Proxy Network today.
Proxy Server – Tutorialspoint
Overview
Proxy server is an intermediary server between client and the internet. Proxy servers offers the following basic functionalities:
Firewall and network data filtering.
Network connection sharing
Data caching
Proxy servers allow to hide, conceal and make your network id anonymous by hiding your IP address.
Purpose of Proxy Servers
Following are the reasons to use proxy servers:
Monitoring and Filtering
Improving performance
Translation
Accessing services anonymously
Security
Proxy servers allow us to do several kind of filtering such as:
Content Filtering
Filtering encrypted data
Bypass filters
Logging and eavesdropping
It fasten the service by process of retrieving content from the cache which was saved when previous request was made by the client.
It helps to customize the source site for local users by excluding source content or substituting source content with original local content. In this the traffic from the global users is routed to the source website through Translation proxy.
In this the destination server receives the request from the anonymzing proxy server and thus does not receive information about the end user.
Since the proxy server hides the identity of the user hence it protects from spam and the hacker attacks.
Type of Proxies
Following table briefly describes the type of proxies:
Forward Proxies
In this the client requests its internal network server to forward to the internet.
Open Proxies
Open Proxies helps the clients to conceal their IP address while browsing the web.
Reverse Proxies
In this the requests are forwarded to one or more proxy servers and the response from the proxy server is retrieved as if it came directly from the original Server.
Architecture
The proxy server architecture is divided into several modules as shown in the following diagram:
Proxy user interface
This module controls and manages the user interface and provides an easy to use graphical interface, window and a menu to the end user. This menu offers the following functionalities:
Start proxy
Stop proxy
Exit
Blocking URL
Blocking client
Manage log
Manage cache
Modify configuration
Proxy server listener
It is the port where new request from the client browser is listened. This module also performs blocking of clients from the list given by the user.
Connection Manager
It contains the main functionality of the proxy server. It performs the following functions:
Read request from header of the client.
Parse the URL and determine whether the URL is blocked or not.
Generate connection to the web server.
Read the reply from the web server.
If no copy of page is found in the cache then download the page from web server else will check its last modified date from the reply header and accordingly will read from the cache or server from the web.
Then it will also check whether caching is allowed or not and accordingly will cache the page.
Cache Manager
This module is responsible for storing, deleting, clearing and searching of web pages in the cache.
Log Manager
This module is responsible for viewing, clearing and updating the logs.
Configuration
This module helps to create configuration settings which in turn let other modules to perform desired configurations such as caching.
CYBR 4200 – Chapter 7 Flashcards | Quizlet
improve security as well as enhance performancea service that acts as a proxy for inbound be used outside the firewall as a secure content server to outside clients, preventing direct, unmonitored access to your server’s data from outside your companyreverse proxies cut down on unnecessary requests, which reduces the load on the company’s Web server. A reverse proxy that is set up outside the firewall as a stand-in for a Web server can protect sensitive information stored on that Web server that must remain secure, When someone on the Internet makes a request to connect to your company’s Web server, the request goes first to the reverse proxy server. The proxy server then forwards the request through a specific port to the Web server over the trusted network. The Web server relays the reply back over the trusted, internal network to the reverse proxy server. The proxy, in turn, rebuilds the data packets from scratch (as proxies do) and sends the retrieved information to the client as if the proxy were the actual Web server. If the content server returns an error message, the proxy server can intercept the message and change any URLs listed in the headers before sending the message to the client. This prevents external clients from getting a glimpse of the redirection path of any URLs that point to the internal content ovides an additional barrier for the internal network. Ihacker is more likely to be restricted to only the information involved in a single transaction, as opposed to having access to the entire data stores of the organizationunauthorized user is unable to connect to the actual Web or database server because only the reverse proxy server is allowed such access.
Frequently Asked Questions about primary function of a proxy
What is proxy purpose?
The main purpose of a proxy server is to stay anonymous, whether it would be for personal or professional use. From there, the purposes of these servers can vary: a proxy can be used for privacy protection, data gathering, as well as avoiding or abiding by a specific geo-location.
What are the functions using proxy server?
Proxy server is an intermediary server between client and the internet. Proxy servers offers the following basic functionalities: Firewall and network data filtering. Network connection sharing.
What is the function of a proxy quizlet?
Proxies can conceal the end users in a network, filter out undesirable Web sites, and block harmful content in much the same manner as packet filters.