ed a simple way to change proxy server settings? A proxy switcher will just do the trick. It is a simple application capable of changing the proxy server settings with much ease. A proxy server is basically another server which acts as an interceptor for the purposes of security and performance. There are a lot of available proxy switchers. Some have better features than others. But they all work the same way, i.e. change proxy server configurations. Some offer free versions. Others provide trial and paid versions. The advantages of the paid versions are the technical support and help that are available. There is the Elite Proxy Switcher from My-Proxy, which comes in free and professional versions. One of its added features is the ability to check the proxy details. Another proxy switcher, that is totally free, comes from OnyxBox. Still, there are others, like IE7Pro by Innoshock, and SwitchProxy Tool from Mozilla. The list of proxy switcher creators continues to grow as more and more people are using the Internet network to communicate and do business. As the size of the network increases, so is the need for better security and performance. To illustrate how a proxy switcher works, let us describe the manual process of changing or defining proxies, which the proxy switcher automates. For our discussion, we will use the Internet Explorer browser. In the browser, select the Tools from the menu, and then select Internet Options. This will open the Internet Options dialog window. Go to the Connections tab. At the lower portion of this tab, you will see the Local Area Network (LAN) settings. Click the LAN settings button. That will open the Local Area Network Settings dialog window. The lower portion of the dialog window defines the Proxy Server details. If you haven’t used a proxy switcher or defined a proxy server before, you will not see any details nor any checked boxes. Let’s say we are going to use an existing proxy server, defined by the address, myCompany.com, at port 8083. Now, check the box that says Use a proxy server for your LAN. That will enable the Address and Port fields. Enter the proxy server details into those fields and click OK. And you’re done with using a proxy server. This set of steps will become cumbersome if you use different proxies for work, school or home. You will also have to remember a lot of addresses and ports. With proxy switchers, these cumbersome steps are eliminated. Most proxy switchers offer a nice interface which allows the users to manage the addresses and ports. There is no need to remember a lot of details since the proxy switchers store them for you. All you have to do is do a couple of clicks and you’re already done switching proxies. So if you need help in changing proxy servers, just get a copy of any proxy switchers out there. Changing proxies will then just be a few clicks away.

erver becomes your best ally if you are trying to access blocked sites from your pc or your current browser and internet connection may not be performing too well. These days, there really are lots of proxy server applications that you can download online to help maximize your internet surfing experience. But just the same, you may also feel overwhelmed with the number of proxy server choices you have. Think about the fact that you should not just download for the sake of having one. After all, internet threats abound. So how can you decide which proxy server to download? Here are some important tips you can follow: 1. List down all proxy server sites you come across with – With a simple hit of keywords right on your preferred search engine, possible download opportunities will stream in. By simply looking up the words proxy server on your chosen search engine you might even end up overwhelmed with just how many sites there are. The even better thing about it is that these sites are free to access so you can easily click through them and see how they differ. But before you end up choosing the one you will download, list all of them first and then do some background check. 2. Read forums and reviews – The online crowd is perhaps the best first hand authorities who can tell you on the best proxy server to download. You would surely find it easy to search the web for topics discussing various feedbacks on the proxy server sites which most online users have used. Forums are usually free to access, although you might not get the chance to reply unless you are a registered user. However, reviews can come from article directories and blog sites of both satisfied and dissatisfied people who usually download a proxy server online. 3. Stay clear from proxy server sites with pay – Do not be too trusting when it comes to giving out your credit card details or other pertinent information about your self. To download a proxy server, you would usually just be prompted to click on a link and the rest will unfold right on your computer. If a proxy server site compels you to pay first before you download then stay away from it. There are other options for you to download and these proxy server sites can be easily accessed for free.

e you use the Internet, you’re being tracked by both your server and the servers you access. Your ISP keeps logs of your MAC address (your network adapter card’s number) and your private IP address; the rest of cyberspace sees your public IP address assigned by your ISP. Yes, no matter what you do and where you go, your computer trail leads right to your doorstep. Scary thought? Disturbing? No doubt. How Your IP Address Invades Your Privacy Whether or not you’re engaged in illegal or immoral activity, there’s reason to be worried about this lack of privacy on the Internet. Even people who do nothing strictly unlawful deserve privacy. You may be sending an anonymous mail, or having an illicit affair, or visiting websites that your family and friends would be offended by. You may have moved away and parted with friends and just want to check on their blogs without being identified. Perhaps you share an e-mail account with another person and you want to answer mail for them without giving away the fact you are someone/somewhere else. There are all kinds of reasons why being anonymous is important, and they are not all illegal. Unfortunately, you can’t be anonymous without a proxy server that hides your tracks for you. The websites, forums and web mail services you use all log your visits. Even social networking sites do. If you use your office’s network, the administrator keeps records of who uses it and when. Your public IP address may be changeable and have limited details only, but whoever gets past that and sees your private IP address (behind your ISP router) and worse, your Mac address, will be able to identify you. This lack of anonymity not only affects your privacy; it can also be a security threat. Through such details about your computer, it’s possible for a hacker to build a profile of you and gather such critical info as usernames, passwords, phone numbers and credit card numbers. How to Hide Your IP Address with Proxy Servers An anonymous proxy server can protect you from such tracking. There are two kinds of annoymizing proxies. Disgused proxy and elite proxy. A disguised proxy is identifiable as a proxy server by the website you visit, but it still hides your real IP. An elite proxy is cleverly masked to look like a genuine IP address, and it also hides your original IP. The elite proxy is better because it makes you less “suspicious.” How to Use a Proxy Server with Internet Explorer First go to Internet Options – Connections – LAN Settings In the Proxy Server area, check on “Use proxy server for LAN” box. Enter the proxy server in the address field. Enter the port number also in the port box. Click OK to close LAN box and Internet Options box. You’re ready to surf anonymously!

he line of defense against spam, email worms and unauthorized emails? SMTP servers employ a mechanism by which those would not get into the system. They use SMTP Proxies. SMTP proxy is basically another server that sits between the mail sender and the recipient. SMTP is a protocol that stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. This defines the rules for sending and receiving messages. The SMTP proxy does a number of useful things, like filtering and load balancing, and has a number of advantages. The SMTP proxy provides connection management. This server can impose a rule on the number of active connections given to clients. As a client, you can probably have one active connection at a time. This means that you can only send a message one at a time. This kind of rule solves the threat of the DoS, or the denial-of-service, attack. A virus that is capable of DoS will request more than the required number of connections, and eventually use up all the connection resources of that particular server. With all the resources gone, no more clients can access that server. The proxy will limit the number of requested connections thereby making the virus as less likely of a threat. In the end, the system will still have enough resources for other clients. The SMTP proxy provides bandwidth throttling. This mechanism limits the amount of data traffic at a particular time. This prevents server crashes. You probably heard of systems that crash because of so many users. That will be a similar case for messages. Too many incoming messages can put down a server. Spammers usually send an enormous amount of emails in an instant. With this throttling, senders will have to wait until they can send again. Legitimate users wait, while spammers give up. The SMTP proxy provides load balancing. In a small message system that receives few messages, one email server will be sufficient. But in today’s world, where billions of people interact using emails, one will not be enough. With the proxy, the system can have multiple mail servers, and each server can have a particular load assigned to them at a given time. The proxy’s job is basically to manage and assign the load to each server. The SMTP proxy also provides interoperability. This server works on any mail server. This means that you can change mail servers and still use the same proxy. An internet service provider may switch their incoming and outgoing mail servers, and leave the proxy untouched. The SMTP proxy is an invaluable tool in today’s world. It can help make mail servers efficient and robust by protecting them from different threats posed by spammers, email worms, and unauthorized email senders.

Anonymous Proxy Servers For? For most people, there is no such thing as absolute privacy online. Whenever you use the Internet, you give away information about yourself everywhere you go. You see, whenever you log on, your ISP assigns you a unique number (which may or may not change every time) and this number is known to the websites, chat rooms and other services you use online. Your remote address can reveal information about yourself and your computer you might not suspect, such as your city, district, server and whoever is registered owner of your server. Additionally, if a website has a tracker or counter, they can also gather details about your computer, such as operating system, browser, screen resolution, keywords you used to find their site, and whether or not you’ve visited them before. Benefits of an Anonymous Proxy Server Fortunately, there are means to secure your privacy online. You can use what’s called an anonymous proxy server. As the word “proxy” implies, a proxy server acts as a mediator between a client computer (such as yours) and another server (the site you want to access). All requests by the client are first sent to the proxy server, which forwards the request to the target server and then sends back the response to the client. An anonymous proxy server takes this a step further by hiding information about the client so that the target server never sees it. Anonymous proxy servers are ideal if you want to surf the web while keeping your identity and location secret. Proxy servers in general can also accelerate browsing if they save data requested by users to a cache. Types of Proxy Servers Proxy servers may be classified according to the degree of anonymity they give. A non-anonymous proxy server is called a “transparent” proxy: it tells the server it’s a proxy and gives your IP address too. A simple anonymous proxy server tells the target server it is a proxy, but hides client information. Another kind of anonymizer will admit it is a proxy, but gives a false client IP address. Finally a high-level anonymizer neither reveals it is a proxy, nor does it disclose any info about the client. Risks of An Anonymous Proxy Server How safe is an anonymous proxy server? Well, using a proxy server does have its share of risks. Because all your transactions will pass through the proxy first, you are taking a great risk if you transmit sensitive data. A malicious server owner can easily save clients’ data and use it for their own ends. Even if the server owner itself means no harm, it is possible for third-parties to hack the server if it is improperly configured. Do not use an anonymous proxy server unless you really trust it. When you do use one, make sure data such as passwords and personal information are encrypted. If you really want to enjoy the benefits of an anonymous proxy server, you might want to invest in a free-based proxy of this kind. Do your homework about the company’s reputation and track record first. Above all, inform yourself the risks involved.

Part and parcel of network security, be it in a corporation LAN or school university, is the installation of a firewall or web content filter. However as any user will attest to, this can hamper the flow of work, as it restricts access to websites that actually have bearing on their activity.

Proxy Servers

One can go to the administrator and have the web content filter removed temporarily, but to have to go through this procedure over and over will be tedious. A far more convenient method is to use proxies on proxy servers.

Proxy servers, or websites, allow a user to overcome the website blockade. The process itself is not difficult to comprehend: what goes on is that once you are on a proxy server or site, you enter the address or URL of the blocked site. The site will be displayed in a separate window, and you will be able to access it as you would any normal web page.

Not only do you overcome the web content filter, but your IP address is hidden so that the website you are visiting will not be able to tell who is visiting it. The reason is that it is the proxy server’s IP that will be displayed, and not your computer’s.

Advantages of Using Proxy Servers

Aside from circumventing content filter applications, the proxy server has other benefits, one of them is that because the page being accessed does not directly interact with your computer or the network, there is less danger of having the security breached.

Another advantage is that by accessing the web page from a proxy server, the pages are cached on the proxy site. This is important because it makes retrieval of the page much quicker; instead of reloading a page, which can take time if the network or Internet is busy, the file is loaded from the cache instead.

Proxy Lists

This is very convenient for Web users, but unfortunately, due to its popularity, proxy servers can be difficult to access at times, and there will be some webmasters who will try to block proxy servers. The way to go around this is by going to a proxy list site.

There are several proxy list sites available, but the good ones should be regularly maintained; that is, the contents are updated on a consistent basis. In addition, the contents of the proxy list should also include proxy software, links to other sites, and other vital information.

Setting up a DMZ

As has been shown, there will be times when using proxy servers will be necessary. If you have a firewall, there is no need to disable it just so you can use a proxy. Instead, you can configure the firewall so that there will be a DMZ (demilitarized zone). This term is used to refer to that section of the network system that is not covered by the firewall.

There are several ways that you can configure a DMZ on a network. One of the easiest is to select one of the computers and use it as a go between a firewall and the Internet. It usually entails using a directory on the computer as a DMZ. Check the firewall manual for instructions. Once this is setup, you can use a proxy server, and access all websites, while keeping up your security.

xy is a cool technique to remain unidentified with almost no labor required to your site. You may need to understand a couple of terms first before you start surfing using proxies. A URL or Uniform Resource Locator is the exclusive address for a file that you can access easily on the Internet. An IP or Internet Protocol is an address specified electronic mechanisms utilize with the purpose of recognizing and communicating with each other on a computer network using the IP standard. To surf using proxies with Internet Explorer (IE), open the URL of the Web proxy. Then, type in the URL you want to go and see with the use of the IP of the Web proxy. If you encounter some problems with this easy and simple procedure, try another Web proxy server. One problem you might come across with is that the method would not support all scripts the site you want to go utilizes. It might be because the functions of the website do not work or perhaps the design does not look as usual. When you encounter this kind of problem, try using another Web proxy server. The servers can simply be impeded using a firewall or by other ways of blocking scripts. In that case, you could make a little effort in setting up your own proxy. You just have to obtain a Web space that supports cgi/php. You can try searching the Internet using a php proxy or cgi proxy or other scripts. Proxies are mere IP addresses that direct your requests to the site you intend to go to. The crucial thing about using an anonymous proxy is that it might leak your IP. It does not seem right to use a proxy for the purpose of staying anonymous if the destination is able to see your IP and not the one from the proxy. In Internet Explorer, go to Tools, and proceed to Internet Options. Go on by clicking on the Connection tab, then LAN Settings. Go to Proxy Server. Activate the proxy server by checking on the box. Then, put in the address and the port (you should have the proxy information by this time). Firefox has different proxy extensions. If you want to know where to get the proxies that you checked in the Web browser Charon, just search on the Web for lists of proxy.

s into your mind when you hear the words “proxy server”? Maybe it is another piece of technical jargon? Maybe some Internet geek mentioned it to you? Maybe you saw it when you were searching for something on the Internet? Well, wherever you’ve heard of it or whatever you think of it, sooner or later you’re going to need it. Why, you ask? This will enlighten you about the background of proxy servers. What is a proxy server? In simple terms, it acts as your “representative” when going online; something similar to a middleman in a company. It was made mainly to hide users who wish to remain anonymous when online, because when they use proxy servers, the real identity of the computer they are using is masked. A proxy server may be an actual server, or a simple program to simplify the process of using one. What are a proxy server’s functions, and what do they do? When speaking technically, when you use a proxy server, it is the proxy server that downloads resources and content from the Internet. It then passes on the content to you. Thus, it is, technically, not you accessing the Internet, but rather it is the proxy itself. Your “request” for certain Internet content is passed onto the proxy server which you are connected to, and the server processes this request and connects to the Internet to serve it. When it has gathered the requested resources, it loads it up on the server, and passes back the results to you. What are a proxy server’s specialties? When you use a proxy server, there are often special options and filters you can set. These options and filters help the server to cater the content to your need. For instance, you can disable complex Flash presentations and website scripts to help the content become smaller in size and therefore load faster. These involve safely altering your computer’s request for content, which is the one that goes into the proxy, or it may happen the other way around, in which the Internet server’s response is altered so that the resource is modified to your needs. Hopefully, this has answered most of the common queries you may have about proxy servers. Now that you know what a proxy server is, what it does and can do, you would be able to use one without much difficulty. Go forth and explore anonymously!

roxy is a type of proxy server known as an open proxy. Proxy servers generally allow users of a computer network to both store and forward information and services on the Internet. This reduces the load on the network’s bandwidth and allows a method of control to be set on network activity. With an open proxy, anyone may use this type of forwarding service and gain anonymity online. Countering the Odds and Using the Advantages of HTTP Proxy Servers HTTP proxy servers allow users to hide their identity while making use of online services available. Identity theft, information manipulation, fraud, and the like are ever increasing in today’s connected world. Many businesses and home users have been quite successful at staving assaults made by malicious software and other online threats. With all these threats, any individual’s right to privacy is now more assaulted than ever. It is interesting that even this basic right is brought under the examining lens of the very company one works in. It is no secret that employers may monitor their employees’ browsing activities, emails, and instant messenger communication. This is often done with the thought that the law will typically favor the employer and not the employee. HTTP proxy servers are used to hide or disguise a user’s identity through hiding their IP address. Every computer (or any other device that can go online for that matter) that connects to the Internet will be assigned a unique number. That number enables both identification and data communication while it is online. Ill-meaning and spurious individuals track a user’s activities using that user’s unique IP address. A lot of critical information, including a user’s browsing habits, can be tracked using this information. In effect, these people can steal your identity and use it to further their own ends. Many users have turned to HTTP proxy servers to provide anonymity and identity protection. These proxy servers conceal your IP address from the service you access. This basically means an increased protection from fraud and identity theft. Another thing that you can do with these proxy servers is to circumvent Internet censorship. To locate these servers one only has to look up proxy lists that provide them online. Disadvantages and Dangers of HTTP Proxy Surfing For all the anonymity and identity protection you’re getting from using these proxy servers, there is also a certain danger to their use. These servers are not always secure and it may turn out to be a threat to your own privacy as well. Some of these servers are left open either through negligence or malicious intent. Users would have to weigh the advantages against the disadvantages of HTTP proxy surfing. You might end up exposing yourself to the very online dangers you were trying to avoid.

website at school may only be accessed by unblocking it through a Web proxy. However, you must first acquire a proxy server. You have the options to avail of a professional proxy provider subscription or avail of a free Web proxy. Free Web proxies may be found through Internet search engines. Some system administrators often block proxy sites. However, there are always new proxies showing on the Internet. This only means that you will always have proxies to utilize. After acquiring a free Web proxy, you can key in the URL or the Uniform Resource Locator of the blocked website you want to Access easily. Just place the URL into the proxy’s address bar then click on the “Go” button. After the above steps are done, a new page will be opened. It comes with two frames. The proxy site’s address bar is shown on the top frame. If you want to access a different website, you simply have to key in the URL in the address bar again. The blocked website is shown at the bottom frame. You should find a way around the filtered or blocked site using the Web proxy effectively, except when the website administrator has already blocked or filtered the Web proxy you are using. Since some network administrators are capable of blocking some common redirection services and Web proxies, you can simply find another Web proxy and try bypassing it. It is also acceptable to search for uncommon Web proxies. For different reasons, schools usually attempt to filter or block the students’ access to some popular websites. This is simply a way of managing the resources. You should also consult your parent or guardian so as to ensure that the sites you want to visit do not have illegal features and contents.