Proxy help internet help?

Question

what does a proxy exactly do and what is the difference b/w open proxies and which is better. i know it has something to do with ip addresses

Answer 1

Proxies act as a medium between you and your target. For example, if you want to surf to google.com using a proxy, the information is first sent to the proxy, then to google.com. The response from google.com is then sent back to proxy which relays it back to you. This is why it is possible to hide your own IP: only the proxy comes into direct contact with the target.

Open proxies are proxies without access restrictions so that anyone can use them.

Btw some proxies hide your IP completely while others may send it anyway.

Answer 2

A proxy is simply a computer running proxy software.  Some ISP's use their own proxy server.  The job of the proxy is to cut down on bandwidth by cache'ing the web pages.  So lets say your ISP is on a proxy server. When you type a webpage, ie http://google.com . You actually connect to the proxy first.  The proxy then queries google.com and caches the web page. The proxy then responds to your computer with the results.  Now if someone else on your ISP types http://google.com then the proxy server wont bother fetching google's page because it is now in cache.  Instead the proxy server just returns the cache page of google.com to the user.  As you see this cuts down on internet traffic.  

Traditionally when you type google.com, you have a direct connection to google's server and the results are sent to you directly from their server.   A proxy is doing the talking with google. While on a proxy, you only talk to the proxy server.

The advantage of a proxy is that you have a slight bit of anonymity.  Because the web site is only seeing the IP# of the proxy server.  Your real IP# is only being seen by the proxy server.  Thats how those websites that say you can surf anonymously work.

To enable your web browser to use Proxy (Internet explorer), click Tools, internet options, Connections tab, then Lan Settings button. Check the box to use Proxy server and type the IP# of the proxy server.  Now when you surf a website, your computer talks directly to that IP#.  The machine then does the talking to the website you punch in.

Google Open Proxy for a list.  It doesn't mean  you can do illegal stuff like using the anonymity to make fraud credit charges/purchases. Even the your IP# is hidden to the website, the proxy server still keeps track of whatyou're doing and y our real IP#.  The police can still subpona the records.  But if the proxy is in, like China for example, then its a good chance you can get away with it.  But big brother is monitoring all internet activity since 9/11 . Thats still not to say your activitiy can't be monitored by ways the still classified to us under the law Bush enacted.