A proxy site allows you to connect to the internet without logging your IP address (e.g., HideMyAss.com). This useful in different situations when visiting sites while at work or school, or bypassing websites that only allow one account per computer. There are many types of proxy sites, but here we will concentrate on the main ones.
FTP Proxy Server
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is used to transfer information from one computer to another computer by using a network or server. An FTP proxy server is used to gain access to a network when the machine you are using does not have an internet connection but does have access to a machine that has an internet connection. This can also be used if your machine is blocked by a firewall and can not access the website that you wish to connect to.
HTTP Proxy Server
The most common type of proxy, the HTTP proxy server provides a means to access a website without being identified. The server simply connects to the specified webpage with an anonymous IP address so that yours is not used. There are, of course, ways that websites may know you are using a proxy server, but the site administrator will have absolutely no way of knowing who you are. This is the brilliance of such technology, that common, everyday users can bypass a secure network by using a proxy site to do their dirty work.
SOCKS Proxy Server
A SOCKS Proxy server simply provides the task of transferring data from a client to a server using any number of protocols so that according to the point of view of an Internet web server, the SOCKS server appears to be a client in itself. Because a SOCKS proxy server does not add anything from itself or change the data it is transferring from the true client, anonymity of this type of proxy server is always absolute.
Whatever you choose, it’s always safe to be secure on the Internet, and a proxy server can help you do that.