What is an Anonymous Proxy? Answered

Without hiding your IP Address, the websites you visit use it to track you and can decide to deny you access. Click through now to discover how Anonymous Proxies help you hide your IP Address and what they are used for.

Anonymous Proxy

How well do people know Anonymous Proxies? Very well, in fact, when most Internet users mention the word ‘proxy,’ what they actually meant is Anonymous Proxies, which can also be elite proxies, depending on the level of anonymity.

There’s another type of proxy known as Transparent Proxies – it isn’t common, we wrote about it here. In this article, our focus will be on Anonymous Proxies, the proxies people use to evade censorship, and access local content and blocked sites.


What is an Anonymous Proxy?

Anonymous Proxies are the most popular type of proxies among Internet users. They are non-transparent and modify request data by changing your IP address with another one. This makes it difficult for the website you visit to know that you’re the one that initiated the request.

This is what makes it anonymous, the changing of the IP Address to a completely new one. However, they identify themselves as proxies. This is done by modifying the REMOTE_ADDR, HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR, and HTTP_VIA.

REMOTE_ADDR = Proxy IP address
HTTP_VIA = Proxy IP address
HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR = Proxy IP address

So, When you using the anonymous proxy, The website owners know you are using a proxy for “HTTP_VIA” but can't know your real IP.

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How Anonymous Proxies Work

Without Configuring proxies, web requests you sent go straight to the intended web server. Anonymous Proxies require you to configure them before they can be used – your office can decide to configure them on your behave though. To learn how to configure them, read our articles on how to configure proxies on the popular web browsers – Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari.

Proxies for Top 5 Web Browsers

If you intend to use them in a non-browser environment like in SEO tools or some kind of bot, you have to learn how to configure them on such tools.

When configured, the route your web requests follow will change. The proxy server will sit between your computer browser and the Internet. When you make web requests, instead of the requests to go straight to the sites you intend to visit, you are redirected to the proxy server. Upon reaching the proxy server, your request headers are modified. It is this modification that makes it anonymous.

The HTTP proxy modifies the HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR and REMOTE_ADDR headers, stripping out your IP Address and filling it with its own IP Address. After this, the request is then sent to the website – because the HTTP_VIA header is sent, the website will know that a proxy is been used but will not see your IP Address. When a response is sent, it is not sent to you directly but to the proxy server, which then forwards the request back to you.

However, you need to know that while you are anonymous to websites you visit using proxies, you are never anonymous to the proxies you use. While many claims not to keep track of their users' browsing activities and work strictly on a no-log policy, some can give you out if they have to – yes, some actually keep logs even when they tell you they do not. That’s why you should make use of premium proxies that are located in areas that do not force their business to disclose their customers' information.


Uses of Anonymous Proxies

Anonymous Proxies have a wide range of applications. If you are a regular Internet user, you might not really need them, but if you want to remain anonymous or you are into web automation, without proxies, there’s little you can do. Below are the major uses of Anonymous Proxies.

  • Evading Censorship and Accessing Local and Restricted Web Resources

Forget the Incognito mode on your browser; you are never anonymous to the websites you visit if they can access your IP Address. With your IP Address, they can detect your location (not absolute though). Security agencies can use your IP Address together with other information to track you down.

With your IP Address, your government or office can monitor your activities online. Websites can use your IP Address to deny you access to local content in other locations. Since proxies can hide your IP address, it can help you circumvent all of these. However, VPN services are mostly used for these.

  • Web Scraping and Crawling

Most websites have action limits. Take, for instance, if you keep sending many requests to Google Search in a minute, you’ll be required to solve captchas – a sign you have exceeded the human limit and they are suspecting you’re using a bot.

To avoid solving captchas when scraping and crawling the web using bots, Internet marketers make use of Anonymous Proxies – they can either be high rotating proxies as in the case of SEO or sticky proxies when you need to maintain session as in the case of social media automation.

  • Brand Protection

What an unknown person or company will do online without drawing attention; if you try it as a known company, it might generate a lot of interest that might damage the image of your brand. Needless, there are some activities that are just not ethical but your brand needs them to stay afloat.

What would you do in such a case? Watch your brand go down because you don’t want to dent its image? No, what others do is that they make use of proxies and other techniques to make sure some of their activities online cannot be linked to them.

The advertisement industry online is one that unless you know what you are doing, you cannot escape being scammed. This is regardless of if you are an Ad publisher or partner. Some marketers can claim revenue for ads they do not display.

They make use of some techniques that will show you your ads when you visit but show needs to their customers – you can use proxies to disguise as a regular user. On the flip side, you can use proxies to verify ads in locations you are not present.

Take, for instance; Google AdSense shows different ads based on location, browsing history, and other data. With proxies, you can change location and access data in other locations.

Still, they are also used for sneaker copping and ticket scalping


Conclusion

Anonymous Proxies have come to stay because of the benefits they bring to the table. With them, a whole lot of opportunities and freedom is enjoyed because you’re no longer tied to your IP Address, There are lots of Free anonymous Proxies online,

But still, We still recommend you use high anonymous proxies providers, There are numerous Elite proxy providers Here, including Luminati, GeoSurf, Smartproxy, MyPrivateProxy, Highproxies, Stormproxies, and InstantProxies.


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