A proxy is a server that serves as a buffer between a regular user and the Internet. A proxy server performs many useful functions: it speeds up data transfer, protects users from virus attacks, and allows the user to hide their personal data.
The term "proxy" is derived from the English word proxy (authorized, trusted representative). A proxy server is a service on computer networks that allows users to make indirect requests to other network services. Most ISPs' proxies increase the speed of the Internet. This is due to the fact that quite often different users access the same Internet resources, so a number of sites and files may already be in the proxy cache. Downloading from a proxy server is significantly faster than downloading from a remote resource. A proxy server can download information from the Internet and transmit it to the user in a compressed form. This proxy function serves mainly to save the user's external Internet traffic or internal traffic of the company that owns the proxy server. Many proxy servers allow you to hide the user's IP address, allowing you to visit sites anonymously. It is necessary to hide your data when visiting unfamiliar or suspicious Internet resources, since on such sites there is a possibility that hackers will take over your IP address. Fraudsters possessing such information can steal important documents from your computer or simply destroy data stored on your hard drive. A proxy server can protect not only individual users, but the entire local computer network as a whole. If the proxy is properly configured, local computers can access external Internet resources only through it. In this case, external computers will not be able to communicate with local computers at all, since they "see" only the proxy server. The provider can also use a proxy to restrict the access of local network users to certain resources, for example, to block access to sites with pornographic or extremist content.
