A proxy server is a digital gateway between your computer and the Internet. It separates your device from the websites you visit to hide your actual location and protect your sensitive data from being intercepted during transit to and from the servers you visit. That’s just a concise explanation, though. Below, you will learn everything about the uses of proxy servers.
What to Use a Proxy Server For
There are 5 main uses of proxy servers for private and business purposes:
- Improved connection speed and reduced bandwidth consumption – a properly adjusted proxy server can help your organization reduce overall bandwidth consumption and average website loading time by caching copies of websites locally. When multiple employees in a company need to load the same website, the proxy server will send only one update request to the website instead of sending individual requests for each user. This will result in higher loading speed and lower traffic consumption.
- Bypassing regional website restrictions – both governments and private companies can restrict access to particular websites and content for people from specific countries or even particular regions within their own countries. Fortunately, a proxy server lets you bypass any regional restrictions by substituting your IP address with a permitted one. For example, you may travel from the UK to the US for a vacation and notice that one of your movie streaming accounts doesn’t work there. All you need to solve the problem is to enable a UK proxy server and enjoy the movies as if you didn’t leave the country.
- Children and employee Internet usage control – both parents and employers want to keep their kids and employees from visiting particular websites. A proxy server allows them to block access to those websites and track all web requests at the same time to catch the employees who waste working hours trying to watch Netflix or YouTube. You can track what your kids browse for the same way and notice if something goes wrong in time.
- Improved privacy – depending on the proxy server you choose, you can either hide your IP address or block access to your identifying data contained in average web requests. When the proxy server is on, the servers of the website you visit can’t read and cache your personal data and browsing patterns.
- Higher security – apart from privacy benefits, a proxy server can encrypt your data to make your transactions and important file transfers undetectable. If a proxy is combined with a VPN, it allows organizations to provide their remote employees with secure, verified access to corporate web resources, including intranet data.
Secure Now
Now that you know all the available uses of proxy servers, you can employ one to protect your private or company data, gain more control over the corporate network, or simply access any restricted content you want. A properly configured proxy server removes all the borders online and makes the Internet as free and secure as it’s meant to be.