What exactly is a proxy Server?

Question

I'm not Computer illeterate and know how things work can fix most commen problems but just joint the Net.
My Daughter ask me to find her some anonymous Proxy Servers because her school has blocked many she's 17. Question 1
Am I doing the right thing question 2 what the hell are they?

Answer 1

A server that sits between a client application, such as a Web browser, and a real server. It intercepts all requests to the real server to see if it can fulfill the requests itself. If not, it forwards the request to the real server.

Proxy servers have two main purposes:



Improve Performance: Proxy servers can dramatically improve performance for groups of users. This is because it saves the results of all requests for a certain amount of time. Consider the case where both user X and user Y access the World Wide Web through a proxy server. First user X requests a certain Web page, which we'll call Page 1. Sometime later, user Y requests the same page. Instead of forwarding the request to the Web server where Page 1 resides, which can be a time-consuming operation, the proxy server simply returns the Page 1 that it already fetched for user X. Since the proxy server is often on the same network as the user, this is a much faster operation. Real proxy servers support hundreds or thousands of users. The major online services such as America Online, MSN and Yahoo, for example, employ an array of proxy servers.

Filter Requests: Proxy servers can also be used to filter requests. For example, a company might use a proxy server to prevent its employees from accessing a specific set of Web sites.

See the Server Types page in the quick reference section of Webopedia for a comparison of server types.

Answer 2

A proxy server is a computer with Proxy Software used on some corporate networks. It is used for all World Wide Web traffic, such as the viewing of Web pages. It can be used for the filtering of Web sites to prevent people from going to certain types of sites, but more commonly it is used on networks where there is not a direct connection to the Internet available for all computers (or where a direct connection would be too expensive).



In simple terms, Proxy server servers as a gateway to the Internet for a whole lot of computers connected through One phone line (could be normal dial up, or DSL, or leased line), like in an office environment. You will have a computer acting as the Proxy Server because that computer is connected directly to the Internet through the phone line and then you have other computers connected to the computer acting as the proxy server, which use the proxy server to connect to the Internet. That's all, Simple.



OK, now coming to your daughter's request.

1. If her school has blocked certain sites, it is for her own good, they would have blocked sites that are into pornography or sites that are not good for school children. It is illegal to install Proxy server software to bypass the schools laws. And they will come to know of it pretty soon. You are not doing the right thing by try to help her get a proxy server software.

2. What are they, I explained that in the beginning.

Answer 3

The last answer sounded like it was from the IT webopedia. The main purposes for proxys for normal users (non ISP's), is to have a server/workstation act as a gateway to the internet. In other words, all internet traffic passes through that computer. This is a mainstream way for hackers to passivly use your computers identity. All traffic (packets) that pass through the proxy are recoded with your computers information.