Anonymous proxy servers hide your IP address and thereby prevent unauthorized access to your computer through the Internet. They do not provide anyone with your IP address and effectively hide any information about you and your reading interests. Besides that, they don’t even let anyone know that you are surfing through a proxy server. Anonymous proxy servers can be used for all kinds of Web-services, such as Web-Mail (MSN Hot Mail, Yahoo mail), web-chat rooms, FTP archives, etc.

Proxy Types

No Proxy

In this case (the majority of internet users), http requests are sent directly from your machine to the server.

A non-proxied system will display the following information:

* REMOTE_ADDR = Your IP
* HTTP_VIA = blank
* HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR = blank

Transparent Proxy

A transparent proxy anounces to the world that it's a proxy, and passes on your information.

A transparent proxy will display the following information:

* REMOTE_ADDR = Proxy's IP
* HTTP_VIA = Proxy's IP
* HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR = Your IP

Anonymous Proxy

An anonymous proxy offers the caching benefits of a transparent proxy, while hiding your IP address (by replacing with either the proxies IP, or a random address.

An anonymous proxy will display the following information:

* REMOTE_ADDR = Proxy's IP
* HTTP_VIA = Proxy's IP
* HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR = Proxy's IP, or random

Highly Anonymous (Elite)

A highly anonymous (often known as an elite proxy) makes your system look the same as a non-proxied system (with the proxy server's IP address). This provides the best security. In addition, an anonymous proxy's existance can be detected, but there's no way to detect a highly anonymous (elite) proxy.

A highly anonymous proxy will display the following information:

* REMOTE_ADDR = Proxy's IP
* HTTP_VIA = blank
* HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR = blank