What is a proxy?

[tomster2300]

This seems like a dumb question, but what exactly is a proxy? I dont connect to the internet through one, but could I? Would I need to do it?

I was reading that thread about somebody not being able to get through to a site but yet he was able through a proxy. Does a proxy change your ip?

Thanks.

[oSo]

Im not to sure about the technical terms of what it actually does. But I believe uses another IP, which the site, program or whatever will see instead of your usual IP. It doesn't permanently change your IP, You just put the new IP in 'Tools' --> 'Internet Options' ---> 'Connections' ---> 'Lan Settings' and then in the proxy server box, You just tick the box when you want or need to use it and un-tick it to revert to your old IP. I hope this helps slighty....

oSo

[bigandy]

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 Compuserve and America Online, 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.

http://webopedia.com/TERM/p/proxy_server.html