Anonymous Proxies: Types & Benefits

Three in one! Meet the proxy type capable of shifting forms to satisfy different use cases. Want a high level of browsing secrecy? An anonymous proxy got you!

If you feel like lowering the level of secrecy, you can still do it. How so? It all comes down to how the different types of anonymous proxies work. Take a read.

Types of Anonymous Proxies

1.    Transparent Proxies

When using a proxy, especially one with the term “anonymous” in its name, you’d expect it to conceal your browsing activities. However, a transparent proxy does the opposite (despite being a type of anonymous proxy).

A transparent proxy reveals your IP address and other details to the target server. It lets the target server know you are routing traffic through a proxy.

Even though a transparent proxy offers the least level of anonymity, you can still use it to control and monitor web traffic or enhance network performance.

A transparent proxy can filter content and manage traffic, allowing you to enforce particular internet usage policies. For instance, you can filter and control access to specific websites in a certain educational institution.

Moreover, a transparent proxy can cache repeatedly accessed resources. This accelerates access to the commonly accessed and used resources, enhancing the performance of any network.

2.    Anonymous Proxies

In contrast to a transparent proxy, an anonymous proxy hides your IP address and other network details, granting you anonymity. It conceals your IP address by replacing it with its own. This way, the target server never knows your identity or location.

Since an anonymous proxy uses its own IP address to fetch you the desired online resource, it means it can bypass various geo-restrictions. How? By using an IP address that can access content that you are restricted from accessing and forwarding it to your device.

Despite giving you access to geo-blocked content and a way to avoid basic tracking, an anonymous proxy can still reveal its use to the target server. However, it is set up to ensure it does not disclose your actual IP address to the target server. 

3.    Elite Proxies

Also known as high anonymity proxies, elite proxies offer the highest level of security and privacy. They mask your IP address and hide details indicating a proxy’s use.

An elite proxy can help you avoid extensive tracking, protect your personal details, and bypass censorship. And, to take all these a notch higher, the best residential proxy offers the utmost privacy. A residential proxy makes it look like you live in a specific region, allowing you secure access to even the most rigorously restricted content.

More Benefits of Anonymous Proxies

1.    Enhances your online security

As cyber-attacks get more sophisticated, it becomes highly necessary for you to protect your personal, financial, and sensitive details. And, as part of the mission to keep the details from landing in unauthorized hands, you can start using an anonymous proxy.

Since malicious actors need to know your original IP address and other network details to attack your device, using an elite anonymous proxy makes it challenging for them to do so. Moreover, the proxy makes it harder for criminals to identify and exploit vulnerabilities within your network.

In an organizational setting, an anonymous proxy helps protect employee and client data and mitigates DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks. The attackers will likely miss the target server as all your traffic goes through the proxy server before reaching you. This means the sheer amount of traffic sent your way by the attackers is more likely to affect or crash the proxy server, not the organization’s server.

2.    Avoiding IP bans

Sometimes, particular platforms or websites can ban your IP address, blocking you from accessing their services or products.

For instance, online gaming sites have strict terms of service, leading to an immediate IP ban when violated. In most cases, automated banning systems initiate the bans, leaving you stranded even when you are wrongly accused of violating the platform’s rules. However, you can use an anonymous or elite proxy to circumvent these blocks.

An anonymous or elite proxy hides your IP address and uses its IP to get you the desired resources. So, the platform denying you access is less likely to note that you are the one accessing it.

You can also lease more proxies and create multiple accounts to keep you going in case the platform’s server bans another account.

3.    Securely accessing remote resources

Ever accidentally leaked confidential information or research after trying to access it from a public or unsecured network? Well, such cases are pretty common simply because unsecured or public networks are prone to cyber attacks like data interception and hacking.

Next time, consider using an anonymous or elite proxy to mask your IP address and other network details, allowing you to access remote resources confidentially and securely. Adding an encryption layer (SSL (Secure Sockets Layer or TLS (Transport Layer Security)) to the whole mix would further safeguard the sensitive data during transmission.

4.    Testing and debugging software efficiently

Creating a smooth user experience is critical, especially when developing a cloud-based application. Users from different regions expect the pages to load fast and to interact with the page elements more easily. However, how do you test the application without spending so much on actual human testers?

Yes, you simulate virtual testers using anonymous proxies with servers in different locations. As you test the application, you can observe how content is displayed in various places and evaluate its performance.

Besides testing the application’s performance in different locations, you can also test how your servers handle traffic from various locations.

The goal is to have anonymous proxies route traffic to the target application servers from different locations and evaluate how the servers handle the load. This helps identify potential bottlenecks or performance issues within the load-balancing mechanism.

Closing Words

Using proxies has its downsides. For instance, relaying web traffic through a proxy can negatively impact the performance of your network, especially if the proxy server has no caching mechanism in place.

To cut down on the downsides of using a proxy, anonymous proxies allow you to choose a type of proxy based on your use case. There is one that can improve the performance of your network, one for mid-level anonymity and the other for high-level anonymity. Find out more in this blog post!