Proxy Server
Definition : 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:
1. 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.
So , a proxy server is a kind of buffer between your computer and the Internet resources you are accessing. They accumulate and save files that are most often requested by thousands of Internet users in a special database, called “cache”. Therefore, proxy servers are able to increase the speed of your connection to the Internet. The cache of a proxy server may already contain information you need by the time of your request, making it possible for the proxy to deliver it immediately. The overall increase in performance may be very high. Also, proxy servers can help in cases when some owners of the Internet resources impose some restrictions on users from certain countries or geographical regions. In addition to that, among proxy servers there are so called anonymous proxy servers that hide your IP address thereby saving you from vulnerabilities concerned with it.
2. 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 site
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