Glossary · Proxy types
Anonymous proxy
A proxy that hides your real IP address but still identifies itself as a proxy to the sites you visit.
Proxies are graded by how much they reveal, and anonymous sits in the middle. It hides your real IP address, so the destination cannot see where you actually are, but it does not hide the fact that a proxy is in use: headers like Via or a forwarded-for field announce that the request passed through an intermediary.
For many tasks that is fine. If your goal is simply not to expose your own address, an anonymous proxy does it. The limitation shows up against sites that treat any detectable proxy as suspicious regardless of which address is behind it, because the tell is not your IP, it is the proxy signature itself.
The grade above, elite, removes that signature; the grade below, transparent, hides nothing at all. Anonymous is the compromise between them.
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