Glossary · Networking
Proxy server
A server that sits between you and the internet, making requests on your behalf so the destination sees the server's address instead of yours.
A proxy server is an intermediary. Instead of connecting to a website directly, you connect to the proxy, it makes the request for you, and it passes the response back. The website sees the proxy's address and knows nothing about yours, which is the whole reason to use one.
That indirection buys different things depending on why you set it up: anonymity, because your real address is hidden; access, because the request now originates wherever the proxy is; and control, because a proxy in front of a network can filter or log what passes through. The same basic mechanism serves all three.
Everything else in this glossary, residential or datacenter, HTTP or SOCKS5, rotating or static, is a way of describing what kind of proxy server you are talking to and how it behaves. The server in the middle is the constant.
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