A Proxy site is a web site or a web page which let you to look through your most wanted web sites or web pages even though your access to those web sites might be blocked by a content filter or any firewall that the network administrator set up in your company or in your school. The proxy site also helps to mask the visit to the site, so that there is less evidence that the content filter was not successful in preventing the visit.

A website can be blocked by a number of programs, particularly security software. These programs work with Web browsers, which allow users to view the World Wide Web. Some Web browsers even come with their own filters to restrict access to websites with certain content. System administrators of a LAN Local Area Network can also block access to websites on the network level.

A proxy is a website that routes all incoming connections to it out to their target website the user is trying to access. Instead of loading a website directly from your home computer, you connect first to a proxy website which then redirects your connection through it to your desired website that you are trying to load. There are many different kinds and configurations of proxy, but now that you are aware of how the work you will soon see how a proxy server can make accessing a blocked website at work possible.

If you want to surf anonymously on the internet and protect your identity then you'll need to find some system to surf by proxy. Currently if you just open your web browser and start searching on the web you'll leave a huge trail behind you leading right back to your home to someone with the right resources. Now it might not sound a big deal to some people - 'so what' they say, 'what's the problem unless you have something to hide' but it actually represents a huge risk to my identity which I would rather keep private online.

So how can you surf anonymously and protect your identity on the internet. Well the often touted solution is to use surf by proxy, that is to use an anonymous proxy to hide your IP address from the web sites you visit. The proxy is simply a server that forwards your requests to a website thereby keeping yours private - the only address left in the logs is that of the proxy server there is no connection to you.

Hereby lies another problem with the thousands of people who have searched the internet for anonymous proxy lists and used one of them. This can actually be an even greater threat to your privacy - many of these anonymous proxies are actually traps set up by hackers or identity thieves. A server is compromised and a proxy service is installed and advertised on lists and forums - then all the information can easily be logged, that is your information passing through that proxy server.