What type of Proxy Server is best to hide your IP?

Very simply, any Anonymous Proxy Server will do a good job at hiding your IP. Infact a Level 3 Proxy Server should be sufficient to hide your IP without any worries.

However an Elite Proxy Server is the absolute best to use. This type of Proxy Server is either Level 1 or Level 2 and provides the absolute best Anonymity you could want.

The different types of Proxy Servers

There are many different types of Proxy Servers out there. Depending on the purpose you can get Proxy Servers to route any of these common protocols, and many more:

FTP
HTTP
Gopher
IRC
MSN
AIM
ICQ
VOIP
SSL

So out of the common types of Proxy Servers, you end up with the following:

FTP Proxy Server:

Relays and caches FTP Traffic.

HTTP Proxy Server:

A one way request to retrieve Web Pages.

Socks Proxy Server:

A newer protocol to allow relaying of far more different types of data, whether TCP or UDP.

NAT Proxy Server:

This one works a little different, it allows the redirection of all packets without a Program having to support a Proxy Server.

SSL Proxy Server:

An extension was created to the HTTP Proxy Server which allows relaying of TCP data similar to a Socks Proxy Server. This one done mainly to allow encryption of Web Page requests.

Furthermore, a Proxy Server can be split into another two Categories:

Anonymous:

An Anonymous Proxy Server blocks the remote Computer from knowing the identity of the Computer using the Proxy Server to make requests.

Transparent:

A Transparent Proxy Server tells the remote Computer the IP Address of your Computer. This provides no privacy.

Anonymous Proxy Servers can further be broken down into two more categories, Elite and Disguised. An Elite Proxy Server is not identifiable to the remote computer as a Proxy in any way. A Disguised Proxy Server gives the remote computer enough information to let it know that it is a Proxy, however it still does not give away the IP of the Computer it is relaying information for.



Sources: http://www.proxy-server.info/

How to setup your browser for proxy access:

To set up your web browser follow the intructions below. You have to replace and with the proxy address and its port. It is preferred to use an IP address instead of proxy's hostname to avoid the name resolution that your browser will perform in case of hostname usage. Browsers covered are:

· Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0x
· Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0
· Netscape Communicator(Navigator) V1.0, V2 and V 3.x
· Netscape Communicator(Navigator) v 4.x
· NCSA Mosaic 2.1 or later

Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0x

· Choose the View menu.
· Select Internet Options.
· Select Connection.
· Check "Use a proxy server".
· Enter in the "Address" text box.
· Enter in the "Port" text box.
· Press "Apply".
· Press "OK".

Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0

· Choose the Tools menu.
· Select Internet Options.
· Select Connections.
· Select LAN Settings.
· Check "Use a proxy server".
· Enter in the "Address" text box.
· Enter in the "Port" text box.
· Press "Apply".
· Press "OK".

Netscape Communicator(Navigator) V1.0, V2 and 3.x

· Choose the Options menu.
· Select Preferences.
· Select Proxies.
· Check "Manual Proxy Configuration".
· Click "View..." .
· Set the appropriate fields to and values – it depends on proxy type you want to use.

Netscape Communicator(Navigator) v4.0 and higher

· Choose the Edit menu.
· Select Preferences.
· Select Advanced->Proxies.
· Check "Manual Proxy Configuration".
· Click "View...".
· Set the appropriate fields to and values – it depends on proxy type you want to use.

NCSA Mosaic 2.1 or later

· Choose the Options menu.
· Choose Preferences.
· Choose Proxy.
· Set the appropriate fields to : values – it depends on proxy type you want to use.
· Set Location to :.
· Select the "ADD" Button on the Domains Box.

General information

Proxy server is the software installed on some network server. The main purpose of this software is to relay traffic between two network hosts (client and server), sometimes this software does some data caching (usually this is performed by HTTP proxies). If your browser is configured to work through the proxy server then all your network traffic will go through that proxy server.

The main purposes of proxy servers:


· Transfer speed improvement (in case of caching proxies). You may use your ISP's proxy to access the internet – usually you have better connection to your ISP's proxy than to other hosts, if this proxy has the resource you requested from the internet you will get a copy of it from proxy (from its cache).
· Security and privacy (for HTTP). Anonymous proxies hide information about your computer in the request headers, so you can safely surf the net and your information will never be used in any way.

· LAN interconnection (or LAN to WAN connection). Sometimes you experience some problems while accessing the server located in the other network (for example in the internet).

Source: http://www.samair.ru