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