Proxies are increasing in popularity as an effective way to navigate the internet in a more secure, private, and efficient way.
In this article, you will discover five of the key benefits of proxies for both individuals and organizations trying to provide an optimal and safe experience for their network users.
Protect Your Identity
One of the most common reasons people use proxies to surf the internet is for increased internet privacy.
In many ways, our privacy on the Internet is not considered as carefully as it should be.
Many people are unaware of the amount of data that has been collected and stored about them and their online activities.
It’s not even about people that are trying to cover their tracks when using the Internet in a malicious way.
Just ordinary people that are going about their day-to-day life on the internet and are not wanting someone or some online service, or agency collecting and storing, and even selling data about them and their online activities.
So by using proxy provider, like Proxy Store, you are able to surf the internet in a way that eliminates the possibility for these data collection processes and companies, to connect your web browsing activities with you as a person.
ByPass Geo-Blocking
Geo-blocking refers to internet services and websites that prevent people from certain countries and regions from accessing their content.
Common examples of content that is geo-restricted include streaming services, live sporting events, and even free-to-air television programming that is streamed online.
Many of these services and websites choose to block users from certain countries to try and generate a commercial advantage. And in other cases, there are certain contractual and legal obligations that mean they don’t have the legal rights to provide certain content all around the world.
However, some internet users still want to access this content even when they live outside of the approved areas.
Using internet proxies can enable somebody from a certain geographic area to mask their location, and appear to be located in another geographic area.
By doing this, as far as these online services and websites are concerned, this user is now somebody from the country or region in which they are permitted to display the desired content.
So by using proxies, you can open up a whole new world of content and its payment, that is usually unavailable to you.
Escape Imposed Bans
Occasionally, online services and websites will block a certain IP address from accessing their content. An IP address is essentially like the online identifier for a certain computer connected to the internet.
Every time you open your web browser and search the Internet, your computer is transmitting its IP address.
If a website or service decides that it does not want you to be able to access its content, it can block you by blacklisting your computer’s IP address.
This makes it impossible for you to access their content or service.
But it is possible to get around that but using a proxy service. Using a proxy service allows you to mask your actual IP address with an alternative IP address.
As a result, any IP blacklisting will be ineffective when accessing these online services or websites through a proxy.
Filter Content
The issues described so far in this article have been about situations where an individual might be trying to get around certain limitations they’re experiencing online.
But proxies can also be a valuable tool for companies and organizations who are wanting to actively shape the internet experience and online opportunities of their users.
For example, if your organization is wanting to stop certain websites and online services for example social media, from being available through their company server, then they can use a content filtering proxy to do this. This enables them to block undesirable, forbidden or dangerous content, and websites to maximise the safety of their network.
Improved Performance
Proxies can also be used to increase the speed of the experience of internet users on a certain network.
If you create data caching proxy you can optimize the proxy to store the information and data of the websites and online services frequently accessed by your users.
So if there are certain websites or platforms that you and your users are frequently accessing, the use of proxies can make the experience of interacting with those websites and platforms a lot smoother.
Not only does this make it a faster and smoother experience for network users, but it can also lead to a big cost saving for the network as the costs relating to data consumption can be reduced, in some cases dramatically, by caching the frequently accessed sites and services.
Final Thoughts
Though the main benefits people get from proxies relate to increased privacy, and the ability to escape geo-restricted content, you can see that there are multiple other benefits to using a proxy as well. For individuals and organizations alike, proxies are an element of your technology stack should not be overlooked.
