The Advantages of Using Proxies

Author: Wayne Cutforth
Proxy sites have been around for years; right from the birth of the Internet. They are pieces of software or hardware that act as a middle man, handling data on your behalf and thus cutting out risk on your part. They are useful if you want a different indentify when your surfing the Internet and can be used to remain private when surfing some websites that my harm your computer.

If you surf the Internet normally, websites can track certain pieces of information about you. The information that they can track varies but typically its stuff like IP address, geographical location, type of Browser you are suing, MAC address and much more. Using this information they can establish your ISP and roughly where you are from.

Not everybody likes this. Some people prefer to remain private for whatever reason they have. Just because you wish to remain anonymous it does not mean that you are doing things that you should not be; as some people believe. I know someone that likes using a proxy site for his Internet banking so to give himself extra privacy and an extra layer of protection from Trojans and viruses that could infect his computer. There is nothing wrong with this. With all the new viruses out today you have to take as many precautions necessary to keep yourself safe.

If you do not want to use a proxy site there are still some things that you can apply to minimise any risks. First of all, make sure that you Windows firewall is enabled. This will help filter out incoming viruses and dangers from data packets. Secondly, make sure that you have a good antivirus software package installed on your PC that allows you to do regular updates. Perform the updates manually and never rely on the application to do it automatically because sometimes it will not do this.

Also, I would advise using the Firefox browser instead of the Internet Explorer. This type of browser is more secure and has in built functions to further protect your computer from dangers. Internet Explorer is too volatile and does not provide you with as much protection and subsequently your PC becomes infected if not worse.

If you have some spare cash, you could always look into purchasing a package that offers you even more protection like encryption, for example. This will protect your data when transmitting from A to B and vice versa. If someone or something were to attempt to hack the signal, all they would get is gibberish and not the actual data being transmitted. This is probably the best form of protection that you could get. This will not come free though. You can probably expect to spend several hundred dollars for the top of the range packages.

I hope this article has given you insight into how proxies can be advantageous and how you can apply what I have talked about to a real life scenario. Good Luck.