| One of the primary reasons people want to use a | | | | students progressing with their work. |
| proxy is to get around blocked content that may | | | | Some nations also use content filters to block their |
| contain some words that their network filter has | | | | residents or citizens from finding certain information or |
| identified as inappropriate. Many organisations make | | | | material on the Internet that is not approved by their |
| use of filters so that they can control how and what is | | | | government or regime of power. Residents of such |
| viewed over their network. They usually do this to stop | | | | nations routinely use good proxy sites to access news |
| employees looking sites that are unrelated to their job | | | | and information from the outside world. Another good |
| description or to simply stop them from viewing | | | | advantage of using proxies is that the IP address and |
| inappropriate material. This is usually achieved by the | | | | other details of the user is not logged. This helps to |
| use of keywords that is programmed into the web | | | | make sure that the user can retain a degree of |
| filter. The filter will simply block any web pages or site | | | | anonymity and privacy. |
| that contains these particular key words. | | | | Websites that you visit online routinely record and log |
| Although this may not necessarily block access to | | | | certain information about you and can even build up a |
| various websites that are job unrelated, they can also | | | | profile of your surfing habits. The scary thing is that I or |
| switch on access to pages and glossaries that are | | | | you do not know what they do with that information. |
| helpful in their job positions regardless of whether the | | | | Certain pieces of information is not a problem but |
| key word is present or not. Filters these days are | | | | some are, especially as websites are getting more |
| becoming ever ore sophisticated as the means to | | | | sophisticated at tracing you and recording whatever |
| bypass web filters and get around network blocks are | | | | details they do. The information that is recorded and |
| increasing and causing problems for networks. | | | | stored and what they do with it varies from website |
| If an employee of a company, or a student at a | | | | to website. The most common pieces of information |
| college, finds their Internet access blocked in some | | | | that are stored are your IP address, browser type, |
| way they may choose to use a proxy website to get | | | | geographical location, your ISP, MAC address, referring |
| around this problem. Proxies are independent and the | | | | site or webpage and many others. This is just a small |
| organisation cannot impose network restrictions | | | | list of what they can record about you. |
| outside of their network. As a proxy site does not | | | | I hope you have found this article useful and can used |
| take much longer than using a simple browser window, | | | | what has been discussed here to increase your |
| it is far quicker than calling technical support and trying | | | | awareness of the present problems on the Internet |
| to get authorization to remove specific sites from filter | | | | and how you can use a proxy site to tackle some of |
| lists. This would be very time consuming and would | | | | these problems. Enjoy your surfing. |
| thus cause problems and prevent the employees or | | | | |