Deciding to set up a proxy server must be on the agenda for those who would aspire to determine their own online fates. The word “proxy” means “substitute” or anything that serves as an agent, an enabler. When it comes to the internet, this means using a program that acts like another or otherwise substitutes for it. In computing a proxy server is simply an informational middleman, if you will; it handles exchanges between the requester and the ultimate server. The requester is known as the client, and has to go through the proxy in order to get anything. What the proxy does is screen all requests against its set of filters, rules by which it can deny requests. The most common example of filtering is by IP address or protocol.
To properly set up a proxy server, it helps to do your homework and thoroughly research all that’s involved. One of the most popular proxy servers for Windows-based systems is WinProxy. One reason why it’s so popular is that nothing actually needs to be installed on the client (or requester) side. Another reason is NAT, or Network Address Translation, since WinProxy is what’s known as a transparent proxy. This ensures that the client system is unaware of the proxy server’s existence. WinProxy acts just like any other server, dealing with security issues and all the various protocols online – except when it needs to serve as a substitute, a proxy.
Configuration is not hard at all with WinProxy. There’s really no better way to set up a proxy server. Just make sure to take common initial steps such as installing TCP/IP on your network. Then, install WinProxy on the system, which you want to act as the proxy server. You can purchase this the traditional way in a store or through a simple download. Now once you fire up WinProxy for the first time, you should use the included setup wizard for ease and peace of mind. Like most such wizards, you’ll be prompted for your produce license serial number right away. The next two screens gathers information about the type of Internet connection that will be used- dial-up or broadband. Sometimes you’ll have to tell the program yourself. The next step will depend entirely on you, as it involves user access information like ID and password. Most other things, you can let WinPoxy deal with. It assigns a unique address automatically,to each device on the LAN as internal addresses. It uses what your ISP gave you and turns that into an external address. This external address is what someone else will see when his system requests something from yours. By now you would be practically at the end of setup, ready to take on the worldwide web anonymously through your proxy server, courtesy WinProxy.