Modern http proxy servers

Added: 12/11/2005

Fast proxy servers can make lives of system administrators and their clients much easier. HTTP and CGI proxy servers are able to cache data efficiently and improve the performance of your Internet connection in this way. Proxy servers also propose some data protection tools. For instance, many servers are able to hide IP addresses of web surfers. All these properties may be interesting for the users of different levels, as well for the system administrators.

Fast proxy servers allow a significant decreasing of the web pages loading speed. However, it is not their main purpose, but one of the effects that is available for all HTTP proxy servers.

HTTP proxy servers are the most popular type. They organize the work of browsers and other software, which use a HTTP protocol. First, a browser passes URL addresses to the proxy server and then the proxy server receives this URL from the requested web server or another proxy server and gives it to the browser. HTTP proxy servers possess rich opportunities for the requests execution.

It can save received files on the server's disk and afterwards, if this file was already downloaded, it can provide it without connecting to the Internet. This feature increases the speed of the transfer and saves the external traffic. This option is called caching. Administrators and users appreciate it very much so that they treat it as a main purpose of HTTP proxy servers. Nevertheless, this feature is not so efficient as many people expect. The modern Internet is changing all the time. Popular dynamic pages depend on a user, who is working with them. These web pages are not available for caching and web servers usually insert directions about dynamic pages into headers for HTTP proxy servers to take into account. You can adjust many proxy servers to ignore these directions.

You can use HTTP proxy servers to restrict the access to some resources. For instance, you can create the list of sites that will be made unavailable for certain groups of users as well as you can use these restrictions in different ways. There is a possibility to authorize users by a login and a password or to define which users will be allowed to visit a web page by an IP address or a computer name. You can create varied complicated conditions for this function.

HTTP proxy servers can substitute the resource, which is requested by a browser. If you want to show transparent pictures instead of advertisement banners and counters, these pictures do not destroy the design of the site, but they are saving time and traffic, as external pages will not be loaded.

HTTP Proxy servers can restrict the speed of the work for separate users, groups or resources. For instance, you can set the rule for downloading music files with the speed not higher than 1 Kbit per second. In this way you will prevent taking a capacity of your channel by music lovers.

There are logs for proxy servers. They help to calculate the traffic for certain period, by a certain user, etc.

The Proxy server can be applied for routing web requests as well. This activity permits the achievement of more efficient traffic management and the improvement of the proxy server's work.

Actually, the work of the Internet and local networks is possible without proxy servers. Nonetheless, this system obtains many advantages that can be very vital and competent in the help of abolishing some problems. Concerning the registration, providers will require some additional fee for each computer with a separated IP address. Assigning IP addresses to the proxy server, which will represent it for each network segment, is the best solution. That is the reason why system administrators prefer using different types of proxy servers to build varied networks.

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