What is a proxy server?

A proxy server is a computer system or an application program which services the requests of its clients by forwarding requests to other servers. A client connects to the proxy server, requesting some services, such as a file, a connection, a web page, or other resource, available from a different server.

The proxy server provides the resource by connecting to the specified server and requesting the service on behalf of the client. A proxy server may optionally alter the client’s request or the server’s response and sometimes it may serve the request without contacting the specified server. In this case, it would CACHE the first request to the remote server, so it could save the information for later visit, and make everything as fast as possible.

A proxy server that passes all requests and replies unmodified is usually called a gateway or sometimes tunneling proxy.

A proxy server can be placed in the user’s local computer or at specific key points between the user and the destination servers or the Internet.

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