In this current century, Internet is the most popular thing. We open facebook or twitter somewhat forty times a day just to check for any new notifications or messages from our dear ones. In today's world, Internet is the thing which makes life more simpler by giving you the right information when you need it. But as every film is incomplete without a Villain, the Internet world is incomplete without those who use the Internet to do things which can cause a lot of problem in the virtual world as well as in the real world. They try to steal information of other people, or try to shut down systems. But the most common is to steal somebody's information (now please don't try to do this yourself! you may land into some serious problem!). The common way to access somebody's information is to access their computer and Hackers do this by accessing the computer's IP Address. Okay, I know what your next question is and I'm gonna answer that. IP Address is a number which is assigned to a device once it joins any network. Now if you don't know what network is, you may take a look at this. IP Addresses are like any house address which are used to make communication. The only difference is that IP Address keeps on changing, house addresses do not. But, "When do IP Addresses changes? And if it changes, will the connection not break?". Your device gets a new address every time you connect to any network. So you don't have to worry about breaking connection because your IP Address will not change while you are reading this or while you are online. It only changes next time you connect to any network.
"But why do IP Address keeps changing?". As I told you there are people on the Internet who are always ready to attack on any device. It can also be your's! So that's why IP Address keeps on changing so that it will be difficult for Hackers to track any device on the Internet. So you should be thankful for this system of changing IP's.
Someone might be tracking you!
When you send a request for any information on the Internet, your device's IP Address is sent to the web server where the information is located. The reason why your IP is sent to the web server is because it has to respond to that request by sending the information back from where it was requested and how will the web server know where to send the information if it does not know the IP Address of your device? Now sometimes there are these websites which tracks down IP Addresses of whoever visits them and then they use it for bad purposes. So wouldn't it be better if your IP Address remains private to you and is not sent to any other device on the Internet but still allowing you to connect to that web server? That' where the concept of Anonymous Web Search comes in. It is a concept where your IP Address is kept private to you such that no one can see it but still making you connect to a web server. And "How do you do it?".
Proxy Servers
There are many web servers which help you anonymously search the web, and these kind of servers are called Proxy Servers. The concept of Proxy Servers is simple. Instead of making request to the web server directly where your website is located, you make a request to a Proxy Server. The Proxy Server then forwards the request to the web server which you actually requested. Now since the Proxy Server has requested to the web server which you were looking for, the particular web server gets the IP Address of the Proxy Server and not of your device. So the web server sends the information to the Proxy Server because the Proxy Server is the one who requested the web server and not you (remember you requested the proxy server and not directly to the web server), and then finally the Proxy Server forwards the information to you. Simple as that! By the way, "Proxy" means "Substitute". Hope you understood.
Setting up Proxy Servers
- Find the IP Address of any Proxy Server using your favorite search engine (I recommend choosing the one Proxy Server that is close to you).
- You will get a number which looks something like xxx.xxx.xx.xx:xxxx where each "x" represents a number (Note that the no of x's doesn't matter. There can be three x's instead of two and so on. What is matters is just the pattern.).
- If you are still confused, don't worry, just copy the whole number including the dot's (.) and the colon (:) and paste it in a notepad file or note the number somewhere. Just remember that whatever is before the colon is the IP Address and whatever is after the colon is the Port Number.
- If you want to set up Proxy Server in Google Chrome then follow this: Click on the icon which looks like three lines stacked on one another (I'm not sure what it's called). Then click on "Settings". Scroll down and click on "Show Advanced Settings...". Scroll down and locate the "Network" section and click on "Change Proxy Settings...". A new window will show up titled "Internet Properties". Click on the "Connections" tab. Click on "LAN settings". A new window will show titled "Local Area Network (LAN) Settings". Under the "Proxy server" category. Choose "Use a proxy server for your LAN (These settings will not apply to dial-up or VPN connections).". Enter the "IP Address" (the number before the colon) in the "Address" box and "Port Number" (the number after the colon) in the "Port" box. Then click "OK". Then click "OK" again.
- If you want to set up Proxy Server in Mozilla Firefox then follow this: Click on the "Firefox" menu. Hover over Options, then select Options from the sub menu. Open the "Advanced" category. Click on the "Network" tab. Click on "Settings". This will open a window named "Connection Settings". Choose "Manual proxy configuration". Enter the "IP Address" (the number before the colon) in the "HTTP Proxy" box and enter the "Port Number" (the number after the colon) in the "Port" box. Then click "OK". Then click "OK" again.
- If you want to set up Proxy Server in Internet Explorer then follow this: Click on the "Settings" icon which looks like the Gear icon. Then click on "Internet options". A new window will show up titled "Internet Options". Click on the "Connections" tab. Click on "LAN settings". A new window will show titled "Local Area Network (LAN) Settings". Under the "Proxy server" category. Choose "Use a proxy server for your LAN (These settings will not apply to dial-up or VPN connections).". Enter the "IP Address" (the number before the colon) in the "Address" box and "Port Number" (the number after the colon) in the "Port" box. Then click "OK". Then click "OK" again.
Okay! Now if you want to test this thing then open the browser and then go to www.google.com. In the Google's search bar type "what is my ip" (without quotes). Now Google will show you your IP address at the top. If Google didn't show you your IP, then you may visit www.speedtest.net or www.whatismyipaddress.com where you can find your IP Address. Now here's the magic! If you carefully observe, then you will see that any of the above websites will not show your computer's IP Address. Instead they will show you the IP Address of the Proxy Server (the one which you copied and pasted in the Address box in your browser). Now how this is working is that you requested for any of the above websites. But instead of requesting the website directly, the request goes to the Proxy Server which you set up, the Proxy Server forwarded this request to the required website. Now the required website is actually locating the IP Address of the Proxy Server and not of your device because the Proxy Server is the one who contacted the website and not you! So now the Proxy Server sends the required information (IP Address of the Proxy Server) to the Proxy Server. And then the Proxy Server forwards the information to you. And you see the Proxy Server's IP Address instead of yours. Boom! Your IP Address is hidden. Thank You!
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