How Does a Proxy Server Improve Security

A proxy server has a large variety of use cases. These can range from aiming to filter traffic of a company’s internet usage to allowing access to restricted, country-specific websites. Yet, crucially it must also provide a high degree of sensitive data security. After all, malware threats are sadly increasingly commonplace nowadays, and many prominent methods of cyberattacks need a user’s IP address.

Thus, by default, the proxy server feature of changing an IP address produces a layer of security. Furthermore, proxies can also integrate as web filters or firewalls with anti-detect browsers. This allows them to act as foundations upon which even more layers of security are added.

Importantly, proxies also come in different variations, such as a forward proxy and a reverse proxy. They both feature considerably different attributes, hence we recommend seeing this article to get more information about Reverse proxies vs regular Proxies.

Now, as briefly discussed initially, since a proxy server provides a plethora of other benefits beyond safety, let’s quickly examine them below.

Proxy Server Features

Let’s begin by examining one mentioned already in greater detail, allowing access to restricted, country-specific websites.

Getting access to unavailable websites

Arguably one of the more popular uses for proxies is accessing region-locked web pages. Access to these sites is granted because some proxies are tied to a specific region while your real IP addresses are hidden.

Interestingly, you may have noticed that some features of proxies (like hiding IP addresses) seem to resemble a VPN, though, in reality, the two are built for vastly different purposes. Read our blog post here for more information on their differences.

Improving your privacy

Nowadays, where one could argue that privacy for the average person is steadily decreasing, ensuring internet anonymity could be seen as crucial. Thankfully, a proxy server for security offers solutions to maintain privacy in multiple ways. How does a proxy server improve security? By simply hiding your real IP address with a proxy server's IP, you can stay secure and overcome various blocks, such as geo-restrictions for scraping public data. 

Other notable ways of tracking include HTTP cookies and DNS requests, both of which are successfully countered by proxies as well. Overall, if privacy while browsing is among your chief concerns, then proxies are undoubtedly a more than viable option.

Staying Anonymous with Anti-Detect Browsers

In the above section, we’ve discussed how anonymity is quickly becoming necessary for people and companies alike. An earlier paragraph also mentioned how proxies could act as a foundation upon which even more security/anonymity layers can be added. One of these critical layers is using an anti-detect browser.

Anti-detect browsers have various applications, from multi-account management to anonymous surfing and more. Although to achieve these uses, they must first effectively counter browser fingerprinting. Thus before discussing anti-detect browsers in greater detail, let’s first analyze what exactly browser fingerprinting is.

Browser fingerprinting

In a concise and straightforward way, browser fingerprinting is a method by which websites collect information about you. Primarily the sensitive data gathered is knowing your operating system, language, time zone, browser version/type, active plugins, and many more. When the acquired information is used, websites can identify a user’s browsing behavior and track them through these statistics, creating what we know as a browser fingerprint. 

If you’d like to learn more, we have a comprehensive article on browser fingerprinting that details its peculiarities and main features.

Anti-Detect Browsers

Usually, based on Firefox or Google Chrome, Anti-detect browsers are applications that establish differing browser environments with their own digital fingerprint. As a result, local storage, cookies, and cache files, in general, become isolated, so websites cannot interlink these environments to one another.

The above-mentioned anonymity features are especially prevalent within industries that require multiple account management, such as controlling merchant profiles within the largest e-commerce sites, e.g., Amazon. With such a clear and valuable purpose, it’s probably unsurprising to hear that there are many anti-detect browser solutions currently available.

To name a few excellent examples, check out Multilogin, Adspower, GoLogin, and Incogniton. Multilogin even offers a -50% discount on the first purchase of their services with a promo code: OXYMLA. It’s also worth noting that integrating proxies with Anti-detect browsers is a relatively simple and quick process that can significantly enhance your browsing security and anonymity. Our dedicated integrations page is excellent proof of that since it provides many detailed yet brief step-by-step tutorials on how to use Oxylabs’ proxies with specific anti-detect browsers.

Conclusion

If security, especially on a corporate level, is a concern, proxies are a straightforward solution. Yet, they may not be the final step. While proxies provide a variety of value-generating features, one that is mentioned less often is how well they integrate with other data security and anonymity-improving solutions. Therefore, combining proxies and other applications, such as anti-detect browsers, can be a wise choice if security is among the most crucial aspects you require. If you're interested in reliable proxy servers, get a promo code and start with Oxylabs proxy servers right away.