Proxy Perils or 7 Fatal Mistakes When Using Proxies
The Internet of today is a dangerous place, abundant with malware and tracking tools aiming to find out as much
private information about you and your online activities as possible, and exploit that. Additionally, even sites
which could previously be considered reputable, such as Google and Facebook, are increasingly coming under legal
fire for their greedy tendencies to accumulate and store as much private information about their users as possible.
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In some cases, Google has already destroyed years of users' private communication and contacts by closing down
their accounts without even any explanation. Facebook has been repeatedly abused by scammers and people harvesting
your friend lists in order to send spam mail. Many other sites also track users logging in from their home IP
and associate queries made there with your unique profile to create a so-called "bubble", which can later be used
to show you specific advertising or modify the results you see in search engines.
If, like many people, you do not like that, public proxies are a good first step towards more privacy. Simply
put, proxies are simply computers which act as an intermediary between you and any website, completely hiding
your real IP and address. This makes it much harder for any snooping site to track you down and sniff out and
record private information. Online privacy activists highly recommend to use proxies for activities which you
would like to stay confidential - such as, for example, browsing adult sites.
However, there are quite a few traps in using proxies properly. Let us look at the most common mistakes which
can still compromise your privacy even despite going through a proxy.
1) Using proxies which are not really anonymous. Some proxies do relay your real IP to the website as well,
thus compromising your privacy.
2) Not starting a new browser session when switching to a proxy. Once a website has you identified by session
variables, even if you come back through a proxy, it will be able to identify you nevertheless.
3) Trying to use HTTP proxies for non-web activities. This doesn't work - you need SOCKS proxies for protocols
other than basic web browsing.
4) Not cleaning your history when switching to a proxy. Cookies, even set months ago, will still identify you
to sites you are visiting repeatedly, even through a proxy.
5) Using the same browser with a proxy as without. Many people forget that browsers do by default store search
and form submission history and can reveal that information to websites if you are not careful. This means that
sites can potentially still identify you.
6) Trying to do too much through the same proxy. If you use a single proxy day-in, day-out, the sites you are
visiting can still easily track and identify you. The key lies in diversification and using as many proxies
as possible randomly. Good proxy sites offer thousands of live proxies.
7) Passing confidential financial or login information through proxies. This is always risky because you will
always be sharing your data with people running the proxy. They may be trustworthy, but they may not be. Never
risk your credit card information or other essential financial data by revealing it in plaintext to a proxy.
These free tips were brought to you by Proxy Lion - the best site for getting 1000+ fresh, live, and
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