In this age of information collection overload there are still some ways to travel the world wide web without having to leave your personal information everywhere you go. The use of proxy servers has been developed to give at least one layer of protection against those who would assimilate this information to your detriment. Basically a proxy server is a server computer or application program that will take your request for a website address or information and send it on to the originating server without attaching your IP address to the data stream.

It is not a perfect system. There are some aspects of web surfing that are limited or entirely disabled when you use a proxy server instead of accessing the internet directly. By their very nature a proxy server will deny data cookies. While this is good in that your further usage cannot be tracked through it, it will mean having to re-register at a site every time you view it. Proxy servers have to take the time to filter out some parts of the information stream. There is often also more information being passed through a proxy server than it can quickly handle so your browsing experience may be noticeably slower even on DSL or broadband connections. It is harder to make online purchases when surfing through a proxy server since most merchants will want a cookie on your machine for the purposes of keeping the details of the order available.

However, these negative points of using a proxy server can be more than compensated for if you surf a wide variety of websites. The use of a proxy server will prevent most internet thieves from being able to access personal data for the purposes of identity theft or targeted phishing scams. Anyone who has a lot of sensitive data on their computers or do their major purchasing and banking online will find the extra layer of protection well worth the occasional inconvenience.

There are two major versions of proxy servers you can choose from. If you are good at the technical side of computing you can install an application server on your own system that will filter out the necessary tracking information. For those who want the anonymity without having to do a course in computing configuration, there are proxy server companies that will allow you access through their servers. Many of these companies will charge a fee either by monthly rates or by usage. There are free proxy server companies that you can use that acquire the remuneration for their services through adding small advertisements to the page you are viewing.

As an added precaution to keep your browsing habits from being tracked you should routinely clean out your “history” folders on your own computer as well as the internet “cache” files. For high speed connections there is the little known fact that when you reboot your modem it will issue your computer a new IP number. It will not protect you from a government investigation as the IP provider will still have records of what actual account the IP address is issued to but it will prevent most attempts at tracing you through your IP address.