What is a proxy server?

A proxy server is a computer that sits between you and the rest of the internet and passes requests back and forth. You ask it for something, it fetches that thing over its own connection, and it hands the result back to you. Because the request goes out under the proxy’s address, the site on the other end sees the proxy, not you.

That one property, standing in the middle, is what every kind of proxy has in common. What changes from one type to the next is who the proxy works for, where its address comes from, and how much of you it passes along. Those 3 questions sort out every type, and the rest of this page works through them.

The first split is direction. A forward proxy works on behalf of the person browsing: you route your request through it to reach a site, and a web proxy is the everyday form of one, opened in a browser tab. A reverse proxy works on behalf of a website: it sits in front of the site’s own servers and handles incoming visitors, for load balancing, caching, or security. You use a forward proxy on purpose; you pass through a reverse proxy without ever knowing it is there.

The direction is the point. A forward proxy hides you from the site. A reverse proxy hides the site’s servers from you. Same middle position, opposite jobs.

• Forward proxy, which includes a web proxy: works for you, and hides your address from the site you reach.
• Reverse proxy: works for a website, sits in front of its servers, and you rarely notice it is there.

The second split is the address. A datacenter proxy uses an IP address that belongs to a hosting company, so it is fast and cheap but easy for a site to spot as non-residential. A residential proxy uses an IP address assigned to a real home internet connection, so it looks like an ordinary visitor. This is a difference sites care about, since some treat datacenter addresses with more suspicion.

For simply reaching a public site your network blocks, the distinction matters less than the marketing around it suggests. It is still worth knowing the terms, so the label on a service tells you something real rather than washing over you.

• Datacenter proxy: address owned by a hosting provider, cheaper, and more often flagged as non-residential.
• Residential proxy: address from a real home connection, so it looks like an ordinary visitor.

The third split is how much a proxy passes on about you. Proxy directories and glossaries sort forward proxies into 3 grades on that measure: transparent, anonymous, and high-anonymity, the last one often called elite. The grades describe one thing, the request headers a proxy sends on your behalf.

Read them as vocabulary rather than a rating. Nobody certifies the labels, and a list can be out of date the day it is published. None of the 3 grades tells you what a proxy logs, how long it keeps it, or who runs it. Those are the questions that decide whether a proxy is worth using, and checking one yourself beats reading a label someone else assigned.

One thing no grade on this scale covers is WebRTC. It is a browser feature for video calls that runs on its own network path, outside the request headers this vocabulary describes, so a page can ask your browser for your IP address through it whatever grade a proxy carries. TrickyBird does not intercept WebRTC either. What a DNS or WebRTC leak is covers how to switch it off and test for it.

• Transparent proxy: passes your IP address on to the site and identifies itself as a proxy, so the site sees both. Networks often run one in front of everyone on the connection without asking.
• Anonymous proxy: keeps your IP address out of the request but still identifies itself as a proxy, so the site knows a proxy is involved without knowing who is behind it.
• High-anonymity or elite proxy: sends neither your IP address nor a header announcing that a proxy made the request.

TrickyBird is a web proxy, which is the browser-tab form of a forward proxy. You paste a link, it fetches the site over its own connection, and it serves the page back through its own address, all in the tab you already have open. There is nothing to install and no account to create.

What sets it apart from a plain forward proxy is that it also keeps the site’s address out of sight. It rewrites the page so the address of the site you open never appears in your URL bar or on the page you see, the zero domain leakage a basic proxy skips. The site you open sees the proxy’s connection instead of yours, so your IP stays hidden from it, and the headers a proxy chain normally adds, X-Forwarded-For, X-Real-IP, and Via among them, are stripped on the way out. Stripping those headers is narrow and checkable, not a claim about everything a page can learn: WebRTC still runs on its own path, and TrickyBird keeps a shortened form of your IP address and the destination hostname for at most 48 hours to run the service.

For the full walk-through of that kind, read what a web proxy is, or see how a web proxy compares to a VPN if you are weighing the 2.

No, though they overlap. A VPN routes your whole device through an encrypted tunnel and needs an app installed. A proxy server handles what is pointed through it, and a web proxy handles 1 site in a browser tab with nothing to install. On a device you cannot install anything on, that difference is the whole story.

The 2 are easy to confuse because both put a server between you and the site and hide your IP from it. Web proxy vs VPN lays the choice out side by side.