From Wendy Boswell,
Your Guide to Web Search.
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This article is part of a series:

• Anonymous Surfing 101: What is Anonymous Web Surfing?
• How Does Anonymous Surfing Work: Anonymous Servers
• More Ways to Surf Anonymously: Free Anonymous Proxy Sites and Services

Anonymous Surfing: How Does It Work?

In a nutshell, anonymous surfing works by putting a buffer between you and the Web site you want to look at, allowing you to view information without being tracked. There are two main ways by which this can be accomplished.

Anonymous Surfing with an Anonymous Server

Anonymous, or proxy, servers work by retrieving Web pages for you. They hide your IP address and other important browsing information, so the remote server does not see your information but sees the proxy server's information instead.

However, there is a slight chance that the anonymous server is recording your data, and it is entirely feasible that a malicious proxy server can scoop up everything on your machine. Using an anonymous server with a good user rating and clear privacy policy should avoid this.

A list of proxy servers is available at a variety of different sites, including:

• Public Proxy Servers
• Proxy 4 Free
• Elite Proxy

For much, much more detailed information about how proxy servers work and how to set up your browser to surf with an anonymous server, I invite you to check out Bradley Mitchell's excellent six-part tutorial titled Introduction to Proxy Servers.

Let's go to the next way you can do some anonymous surfing on the Web: online anonymous surfing services.