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Web Filter Proxy – Important Things You Should Know in 2024

Proxies, Oct-05-20225 mins read
“Web filter proxy”
Have you ever experienced the annoying feeling of visiting a website and being faced with inappropriate advertisements everywhere? Apart front being annoying, it is also a gateway for malicious cyber attackers to invade your device. According to Statista, in the last five to seven years, there has been an increasing trend in cyberattacks. For the first half of 2022, the number of cyberattacks has reached 2.8 billion. Even though it decreased from 2021’s 5 billion malware attacks, it is still considered one of the worst online attacks. Day after day, people are losing their identities because of cyberattacks. What is the solution to these attacks? 
The answer is complicated. One way to fight against cyber attacks is to be anonymous online. But this is a double-edged sword since the attackers can also be anonymous online, and there is no way to find who would initiate and carry out attacks. But that is the only solution that works against these attacks even though attackers use this method. But how to become anonymous online? The answer is a “web filter proxy.” In the upcoming block, we will see how a proxy server is used as a web filter to keep most of the malicious software away from a website.

Feel free to jump to any sections to learn about web filter proxy!

A Web Filter Proxy – What Is It?

A web filter proxy is software used to filter out website content. The primary objective of a web filter proxy is to restrict which part users/visitors of the website can access from their computer. You can use these filters in both ways as blacklist and whitelist. Blacklists and whitelists are two methodologies implemented to control access to various websites, emails, software, and IP addresses. A whitelist is a process of denying access to all the resources except the owner. The owner is the only admin who can allow access to the website. A blacklist is a process of enabling access to all with certain restrictions on some items.

Now, you have a general idea of a web filter proxy, but how does it work? It is necessary to understand what a proxy server is at first.

A Proxy Server – What Is It?

A proxy server is an intermediary server that sits between you (the client) and the target server. When you connect to the Internet, your device will send requests to the target server. Your IP (Internet Protocol) address carries your requests and delivers them to the target server.

When you access content unavailable in your region, the target server denies your request and can block your IP address (based on the number of requests you asked for in a short time). This is because your IP address is tied to your physical location. Based on the information, the target server decides to give you access to its content or not. 

The best way to access “geo-restricted content” is to mask your original IP address with a temporary IP address. The proxy is the best tool for this. A proxy server helps reroute your internet traffic through its server and deliver requests to the target server. The “two-way communication” becomes “three-way communication.” This approach helps achieve a high online anonymity level by masking your IP address.

Working of a Web Filter Proxy:

As you know, a web filter proxy has the same idea of filtering out the website’s content. A web filter proxy first monitors all forms of communication (it can be a request/content and recipient) that are exchanged between the Internet server and the website that may contain any malicious content. But, people often mistake web filter proxies with phishing filters because they function similarly. 

A web filter proxy works as a computer program that monitors a website’s URLs and checks for any malicious or restricted keywords. If it finds any restricted keywords in the content, it will block the connection. A web filter can be installed as an application on your local device, or you can install the web filter as the overall security solution in your dedicated server. Another way to install a web filter is to contact the ISP (Internet Service Provider) to integrate the web filter proxy on the network side. In the end, all of these approaches are adopted by the search engines in order to remove any undesirable pages or content from the websites.

Who Uses a Web Filter Proxy?

Two groups use web filter proxies; those groups are parents and businesses. Parents want to restrict their children from visiting inappropriate websites. The second group is organizations that want to integrate web filter proxies with their IT infrastructure to prevent their employees from visiting a website that may cause harm to the business directly or indirectly.

Which Is the Best Proxy for a Web Filter Proxy?

ProxyScrape is one of the most popular and reliable proxy providers online. Three proxy services include dedicated datacentre proxy servers, residential proxy servers, and premium proxy servers. So, which is the best proxy server for a web filter proxy? Before answering that questions, it is best to see the features of each proxy server.
A dedicated datacenter proxy is best suited for high-speed online tasks, such as streaming large amounts of data (in terms of size) from various servers for analysis purposes. It is one of the main reasons organizations choose dedicated proxies for transmitting large amounts of data in a short amount of time.

A dedicated datacenter proxy has several features, such as unlimited bandwidth and concurrent connections, dedicated HTTP proxies for easy communication, and IP authentication for more security. With 99.9% uptime, you can rest assured that the dedicated datacenter will always work during any session. Last but not least, ProxyScrape provides excellent customer service and will help you to resolve your issue within 24-48 business hours. 

Next is a residential proxy. Residential is a go-to proxy for every general consumer. The main reason is that the IP address of a residential proxy resembles the IP address provided by ISP. This means getting permission from the target server to access its data will be easier than usual. 

The other feature of ProxyScrape’s residential proxy is a rotating feature. A rotating proxy helps you avoid a permanent ban on your account because your residential proxy dynamically changes your IP address, making it difficult for the target server to check whether you are using a proxy or not. 

Apart from that, the other features of a residential proxy are: unlimited bandwidth, along with concurrent connection, dedicated HTTP/s proxies, proxies at any time session because of 7 million plus proxies in the proxy pool, username and password authentication for more security, and last but not least, the ability to change the country server. You can select your desired server by appending the country code to the username authentication. 

The last one is the premium proxy. Premium proxies are the same as dedicated datacenter proxies. The functionality remains the same. The main difference is accessibility. In premium proxies, the proxy list (the list that contains proxies) is made available to every user on ProxyScrape’s network. That is why premium proxies cost less than dedicated datacenter proxies.
So, which is the best proxy server for a web filter proxy? The answer would be “residential proxy.” The reason is simple. As said above, the residential proxy is a rotating proxy, meaning that your IP address would be dynamically changed over a period of time which can be helpful to trick the server by sending a lot of requests within a small time frame without getting an IP block. Next, the best thing would be to change the proxy server based on the country. You just have to append the country ISO_CODE at the end of the IP authentication or username and password authentication. 

FAQs:

1. What is a web filter proxy?
A web filter proxy is software used to filter out website content. The primary objective of a web filter proxy is to restrict which part users/visitors of the website can access from their computer.
2. Can you bypass a web filter?
Yes, it is possible to bypass the web filter proxy. You can use a web-based proxy, or you can try to use foreign websites. There are methods to bypass filters, so it is recommended to use web filter proxies to ensure that a chosen filter proxy can do much more than just block a certain number of websites.
3. Do I need web filtering?
Yes, web filtering is very crucial for a better online experience. It helps to get rid of unwanted and inappropriate ads on a website and can ensure that there is no malicious content by checking the content on a website.

Conclusion:

Cyberattacks are getting more severe every day. We have to ensure that we take every step to defend against cyberattacks. Web filters and web filter proxies are significant steps toward that goal. Every website must integrate a web filter proxy with its infrastructure to ensure its content is malicious-free. ProxyScrape provides the best-in-class web filter proxy, a dedicated datacenter proxy with all the necessary features. This article hopes to give you essential information on web filtering and web filter proxies. Start your safe online journey with a web filter proxy from ProxyScrape.