In the real world, postal services deliver the mail and they need street addresses to do it. The same holds true in the virtual world of the Internet. Everyone connects to it through an Internet Service Provider (ISP) which assigns an Internet Protocol (IP) number to every customer. Your IP number allows you to send and receive web data but it also reveals your identity. To avoid this you need to configure your browser to use a proxy IP.
Start by going to your browser’s network settings. If you’re using Firefox 4, select “Options” from the “Tools” menu and click the “Advanced” icon followed by the “Network” tab. If you have Internet Explorer 8 you can get to your network settings by selecting “Internet Options” from the “Tools” menu, then clicking the “Connections” tab and the “LAN settings” button.
Now choose the proxy server option. If you’re on Firefox 4 click the “Settings” button in the top “Connection” section of the “Network” tab. When the “Connection Settings” screen appears choose the “Manual proxy configuration:” configuration” option. IE 8 users can choose “Use a proxy server for your LAN” from the “Proxy server” section of the “LAN Settings” screen.
The third step is to get the IP and port address of a proxy server. Use your search engine to find lists of free proxies or Open a web browser and go to a site like freeproxylists.com. At freeproxylists.com you can click on “http elite proxies,” “http anonymous lists” or a link of proxies in your country. When the page loads click a numerical proxy group and copy an IP and port number from the proxy list that appears. The IP number is in the first column and its port number is in the second.
Now enter the IP and port address from step three into the appropriate fields. Firefox 4 users can paste the proxy IP number into the “HTTP Proxy:” Proxy” field and the port number into the “Port:” “Port” field. To use this proxy for every connection choose the “Use this proxy server for all protocols” option. For IE 8 just paste your proxy IP address in the “Address:” “Address” field and your proxy port address in the “Port:” “Port” field of the “LAN Settings” screen.
The final step is to enter the addresses you want to exclude from proxy protection. If there are addresses you don’t want to hide in Firefox 4, ie i.e. localhost, type them into the “No Proxy for:” for” field of the “Connection Settings” screen with a comma between each one (leave out the http://www part of the address). (do not use “http://www”). Now click “OK” to confirm and close the “Connection Settings” screen and “OK” again to close the “Options” screen. You can also exclude local addresses in IE 8 by choosing the “Bypass proxy server for local addresses” option of the “LAN Settings” screen and clicking “OK” to close and confirm your changes and “OK” again to close the “Internet Options” screen. You can even bypass additional addresses by clicking the “Advanced” button next to the “Port:” “Port” field of the “LAN Settings” screen, pasting your addresses into the “Exceptions” field of the “Proxy Settings” screen and clicking “OK” to confirm. If you paste more than one address into this field, separate them with semicolons.
Consumer.net, “IP Address Privacy,” Consumer.net
Electronic Privacy Information Center, “Search Engine Privacy,” Electronic Privacy Information Center
WhatIsMyIPAddress.com, “How Do I Hide My IP Address?,” WhatIsMyIPAddress.com
Svesoft Website Design Agency, “Proxy IP How To,” Svesoft Website Design Agency
