HTTP vs. HTTPS

Most of websites, by default, are HTTP based. For example, when you type www.youtube.com into your browser, it will be converted to http://www.youtube.com. However, HTTP(Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is an insecure method to exchange data on Internet. A third party program could easily intercept a HTTP message.

On the other hand, the letter “S” in HTTPS means secure. It overcomes the shortcoming of HTTP and provides a much safer way to communicate online. Basically, HTTPS uses a pair of Public and Private Keys to encrypt all messages passing through Internet. Thus, it protects those sensitive data such as password, credit card number, and personal address.

To tell whether a site is running on HTTPS mode, you can look at its URL. It should start with “https://” rather than “http://”.

Why Use HTTPS Proxy Server

Normally, HTTPS are used by Banks, Governments, or Online Shopping Sites. But why do you need it for a web proxy? This is because HTTPS makes it difficult to be blocked.

A typical firewall filter detects your Internet request through URL patterns and content ratings. If you use HTTP, the censor program will easily get the information such as the site you visit and the page you look at. Then, based on the keywords or site categories, it may reject anything on its blacklist, such as Social Networking or Known Proxy Sites.

On the contrary, when you use HTTPS proxies, because of encryption, it is hard for the network filter to read the content of your request. As a result, your chance of bypassing firewall is greatly increased. Moreover, HTTPS is running on a different port (port:443) from that used by HTTP (port:80). Many filter programs may not monitor HTTPS port at all.

How to Build Secure Proxy Server

For proxy business owners, providing HTTPS proxies may give you certain competitive edge. Your sites will not only stay longer but also attract people with security concerns.

In fact, it is neither hard nor expensive to build a secure proxy server. There are only two things you need:

1. Dedicated IP – a static IP address belongs to your proxy site only. You can normally get it for $1 per month.
2. Dedicated SSL Certificate – this is a certificate signed by a trusted authority such as Equifax or VeriSign. Many hosting companies, such as 1and1, include a free SSL certificate in their VPS or Dedicated plans. For shared proxy hosting, you can buy SSL certificates from GoDaddy at very cheap price ($29.99 for single one, $89.99 for 5 domains).

After that, you can simply install the certificate through your server control panel(e.g. Plesk). There are many online tutorials showing you how to do it step-by-step.

In sum, enabling HTTPS on your proxy site makes it easier to bypass firewall filters. It also provides more security features to your visitors. In proxy business, if you want to be outstanding from other competitors, building your own HTTPS proxies is a good way to go.

To find out more about proxy business, especially about how to become a Pro Proxier and make money, you can sign up for my newsletter here.

The Secretes of HTTPS Proxies is a post from: Pro Proxier

What are Public Proxies?

In a nutshell, public proxies are special websites that provide so-called “Proxy” function. You can treat “Proxy” as an agent or middleman of your Internet access. It sends the requests to the end server for you and passes the results back to you.

For more details, you can visit What is Proxy.

Why Proxy?

Why do you need a proxy as a middleman? Why don’t you visit a website directly? There are many reasons, such as:

• Bypass firewall to access blocked websites.
• Make your IP address invisible to end server.
• Reduce the waiting time of accessing certain websites.

To find out more, you can take a look at Why Should You Bother About Proxy.

Why Public Proxies?

Traditionally, to get a proxy service, you have to install a software or adjust your browser settings. It might take you anywhere from half an hour to half a day. And the pain is, once your computer changes, you have to redo it from scratch.

On the contrary, public proxies offer you an easiest way to use proxy. No installation, no configuration, you simply visit a web proxy (e.g. 2UnblockSites.com), type the site URL you want (e.g. Facebook.com) in its address form, and click a button. Everything is done!

Do You Need to Pay for Public Proxies?

The good news is many of public proxies are actually free to use. But you may expect to see some ad banners (or Pop-ups) because those provide proxy owners some revenue to continually offer free proxy service.

On the other side, there are some so-called premium public proxies (e.g. Proxify.com). Usually you need to pay a membership fee. In return, you would see fewer or no advertisements and experience faster service.

Where to Find Free Public Proxies?

There are many places you can get a list of free public proxy servers, for example:

• Proxy.org
• Tech-Faq.com
• Proxy Online Groups
• Proxy Topsites
• Search Engines

For details, you can visit How to Get Free Public Proxy Servers List.

Are Public Proxies Safe to Use?

It depends. Just like any other websites on Internet, public proxies may bring issues such as spyware, virus, or identification loss. To reduce the risks, you may want to:

• Only use the ones with complete Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Disclaimer.
• Ignore sites with ugly layout, excessive ads, and distracting contents.
• Avoid proxies from certain countries infamous for Internet crimes.

In fact, the safest way to use public proxies is to use you own proxy site.

How to Build Your Own Internet Proxy Server?

It is actually very simple to do. You just need:

1. Free Proxy Script
2. Domain Name
3. Proxy Hosting

You can follow my step-by-step tutorial on How to Create You Own Web Proxy Site.

Can You Make Money from Public Proxies?

Yes! Proxy is actually a big industry on Internet. As an experienced proxy business owner (Pro Proxier), you may expect to earn $500-$3,000/month. To find out more, you can check out Your Road Map to Successful Proxy Business.

To find out more about proxy business, especially about how to become a Pro Proxier and make money, you can sign up for my newsletter here.

Public Proxies FAQs is a post from: Pro Proxier

What is Proxy Script

A proxy script is a computer program which takes the URL request, retrieves the web pages from the target site, and sends the results back to the user. Just like an engine to a car, your proxy script is the heart to your proxy site. So, how strong and flexible your proxy script is will have a great impact on your proxy business.

To create a proxy script requires a lot of in-depth knowledge and experience of computer programming. Fortunately, as a proxy business owner, you don’t have to do it by yourself. Instead, you just need to choose a best proxy script and customize it.

Popular Free Proxy Scripts

There are many free proxy scripts that you can download from Internet. Some popular ones are:

• Glype – A fast, easy-to-use, web proxy script based on PHP and cURL.
• Zelune – Another fast and common-used PHP proxy script.
• Phphantom – The next-generation proxy script after Zelune.
• PHProxy – One of the earliest PHP proxy scripts, light-weighted and flexible.
• CGIProxy – A solid, powerful HTTP or FTP proxy script based on Perl.
• ASProxy – A fully-functional proxy script written in ASP.NET.

5 Things to Consider Before Choose Your Proxy Script

• Site Compatibility – The purpose of using proxy is to access requested web sites just like you directly visit them. So how compatible your proxy script is with various websites is critical. For instance, does it support common web technologies such as JavaScript, Pop-Ups, Cookie, Flash Movie, or HTTPS? or does it provide plug-ins optimized for popular sites such as YouTube, Facebook, or Myspace? The bottom line is, you don’t want to build a proxy site then turns out to be useless to your visitors.
• Proxy Performance – This usually means how fast you proxy script can process a request and how stable it is. Remember your proxy site is competing with thousands of other proxies. The chances are, few people would be patient enough to wait more than 20 seconds for a page coming back.
• Easy to Use and Customize – Although you don’t need to know the detail implementation of your proxy script, you do need to know how to configure and customize it. A good proxy will help you manage site settings such as cache size, download limitation, and blocked ips. Moreover,  it will allow you to easily change the site layout, color, and contents without touching its core programs.
• Resource Demand – Any single proxy request will consume certain amount of resources, such as CPU Time, Memory Space, or Network Bandwidth. Considering your site may have over 5,000 visits per day, the resource demand of your proxy script will largely affect your site performance. If it is too much, you either have to spend more money upgrading your server or watch your users leaving.
• Continued Development and Support – Internet technologies are continually evolving. New features, widgets, and tools are coming up everyday. To better support them, your proxy script has to catch up as well. Ideally, it should have a new release every 12 months if not more often. In addition, it should have a large user community with  some active forums to help you resolve all kinds of issues.

My Top Proxy Script Picks

Best Overall Free Proxy Script

Glype is by far the most popular proxy script. It shines from the crowd because:

• Support all main web technologies such as JavaScript, Cookie, and Popups.
• Provide a  friendly admin control panel to manage things like Installation Options, URL Encoding, Caching, Hotlinking, Logging, User Access, and Maintenance.
• Use PHP5 and cURL to allow fast access to requested websites.
• Offer a very flexible theme system for easy customization without affecting the core programs.
• Provide a plug-in system to better support individual sites.
• Require less system resources in terms of CPU Time and Memory Space.
• Have more active developments and updates, the latest version – Glype 1.1 was released in Jan, 2009.
• Have a big and active online forum for people to ask questions, discuss issues, and provide solutions.

Most Compatible Free Proxy Script

CGIProxy is often used by seasoned proxiers (Pro Proxiers) as an alternative to Glype. It is mainly because of its full JavaScript support, which provides a better compatibility to popular sites and Pop-up/under Ads (one of the main money-making methods for proxy business).

The two main downsides of CGIProxy are, first it requires relatively more system resources, so you need to have a more powerful server to run it; second, it requires more technical expertise to optimize the server environment for a better  performance.

In sum, a solid proxy script is the foundation of your proxy site. To find a best proxy script, you need to look at its compatibility, performance, customization, resource demand, and support. For anyone new to the proxy business, I’d recommend you to start with Glype. Once you get more experience, especially on server configuration and optimization, you may try CGIProxy to get maximum site compatibility.

If you have any further questions or thoughts regarding the proxy script, please add your comment here.

To find out more about proxy business, especially about how to become a Pro Proxier and make money,  you can sign up for my newsletter here.

What is the Best Free Proxy Script for You? is a post from: Pro Proxier

Since you are reading this post, I assume you are interested in “Proxy” in general. But what is proxy anyway? To me, the simplest answer is:

A proxy is an agent or bridge between two computers on Internet.

Those two computers might be your laptop and a web server such as one for facebook.com. The question is  why you need a proxy in the middle.  Can I directly visit Facebook from my laptop? Sure, you can, as long as your network provider allows it.

The chances are you might not have this luxury in many places. Try to access Facebook, Myspace, or YouTube from your school, office, or even the country you visit, you might see a bold message like: “Access to the requested website was prohibited!” or simply a broken page.

This is because your Internet providers set up a filter to block certain sites. They may have all kind of reasons to do so, but what if you really want to check your Facebook messages NOW? This is when proxy comes to the plate. Instead of calling Facebook directly, you just do 3 things below:

1. Visit a web proxy site (e.g. sslunblock.com or proxify.com)
2. Find a url bar inside that proxy, type facebook.com
3. Click Unblock or Proxify button

Wow! Facebook is unblocked!

What happened? Very simple, although facebook.com was on the black list, those web proxy sites were NOT. So you were allowed to visit them. After that,  you just asked the proxy to retrieve the content from Facebook. In this way, a proxy acts as your agent or bridge to the external sites.

But what if those proxy sites were blocked either? You just try another one. Considering hundreds of new proxy sites created everyday, you can always find a unblocked one from popular proxy listing sites such as proxy.org and tech-faq.com.

To find out more about proxy business, especially about how to become a Pro Proxier and make money, you can sign up for my newsletter here.

What is Proxy is a post from: Pro Proxier