In this article and the next, we are going to take a different path and present a short history of private proxies. How they were used in the past, how they are used now and they will be used in the future.
More about private proxies... why would one use them
Like any evolving technology, private proxies use has evolved over the years. However, at their core, past times proxies and present ones are doing the same job of masking a user’s IP, his real location and provide a level of anonymity.
Certain people tend to compare private proxies with virtual private networks. Indeed, they are almost similar in use. And both these tools help one mask his real location and IP. But they are doing this in two different ways. And over the years, because of their different use, they have evolved in the services they are now. Moreover, one will argue that VPN technology and use remained almost the same. But this is not the case with private proxies because as we will see, their use evolved quite a lot.
Private proxies at their start... back in the day
Like most Internet technologies, private proxies were developed and evolved in the 1990s. However, proxies might have been created earlier. But, we are going to focus only on HTTP proxies for commercial use. The kind of proxies that a regular user or business can employ in their setup.
In the beginning, private proxies were not even called private, they were simply called proxies because there was no distinction between them or market fragmentation. And they were developed to cater to need of masking one’s IP and his real location.
And one thing that persisted since the inception of proxies to today’s ones is their configuration. Because, even after the development of IPv6 technology, almost all of today’s proxies are still using IPv4. And for those with little technical background, IPv4 means that proxies are still delivered in the 123.456.789.123 format, followed by the PORT.
The private proxies format, the IPv4 and IPv6 question.
Over the wide Internet, there are voices arguing that private proxies should adopt the IPv6 format. A newer, more complex and versatile format. However, for the moment, due to its adoption, the IPv6 format is still in its beginning and its adoption is not spread enough.
But the real issue here is that most online tools and software does not support the IPv6 format for proxies IP. For example, Mozilla Firefox and web scrapers are still using the IPv4 format. This means, that even if a provider starts offering IPv6 proxies today, its users will encounter difficulties in using the proxies supplied by him.
What are reverse proxies?
Many users are not aware of reverse proxies because of their use by the more technical and infrastructure savvy. Moreover, these proxies are not advertised on the Internet because they are a server-side technology and the market is limited in size.
To understand reverse proxies we need to go again way back in the 1990s, a time when Internet technology was simpler and less sophisticated than it is today. When private proxies took two major development paths. On one path, proxies were developed as a client-side tool to mask a user’s IP and his real location from where a network was accessed.
And the second path of the proxy technology leads to the development of reverse proxies. These are server-side proxies. And they practically do the same thing of masking the real IP but of a server this time. And most often than not, they are used by websites and CDN networks to mask the real IP location of a server.
Did proxies actually evolve from their early days?
Like most technologies and tools, private proxies both on their server side and client side evolved. On the server side, proxy providers adopted the latest technologies in order to provide better proxies with higher speed and improved uptime.
Whereas on the client side, private proxies have evolved and kept pace with the newest technologies. Their evolution was mandatory because users’ requirements become more demanding and more sophisticated. Moreover, one could argue that private proxies, because of their client side, their users’ requirements evolved. Thus, dragging the development of server-side development.
In the next article, we are going to continue the short history of private proxies and how they evolved. We are going to show how they were adopted by web 2.0 users and how their use development to cater present day users.
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
