What are proxies?

In computer networks, a proxy server is a server (a computer system or an application program) which services the requests of its clients by forwarding requests to other servers. A client connects to the proxy server, requesting some service, such as a file, connection, web page, or other resource, available from a different server. The proxy server provides the resource by connecting to the specified server and requesting the service on behalf of the client. A proxy server may optionally alter the client's request or the server's response, and sometimes it may serve the request without contacting the specified server.

A proxy server that passes all requests and replies unmodified is usually called a gateway or sometimes tunneling proxy.

A proxy server can be placed in the user's local computer or at specific key points between the user and the destination servers or the Internet.

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A proxy is an authority given to a person to act for someone else, this is normally to do with voting, so one person has permission to cast the vote of another person, as well as his own.

I think the sort of proxy you may mean is when one website appears to be another allowing you to by-pass access controls and get onto things like MySpace when the owner of the computer has blocked access .

Are they stand in musicians for Bryan Ferry's band?

These proxies are very useful to get around a content filters such as WebSense and SmartFilter. This enables you to browse the web unhindered at work or school.

A proxy is somebody or something who does a task on behalf of someone else. For example, you can ask someone to go to a meeting in your place; such a person is a proxy. In computer technology, a web proxy is a nearby computer that responds with some data instead of sending it back to the distant computer originally requests. A stand-in for an actor is a proxy.