Forward and reverse proxy

How forward proxy is different from reverse proxy?

Forward Proxy Vs Reverse Proxy

 

Proxies have been on the verge today with so many restrictions and limitations on the web. Proxies have turned out to be a real boon today offering its great abilities to hide identity and automate transactions with authenticity and accuracy. Starting off with actually a Proxy server, it very important to understand what it provides –

A proxy server gives you a bunch or a pool of Proxy IPs or says alternate IPs which acts as an intermediary between your computer and the requested server. It keeps your original IP address hidden and lets you browse through the web using an alternate IP address based on different locations. These alternate IPs could be utilized effectively to scrape data on the web with the utmost anonymity and also perform bulk transactions using multiple accounts that are created from multiple IPs.

 

proxy server

 

There are generally two types of proxy servers through which these Proxy IPs can be generated and made possible: Forward proxy and Reverse Proxy. As it states clearly by the contrast of their names, there are some major differences between a reverse proxy and a forward proxy.

Forward proxy act as a direct bypass or say a gateway to perform the functions of an intermediary between your computer and the requested server whereas Reverse proxy manages the back-end server protection by checking for caching, load balancing, authentication, and decryption. Read this article till the end to know everything about the forward proxies and Reverse proxies under the ultimate faceoff between a forward proxy vs a reverse proxy.

What is a Forward Proxy server?

Forward proxies are actually the proxies that act as intermediaries between your connection request and the internet. By its name “Forward”, these proxies take your connection request and forward your requests in such a way that it retrieves information from the internet without getting your IP address trapped.

The best forward proxy feature is that it helps you in bypassing block and assists you in accessing the otherwise firewall restrictions without even altering the firewall. Through the different kinds of forward proxy, you can visit all the blocked and restricted websites by a school, colleges, Government, or anyone.

For Example – if you and your IP address are facing a network block on Instagram, these forward proxies can be used effectively to bypass this block where you will directly connect with your forward proxy and the forward proxy will itself provide you the Instagram services instead of the Instagram. This makes the Instagram firewall restrictions unaltered and unaffected and at the same time, you get the services of Instagram through forward proxies.

Benefits of a Forward proxy

  • Forward proxies are also known as the real proxies as it is highly capable in bypassing blocks and avoiding restrictions that firewall could pose.
  • Forward proxies assist brilliantly by acting as a middle man for taking client requests to access blocked resources with complete comfort.
  • These proxies actually connect to the end server with an alternate identity and connection request.
  • Forward proxies are also capable to hide your presence and give an alternate location with utmost anonymity and authenticity.

What is a Reverse Proxy?

Reverse proxies also act as a gateway but not to the requested server but to the client-server. Reverse proxy meaning by its name “Reverse” helps your server to control the access of private networks where it can perform various load-balance tasks and authentication requirements for the multiple thousand requests coming to your web servers.

People use a reverse proxy in order to provide a gateway to their server or group of web servers. The traffic and the requests coming to your servers will have to go past through the reverse proxies first and then received as per a load of requests.

The best reverse proxy server feature is the security and flexibility it provides to your site. It manages various authentication tasks along with caching and decryption to mask your server’s ultimate location.

Benefits of a Reverse proxy

  • Reverse proxies play a major role in managing authentic traffic on your web servers by performing extensive balancing server loads, acting as a useful intermediary between your web server and incoming requests.
  • Reverse proxies give you the assistance to hide all of your web servers behind a firewall that can be accessed by going through these reverse proxies.
  • The requests sent to your servers will see the reverse proxies first and the cached data will be filtered out which will ultimately improve your site’s performance.
Forward vs reverse proxy

 

Difference: Reverse proxy and Forward proxy

Though both reverse proxies and forward proxies perform the same functionalities of acting as intermediaries but just different in the positions they come opposite sides of the connection. Forward proxies are the proxies that are put forward with client-server requests and reverse proxies are where the other servers put forward their requests to the client servers.

Forward proxy and Reverse proxy explained in a nutshell

 

Forward ProxiesReverse Proxies
Forward Proxies perform the basic functions of a normal proxy server that hides your IP address & lets you bypass all the network blocks & firewall restrictions with complete ease.Reverse proxies are also the proxy servers but these proxies provide anonymity and authentication tasks for the client servers.
All the requests made to a target server will flow through forward proxies.All the web traffic received to the client-server has to go through the reverse proxies and then be authenticated to access.
These proxies can be used normally by any individual, business, or any organization for normal proxy purposes.Reverse proxies could be good option and can be used perfectly by the sites receiving tons of website traffic where these proxies act as the ultimate load balancers.

Conclusion:

Both Forward and Reverse proxies perform the same functions of acting as intermediaries but at the opposite ends. The differences between forwarding proxy servers and reverse proxy servers are the responses they channelize between the client-server and the target server.
Forward Proxies plays the role of a normal proxy that creates a proxy pool of multiple IPs in order to scrape with multiple identities that are processed through the bypassing of forwarding proxies, whereas reverse proxies are just the opposite where the traffic received to the client-server is balanced, managed, cached and decrypted to filter out the excess load of high traffic on the client servers.
To know more and better on which proxy is beneficial to what use, get in touch with our Proxiesforrent professional reps today!

 

proxy service provider

FAQ

 

1. What are proxy servers?

Proxy servers are the providers of proxy IPs that provide you multiple different IP addresses of different locations in order to mask your original identity and make unlimited requests without getting blocked.

2. Common uses for reverse proxy servers include?

  • Load Balancing of excess web traffic.
  • Enhance performance and web acceleration with high-end caching, decryption, and authentication tasks. 
  • Improving security and flexibility of site with better performance and speed. 

3. How to choose the best proxy service provider that will match your business?

To look out for the best proxy service provider, you should look out for the following measures in your proxy provider – 

  • Should possess a Responsive 24/7 support team.
  • Should have a wide pool of proxy IPs.
  • Should guarantee utmost anonymity and security.
  • Should have a great internet speed. 

Proxiesforrent has all of these qualities and in addition, also offers some crucial features that would make your proxy experience highly anonymous and successful. Get in touch today, to get some of our best deals on proxy IPs.

Written by purnima

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