Trilight Zone

[digital8]

Proxies were first invented in order to speed up Internet connections. Here's how they work:
You are trying to connect to a server on the other side of the planet. Your HTTP requests are sent to your proxy server, which is located at your ISP's headquarters, which are a lot closer to you than that far-away server. The proxy first checks if one of it's users has accessed this website lately. If so, it should have a copy of it somewhere on it's servers. Then the proxy server starts the connection only to check if his version is not outdated, which only requires him to look at the file size. If it has the latest version, it will send the file to you, instead of having the far server send it to you, thus speeding up the connection. If not, it will download the requested files by itself and then send them to you.
But proxies can also be used to anonymize yourself while surfing the web, because they handle all the HTTP requests for you.
Most chances are that your ISP has a proxy. Call tech support and ask them about it. But the problems with proxy access given to you by your ISP is:
1. Some ISPs don't even have proxies.
2. The website owner would still be able to know what ISP you are using and where do you live, since this kind of proxies are not public and they can only be accessed by users of that ISP. For such cases, there is a solution - public proxies.
You can find a list of public proxies everywhere. Here are two good URLs to start from:

1. http://www.theargon.com
2. http://www.cyberarmy.com/lists

To configure your web browser to use a proxy server, find the appropriate dialog box in your settings dialog box (it varies from different browsers).

Note: some proxy servers will also handle FTP sessions (some might handle FTP only).