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Free Proxy Servers: Friend or Foe?!
Do you like free proxy servers?
I am talking about those “free” proxy servers you enter either directly into your web browser configuration or use some automated software to do this automatically “in the background” for you.
I will tell you one thing. I am an IT guy and I am pretty sure I understand my stuff quite well. In my opinion, the “free proxy servers” are borderline scam! I am not talking about the web proxies – i.e. those websites where you enter your URL and click “visit”. Despite that, in my opinion, those are good for the casual use only, they are at least legitimate. Most of them at least.
But do you want to know what those “free” proxy servers are way too often? They are just misconfigured software running on someone’s servers. That someone unintentionally allowed unrestricted access to the proxy server he/she attempted to configure properly but failed at, because it’s not a simple task.
They initially don’t even know they have this problem until someone begins to really abuse the bandwidth resources they have allocated and that usually doesn’t take long – that’s why they stop working so soon. If you use such a proxy, you may be actually stealing their bandwidth! Bandwidth that someone has to pay for in cold cash.
But you know what? Don’t trust me! Just go and find who has the particular proxy IP address assigned and contact them. I bet they will be surprised if you tell them what’s going on.
Some of those “free” proxies work even as so-called “honeypots” operated by hackers. I don’t have exact numbers on this problem but when I was doing some Internet research earlier this year, it indeed lead me to the conclusion there may be quite a few. I don’t think the servers are rented by the hackers themselves. It doesn’t work that way. They are most likely just compromised computers/servers.
In my not-so-humble opinion, using “free” proxies is a pretty risky business no matter how you look at it. There are even many software applications that help you find working free proxy servers and then automate the process of switching your web browser to use one of them. Some of those applications even look relatively professional.
But let me ask you one simple question…
Do they know who owns the free proxy servers? Nope, THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHO OWNS THEM! Well, you get the picture.
Conclusion: If you really do need to use a free service, use web proxy servers (web based), TOR, or JAP. TOR and JAP are usually slow – *very* slow but should offer a relatively good level of anonymity. If using web proxy servers, try to use the established ones only.
Tags: free proxies, free proxy, free proxy server
January 15th, 2009 at 9:39 am
I think you’ve just explained what I found in an account of mine last year. I saw some unexplained bandwidth. The odd thing was that support in my hosting company did not have a clue. I’ve since moved my sites.
Very nice tip and something to keep an eye open for in future, thanks.
Alex
January 15th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Alex,
It’s not easy to say what was the exact reason for the “bandwidth leakage” in your particular case without having more details. It should not be possible to install any proxy software, except for “web proxy” Perl/PHP/ASP etc. scripts on a shared hosting account. However, if you had a dedicated or VPS server, then yes, this is very possible and quite likely too as the “free” proxy server abuse is quite common.
That said, the webhost should always be able to tell you what caused the traffic peak, at least if they charge for it…
Tomas
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:06 pm
[…] people want to use the so called "free" proxy servers. I have a blog entry about it at Internet Privacy and Identity Protection by IdentityCloaker.com! . Yes, I know, a bit self-promotion but still I think people should read that… […]