Free Proxies? Or, surfing anonymously

saggio

I've never used a proxy server before, so I'm not sure if they can do what I'm looking for. Essentially, I'm looking for either a program, or a proxy server, that will allow me to route my connection through another country, so that my IP appears to originate from a different place than it really does. Not for anything nefarious, but there are certain sites that I frequent that only allow connections from certain countries. I'm going on a short jaunt across the border, and I'd still like to be able to access these sites while I'm away.

Will a proxy do this? If it does, how would I set it up to prevent connection slow-down with Firefox? Do proxy servers still allow things like Java, Flash, and other "multimedia" web services through? Will I have to pay to use a proxy, or are there free lists of proxy servers? Are some lists better than others? Does connecting to a proxy open you up for any kind of general internet ickiness (trojans, connection hijacking, packet sniffers, whatever)?

Thanks.

Feral

A proxy would do this, but I would recommend instead using Than Edit: Sorry. It basically routes your connection through a rotating array of several proxies, anonymizing your connection much more effectively than a single proxy would.

And it runs from a flash drive, which is nice.

saggio

Does it allow Flash and Java and the like through? Also, are you able to stipulate which countries the proxies reside in? It sounds like a cool program for outright anonymity, but that's not exactly what I'm looking for.

Janin

Generally proxies are safe to use, and don't block things like Flash or Java. There's no way to prevent a slowdown in browsing, because your connection has to travel twice as fast (and over somebody else's slow link). It can be very hard to find one in a particular country, and if the sites you want to visit allow posting it's possible that the proxies have been banned.

Thanatos

Sorry, we don't allow threads about circumventing security of any sort.