Web proxy and HTTP proxy are two common methods for anonymously browsing. Many people use them to hide their real IP and protect online privacy. However, which one is faster, more reliable, and better for surfing?
Web Proxy
Using a web proxy is the easiest way to hide IP. A web proxy is a website with an address bar. Just input the URL of the blocked site into that bar and click the “Surf” button. Web proxy will fetch the web page for you showing on its own site. You can try our web proxy here.
HTTP Proxy
HTTP proxy is an IP: Port pair (ex. 23.145.98.5:3128). All the browsers (Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari, and others) support the proxy option. When you set a proxy in the browser, the proxy will fetch the web pages for your browser. The websites regard the IP of proxy as your IP so it cannot trace your real IP.
Proxy Compatibility
Web proxy has problems with flash and javascript. With some special code, some web proxies manage to support some video websites. But if a website uses javascript heavily, web proxy can’t support it usually.
For that reason, some web proxies have to redirect users to the mobile/lite version of Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Hotmail, and yahoo mail. Web proxy can’t support the full functions of them.
In contrast, HTTP proxy supports all the websites perfectly. It’s because HTTP proxy is the built-in function of the browser while web proxy is a website to simulate a proxy server.
Loading Speed
Web proxy needs to rewrite all the links of pages. It parses the Html, style, and script files of pages then rewrite all the links. It takes much time to do that. HTTP proxy doesn’t modify the pages. It only fetches pages for the browser so it’s much faster than a web proxy.
Moreover, web proxy is usually written in PHP or CGI which is slower than C/C++. Most HTTP proxy is written in C/C++ so it’s faster.
Encryption
HTTP proxy only fetches the pages for the browser. It can’t modify the pages so it can’t encrypt the traffic. In contrast, web proxy can encrypt the URLs as well as the pages. There may be a problem if you enable page encryption. With URL encryption, you can bypass most firewalls.
Enhanced Proxy
HTTP proxy is faster than web proxy and compatible with all the websites. But it doesn’t have encryption function so it can’t bypass the firewall with content filtering.
Our service My IP Hide is an enhanced proxy service. It adds the encryption function into HTTP proxy service. It can set the proxy options of your browser automatically. You need not do any settings for your browser. My IP Hide has all the advantages of web proxy and HTTP proxy. It’s the best method for anonymously surfing.