Browsing the internet is becoming less private every day. Every website or mobile app you use wants to monitor everything you do. Consequently, technology is moving towards helping you retain your privacy. Proxy servers are the tools designed for this purpose.
Basically, this tool is a protective link between you and the internet. It creates and displays an anonymous IP while keeping your device's IP private. However, there's more to these servers than just maintaining privacy.
In this article, we look at some of the benefits of using these servers in 2021.
1. Keeps your data away from unauthorized parties
There are billions of hacks, and data breaches reported every year. Businesses that have an online presence have to avoid these breaches or operate at considerable risk. Hackers, spiteful competitors, or angry customers take advantage of online exposure to attack.
Data breaches have disastrous effects on a business. They affect 
your reputation and the trust customers have in your business. In severe cases, they can lead to the freezing of financial and social media accounts. You will lose business revenue that you'd have otherwise acquired.
This tool provides an external SSL-like layer that prevents unauthorized people from accessing your real server. It protects how data moves to and from the server to the user. If your business has previously experienced data breaches or attacks, you need such a tool to mitigate these attacks.
2. Helps regulate internet usage at home / work
Controlling internet usage at home or anywhere else can be very tricky. A proxy server is the best tool for this purpose as it helps to track internet usage effectively. A company can use it for various purposes. For instance, they can configure it to prevent employees from accessing some sites.
You can also set it to prevent access to a site and monitor the time spent on it. The server keeps account of the time spent on specific websites and applications.
Parents may want to regulate the internet to encourage kids to take part in other activities at home. Parents with teenagers who're more tech-savvy and won't put their computers or smartphones to rest should invest in such a tool.
3. Maintains anonymity when performing sensitive tasks
Website traffic anonymity is probably one of the reasons proxy servers are popular. Security companies and many other businesses find this essential for various reasons. The ability to keep things anonymous helps to protect whistleblowers, reporters, and many other people from victimization.
Competitors and any evil-minded people who want to spy on your business won't succeed if you have got a proxy server in place. The proxy anonymizes any tasks you're doing online, making it difficult for someone to access your business data. It also protects research data and everything essential for business growth.
4. Speeds up your network and ensures less bandwidth
This tool is also critical in improving overall network performances. That is critical for businesses that want to be profitable and beat their competitors. It improves website loading speeds by keeping recent copies of pages you've visited. It will quickly display a page if it's already on the server.
Businesses benefit a lot from this feature, especially during peak times. If many people are clicking on your website, it's most likely to drag and go down. When there's a copy of the page on the server, the system sends one request and displays the same page to everyone, thus improving performance.
5. Allows access to protected websites
It can be disappointing to try and access a website only to be 
told that you're blocked. A proxy server can help you access such resources that mostly belong to governments or big companies. You can log into the tool from an eligible location and view the contents without restriction.
The proxy server makes you appear like you're viewing the website from North Carolina, but you're actually in Florida. A state could be monitoring and restricting you from their website while allowing residents uncensored access. A proxy server comes in handy if that's your best resource for research.
6. Reduces website crashes by balancing traffic
Websites with no traffic control often go down and become inaccessible. Be sure that's going to anger your customers if it happens when they're in dire need. Proxy servers are the best tools to help you avoid such issues and keep your website visitors happy.
Traditionally, website data gets distributed across many servers around the world. The servers handle traffic concurrently to avoid getting overwhelmed. With a proxy server, a single access point gets created to handle and balance requests. That ensures your network doesn't get overloaded.
7. Makes web scraping stress-free
Web scraping is a very beneficial process for businesses. It helps you collect data from many websites with a single click and use it for business purposes such as SEO, market research, etc. The data collected through web scraping helps businesses beat their competition by improving their products or services.
A proxy server makes the web scraping process seamless. Many websites online reject web scraping, and your data collection process may be unsuccessful if that's the case. This tool will hide your identity; therefore, you will be scraping websites and collecting the data you need anonymously. That will help you collect as much data as possible for business purposes.
Conclusion
Those are some of the reasons why you should consider using a proxy server in 2021. If you have a business, a proxy server is an indispensable tool that will smoothen your operations. Although proxy servers are mainly basic security features that may not stop an experienced hacker, they're still vital.
They play essential roles such as protecting your data from breaches, ensuring anonymity and internet usage control. To make your business profitable, they help you improve speeds and save bandwidth. At home, a proxy server will help you protect your kids from harmful websites. 
