A web proxy is a method of hiding your IP address from the websites you visit.

They are a bit like search engines, so they are very easy to access. Just enter the website you want to visit into an online tool. This way, the site you are viewing through the tool does not see your real location (they see that of the proxies), so for them you are accessing the page from a different location than where you are actually located.

Web proxies act as shields between you and the website you are visiting. When you view a web page through a web proxy, the website sees that a specific IP address is accessing its server, but the address is not yours because all web traffic between your computer and the web server first goes through the proxy server.

Another way to think of a web proxy is as a middleman. For example, when you request the Lifewire site through an online proxy, all you are really doing is telling the proxy server to access Lifewire for you, and when they get the page you want, they send it back to you.