Glossary · 60 terms

Proxy & VPN glossary

Every term with a one-line definition, deeper explanation, and related-term links. Jump by letter, search, or browse by category below.

19 letters populated · 60 terms total

A2 terms

Anonymous proxyCore

An anonymous proxy is a proxy that does not reveal the client's original IP to the destination server via HTTP headers.

ASN (Autonomous System Number)Network

An ASN identifies a network operator — an ISP, cloud provider, or enterprise — for routing traffic between networks on the public internet.

B2 terms

Bridge relayAdjacent

A Tor bridge is an unlisted entry relay used to reach the Tor network from a country that blocks the public list of Tor guard relays.

Browser extension proxyAdjacent

A browser extension proxy installs into Chrome or Firefox and routes browser tabs through a remote server — needs extension install permission most managed devices block.

C1 term

CDN (Content Delivery Network)Network

A CDN is a globally distributed network of edge servers that caches website content close to end users — reducing latency and origin server load.

D7 terms

Datacenter proxyCore

A datacenter proxy routes traffic through IP addresses from cloud providers — cheap, fast, but easy for anti-bot systems to detect.

DNS is the internet's address book — it translates human-readable domain names like anyproxy.site into IP addresses computers use to connect.

DNS filteringCircumvention

DNS filtering blocks websites by making the DNS resolver return a fake response — the cheapest and most common first-line censorship tool.

A DNS leak happens when your device sends DNS lookups outside the VPN tunnel — revealing which sites you are visiting even though the traffic itself is encrypted.

DNS-over-HTTPSWeb

DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) sends DNS queries wrapped in HTTPS — hiding domain lookups from your ISP and network operator.

DPI (Deep Packet Inspection)Web

Deep packet inspection reads not just packet headers but payload contents to identify and filter specific protocols, applications, or destinations.

DRM (Digital Rights Management)Circumvention

DRM is the technology used by streaming services to prevent unauthorised copying and playback — it usually refuses proxied streams.

E3 terms

Edge serverNetwork

An edge server is a physical server placed geographically close to end users — the network "edge" — to reduce latency compared to a distant origin.

Elite proxyCore

An elite proxy is the highest-anonymity classification — the destination cannot detect any proxy involvement at the HTTP header level.

Encrypted Client Hello (ECH) hides the TLS SNI hostname from network observers — the modern replacement for the earlier ESNI proposal.

F1 term

Forward proxyCore

A forward proxy sits in front of clients — it hides client identity from the server and controls what clients can reach.

G3 terms

Geo-blockCircumvention

A geo-block is a restriction imposed by the destination site based on the visitor's IP-inferred country — not by the local network.

GeoblockingCircumvention

Geoblocking is the general term for restricting access to online content based on the visitor's geographic location — includes streaming region locks, AI service region policies, and country-specific price differentiation.

GFW (Great Firewall of China)Circumvention

The Great Firewall is China's national-level internet filter — one of the most technically sophisticated censorship systems in operation.

H4 terms

HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) tells browsers to only connect to a site over HTTPS, preventing plaintext-HTTP downgrade attacks.

An HTTP proxy is a proxy that understands HTTP and HTTPS traffic — it can read headers, cache responses, and rewrite requests.

HTTP/2 is the second major version of the HTTP protocol — it multiplexes multiple requests over a single TCP connection for faster page loads.

HTTPS proxyCore

An HTTPS proxy is an HTTP proxy that supports the CONNECT method for tunneling encrypted HTTPS traffic to any destination.

I6 terms

IKEv2 is a VPN tunnel protocol optimised for mobile devices — it survives network switches (Wi-Fi to cellular) without dropping.

Incognito modeAdjacent

Incognito mode is a browser feature that skips saving history, cookies, and form data locally — it does not hide your IP from websites or your ISP.

IP addressNetwork

An IP address is a numeric identifier assigned to each device on a network — how packets know where to go.

IP blockingCircumvention

IP blocking drops packets destined for specific IP addresses at the network firewall level — bypasses DNS entirely.

An IPv6 leak happens when your VPN tunnels IPv4 traffic but lets IPv6 traffic bypass the tunnel — exposing your IPv6 address to destinations.

ISP (Internet Service Provider)Network

An ISP is the company that provides your internet connection — assigns your public IP, routes your traffic, and often enforces country-level blocking policies.

K2 terms

Keyword filteringCircumvention

Keyword filtering scans traffic contents for banned words or phrases and drops connections that carry them — requires DPI or MITM.

KominfoCircumvention

Kominfo is Indonesia's Ministry of Communication and Information Technology — issues nationwide block lists ISPs enforce via DNS filtering.

L1 term

Latency is the time it takes for a packet to travel from one point on the network to another and back — usually measured in milliseconds.

M1 term

MITM (Man-in-the-Middle)Web

A man-in-the-middle intercepts traffic between two parties — reading, modifying, or blocking the communication without either endpoint knowing.

O2 terms

ObfuscationAdjacent

Obfuscation is a technique for disguising the protocol signature of a connection so that DPI systems cannot identify and block it.

OpenVPN is the veteran open-source VPN tunnel protocol — flexible, well-audited, and configurable over TCP or UDP.

P5 terms

PoP (Point of Presence)Network

A PoP is a physical location where a network provider has installed equipment — routers, servers, transit connections — that other networks can peer with.

A port is a numeric label (0-65535) that identifies which application on a device a network connection is destined for.

Private browsingAdjacent

Private browsing is the generic name for the browser feature that Chrome calls Incognito, Firefox calls Private Window, and Safari calls Private Browsing.

A proxy is a server that acts on your behalf — it makes network requests for you and hands the responses back to your device.

PTA (Pakistan Telecommunication Authority)Circumvention

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority regulates internet access in Pakistan and directs the national blocklist enforced through ISP-level DNS and DPI.

R3 terms

Residential proxyCore

A residential proxy routes traffic through IP addresses assigned to real home ISPs — high trust, high cost, often ethically opaque.

Reverse proxyCore

A reverse proxy sits in front of servers — it hides server identity from clients and handles TLS, load balancing, and caching.

RoskomnadzorCircumvention

Roskomnadzor is Russia's federal executive agency responsible for media and telecom oversight — including the national blocklist enforced by Russian ISPs.

S5 terms

ScramjetAdjacent

Scramjet is a modern browser-side proxy engine that rewrites destination pages in the browser itself — no server-side rendering needed for many sites.

SNI inspectionWeb

SNI inspection is a firewall technique that reads the destination hostname from the TLS handshake and blocks connections to specific domains.

SOCKS proxyCore

A SOCKS proxy is a protocol-agnostic proxy — it forwards arbitrary TCP (and in SOCKS5, UDP) without understanding what it is forwarding.

Split tunnelingVPN

Split tunneling lets you choose which apps or destinations route through the VPN and which use your normal internet connection.

A subnet is a range of IP addresses that share a common prefix — used to organise networks and route traffic.

T5 terms

ThroughputNetwork

Throughput is the actual data rate a network connection sustains — measured in bits per second (Mbps, Gbps), often different from advertised bandwidth.

TLS handshakeWeb

The TLS handshake is the initial exchange between client and server that agrees on encryption keys and verifies the server's identity before any application data flows.

TLS Server Name Indication (SNI) is a field in the TLS handshake that names the destination hostname — visible to any network observer even when the connection itself is encrypted.

Tor is a free, open-source network that routes traffic through three volunteer-run relays with layered encryption — designed for anonymity, not speed.

Transparent proxyCore

A transparent proxy intercepts traffic without the client being explicitly configured for it — the network transparently routes through it.

V3 terms

A VPN is a service that routes every network request from your device through an encrypted tunnel to a remote server.

VPN kill switchVPN

A VPN kill switch blocks all device network traffic the moment the VPN tunnel drops — preventing accidental leaks.

A VPN tunnel is the encrypted connection between your device and a VPN server that carries all your device's network traffic.

W4 terms

A web proxy is a website that opens other websites for you inside a browser tab — no app installed, no configuration on your device.

A WebRTC leak exposes your real IP to a website via the browser's WebRTC API — even when a VPN is active — because WebRTC uses STUN outside the tunnel.

WireGuard is a modern VPN tunnel protocol designed for simplicity, speed, and small code footprint — the 2020s default for most VPN services.

Wisp protocolAdjacent

Wisp is a protocol that multiplexes many TCP and UDP streams over a single WebSocket connection — used by browser-side proxies to reach non-HTTP services from within a tab.

How this glossary is written

Every entry starts with a single-sentence definition that answers the "what is X" query directly. The longer body (200-300 words per term) adds context — how the concept relates to proxies, VPNs, and network filtering — plus links to 3-5 related terms so readers can navigate the topic graph.

This is the backbone for the rest of the site — every long-form page (how-tos, concept comparisons, cornerstones, blog) links into relevant glossary terms so you can drill down without leaving the flow.