What is a proxy server

A proxy server is designed to improve the performance and security of communications across a TCP/IP network such as the Internet.

Performance is improved because the server stores frequently accessed pages locally on it's hard drive. As a web page request is sent to the proxy server, the proxy first retrieves the web page header from the destination computer and checks to see if it has a copy locally on it's hard drive. If the file has been accessed in the past week, it serves the web page from it's own hard drive thus increasing the client's response time dramatically. If the destination web server's web page is newer than the copy cached on the proxy server's local hard drive, the proxy server gets the web page from the destination server while caching it locally on it's hard drive and sending it to the client. Currently, Internet North's proxy cache is 1000 Megabytes.

What are the advantages?
• Popular web pages are stored locally and served from our Yellowknife server
• Telecommunications traffic to the Internet can be substantially reduced
• Faster web page and FTP response times
• Better utilization of the limited bandwidth

How to configure Netscape to use the proxy server

From your OPTIONS menu in Netscape, select NETWORK PREFERENCES and click on the Proxies tab. Now enter the following data as shown below:

Click here to go back to the New Users Page.