Use the Startpage Proxy to browse websites anonymously

Martin Brinkmann
Nov 27, 2014
Internet
|
12

Proxy server offer a fast and easy way of accessing websites without revealing your IP address. All it takes is to load the proxy website, type or paste the url of the website you want to visit anonymously in the form on that site and hit enter.

There are a couple of things to note. First, there are different scripts available that provide proxy functionality. Some support scripts on target websites, others don't and chance is that you may encounter sites that work only partially or not at all when you open them using proxies.

There is another aspect to this: trust. Many proxy servers on the Internet have a bad reputation. They may add contents of their own on sites, limit how many pages you can open, are terribly slow or may even track your usage and sell information to other companies.

One way around this is to use search engine caches. They work similar to proxy servers as they provide you with access to contents of third-party websites. While scripts and all that won't work, it is usually enough to display all the important contents on that site.

Google Cache is a popular choice for that and the main reason for it is that Google crawls a high volume of pages which in turn means that the chance is good that a cached copy of a page exists even if it was updated just a moment ago.

I don't use Google a lot anymore, mostly for this site and others that I run. My search engine of choice is Startpage for example and it too offers proxy access to websites.

The best option to use its proxy service is to search for the url or domain name of the site you want to access anonymously. If things go well, it should be displayed among the first results. There you find the "View by Ixquick Proxy" option that you use to access the page using a proxy service maintained by the company behind Startpage.

A click on the the proxy link opens the selected website with the help of that proxy. The Startpage proxy works like proxy servers and not like search engine caches.

anonymous-access

This means that it will retrieve the webpage you have selected for you and display it to you afterwards. This means that only Startpage's IP will be listed in the log file of the server and that cookies won't be stored on your computer either.

Another benefit is that the proxy is being used in that tab for all links that you click on. In other words, you can navigate the whole website using the proxy which you cannot when you use search engine cache's unless you use extensions that provide you with that functionality.

Using the Startpage proxy offers the same benefits as using other web proxy services including that JavaScript and forms are disabled, and that you may be able to access regionally restricted contents on the Internet.

The downside is that pages load slower and that pages that are not available at the time won't be displayed at all. If that is the case it is still possible to switch to Google's or Bing's cache to display the contents.

Now You: Are you using proxy servers or caches? If so when?

Summary
Use the Startpage Proxy to browse websites anonymously
Article Name
Use the Startpage Proxy to browse websites anonymously
Description
How to use the proxy that the search engine Startpage offers to access Internet websites anonymously without revealing information about you or your computer.
Author
Advertisement

Tutorials & Tips


Previous Post: «
Next Post: «

Comments

  1. JM said on April 4, 2018 at 3:20 am
    Reply

    With some images startpage images shows this message “The webpage won’t show this image anonymously” followed by a link that says “view anyway” which may or may not lead to the full resolution image I intended to see. Is this something caused by the website the image is on? And if so. How does the website detect the ixquick/startpage proxy and bypass it? How do I block websites from doing so?

  2. jo said on April 23, 2017 at 9:22 pm
    Reply

    Hi Martin
    Startpage ixquick proxy does not access Facebook and other login sites. Is there a way round that? Use Safari and Bing.
    Jo
    PS Could not use this Form using ix quick proxy.A Safari error message appears
    From “https://ixquick-proxy.com”:
    To safeguard users’ security, Ixquick Proxy does not support most forms. Would you like to submit this form to the original site, without the Proxy?

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on April 23, 2017 at 9:39 pm
      Reply

      Hi, I’m not aware of an option to improve the form behavior of the proxy unfortunately.

  3. Quest said on February 13, 2015 at 6:34 pm
    Reply

    Question 1: Could/should I use a Firefox add-on to autoconvert Flash Videos to HTML5 for online playback with startpage.com or ixproxy.com proxy services? Flash videos (ie youtube.com) will not play with startpage.com, ixproxy.com, and/or Tor proxy services when I visit websites.

    Question 2: If I play HTML5 videos (NoScript would be disabled) through proxy services with startpage.com or ixproxy.com, do I lose my anonymity on the Internet – even though I go through the proxy services?

    Question 3: Does HTML5 video playback through the Internet require Javascript or the Microsoft equivalent to be fully loaded and available?

    I understand Flash is restricted because of security concerns about using Javascript and also Adobe Flash’s undisclosed logging Flash user’s IP address, websites visited, and personal info. The Tor proxy will not allow any FLASH or HTML5 videos to play as a security concern.

  4. Omri said on November 30, 2014 at 9:45 am
    Reply

    The Luminati network is built on top of a P2P consumer infrastructure, which provides several benefits over proxies and Tor, such as an almost unlimited number of IPs, IPs that are actual devices (not identified as proxies or Tor nodes), and are available in every city in the world. This lets you collect data much faster, from more locations, and more securely. You can contact me at omri at luminati dot io, or sign up for a 7 day free trial at lumianti.io

  5. ted said on November 28, 2014 at 12:35 am
    Reply

    If I from google’s search page load a cached version of a page (wired.com for example) images are displayed on the cached page that point to the real wired.com site and when doing “view image info” in Firefox the image is said to be located at wired.com. Is all of that content cached by google or is only the plain html cached? In comparison browsing sites on archive.org it is clear from the urlpaths that the content is actually hosted on archive.org

  6. firefoxlover said on November 27, 2014 at 11:04 pm
    Reply

    I usually use Startpage and click on proxy. Ixquick has also the same proxy feature so sometimes I change these search engines from one to the other. AFAIK Ixquick is not powered by Google.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixquick

    1. Ken Saunders said on November 29, 2014 at 1:17 am
      Reply

      Startpage has been my default for general searches for a while and then I use Bing for news and images. Since Google’s results aren’t as good as they used to be, and as a Mozilla supporter, I will be setting Yahoo as my default next week and give it a fair shot but, I was just looking into Ixquick again (which used to be my default) but I could not find a listing of the search providers it uses. Do you or anyone else know what they are? I’m sure that Bing is one of them. They used to provide a list and the ability to uncheck the ones that you didn’t want to use.

  7. Ken Saunders said on November 27, 2014 at 5:13 pm
    Reply

    I only use Startpage’s feature occasionally because of the speed issue, but it’s still nice to have at hand.

    There’s more info about it at the following.
    https://startpage.com/proxy/eng/help.html

    I tried removing the (eng) local and it redirects to the main page.

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on November 27, 2014 at 5:49 pm
      Reply

      Which are you using predominantly?

      1. Ken Saunders said on November 29, 2014 at 1:02 am
        Reply

        If you mean for local, I only use English.
        I should have been more clear. I was referring to the link that I was sharing. I try to remove the local from URL’s when sharing them and let a site’s script (if there is one) set it for the visitor’s native or preferred one.

        So like if I remove en-US from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/page-zoom-buttons/ and just share https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/page-zoom-buttons, the proper local will be set, or should be.

        It usually works. With the StartPage link it didn’t, it redirected to the main page.

  8. intelligencia said on November 27, 2014 at 4:24 pm
    Reply

    Hello, Mr. Brinkmann and everyone else!

    I have been using Startpage for some time now (as my Home Page) – – and I LOVE IT!
    In addition, the company claims that their NEW Startmail will keep all of your E-mails absolutely Safe and Confidential.
    I have not yet signed up for this service and by the way the company comes out of The Netherlands so they don’t have to answer to other countries’ warrants requesting information on citizens!

    i

Leave a Reply

Check the box to consent to your data being stored in line with the guidelines set out in our privacy policy

We love comments and welcome thoughtful and civilized discussion. Rudeness and personal attacks will not be tolerated. Please stay on-topic.
Please note that your comment may not appear immediately after you post it.