use cases: WWW, IRC & more

Tinyproxy can be used for websurfing, IRC chatting and more (Jabber / XMMP...).

Tinyproxy will then "hide" the real IP address of the user behind the IP of the HTTP proxy server. Visit sites like "doIleak.com" or similar checker sites to verify no IP leakage occurs. The slowdown with a fast server is low (sometimes it actually feels faster than surfing directly) and is much faster than TorBrowser or some of the VPNs. So a HTTP / HTTPS proxy is a viable option if anonymity is desired but not absolutely critical and speed does matter. A simple proxy, however, will not offer as much security as TorBrowser does deliver.

Tinyproxy can also be configured by the server operator such that the user's IP is actually plainly visible and not "hidden" at all. Use cases for this might be "load balancing" or have other motivations. For more details about proxies see e.g. this link .