Internet folks tend to expect to get things for free. It’s how the medium has spoiled us. Unfortunately there are some things that just can’t be had for free. Privacy and anonymity are among them. It is a sad fact that such a basic human right is not readily given in cyberspace. Quite the contrary, it should be taken for granted that once we step into the virtual world, we know we take a risk with our privacy and security.

Some people will argue that you can get away with anonymous surfing with free https proxy servers. If you don’t know yet, an https proxy server is a proxy that allows you to browse secure web sites (hence the URL begins with ‘https’). With an https proxy, it is believed that you can safely check your mail and social networking sites, and post messages among other things.

But are free https proxy servers safe? Well, stop and think about this: It takes money to run a proxy server especially if it’s free since a lot of people will come running to it and overload the system. Banner ads just won’t make up for these costs since people automatically ignore banners. (Ever heard of the term ‘banner blindness’? It’s surfers’ tendency to ignore anything that looks like an advertisement.) So what would motivate https proxy server owners to give such free service?

Many free proxies are ran by hackers. Their sole purpose is to gather personal information from the client computers that they can use for themselves. No free http or https proxy can be considered safe because of this. Additionally, there is a little-known hack that can bypass https proxy security and enable the hacker to decrypt your data. Your credit card information, your identity, privacy and security would be put at risk.

Also, you should be aware that using https proxy servers may be illegal, especially if you’re trying to circumvent network restrictions at work or school. It may be illegal because you would be gaining – or attempting to gain – unauthorized access to banned websites. Whatever you want to access, is it really that important? Surely your blogging and personal mail can wait until you get home!

Don’t compromise your privacy. If you realize how important it is, and you want to use a secure https proxy, you’ll want to invest in a trustworthy anonymous proxy server.. One of the oldest is Anonymizer, but there are many others. You should look around and compare their prices and services to find what you need.