Proxy service is yet another valuable feature available in some servers. It is technically a gateway function, not strictly related to Web service. To access proxy servers, users point their Web browsers at the proxy server as a gateway. The proxy server caches recently accessed documents in local storage. If two different clients request the same document via the proxy server, the second request is fulfilled from local storage instead of an additional retrieval over the Internet.
Most popular browsers support the use of a proxy server as a gateway to the Web.
Although proxy servers are often thought of as a security feature, they're most valuable as a way to conserve precious network bandwidth. Any organization with more than a few dozen Web clients on its corporate LAN would be well served by the addition of a proxy server. Process' Purveyor includes a proxy server in the base product, while Netscape sells a proxy server as a separate product from their Web server. The two best all-around Web servers we looked at were O'Reilly's WebSite and Netscape's Commerce Server. WebSite had the greatest number of useful features and best documentation, while the Commerce Server offered the best opportunities for in-depth customization and secure data transfer.