The "Anonymity" column in proxy lists takes three values: Transparent, Anonymous, Elite. Those three words sum up how well your proxy hides you — and the difference between them lives in three HTTP headers.
The Three Headers That Give You Away
When a proxy forwards your request to the destination, it can add headers to it:
X-Forwarded-For— "I'm forwarding this request on behalf of this IP": it can carry your real IP.Via— "This request passed through a proxy": it announces the proxy's presence.Forwarded— The modern standard; it can carry both pieces of information.
Your anonymity level is determined by which of these headers get added.
Level by Level
Transparent Proxy
X-Forwarded-For carries your real IP all the way to the destination. Your IP is not hidden; it merely routes traffic. Privacy was never its purpose: corporate gateways, school filters and cache servers belong to this class. If you spot one in a list, know that it is only good for access testing.
Anonymous Proxy
It does not send your real IP — the destination can't know who you are. However, headers such as Via and similar ones make it obvious that a proxy is in use. That is enough for everyday private browsing; the catch is that many protected sites treat the "visitor from behind a proxy" signal alone as grounds for restriction.
Elite (High-Anonymous) Proxy
It passes on neither your IP nor the proxy's presence: the destination sees an ordinary, direct connection. This is the standard for privacy and commercial work. Every paid FreeProxy.tr package runs an elite configuration; and in on the free list you can pick out Elite addresses with the Anonymity filter.
Comparison
| Is the real IP hidden? | Is the proxy hidden? | Typical use | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transparent | No | No | Caching, filtering, access testing |
| Anonymous | Yes | No | Simple private browsing |
| Elite | Yes | Yes | Data work, accounts, privacy |
How Do You Find Out Your Level?
Our anonymity test toolanalyzes which headers your connection forwards and reports your class. To check by hand: send a request through the proxy to any "header echo" service and look in the returned headers for X-Forwarded-For/Via — if they aren't there, you're elite.
An Important Nuance: Level Isn't Everything
Elite header hygiene does not hide the IP's type : the destination can still see from ASN databases which network (hosting/home/mobile) your IP is registered to. In other words, an elite datacenter IP is clean in the headers but still carries the "datacenter" label. Full invisibility = elite configuration + the right IP type (residential/mobile). Think of the two layers together.