Actually SOCKS and HTTP proxy severs, both behave in the same way. They are forwarding your requests to the destination host (address). With help of SOCKS or HTTP proxy servers you could bypass any firewall restriction and access any web site like: facebook.com, myspace.com, bebo.com, youtube.com and etc.The main advantage of SOCKS4 and SOCKS5 proxy servers over HTTP proxy servers is that they use only secure connection between client and the proxy server. That means nobody; including your internet provider or administrator of local area network cann’t see what you are actually sending or receiving. That is why SOCKS servers are so popular! They guarantee that your private information is secure and kept private.As we already said, all SOCKS proxy servers work as open relay. That means there are no limitations for which protocols SOCKS proxy server will be used. Such no limitations allows us to use SOCKS proxy servers for creating ‘proxy chains’. If you ever heard term ‘proxy chain’ then SOCKS is that type of proxy servers which are used to create them. Here is the principle how it works, one proxy establishes connection to another one, that proxy in turn establishes connection to the next one and so on… so you could have several proxy servers chained.As more SOCKS proxy servers are involved in proxy chain as higher the security and privacy level. Just imagine, if someone will somehow manage to get client’s IP by checking last SOCKS4’s log file (if such exist) it will points to the IP of SOCKS3 proxy servers instead of your IP 😉 SOCKS3’s log file will point to the IP of SOCKS2 and so on.Also SOCKS proxy servers could create reverse connections. In some cases your local administrator could block all outgoing connections for security reasons. At the same time incoming connections could be kept open. In that case instead of establishing connection from your PC to SOCKS proxy server, you can ask SOCKS proxy server to establish connection with your PC. After that, communication between client and SOCKS proxy server will remain the same as if use establishes connection by his/her own.