"Proxyservers"? What are they?

[Karembeu]

Hi everyone! How we all doing?

Anyway, there's this chatting site I've been spending some time on. Lately I haven't been able to access it, says something about "dns error" or "browser probs"... I know the site isn't down as there are plenty of friends that can access it. Although there are many others that can't, just as me. One of these friends that couldn't access the site had been told to "enable proxyserver" or whatever....said it was real simple and after that it worked fine for her. So my question would be "what is a proxyserver" and how do I "enable" it...?

PS! I'm not very good at comps...so a rather extensive description would be appreciated....

Other (may be) useful info:

I run Win98, IE6, and have a dial-up connection.

The site in question is http://www.chatting.com

Thanks for any help...

[spookydonkey]

this page should help you understand what a proxy server is and what it is used for.

you should call your ISP about what your browser settings should be, and whether or not you need to be using a proxy server.

[Karembeu]

@spookydonkey: Thanks mate! She also mentioned something about "proxyservers" that everyone could use. That it was possible to aquire numbers and portaddresses on the Internet. Do you know anything about this?!?