How long have proxies been around (a few more questions also)?

You know, proxy sites that temporarily change your IP address. I'm just wondering what year those types of sites came about.

Also, are there future plans to "improve" them? Some forums have it so if try to make an account on their site while using a proxy, you can't submit your sign up info. (The button for submitting the info won't work.) And, not all of them let you use Youtube (I know only of a few), also Yahoo Music doesn't work with them, and AIM Express (so I had to get AIM Lite...).

Also, I know this is old info, but if a proxy site is blocked all you have to do is put "https://" in front of the URL and it won't be anymore. -_-

What's the point of blocking sites if it's that easy to get around the blocks? =D

If you can answer any of these questions, please post. Thanks!

Proxies in one form or another have been around since the beginning of the internet, so late 80s and early 90s. All you have to do is connect to another computer and use that computer to perform your network activity. That's all the proxy websites do.

"Improving" a proxy depends on what you mean by that. You can layer together multiple proxies to further obfuscate the original source of the request. To overcome the limits of free proxy services, if you're trying to get to websites that are blocked from somewhere else, you can set up your own proxy server at home and connect to it from the remote computer.

The point of blocking sites even when they're easy to get around is that most people are clueless about the internet and won't even try some of the obvious workarounds. It works for 95% of people so for a lot of places that's enough.