[squid-users] Transparent proxy

Greetings friends!
I would like to ask something again.
I'm really a newbie and I am quite confused.

I was able to successfully install and use squid without iptables.
All I had to do was configure the browser to point to my squid server.

Now what is Transparent Proxy? What is it for?
I read in Daniel Kiracofe's Mini_Howto that transparent proxy can be used if:
"You want clients to be proxied, but don't want to go to all the work of updating the settings in hundreds or thousands of web browsers."

How is this possible? How does a client computer know that it is supposed to use the squid proxy while there is a microsoft proxy in the same network?

Thanks.

Fritz Mesedilla

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