If you are just starting your web development journey, you’ve probably heard the name NGINX (pronounced "Engine-X") thrown around. Maybe you followed a tutorial to deploy a React app and you had to copy-paste some mysterious location / blocks into a config file. But here is the big question that stops everyone cold: What even is a reverse proxy? Let’s ditch the jargon. By the end of this 5-minute read, you’ll understand exactly what NGINX does, why "proxy" isn't a scary word, and why the internet practically runs on this software. First, the "Normal" Proxy (The One you already know) To understand a reverse proxy, we need to look at a forward proxy first. Imagine you are at work or school. You want to watch a video game stream, but the office Wi-Fi blocks it. The Setup: You (The Client) The Office Wi-Fi (The Proxy) The Game Stream (The Server) Instead of connecting directly to the game server, you ask the proxy to do it for you. The proxy hides your identity and bypasses the block.…