Squid proxy, encryption and use?

[Fli]

Hello, i assume the traffic that i send via so called "squid proxy (http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/howto-rhel-centos-fedora-squid-installation-configuration.html)" is not encrypted and fully readable? So what is the use of using Squid proxy? Just to mask my IP address from destination server?

What is the simplest way to make an encrypted http proxy out of Linux server?