BEST PROXY SERVICES
Buying proxies from the wrong proxy service provider is one of the most frustrating and draining things that can happen to any proxy user. This experience is something nobody desires, but many still fall victim to such scams by unscrupulous proxy server providers. Of course, What’s ironic is that proxies are meant to help protect your privacy.
That’s alongside making sure you comply with privacy laws, such as the European GDPR. The news is you’re more likely to be a victim of a proxy scam if you choose free proxies. There are hundreds of proxy server services available for you to buy on the market, and as expected, not all of them offer the same levels of service.
We have researched, tested, and curated this list of the best proxies and proxy services to save you time, money, and frustration. Let’s get to it!
Why Proxies Matter?
Before you decide on one, think about the main reason you’re getting a proxy. Proxies should be considered an essential addition to every household and business. They are excellent for privacy, AI-driven scraping, sneaker copping, and even SEO auditing. Your proxy will allow you to bypass geo-blocks. In essence, you can purchase items in another country even when the supplier wants to restrict it by location.
This is relevant for many reasons, but sneaker copping is perhaps the most obvious. A good proxy will allow you to purchase multiple sneakers during a release without having your IP banned. The anonymity can also help your business avoid cyberattacks: which are becoming increasingly common. You’ve probably realized that AI is getting much better at detecting datacentre proxies. That makes them an unviable option.
If you want to partake in modern scraping, you need to use residential or mobile proxies. They are much less likely to be spotted by AI bots. We have researched, tested, and curated this list of the best proxy services to save you time, money, and frustration. Your proxy will help you bypass censorship, improve your network speed, and even monitor and control network bandwidth. That’s alongside boosting your privacy and security.
Summary of Top 10 Best Proxies
- Proxy-Sale: Impressive array of customizable packages. Great for all businesses, especially smaller ones.
- Bright Data: Proven track record, a great reputation, and an excellent choice for scraping.
- Soax: Enhanced encrypted security, coupled with upgraded security, stability, and anonymity.
- ProxyEmpire: This is the one when you need reliability. It has fast speeds and a 99.9% uptime record.
- IPRoyal: Time-based IP rotation (every 10 minutes) ensures undetectable sessions for account management.
- PrivateProxy.me: Exclusive proxies, high speed, and extremely reliable connections.
- Proxy-Seller: Offering HTTPS and SOCKS5, this is one of the best proxies for anonymity and security.
- The Social Proxy: As the name states, this is the ultimate proxy for social media automation and, if necessary, management.
- SSL Private Proxy: Potentially the best option for geo-location issues. You can easily override country restrictions.
- Blazing SEO Proxies: Unlimited threads and anti-detection systems make this perfect for sneaker copping.
Best Proxy Server Services
1. Proxy-Sale
If you’re looking for a budget-friendly, highly reliable service, then Proxy-Sale is worth a look. This is especially true if you need a proxy for gaming or social media management. That’s where this one excels. What’s really good about Proxy-Sale is that you don’t just get the needed IPs. They also provide a variety of tools ot help you get the best possible connection and troubleshoot any issues. On top of that, they have an excellent customer support team waiting to help you.
Unique Selling Points of Proxy-Sale
Tool Collection
The port scanner checks your ports for issues and can help you understand, (and fix) continually dropping connections. You’ll also get a proxy checker which allows you to see how you appear to any website. That’s useful. They also include a basic ping test and an anonymity check.
Customizable Plans
You can manually choose your proxy type and where you want to be located and Proxy-Sale offers a variety of pricing plans. This ensures there is something for everyone.
Compatibility
Excellent choice for web scraping, social media management, ad verification, and to bypass geo-location restrictions.
Subscription Plans
You can select your package depending on how many IP addresses you want to access and which type of proxies you want to use. Datacentre prices start from as low as $1.80 for 1 IP and go up to $540 for 500 IPs. Residential proxies start from $2 per GB, but the greater the amount of GB you need, the lower the cost per GB.
2. Bright Data
Bright Data is ranked by many blogs as the best proxy service around. They offer proxies in the mobile, datacenter, and residential proxy categories. Their residential proxies are highly rated and are regarded as the industry leader.
Their mobile proxies are also very popular, though their datacenter proxy is not widespread due to their pricing. Bright Data proxies are regarded as the best proxies you can buy on the market in terms of security and speed compatibility with web services.
Unique Selling Points of Bright Data
Excellent Location Support
Bright Data boasts the best location coverage and support on the market. They have proxies in every well-known city and state in all countries worldwide. This gives Bright Data their unbeatable geo-targeting support. Users of Bright Data can purchase proxies from specific cities, states, and countries worldwide.
Largest Proxy Network
Bright Data not only has the best geo-targeting support, but it also has an impressive number of proxies for users. With over 7 million IP addresses in their mobile proxy pool, over 72 million IP addresses in their residential proxy pool, and over 700K datacenter IPs, they are the most prominent proxy network in the market.
Perfect Session Control
Bright Data offers rotating residential proxies. Therefore, a new session is created for every change in IP address. Their support for IP rotation is rated among the best in the market. This is because of their time-based IP rotating feature that ensures IP addresses are changed after a specific time and their high rotating proxies ensure IP addresses are changed after every request. Most importantly, Bright Data allows you to say goodbye to CAPTCHAs and geo-blocks.
3. Soax
Soax is a top-rated service ranked as the best proxy server for mobile proxies and has the cleanest pool for Instagram automation. They also provide great residential proxies, and users can get a mix of both mobile and residential proxies. Soax offers proxies from lots of locations worldwide with a large mobile proxy pool.
Their mobile proxy pool is constantly being monitored, thereby offering one of the cleanest proxy pools globally. Once bad IPs are noticed in the proxy pool, they are removed. One other factor that makes Soax popular is its flexible payment plans that are unrivaled.
Unique Selling Points of Soax
Mobile Proxy Pool
Soax is one of the world’s leading proxy providers of mobile proxies, with over 3.5 million mobile IPs. It has the most prominent mobile proxy IPs behind Bright Data, with 7 million mobile proxy IPs. The main reason for this is likely because the mobile proxy is a new invention in the proxy market.
Flexible Pricing
A fantastic feature of Soax is that they have one of the most flexible payment packages. Users can subscribe to their daily, weekly, or monthly proxy plans. However, the daily and weekly plans are more expensive compared to their monthly plans. Also, when their monthly plan is compared to other proxy providers, Soax’s plans are deemed expensive.
Compatible Instagram Automation
Instagram generally puts a stop to Instagram automation which makes it hard to crack, as it uses protocols that effectively detect proxies. Soax proxies easily bypass the Instagram anti-spam system and are undetectable. They are also entirely compatible and effective with the most popular and complicated SEO tools in the world. This is potentially their top-selling feature: the ability to manage multiple social media accounts without the risk of being blocked. Soax mobile proxies are also perfect for other proxy use cases like web scraping.
4. ProxyEmpire
ProxyEmpire, as the name implies, is a cheap residential proxy good for data collection. They don’t demand a minimum monetary commitment, and this distinguishes them from most residential proxies. Their data plan is quite flexible, and users can purchase as little as a 1GB data plan for as low as $3 to $5, depending on the plan you choose.
The icing on the cake is that their larger packages offer discounts. ProxyEmpire proxies have good location coverage and are compatible with most general proxy uses. They support country-level targeting and are available in about 127 countries. ProxyEmpire has a fair IP address pool, with over 7 million residential IPs, which are both session and rotating IPs.
Unique Selling Points of ProxyEmpire
Large IP Pool
ProxyEmpire is known for having a sizable IP pool, with more than 7 million residential IP addresses. Their IP addresses are not concentrated in one but spread across more than 127 countries worldwide. They offer a peer-to-peer proxy network, which comprise both session and rotating IPs.
Proxy Generator Support
A unique feature of ProxyEmpire is that it supports proxy generation, which allows users to generate their proxy lists dynamically. They rotate users’ IP addresses, but users can also make a list of IPs to use.
Suitable for Many Use Cases
Although ProxyEmpire is a cheap residential proxy server provider, it interestingly supports many other uses. ProxyEmpire proxies are optimized to be secure and undetectable. Some uses they support include brand protection, market research, price monitoring, SEO utility, price monitoring, sneaker copping, ad verification, and web scraping. Alongside all these impressive unique selling points, you should note that ProxyEmpire is known to have ethically sourced residential proxies.
5. IPRoyal
IPRoyal‘s proxies are one of the highest-rated proxy providers on this list. They offer one of the most stable proxy networks, and their residential proxies are unblockable. With IPRoyal, users can maintain one proxy session for some time before it is forcefully ended due to IP rotation. Although their pricing is inexpensive, their proxies are of the very best quality.
Unique Selling Points of IPRoyal
Good Session Control
IPRoyal offers incredible session control, as it supports two types of IP address rotation which are session-based IP rotation and time-based IP rotation. Session-based IP rotation ensures that the IP address is changed after every request, while the time-based session control ensures that the IP address is changed after a specific time.
You can set the rotation to 10 minutes and be confident you’ll go undetected. That’s perfect if you’re undertaking account management and are constantly logging into different social media accounts. Do that from the same IP address and you’ll get unwanted attention. Automate the rotation, and you can focus on managing your client’s reputation.
Good Location Support
IPRoyal offers excellent location support. They offer support to about 130 countries worldwide across over 2000 cities.
Great Customer Support
A unique feature of IPRoyal is that it offers superior customer support. This ensures their users get help as quickly as possible.
6. PrivateProxy
PrivateProxy is one of the best residential proxy providers in the market for multithreading. They are great for sending API requests and also support SOCKS proxy. They are rotating proxies that support sticky IP, making them great for account management.
Although PrivateProxy doesn’t have an extensive IP pool size like most of the other proxy server providers listed above, they offer a sizable enough IP pool for most tasks. They offer users more than 5 million residential IPs. About 500K – 600K of the IPs in their proxy pool are constantly online.
Unique Selling Points of PrivateProxy
Excellent IP Whitelisting Support
PrivateProxy has excellent IP whitelisting support, with up to four IPs at a time. This makes them unique, as it is rare to see this amount of IP whitelisting support available in the market. Only proxy servers that have support for sub-users provide more than one IP whitelisting option.
Good Location Support
PrivateProxy is a proxy server that offers good location support. The source of their IP addresses is from a P2P network. They have over five million IP addresses in their proxy pool across more than 140 countries worldwide.
Reputation
PrivateProxy is a relative newcomer to the world of proxies. As such, they aren’t yet as well-known as some. However, that hasn’t stopped them from building a strong reputation. Impressively, Private Proxy has a 4.9-star rating on Trustpilot. It’s a great option for anyone looking to do web scraping and data mining.
7. Proxy-Seller
Proxy-Seller is a highly-rated datacenter proxy provider that is very popular among a lot of small-scale Internet marketers. Proxy-Seller supports SOCKS5 and HTTPS protocols. Proxy-seller provides an easy-to-use and hassle-free proxy service.
A fantastic feature of Proxy-Seller is their flexible payment options, as users can pay for weekly, monthly, quarterly, biannually, and annual plans at affordable prices. Users have several payment options, as they can pay with PayPal, credit card, and Bitcoin.
Unique Selling Points of Proxy-Seller
Good Customer Support
One of Proxy-seller’s features is their fantastic customer support. Their live chat support is very responsive and efficient, as users can chat with a customer rep online in real-time. In a case where all agents are busy, users have the option to use their ticket support. Users can also make use of their social media platforms to resolve any pressing issue.
Acceptable Internet Speed and Response Time
One of Proxy Sellers’ selling points is their fantastic internet speed and response time. They are not the fastest in the market but offer excellent internet speed.
Good Location Coverage
Although Proxy-seller offers datacenter proxies, they are not faced with the problem of having a good number of locations that most datacenter proxies face. They provide coverage in countries such as the United States, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Russia, India, Ukraine, and ten other countries.
They Are Fast
ProxySeller mainly relies on IPv4 proxies. The average response time for Proxy-Seller’s IPv4 is 0.8 seconds. That’s fast by most standards. It makes this proxy an excellent choice for online gamers. It allows you to effortlessly bypass geolocation issues and is a good tool for search engine scraping.
8. The Social Proxy
The Social Proxy is a fantastic proxy server provider that offers mobile, residential, and datacenter proxies. It has a fair amount of proxy pools, with more than 3 million proxies available to its users. They offer unlimited bandwidth usage on all their plans.
The Social Proxy users are allowed to run about 500 concurrent threads on most of their plans. One fantastic feature that sets The Social Proxy apart from its counterparts is that it supports all the popular protocols, even new-generation protocols. Some of the protocols they support include SOCKS5, HTTP, and HTTPS.
Unique Selling Points of The Social Proxy
Offers Unlimited Bandwidth
A good feature of The Social Proxy is its unlimited bandwidth. They ensure that users can enjoy unlimited access to their services worldwide at affordable prices. This is their unique selling point and a feature that separates them from many other proxy providers in the market.
Cross-Platform Proxy Checker Tool
The Social Proxy offers its users a unique feature known as a cross-platform proxy checker tool. This enables them to sort through their users’ list of shared proxies and sieve out bad proxies. With this, they can pick the most valuable proxies best suited to work for specific uses based on parameters like their speed, location, and presence against effective anti-spam protocols.
Rotating Proxies
SocialProxy offers rotating proxies that are designed to handle large-scale operations. It also offers session ID stickiness. However, its real strength is in offering 4G and 5G mobile proxies. It’s often referred to as the largest raw mobile proxy network in the world. It does this by using server farms built with dedicated fiber optics to ensure high speed and an almost 100% uptime.
It should be noted that these mobile proxies are real, they are attached to real mobile phone machines and, as such, are very hard to detect by websites and bots. It’s a great option for social media management. Alternatively, individuals can use it to automate their social media campaigns.
Scraper API Feature
Social Proxy also has an intriguing data collection technique known as Scraper API. It’s specifically designed for web scraping and makes the process easy. The fact you don’t need to know code to do this makes Social Proxy a very attractive option.
9. SSL Private Proxy
SSL Private Proxy is one of the top and leading private proxy services on the market today. SSL Private Proxy, which was founded in 2012, has grown to become one of the most premium proxy services in the world and is ranked amongst the best private proxies. They are highly trusted by users worldwide and offer specialized packages for specific tasks.
Their specialized services include social media, online gaming, advertising, shopping, and several other target proxy use cases. SSL Private Proxy offers various unique features, including high-grade privacy and security. They use both username/password authentication and IP authentication and support only HTTP and HTTPS protocols.
Unique Selling Points of SSL Private Proxy
High Anonymity
SSL Private Proxy is known for its top-level anonymity available to users worldwide. Users’ identity is completely hidden when surfing the internet, and they are almost impossible to detect.
IP Authentication Method
One feature of SSL Private Proxy is that it supports easy and secure authentication, as users can log in with the IP Authorization method. This allows users to connect from multiple devices on the same IP address easily.
3-days Refund Policy
SSL Private Proxy supports a 3-day refund policy, which is very effective. When a user purchases their services, they are entitled to a refund if not satisfied with the service within three days. However, users are not allowed to test-run their services before payment.
Impressive Proxy Pool
Private Proxy doesn’t have the largest IP pool. However, it does offer over 100,000. Both residential and datacentre are available and you can set them to autorotate every 5 minutes. That’s perfect for anonymity, getting around CAPTCHAs, and dodging an array of IP blocks. We recommend using it for web scraping, social media management, and ad verification/SEO tracking.
10. Blazing SEO Proxies
Blazing SEO Proxies is the world’s best-optimized sneaker proxy. Blazing SEO Proxies is a subsidiary of a cloud-based solution provider, Blazing SEO LLC, with an interest in servers, proxies, and scraping. Although Blazing proxies are datacenter proxies and don’t support any other types of proxies, they are still reliable sticker proxies.
They are rated as the best sneaker datacenter proxies available. They are perfect for sneaker copping, which is said to be best with residential proxy providers. Blazing proxies offer concurrent thread support and unlimited bandwidth. They are flexible to use and are reasonably affordable.
Unique Selling Points of Blazing SEO Proxies
Sneaker and SEO Support
Blazing SEO Proxies from inception were not designed to provide general proxy use, but to offer dedicated use for some specific tasks. Although Blazing SEO Proxies can be used for many general uses, they are specialized proxies for sneaker copping and SEO auditing and monitoring.
Unlimited Bandwidth and Threads
Blazing SEO Proxies offer unlimited bandwidth and concurrent thread. Putting them among the few proxy providers in the market that support both unlimited bandwidth or thread.
Supports Many Countries
Blazing SEO Proxies may not support many locations as most proxy providers listed above, but they support a reasonable amount of countries. They currently support 13 locations which include the US, Canada, the UK, and 10 other countries. With this, they are the best datacenter proxy providers based on location support.
11. MyPrivateProxy
Myprivateproxy is ranked as the best private proxy server provider in the market and is known for its fast dedicated IPs. Their private proxies are one of the fastest dedicated IPs in the world, offering maximum speed. They offer some uses others don’t have and are rated one of the easiest to use in the market.
Unique Selling Points of Myprivateproxy
Offers Specialized Proxies
One of the advantages Myprivateproxy offers is its specialized proxies for some exceptional uses. This includes spoofing Pokemon GO, sneaker copping, and ticketing. Their general private proxies will fail to work for these specific uses; therefore, it’s always best to go for their dedicated proxies.
Green Servers
Their servers are earth-friendly based on their activities, which aligns with the ever-increasing demand for government, corporate bodies, and individuals to go green. MyPrivateProxy uses wind energy to power some of its servers, helping to save the planet while offering a first-class proxy service.
Supports Many Locations
MyPrivateProxy is a proxy provider that supports many locations, unlike most private proxy providers, which support a few areas. MyPrivateProxy has coverage in many regions of the US, Canada, and some places in Europe.
Speed
MyPrivateProxy offers high-speed proxies thanks to its datacentres. They use gigabit speed networks that give all users extremely fast and stable proxy connections.
12. Stormproxies
StormProxies is a top proxy server provider for the most affordable optimized rotating proxies. This reverse backconnect premium rotating server is entirely out of the league of the mentioned proxies above in areas like the number of IPs in their proxy pool and location support.
However, it will do a pretty decent job for a much more affordable price. Irrespective of their shortcomings, they still offer a reasonable amount of optimized tasks like ad verification, SEO, price intelligence, web scraping, bulk account creation, brand protection, and many more. Their proxies are time-based and change their assigned IPs after every 5 minutes. One of StormProxies’ selling points is that they allow access to unlimited bandwidth usage.
Unique Selling Points of Stormproxies
Unlimited Bandwidth Usage with Affordable and Cheap Pricing
Stormproxies significant selling point is its cheap pricing. The plans are incredibly affordable for specific uses. With as little as $50, users can purchase up to 5 ports. Another selling point is that for a cheap proxy service, they also offer unlimited bandwidth usage. They also have flexible packages, making it possible for users to buy a smaller package.
Diverse Proxy Packages
Stormproxies offers specialized proxy packages apart from their general proxies. The special uses they offer include sneaker proxies, SEO proxy tools, and social media proxies for one of the best social media automation. Their sneaker proxies permit users limited-edition of sneakers copping.
Easy to Use
One of the easiest residential proxies to use in the market is Stormproxies residential proxies. A reason for this is because of Stormproxies’ lean nature. They only make use of whitelisting your IP address and do not use username and password authentication methods.
Can Handle High Traffic Volumes
Despite not having as many IPs as the industry giants, Stormproxies does know how to leverage the assets it has. Their systems are designed to allow you to send hundreds of thousands of requests per minute, without being detected or blocked. This is part of their backconnect rotating proxies which automatically and randomly assign a different IP to every request. It’s perfect for anonymity and high volumes. It’s an excellent web scraping option.
13. InstantProxies
InstantProxies are one of the best-shared proxies and are fabulous for search engines. They are one of the most famous datacenter proxy providers, and this is due to their cheap pricing. Although they are datacenter proxies, they can be used for a reasonable number of tasks.
One such task is SEO auditing and management. Instant proxies have good location coverage, with proxies from different cities worldwide. They offer users unlimited bandwidth with subnet variety. A unique feature of Instant Proxies is that their proxies are highly anonymous and compatible with numerous websites. Instant proxies are also unique because they ensure that the proxies provided are tested before handing them over to their users.
Unique Selling Points of Instantproxies
Cheap Pricing
Instant proxies are one of the best proxy providers when it comes to pricing. They are both free and paid proxies; even at that, the paid proxies are very cheap. Users can buy proxy access for as little as a few cents. Users can get ten proxies for as low as $10.
SEO-Optimized
Most data center proxies have limited usage because most of them have been flagged or blocked by numerous web services. This is because they are easily detected. However, Instantproxies is a datacenter proxy that still functions considerably fair in the market. They thrive in certain proxy environments, and one such area includes search engine optimization research. Users of Instantproxies can easily carry out SEO research at a cheap cost.
Ease of Usage
Instantproxies is one of the easiest proxies to use in the market because the method of authentication is through IP whitelisting. Instantproxies doesn’t support the username and password authentication method.
Unlimited Bandwidth
Thanks to unlimited bandwidth and the use of concurrent sessions Instantproxies can offer unlimited bandwidth and seamless usage. They even guarantee a 99.9% uptime. In other words, they can help you achieve maximum productivity.
14. Hide.me
Hide.me is one of the best proxy providers that includes things like IP leak protection, which is usually reserved for VPNs. It works with Chrome and Firefox and supports the SOCKS protocol. It is a reliable, quick proxy that you can use.
Unique Selling Points of Hide.me
- Hide.me offers a number of different features, including browser extensions, IP leak protection, helps you unblock any blocked website, and supports SOCKS protocol.
- Hide.me’s proxies are anonymous, and it comes with a free basic plan with three connections. There’s even a free trial option.
- There are 2000 worldwide servers in its pool, and it supports Windows, Android, Mac, Linux, and iPhone.
- Hide.me also offers first-class encryption protocols, including SSL and TLS. This ensures your data, and that of your clients are protected. It’s even possible to customize your encryption settings.
15. Smart DNS Proxy
Smart DNS Proxy is a helpful proxy service for helping you unblock content and ensuring that your private information is secure. You can use this proxy service on any device because they are compatible with both desktop and mobile.
Unique Selling Points of Smart DNS Proxy
- Smart DNS Proxy offers fast browsing and streaming and unblocks geo-restricted data.
- It is accessible with both mobile and computer and offers five connections at once. It offers both residential and datacenter proxies, and its pricing begins at $50 a month.
- It covers more than 195 countries and has 2 million proxies in its IP address pool.
- It offers a reliable connection, promises not to slow down, and is designed to unblock websites quickly and effectively. If required, you can set your IP manually and even configure your network settings.
How We Found the Best Proxy Servers
There are hundreds of proxy services today, and each one promises to be the best. Many of these proxy providers are better at marketing than providing the services they promise. They survive on hype, and the outcome is often terrible for the end-users. After careful research of the market, we have put together a list of the best proxy servers for you to check out.
Our recommendations include proxies in categories such as datacenter proxies, residential proxies, and mobile proxies. The selection was made based on several factors, including their compatibility with popular web services, uptime, security, speed, and customer support, among others.
Why Should You Use a Proxy?
There are several reasons why you will want to use a proxy. The first is gaining access to blocked content, and they can also help you speed up common requests. They are great for improving privacy and security, and they can help you gather information about competitors. If you want to scrape the web, they can also help you with this as well.
How to Setup a Proxy
We will show you the steps to setting up a proxy:
- Open the website of the proxy. Choose one from the list above.
- Choose your browser extension.
- Add the extension to your web browser.
- A warning dialogue box will come up. Select ‘add the extension’.
- Begin the extension.
- Choose a location so that you can establish a proxy connection.
- Open a website, like Netflix. You should now be able to access Netflix in the location of your choice.
Installing Proxy On Firestick
Configuring your proxy on a Firestick is straightforward. However, before you start, make sure you have chosen a proxy and have your login details.
- Select ‘settings’, then ‘My Fire TV’ than ‘about’, then ‘network’.
- The screen will show your IP address, gateway, DNS, and subnet mask.
- Look down the left side of the screen and tick the box which says “Use a proxy server for your LAN”.
- Enter your IP address and port.
- Save and test your proxy connection.
Installing Proxy On A Router
Setting up your proxy on a router should be a quick and simple task.
- Turn over your router and you’ll find the IP address and password to get into the admin panel.
- Open a web browser and enter the router’s IP address.
- Use the password to get into the admin section. Top Tip: change the password before you continue to help protect your data.
- Now look for the globe icon and select it.
- Choose the IPoE option, followed by ISPBroadband Connection.
- You can now enable manual configuration of the IP address.
- Enter your proxy-provided IP address, subnet, default gateway, and DNS. Save!
- Before leaving, select ‘home network’, followed by ‘computers’.
- Make sure the IP MP proxy setting box is unchecked.
- Now verify the proxy is working.
Troubleshooting Tips
If your proxy isn’t working, first try restarting the device. Then, recheck the details. A simple digit wrong can make a big difference. Should you find Netflix is blocking your proxy, change your chosen IP address. Make sure it’s a residential one and has the right geo-location. You should also clear all your browser cookies. If you’re still struggling, turn off any anti-virus software to see if that is causing a conflict. Once you’ve tested this, don’t forget to turn it back on and allow your proxy as an exception.
What are the Important Types of Proxies?
- HTTP proxy: this is a proxy that lets you access websites that begin with HTTP.
- HTTPS proxy: this is a proxy that provides a wider range of access, including of course HTTP.
- SOCKS proxy: a SOCKS proxy is not limited to just internet traffic, meaning that it works on an application level. This means that you can use it on a gaming or streaming platform as well.
- Web proxy: this is a type of proxy that can be used to anonymously access a website. You won’t need to adjust your browser settings.
- Shared proxies: this type of proxy changes the IP address every 15 minutes, and it is shared, so security isn’t great.
- Public proxy: this is going to be shared on a community level, and has the least amount of security. We also looked at protocols.
While many proxy services offer SOCKS5 and HTTPS, it’s up to you which you feel is more important. HTTPS protocols help you stay secure while browsing. That’s important to protect your data. In contrast, SOCKS5 is better if you want to do some online gaming or streaming/downloading via torrent. It’s also important to consider security and the likelihood of detection.
The best proxy services will help you stay safe by encrypting all data with SSL. They will also allow you to rotate IP addresses. Ideally, this can be automated as remembering to manually adjust your IPs can be time-consuming and frustrating. Constantly changing IPs is essential if you want to avoid being detected.
Rotating IPs means that the website sees every request you make as coming from a different person. It doesn’t realize that you are asking for multiple pieces of information. (That’s a red flag). On a final note, if your chosen proxy provider has DNS leak protection, enable it. This will help to prevent your data from being accidentally exposed and used against you.
Factors to Consider When Choosing a Proxy Service
If you are new to proxy services, picking proxy providers at random may end up as a disaster. It is essential to take time out to check for the kind of proxy service that suits your needs. Here are a few factors to consider:
1. IP Address Source
The source of the IP address provided by the proxy server is one of the most important factors to consider before choosing a proxy server. There are three primary IP sources which are mobile, datacenter, and residential proxies.
Mobile IP Proxy
Mobile IP proxies are the newest among IP proxies. The source of IP addresses is the Mobile Network Operators, that is, mobile Internet devices ISPs. They are the perfect IP addresses for web services with robust anti-spam systems or require mobile simulations. They are also the most expensive IP address source. Instagram is an example of such services and the most popular of them.
Datacenter IP proxy
The IP addresses for datacenter IP proxies are sourced from data centers just like the name implies. They are the cheapest IP address sources and also the least effective. They are easily detected and are better used on websites with a simple anti-spam system.
Residential IP proxy
Residential IP proxies make use of IP addresses assigned to devices by ISPs. They are almost as effective and undetectable as mobile proxies and are perfect for nearly all proxy uses. They are also cheap but not as cheap as datacenter proxies but as expensive as mobile proxies.
2. Location
The location your proxy provider covers is another essential factor to be considered when choosing a proxy service. This is because many proxy users use proxy services to spoof their location to access localized and geo-targeted data. When picking a proxy provider, don’t go for one that supports only your location. Ensure you choose proxy providers that support as many locations as possible if you need to spoof the location. Some proxy providers support all areas in the world, such as BrightData.
3. Number of Users
Proxies can either be private proxies or shared proxies. Residential proxies are mostly shared proxies, which means you will have to share IPs from a proxy pool with other users. However, residential proxies are constantly being rotated; therefore, there is nothing to worry about. Datacenter proxies, on the other hand, are private proxies, which implies that users will have to stick to their proxies to guarantee reliability and better performance.
4. IP Rotation
Some proxy servers rotate their IP addresses while some are static. When sending many requests to a web service, it is best to use rotating proxies to ensure that the web service doesn’t know that the requests are from one source. Rotating proxies are used chiefly by residential proxy services and are notable for web scraping. They are also perfect for SEO, price monitoring, and ad verification, among others. Static proxies, on the other hand, are best for maintaining the same IP address. They are perfect for online gaming and account management.
5. Proxy Protocol
SOCKS and HTTPS proxy protocols are the two most well-known proxy protocols worldwide. They are technically different and are used by most proxy providers. If you like the look of a particular proxy server, you will need to check their website or contact the proxy provider for information on the supported protocol subscribing.
6. Special Proxy Use Case
Some proxy services have exceptional proxy use cases aside from the general proxy use cases in the market. This gives them an edge over their counterparts and also helps users satisfy some basic needs. These proxies have been engineered and developed to meet certain requirements for the effective functioning of specific use cases. Some of the specific use cases of these specialized proxies include SEO proxies, sneaker proxies, gaming proxies, ticketing proxies, and many others. If you need proxies for any of such specific use cases, ensure you go for a proxy provider that offers dedicated proxies.
Residential IP Proxies vs. Datacenter IP Proxies
For many years, the residential IP proxies and the datacenter IP proxies have remained the only IP address source for proxy users. They both vary in uses and offer users different advantages. Residential proxies are more secure and effective than datacenter proxies, although they are also more expensive. Residential proxies make use of rotating IP addresses, while datacenter IPs are static. Before opting for any of these types of IP proxies, ensure you know your reason for using a proxy service.
Glossary
Some terms can be confusing. This should help:
- IP address: A number given to a device when it connects to the internet, it allows websites to identify your device.
- Proxy: A service that connects to websites for you using one of its (many) IP addresses instead of yours. This protects your identity.
- Backconnect proxy: A proxy that can be automatically rotated after a specific request is received from the target website.
- Sticky IP: This is an IPv4 address assigned to one device and never used by another.
- Web scraping: Pulling data from one or more websites.
- Web crawling: Extracting data from websites and following embedded links to discover more pages/data.
- IP Rotation: Changing IP address regularly. Can be done manually or automatically.
FAQs
What is a Proxy?
Proxy servers function as intermediaries between web servers and your computer when on the Internet. Proxy servers help you redirect your requests on the web and ensure they don’t go directly to the intended website. When your request goes directly to the intended website, you are exposed in many ways unless your network operator or ISP modifies your request.
A proxy provider changes the standard work mechanism of your internet service provider by routing your request through a proxy server, which now routes your requests to the intended website. During this process, modifications are made. The initial IP address bundled with your request is replaced with another IP address.
The new IP address could be an arbitrary one or an IP address belonging to the proxy server. The intention is to hide your actual IP address, protecting you from several vulnerabilities and offering you many opportunities. Therefore, proxies can be seen as shields used online by Internet users to hide their actual IP footprints.
Proxy vs. VPN – What’s Better?
Both achieve the same thing, which is protecting your identity online. However, when it comes to modes of operation, they are different.VPNs offer a number of different features including split tunneling and kill switch. Proxies offer the ability to hide your identity. Your risk of having your identity exposed is higher with a proxy.
Can Proxies be Traced?
Yes, proxies can be traced. This is because proxies are going to transfer information to and from your chosen device without encrypting it. You can use a proxy to change your IP address. They only offer some anonymity.
Do You Need a Proxy and a VPN?
Because both a proxy and a VPN are going to hide your IP address, you probably don’t need to use both of them.
Can You Use a Proxy and a VPN Together?
If you want an added layer of anonymity with your online activity, you can use both at the same time. However, depending on the type of proxy that you are going to use, this could end up being redundant.
Are Proxies Legal?
Generally, proxies are entirely legal. Many top businesses make use of proxies for the smooth running of their businesses daily. However, its legality is also based on a country basis. Some countries may forbid the use of proxies, making it prohibited in that country. In the United States, for example, there no laws are restricting the use of proxy servers.
In some countries, the use of proxy servers is partially legal. This means that citizens can use proxy servers, but proxy servers are restricted to specific websites. If this law is bridged and these prohibited websites are accessed with proxies, it becomes illegal. In countries where the use of proxies is unlawful if found wanting, violators will face the wrath of the law.
So proxies could be legal and illegal, depending on what they are used for and your location. For example, the European Union is very protective over data. If you fall foul of their GDPR rules, you can incur a €20,000 fine. The rules insist that permission is needed to scrape data, even that which is publicly available. To avoid breaking the law, make sure you choose a proxy that complies.
If you are in a new area, it’s best to get the opinion of a lawyer who is resident in that country to determine the legality of using proxies to avoid breaking the law. It’s not just countries you need to worry about. Companies can also be protective of theirs. For example, it is legal to scrape publicly available data from Amazon. However, scraping Amazon data could breach their terms of service.
That makes it illegal and will leave your account banned. You may even face legal action. It’s also important to note that nothing in life is free. Should you choose to use a free proxy, you have to question how they are funding their business. In many cases, they collect your data and sell it, even though they say they won’t. It’s surprisingly common. Hola is a great example of this happening.
What Can I Use Proxy Servers For?
The primary use of proxy servers is to shield users’ real IP addresses when browsing the web. The main question should be why internet users would want to hide their IP addresses. There are some interesting reasons for this. Many internet users who use proxies know that web services use internet users’ IP addresses to effect certain IP-based restrictions.
Therefore, by hiding your actual IP address, it becomes difficult for these IP-based restrictions to affect you. Because your proxy providers give you access to as many IP addresses as possible. Proxy services also have several other uses. Proxies can be used for ad verification, account management, web scraping, brand protection, price comparison, cybersecurity, and fraud protection, application and affiliate link testing, and many more.
To successfully use proxies for this, your proxy server helps you bypass IP-based censorship and restriction. Individuals do not only use proxy services. Government agencies, big corporations, and research institutions worldwide use proxies, although they may never admit it.
What types of scams should I look out for?
There are two types of scam that you should be concerned about:
1. Malware: In this instance, unscrupulous proxy providers will supply you with proxies and then deliberately target you with malware. Proxies aren’t designed to protect against malware and your system may not pick up on it in time. After all, you’ve said it was okay to use the proxy service.
2. Data Collection: The other common proxy scam is where the supplier collects your data and then sells it to other individuals, businesses, or other unscrupulous people. The data can be used for a variety of purposes, including identity theft.
Are Proxy Servers Trustworthy?
Proxies help you hide your identity and activities from eavesdroppers like your ISP, intelligence, and marketing agencies, government agencies, web services, and even hackers. Some proxy servers even ensure that your web traffic is encrypted to provide better security online. What this implies is that proxy services offer both security and privacy when online.
However, while your identity is completely hidden from the web services you browse when using proxy servers, your proxy provider knows your identity. They see the content of your requests and also your actual IP address. For this reason, the question of trust comes into play. Some proxy servers can be so terrible that it’s better if you don’t use proxies at all than to subscribe to them.
They will eavesdrop on you, get all your information, and hurt you with it. These days, most proxy servers claim not to monitor users’ activities, and they abide by a strict no-log policy. The fact that you can’t access their code base or know what is done behind the scenes, you can’t know for sure if they speak the truth.
Based on this, if choosing a proxy service, you should settle for a popular provider with recommendations from security experts. This gives you very little assurance because users of these proxy servers would have had first-hand experience using them, and the security experts must have put proxy servers through a series of rigorous tests.
Are Free Proxies Safe to Use?
Free proxies are of course tempting to use because you don’t pay to use them. However, most free proxies are regarded as not secure, and you are at risk of having your data stolen. Not only are you at security and privacy risk, but you also would most likely not enjoy the services from free proxies because they are usually slow, of low quality, and easily detectable by web services. Yet, there are few exceptions to this. Some proxy servers offer quality free proxies or free trials that are worth checking out.
What are the Best Proxies for Web Scraping?
Rotating proxies are the best proxies for web scraping because they change their IP addresses after every request. This ensures that no IP footprint is traced, and users won’t exceed the web request limit at any point.
What are the Best Proxies for Sneaker Copping?
Residential proxies are the best for sneaker copping because residential proxies are hard to detect by sneaker sites with effective anti-bot systems that quickly detect proxies. However, datacenter proxies can work effectively on some sneaker sites without being detected.
What are the Best Proxies for Social Media?
Mobile proxies are the best for social media because most social media websites are perfect for detecting proxies. Some are very much against it and would block the user immediately if it is detected. However, there are some social media websites that residential proxies work perfectly for.
How do you test proxy anonymity?
The simplest way is to use a proxy checker. Some proxy providers will even include this tool. If not, you can download one on your computer of mobile device. The proxy checker looks at your proxy server, tells you the speed it is offering and how anonymous you really are. Some will even show you how you appear on sites.
How do you avoid IP bans?
The simplest way is to ensure your online activity appears human. That means, choose a proxy provider that offers residential or mobile proxies and allows them to be rotated (preferably automatically), every three requests. That will make it very difficult for any bot to realise you are using a proxy.
Written by Trevor Cooke
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
