How many times have you tried to load a website, only to find an error stating that it’s unavailable in your region? Has a site revoked your access due to what it considers suspicious activity?
Either way, you’ve definitely been shown an ad for a product you’ve just discussed on social media or googled. These are frequent occurrences for regular internet users, and calling them annoying is barely scratching the surface.
The Need for Proxies
The web is far from a private place, especially in recent years. Today, you can post a seemingly innocuous photo, and within minutes, an internet sleuth would be able to identify your name, location, and workplace. That’s a frightening thought and a valid concern.
Furthermore, the internet isn’t as free as you’d think. Countless parties are constantly monitoring your online activities. Just because you haven’t received notice, it doesn’t mean that you’re not on some government agency’s list.
Geo-restrictions are also hitting an all-time high. Many platforms, such as Netflix, are limiting their content to specific locations due to licensing agreements and copyright laws. Other companies, notably those in the e-commerce industry, adjust their prices according to regional spending power.
In addition, governments and internet service providers restrict users from accessing certain sites, with political and cultural influences cited as reasons.
Another major problem with internet access pertains to blocked access when gathering data at scale. It’s common knowledge now that companies thrive when they make business decisions based on publicly available data.
Studying your competitors isn’t as simple as you’d think, especially when you’re running hundreds of search queries and thousands of product page loads, as these activities trigger red flags that result in IP bans.
You might think that these are simply issues that one has to contend with when accessing the web. However, that’s not the case at all.
Privacy concerns, geo-restrictions, and IP bans can be things of the past with proxies. These are essentially intermediate servers, strategically located between end-user devices and web servers. A proxy’s IP is a mask, and it’s the address a web server sees attached to an internet request.
How Proxies Work
A proxy, as we’ve mentioned above, sits between your device and the internet. Without it, your traffic requests go directly to the web. With an added proxy, your request routes through an external server first before ending up at its destination. This degree of separation between you and the site is crucial in many circumstances.
Let’s say that you’re performing a search on Google related to a sensitive topic. If you do this without a proxy, your device would perform the request directly to Google’s servers, which would then send the response straight back to your PC, smartphone, or tablet. With a proxy, the data transferred would first make a pitstop at the server before heading to its final destination.
Proxies operate on a variety of internet protocols to transfer data. The list is extensive, but many aren’t relevant for this discussion. Consumer-level proxies mainly use HTTP, HTTP(S), and SOCKS5 protocols.
- HTTP proxies use the HTTP protocol with zero protection. Despite the benefits of being fast and free, a proxy on this protocol is only able to relay unencrypted data, which is a major disadvantage.
- HTTP(S) proxies are also known as SSL proxies. They work similarly to HTTP proxies. However, they encrypt traffic and permit connections to SSL-protected HTTP(S) sites.
- SOCKS5 proxies route your traffic through a third-party server using the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). They’re more versatile than HTTP and HTTP(S) proxies since they can handle different types of traffic.
A Closer Look at Popular Proxy Types
Proxies are extremely useful. They don’t just provide privacy and security; they also bring a whole new meaning to online freedom and ease tasks such as web scraping and social media management.
With that said, you won’t reap the full benefits of proxies without selecting the most appropriate type for your needs. The most common proxies include the following:
Residential Proxies
- Trustworthy IPs that belong to actual households
- Harder to detect and block
- Wide geographical availability
- Slower and more expensive than datacenter proxies
- Ideal for web scraping, ad verification, and accessing geo-blocked content
Datacenter Proxies
- Faster than residential proxies
- Most affordable proxy type
- Great for projects requiring scalability
- Higher chances of detection, resulting in increased block rates
- Ideal for bulk data scraping and tasks that require high performance
ISP Proxies
- ISP-issued IPs with higher trust levels than datacenter proxies
- Faster than residential proxies in most cases
- Pricier than datacenter proxies
- Limited geographic availability
- Ideal for web scraping, social media account management, and tasks that require longer sessions
Mobile Proxies
- 4G/5G IPs from real cell carriers
- Extremely difficult to detect
- Most expensive proxy type
- Some IPs might deliver slow speeds
- Ideal for social media automation, ad verification, and sites with robust anti-bot measures
Why Businesses Use Proxies
Companies all over the world are optimizing the way they operate, and they’re doing that successfully with proxies. It isn’t just corporate firms hopping on the bandwagon – even mom-and-pop shops are realizing the benefits of proxy servers.
Here are the most common ways companies across the world use proxies to streamline their operations:
- Privacy and Anonymity
As proxies allow you to peruse the internet under a different identity, you can perform your work anonymously. After all, no one needs to know what you’re up to.
For example, if you intend to gather some information on your rival company, it’s best to do it under a pseudonym, so to speak. With proxies, you can make your traffic appear to come from many regular internet users so as not to raise suspicion.
- Bypassing Geo-Restrictions
ISPs, governments, and online platforms limit your internet reach. This doesn’t just apply to sites containing adult content or promoting illegal activities. News censorship also occurs, imposed by governments, notably during times of unrest.
Streaming platforms practice geo-restriction as well. For example, one can’t access Hulu outside the US. Proxies act like keys in this regard, opening doors and bringing you closer to true internet freedom.
- Web Scraping and Automation
Data is valuable, and even if you’re not in the business of selling it, you’d still want to obtain as much information as you can on your competitors.
Gathering data is possible without proxies, but it isn’t the most efficient way to do it. With proxy servers, you can automate your scraping activities and overcome the issue of IP blocks along the way.
- Ad Verification
If you run ads on a website or app, you’d be familiar with advertising fraud. That’s precious dollars gone to waste, when they could have spread the word on your company and what it has to offer.
To ensure you only pay for legitimate ads, you’ll have to verify that they’re appearing at the right sites and to internet users from your selected locations and demographics. Proxies from all over the world assist in this crucial task.
- SEO Monitoring
A website that appears at the top of SERPs for relevant search queries obviously drives more traffic and higher conversions than others. This is the importance of SEO monitoring. With proxies, you can study keyword rankings from various locations globally without being blocked by search engines.
The information you gather from this exercise will give you an insight on your competitors’ performance and how you can apply the right measures to attract valuable website traffic.
How to Pick the Right Proxy Provider
You’re convinced that proxies can only benefit your business. Now, the question is which proxy provider will be the best partner for you. You’ll want one that can deliver excellent IPs to aid your tasks. It’s too easy (and unwise) to just base your decision upon price. In truth, choosing your proxy supplier requires in-depth research on the following features:
- Location Coverage
When performing tasks for your growing business, you’ll find that the ability to access content from all corners of the world is crucial. Therefore, you’ll want a proxy provider with a global pool of IPs. In terms of numbers, the larger the better.
- Performance and Uptime
It would be impossible to work efficiently when things break down every now and then or don’t work to the best of their abilities. This rule applies to proxies, too. An excellent provider would ensure near-perfect uptimes. Furthermore, it would perform regular audits on its proxies. High-performing proxies are kept, while poor ones are shown out the door.
- Support
Here’s one thing you must accept: things may go wrong, even with established proxy companies. How well a provider responds to your queries, complaints, or issues is an excellent sign of its quality of service. Select a company that doesn’t make you wait throughout the weekend if something fails to work on a Friday. You deserve 24-hour support.
- Pricing
Many outlets provide proxies at exorbitant prices, while others charge next to nothing. It’s impossible to tell which of these will best suit your needs. While it’s tempting to simply go for a provider that charges the least, you might want to get a feel for a service before placing a large order. If you can test IPs at a low cost (or free), go for it!
Premium Proxies vs. Free Proxies
Yes, free proxies exist. Do they work? Are they dependable? Truthfully, they might do the job for an hour but be inoperable or freakishly slow for the rest of the day.
But that’s not the only disadvantage of free IPs. When something is free, you’re the product. Your information is ready for the taking and goes to the highest bidder. Essentially, when you don’t pay for proxies, you might have to contend with countless privacy problems down the road.
So, are premium proxies the recommended path here? We certainly believe so. Quality proxy servers will help your business grow and thrive. You’re paying for their effectiveness, performance, and constant connectivity. They’re there to ensure that you are truly anonymous when it’s crucial you remain so.
Conclusion
Privacy and anonymity as you perform your daily tasks are vital, as is being able to access content freely without IP blocks and geo-restrictions. And if you’re frequently sourcing data on the web, you’d agree that being able to do so with the added element of automation will save you both time and money.
With proxies, you’re acquiring a whole treasure chest more than just IP addresses. You’re gaining a whole new way of getting things done.
With the existence of so many proxy types and providers comes the challenging task of picking what’s right for your needs. Whether you’re using residential, datacenter, ISP, or mobile proxies, you’re going to need a partner that doesn’t leave you hanging at crucial moments.
