Are you struggling with choosing a suitable proxy for your business or personal need? This can indeed be quite challenging, with tons of proxy providers out there claiming that their solution is the ultimate in addition to the various types of proxies. However, do not worry. We are here to help you choose the suitable proxy, which this article is all about.
Since you may already be aware of why you need a proxy, we will not dive deeper into that in this section. However, suppose you are still in doubt; in that case, some real benefits of a proxy are masking your IP address when accessing geo-restricted websites and highly confidential information, enhanced security, web scraping, and controlling internet usage.
You can find more about the benefits of using a proxy by reading this article.
Below we have provided 11 key points that you need to consider when selecting a proxy. They are diverse and classified from technical to nontechnical in no particular order apart from the first key point, knowing your objective. It is better to be educated on these facts based on research before approaching a proxy provider.
So without further ado, let’s look at these facts.
However, a word of caution on this. A list of countries on the provider’s website does not mean that you will be able to select a proxy on your preferred location. This is because some proxy providers do not allow you to choose the proxy’s location and assign it manually by yourself.
If, for instance, you still decide to pursue free proxies, make sure to check whether IP addresses are working with online verification tools. However, on the other hand, paid proxies are dedicated to you solely with high-speed connections. Also, you will get a 24/7 guarantee of negligible downtime. So paid proxies by far your go-to choice.
You need to keep in mind that when you need to transfer more traffic, the higher the price of the proxy would be. The residential proxies thus charge based on the traffic. While there can be certain honest and reliable providers with unlimited traffic, there are others that don’t. This is because some of the providers have a slow speed, although they provide unlimited traffic. However, we at Proxyscrape delivers a very efficient and reliable service with unlimited traffic with faster speeds.You also need to check whether a free testing period is included in your package.
There are mainly two methods of authentication:
In the case of IP authentication, you need to whitelist your IP address provided by your ISP with the proxy provider. This results in connecting to the proxy server using that particular address only. On a positive note, most proxy providers provide up to 15 different IP addresses. However, some proxy providers may charge extra for whitelisting more than one IP address. So you need to check this factor as well, particularly if you are planning to purchase a dedicated proxy.
However, a glitch here is that some proxy providers may post fake reviews as part of their marketing campaign to lure some potential leads. Instead, you could check the reviews in public tech forums or websites such as Quora & Trustpilot.
Various dashboard features also add value to the service. In doing so, the provider could increase the price.
You should also check which version of IP( IPv4 or IPv6) that the provider supports. IPv4 is the older version compared to IPv6, which is the latest version. However, there is more support for IPv4, and you need to select the IP type based on the type of your target websites and their logging type.
For a comprehensive overview of the differences between the two proxies, please refer to this article.
DataCenter and Residential proxies are two of the most common proxies available in the market. Therefore when selecting the suitable proxy for your project, you need to know the differences before making the final decision.
First, let’s briefly describe what they are:
Datacenter – these proxies come from third-party cooperation. Since they originate from cloud service providers, many users might use them simultaneously unless you use dedicated proxies. Since these proxies are not affiliated with an ISP, they can be flagged by some targets. Therefore, you need to take preventive measures.
Residential proxy: These proxies come from an ISP where it assigns its IP address to a residential owner. Unlike the datacenter proxies, these proxies differ in the source of their IP address. They are quite legitimate, harder to get them blacklisted, but above all, they are more expensive. The only security implication of these proxies is that you are viewing content over a person’s private network.
If you are heavily into web scraping, residential proxies would be your ideal choice. This is due to several factors:
Datacenter proxies are particularly useful for projects that demand data gathering at a faster phase and cheaply. So, in other words, it is used for small scaling web scraping projects. Other situations where it can be frequently utilized are avoiding geo-blocks and situations where you need to mask your IP address.
Another essential aspect to consider is if your proxy provider provides rotating proxies. Rotating proxies is a technique where your proxy provider assigns a new IP address from the proxy pool to every connection you initiate. For instance, if you like to send 10,000 requests to an unlimited number of websites, you will get 10,000 various IP addresses. Residential IP addresses can also be in the pool of rotating proxies.
Once again, you would need rotating proxies for projects that heavily involve web scraping and tasks related to Search engine optimization (SEO).
From what you have learned so far in this article in selecting the suitable proxy for your project, ProxyScrape can provide several proxies suited for your needs. These proxies range from residential proxies, dedicated proxies as well as some high-quality datacenter proxies. With the premium proxies, you choose Socks HTTP/HTTPS proxies with unlimited bandwidth.
Please find out more by contacting us.
Now you have discovered that different proxies provide different services. You also now are aware of the different types of proxies needed for specific situations. Most of the factors will depend on your project and your requirement. Therefore, you need to look into multiple aspects that we discussed earlier when finalizing the proxy type.
As far as the proxy provider is concerned, it would help if you made a careful assessment before selecting the provider by asking questions based on the 11 points we have guided you and your research.