In the world of the internet, our personal data is always at risk while browsing or just surfing online. Hackers attempt to steal your IP address, which contains your personal information. To mask or hide your IP from hackers and suspicious websites, we use proxies. In this guide, we will answer some of the most commonly asked questions across the web, such as what is a proxy and what its uses are, e.t.c.

What is a Proxy?

A proxy is an intermediary agent that acts on behalf of a user or system, similar to how a person acts in a vote or legal situation. When your application sends a request, the proxy receives it first. The proxy then forwards the request to the target server, modifies it, blocks it, or returns a response directly.

In short, a proxy acts on behalf of the client to make sure that communications go smoothly.

What is a Proxy Server?

A proxy server acts as a gateway between you and the internet. It is an intermediate server separating end users from the internet and websites. Proxy servers offer security, privacy, and functionality on different levels, depending on your use case or needs.

If you are using a proxy server, all traffic from your device will go through the server. When you get connected to a proxy server, it will forward your every request to the target website and respond to you.

By this, it replaces your IP address with one of its own. This is important if you look from privacy point of view, as your unprotected IP can be tracked, making it possible that your location can be revealed.

How Does a Proxy Server Work?

A proxy server is basically a computer on the Internet with its own IP address that your computer knows. When you send a web request, your request goes through the server first. The server then forwards it to the web on behalf of your computer. Then it collects a response from the web server, and forwards you the response, which can be anything, maybe web page data that you can see in your browser.

A proxy server will change your IP address so the web server doesn’t know exactly where you are in the world, increasing your anonymity. It can unblock certain websites based on your newly assigned IP, and it can encrypt your data, making it unreadable to hackers.

Type of Proxies

Well, you should know what a proxy is. Now, there are different types of proxy servers as well. Let’s go through its types:

Residential Proxies

Residential proxies consist of IP addresses that belong to specific, physical devices. All requests are then channelled through that IP, allowing users to mimic human-like browsing behaviour. This reduces the chances of being blocked and gives you higher privacy by hiding your real IP. If you want to know more about residential proxies, refer to “ What is Residential proxy” blog for more information.

Datacenter Proxies

Data center proxies are intermediary servers with IP addresses originating from a data center, not a residential ISP, that route your internet traffic through the proxy to mask your real IP address. They have high-speed performance compared to other types of proxies. But they are easily detectable because their IP addresses are associated with data centers, not real users.

ISP Proxies  

ISP proxies are a hybrid proxy type that combines the high speeds and reliability of data center proxies with the anonymity of residential proxies. These are hosted on data center servers, while IP addresses are registered with real Internet Service Providers, and they appear as registered IPs of a real device, same as in residential proxies.

Now, let’s go through the types of proxies, which are categorized by their access type, which are:

Shared Proxies

Shared proxies are IP addresses and server resources used simultaneously by multiple users to connect to the internet. Because a single IP is shared between multiple users, they are more affordable, but can lead to lower speeds, a high chance of getting blocked by websites.

Dedicated Proxies

Dedicated proxies are also known as private proxies. These consist of private IP addresses assigned to a single user at a time. They offer better security, performance, and reliability by providing uninterrupted bandwidth, preventing issues like IP blacklisting or slow speed due to other users’ activities.

Semi-Dedicated Proxies

Semi-dedicated proxies are a middle-ground between dedicated and shared proxies, where a small, limited number of users share the same proxy server and IP address. These proxies offer better performance than shared proxies and are less costly than dedicated proxies. They are perfect for small web scraping projects.

Other Proxy Types

So, we have learnt types of proxies which were related to the access level and technical. But there are several different types of proxies using a variety of internet protocols to transfer data. Let’s go through those types.

SOCKS5 Proxies

A SOCKS5 proxy is a network protocol that acts as a middleman between the user and the web server. It works at a lower network layer, hence supporting different protocols such as TCP and UDP protocols, making it suitable for different tasks such as file sharing, gaming, VoIP, and simple web browsing.

HTTP Proxy

An HTTP proxy server is used like other proxies, but mainly used to handle HTTP traffic. When a user sends a request to access the web page, the requests go to the HTTP server, and it then forwards it to the web server. The response also passes through a proxy, where the HTTP proxy will inspect and filter the content before delivering it back to the user.

It also includes caching frequently accessed web pages for faster loading, so the user doesn’t have to wait every time they visit that page.

Mobile Proxy

These proxies route their web requests through mobile devices’ IPs connected to cellular networks. A mobile proxy uses the IP addresses assigned to mobile devices.

Proxy Server API

A proxy server API is an interface that allows developers to interact programmatically with a proxy server service. This API enables requests to be forwarded through proxy servers, which act as intermediaries between clients and servers, providing functionalities such as security, anonymity, or access control.

Reverse Proxy

A reverse proxy server acts opposite way to every proxy. Instead of the user requesting data from the internet, a reverse proxy passes requests from the internet to the user in an internal network. It usually sits behind a firewall in a private network.

Rotating Proxy

Rotating proxies or rotating residential proxies which automatically assign a new IP address for every request you make. This means that with each web request, the user’s IP changes, giving anonymity and reducing the risk of being blocked by websites.

Transparent Proxy

A transparent proxy is a type of proxy server that intercepts and forwards network traffic between a client and the internet without making any changes on the client’s side. It doesn’t modify the requests or responses in any situation. Because of its transparent nature, the end user is typically unaware of its presence.

CGI Proxy

CGI proxies are web-based proxy servers that allow users to access websites indirectly through a web interface. They use the Common Gateway Interface protocol, enabling a proxy server to communicate with web servers and fetch web content on behalf of the user.

Suffix Proxy

A suffix proxy works by appending the proxy server’s name to the URL of the requested content. This allows users to bypass web filters or censorship by accessing content indirectly.

Distorting proxy

A distorting proxy can be referred to as a second-level anonymity provider proxy below elite, but offering more anonymity than transparent proxies.

DNS Proxy

A DNS proxy is a network service that acts as an intermediary between a client device and a DNS server. It intercepts DNS requests from the client, forwards them to a target DNS server, and then returns the DNS responses to the clients. This improves security, network performance, and overall management of the caching DNS responses.

Elite Proxy

It is also known as a high-anonymity proxy. It offers the highest level of anonymity by hiding the user’s real IP address and even hides that a proxy is being used. Unlike other proxies, elite proxies make it appear as if the request is coming directly from the user’s real IP. Due to such anonymity, it is one of the expensive proxies.

What are Proxies Used For?

Personal Use

There are several reasons for single persons to use a proxy.

• They can be used if users want to hide their IPs and browse more securely.
• Users can use a proxy to enhance their security levels while browsing, as a proxy can encrypt their incoming requests and outgoing responses
• They can access the geo-restricted content by using proxies, as it will provide them with IP addresses of different countries.

Business Use

• Businesses can use proxies to monitor and control their internet usage internally.
• Many organizations use proxies for their tasks, like ad verification, to check if ads are running according to expectations in different locations.
• They can also be used in web scraping, as many businesses need to scrape the product data.
• Proxies help in creating and managing multiple social media accounts for media marketing agencies.
• Proxies are currently being used by many companies for MAP monitoring.

Should You Use a Proxy Server?

If you only need to hide your IP address, a VPN will be more than enough for you. But if you need to scrape a lot of data in large quantities, you would likely need a proxy server.

For any large operation, you will need a vast number of proxies to connect to the website that you want to scrape. With proxies, you will be able to do your required task without getting an IP ban. 

So, if you are wondering whether you need proxies or not? With enough knowledge of proxies, and that how much data you will be scraping and how many requests you will be making per day, the decision will become easy.

Is it Safe to Use Proxy Servers?

Most people use proxies to mask their location and hide their IP address, but as you know, there are many other reasons to use proxies. You will be aware.

Most free proxy servers do not use HTTPS, which risks your private data. They also monitor your connection, or they can even contain some malicious software, so it’s better you do some research of your own before deciding to use a free proxy server.

For more security, you can use a premium proxy provider. Proxying offers trusted and secure proxies that protect your data while giving you fast, stable, and anonymous browsing access with a free limit of 25 MB of proxies after login.