One of the significant risks of using the internet is endangering your personal data while browsing. When you are browsing an infected website, you are risking your personal information. You can bypass this risk and buy residential proxies, which can help mask your personal information and secure your data. There are several advantages of using a proxy server as it can help you peek at your competitor’s website to determine their SEO tricks anonymously.
Proxies have several benefits and help you achieve quick results. However, when you are looking to buy residential proxies, you have to be careful of several facts. In this article, we will cover different mistakes you should avoid while choosing a proxy provider.
What is a proxy server?
Let us first talk about what a proxy server is and how it can help your business. A proxy server acts as a gateway between the web and your device. When you are using a proxy server, all the information passes through it before reaching you. All the information sent from your device passes through a proxy server, where it gets encoded and masked before going to the website.
In this process, your IP address is hidden, which helps you to browse the internet anonymously. Proxy servers are also a great way to have an additional security layer to block any snoopers. When transferring the data, the proxy server encrypts your data and decrypts it when it reaches the websites. This encryption ensures that even if a person gains access to your data, he will not be able to access it.
The provider only has datacenter IPs
Datacenter IPs mask your residential IP address, so a website cannot see your original IP address. When someone is poking into your residential IP, they will only know the address of a datacenter IP. This should work great in principle; however, that is not the case every time.
Datacenter IPs are more readily available than residential IPs, so every person on the internet uses them. In some cases, the server you are using might be used by several other people web scraping, which will send out a lot of traffic from the server. This traffic can slow down the server and make it more vulnerable to be blocked from the internet. So while choosing your proxy provider, make sure it does not rely on datacenter IPs.
Reliance on a limited number of ISPs
An ISP is your Internet Service Provider, which allocates you your residential IP. When you browse a website, you leave a thread of user-agent on the website. This user-agent contains all the information about your browser, IP address, device, and ISP. If the proxy provider you are using has a limited number of ISPs, a website can detect frequent use of the same ISPs. If the website detects an unusual amount of traffic from the same ISPs, they can flag them as blacklisters.
To avoid being blacklisted from surfing websites, choose a proxy provider with a good pool of ISPs. Also, more ISP a provider has more locations you will connect to through the proxies.
Limited locations
When you use a proxy, you can connect to a server-based anywhere on the earth. This allows you to connect to different countries and access their local websites. You can also use this feature to access geo-restricted websites that might not be available in your region. A good proxy can unblock popular streaming websites such as Netflix, Prime, Hulu, etc.
However, if the proxy provider has limited locations, you will not access all the data as your resources will be limited.
The provider does not offer IP rotation
IP rotation is one of the essential tactics to follow when you are web scraping. As talked earlier, a website can store your IP address and blacklist you if it detects unusual traffic from your server. IP rotation will automatically switch your IP address in regular intervals to avoid detection.
If you use web scraping regularly, you should choose a proxy provider that offers IP rotation.
If the provider offers unlimited data usage – something is wrong, check why
One of the most common tricks proxy providers use to lure clients is offering unlimited resources. These resources include unlimited bandwidth, complete data, and unlimited storage, but it sounds too good to be true because it is.
These unlimited resources are only available for shared hosts, which means several other users simultaneously use the same server. Not only will you not get unlimited resources, but there is an extra danger of being blacklisted. If some other user on the same server happens to crawl the same websites you are, you will be sending double traffic to that website. It increases your chances of being detected and banned. So check about the server and the features they offer you before finalising on any proxy provider.
Conclusion
These are some of the things you should be careful about when looking to buy residential proxies or hire a proxy provider. However, choose whichever proxy provider you like. It is essential in today’s digital age.
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