What are proxy services and why do you need them?

Published Time: 15/01/2024

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Proxy services are companies that provide uninterrupted access to proxy servers (computers that send connection requests through different IP addresses). These services are beneficial to both home users and businesses: they help access geo-restricted content, bypass IP bans, run a lot of automated tasks, and achieve other goals.

Proxy Services and Proxy Servers

Things can get confusing when trying to understand the difference between proxy services and proxy servers. It doesn't help that some sites tend to use these terms interchangeably for Google ranking purposes. Let's take a closer look at them.

Proxy servers are machines that connect to the Internet and re-route your connection requests. The main function of a proxy server is to provide you with a different IP address and location by sending requests on your behalf.

In contrast, proxy services ensure uninterrupted access to a proxy server for business or personal use. They cover every step of the journey: from acquiring IP addresses, setting up and maintaining the proxy server infrastructure to providing proxy management tools and technical support.

Benefits of Proxy Services

Proxy services aren't free, so it's natural to be reluctant to hand over your money to them. You may be inclined to use a free proxy list, launch a proxy server from a cloud instance, or perhaps even set up an in-house data center if you work in an enterprise. These are all viable options, but proxy services can give you value for your money in some of the following ways:

Large IP networks. Proxy service providers control thousands to millions of IP addresses. Their economies of scale create a diversity that is difficult to replicate with other alternatives. A typical provider can offer proxies from hundreds of cities, ASNs, and subnets without a problem. This makes it easier to target different countries and harder to block.

Maintaining the proxy infrastructure. Proxy services have an immediate financial incentive to keep servers robust and compatible with your use case (whether it's web crawling, automation, or other features you have). This includes ensuring high uptime, filtering out blacklisted IPs, and providing addresses that can access specific sites like Google or social media.

Better proxy types. Proxy services offer more IP types for different tasks than online lists or data centers. For example, you can get an IP associated with a residential Internet service or a mobile carrier. Both are becoming increasingly necessary when working with popular websites, but it's impractical to run them separately.

Proxy management tools. Proxy services provide handy tools for filtering, rotating, and otherwise using proxy servers. For example, they have online dashboards for setting up proxies and tracking usage. Instead of manipulating IP lists, you can use reverse connection gateway addresses to automatically fetch proxies from a large pool of IPs. Some providers even offer APIs to equip proxies with web crawling and data parsing capabilities.

Good proxy use cases. Major proxy services ensure that their resources are sourced and used for legitimate use cases. This keeps IPs clean and avoids potential legal or reputational issues.

Tips for choosing a proxy service

When choosing a service, you should know what the proxy will be used for. Perhaps you are crawling social media data and need a residential proxy network with access to a large pool of proxies? Or maybe you just want access to geo-restricted content, data center proxies can do the job nicely while saving you a lot of money.

Another important (and sometimes the most critical) criterion is the size of the IP pool. It refers to the number of IP addresses that the service has. In the case of data center proxies, a smaller pool means a greater risk of IPs being bulk-banned. Peer-to-peer services such as residential proxies are tied to real people's devices, which means that the number of addresses changes daily.

There are several things you should consider. You can find more advice in our article on choosing a reliable proxy service.

A proxy service provides uninterrupted access to a well-maintained proxy server with management tools and technical assistance. It can benefit your business in a number of ways and is often the best choice for running data collection, automation, and anonymization-related projects.

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