(Newswire.net — January 7, 2020) — A lot of us don’t particularly know how the Internet works, and that’s entirely fine. However, things begin to get a tad dangerous when we begin to consider the fact that we all face a litany of threats in today’s Internet-driven world.
From identity theft to data breaches, there’s never a shortage of threats that we’ve become vulnerable to. You could click on a cute picture or get Emailed something and suddenly get your privacy compromised.
However, what happens when you’re on the Internet? You might be using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) or a proxy server of somewhere you know, or you could use a proxy site and improve your security and anonymity even more.
Essentially, a proxy site functions as a gateway between you and the Net. It separates end Internet users with the websites they browse, thus ensuring that they are able to enjoy a litany of benefits; privacy, security not among the least, of course.
However, a lot of these proxy sites tend to provide varying levels of efficiency. Here’s how you can pick the right one:
If you’re here, then you most likely already checked the various types of proxies available, and have noticed that every proxy site is claiming to be the top proxy site. It’s easy to claim to be the best at something, especially in a world where promotion is everything. Sadly, it makes it a bit difficult to select a vendor.
Thus, let’s see the types of IP addresses and see how they could relate to help you choose the right type of proxy:
Decanter IPs
This is perhaps the most conventional type of IP address. Essentially, they are the IPs of servers that can be found in data centers, and since they’re pretty much everywhere, they incur the lowest cost.
Basically, you can build a standard infrastructure by properly building a strong proxy management system with a data center IP
Residential IPs
Just as you can guess from its name, residential proxies come from the IPs gotten on the residential network of a user. These types of IPs can’t be gotten easily, and this means that they cost quite a lot.
A lot of the time, you might be able to get the same results with a residential IP that you can get with the data center IP. So, the only time when you should use a residential IP is when it’s entirely necessary. You should also note that using the personal residential IP from someone else might not be great if the person finds you out.
Mobile IPs
Mobile IPs are a type of classified IP for mobile devices. They are also rather costly because getting your hands on them is a bit difficult as well. So, it is always recommended that you choose these proxy services when you need to get data for the mobile web.
sadly, there is also a legal implication here, and the person with the phone might not know that you’re using their phone to crawl the Internet.
All in all, if you run a business, then it is recommended that you select a data center IP. They provide you with the same quality of data, and you don’t necessarily need to spend so much money.
Then, there’s also an important part of proxy sites that you need to take a look at; anonymity:
Transparent, anonymous and elite proxies
Usually, you get three different proxy headers:
REMOTE_ADDR
HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR
HTTP_VIA
In this case, REMOTE_ADDR is the header that helps with IP address transmission.
Transparent proxy: This proxy type provides visibility to the real IP address in the HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR header. So, apart from being able to discover your
REMOTE_ADDR, a site could also check for several proxy headers that will find your IP address.
Anonymous proxy: You have your IP address left untransmitted in the HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR header with this form of proxy. All that is sent is the proxy’s IP or avoid the message.
In this case, the HTTP_VIA header could also show that you’re making requests with a proxy service.
Elite proxy: With an elite proxy, you only get the REMOTE_ADDR header sent. The others are left empty, so you look like a regular web user who isn’t using any proxy.
Now that you have a proper picture of the various forms of proxies and their usage, you should be able to make an informed decision.
Proxy pool
Now that you understand the types of proxies and how they could affect your anonymity, you should also know hoe proxy pools can help you with web scraping
Just as it is with making use of an IP address of your system, you might be restricted when you use just one proxy. For instance, you could be restricted from accessing various geo-specific data, and you might not get the type of data crawling efficiency and data volume that you need.
So, it is important that you get access to a proxy pool, which will be able to help you make several requests. That being said, there are a few factors that will also influence the size of a proxy pool:
- The number of connections in an hour
- If a website uses standard anti-crawling systems, then it will need to be crawled with more proxies
- The proxy’s origin category (data center, mobile, or residential). You should also note that the quality of the data center proxy doesn’t match up to that of the mobile or residential proxies, since their technical build makes them more robust.
- You should also consider the IP’s anonymity- anonymous, transparent, and elite
- The technical strength of the proxy management framework
All of these will go a long way in determining the strength of your proxy connection and its management system efficiency. A low-quality proxy configuration will lead you to various website blocks, and the data quality will be poor as well. So, choose carefully.