Free proxies do not enjoy much patronage from the experts and even the press? But why is it so? Are they all saying the truth or cooked-up lies to discourage people from using them.
Free Proxies are Readily Available and are Open Proxies
Free proxies are much more available than their paid counterparts, and the process of setting them up is the easiest in the proxy market. For you to make use of a free proxy, all you have to do is enter the “free proxy list” query into Google, and you will see a good number of sites that provide them for you free of charge – no need to look around for hours.
While they are freely available and in abundant supply, it does not mean the ones available are all active or of high quality. In fact, free proxies are associated with a lot of problems that only a few out of the free proxies can be said to be fit and devoid of those problems.
Another thing related to the fact that they are free and readily available is that they are open proxies, and you will have to share them with many people, and this has undesirable effects. Also important is the fact that they do not require any form of authentication in other to use them – all you need is the proxy address and port – no need for authentication.
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Products of Illegal Hacking
Have you ever thought about how someone will set up a proxy server and offer you access to their system resource and bandwidth free of charge after spending a huge amount of money putting the proxies into place? The reality you need to know is that setting up proxies cost money no matter how you want to see it, and as far as the market is concerned – we have not had a not-for-profit proxy provider that’s just doing that for humanities. So how are these proxies provided for free? The answer is simple; they do not own them – the proxies are a product of illegal hacking.
It might interest you to know that most free proxies are set up by illegally gaining control of computers of unsuspecting Internet users using malware, and then when taken over, the computer or server taken over is used as a proxy server for routing free proxy users web traffic. Free proxy providers do this for a good number of reasons but just know that in the end – they do it to make money or carry out some malicious acts that would later be discussed in this article.
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Uptime is Unpredictable
When you want to use a proxy server, one feature you need to focus on is uptime. How many hours in 24 hours can you use the IP address – is it always online and active, or it goes offline after a few minutes and never returns? If uptime is bad, then you should waste your time as you will become frustrated. For high-quality paid proxies, they have an uptime of over 99% – that’s, they are almost always online. This is not the case for free proxies – in most cases, uptime is poor, and you can see most have a value less than 20% – free proxy list websites provide information about uptime.
Not only is the uptime poor it is also not predictable. You can be using a free proxy, and then it will go offline, and you have been cut off, and then you will have to go and look for another one that is active. This is a normal activity for free proxy users, and this is not without reason – free proxy providers do not have control over the IP addresses and computers they use as proxies – remember at the beginning of the article, we stated that they are a product of illegal hacking.
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They are Easily Detected by Websites
In most locations of the world, the legality of proxies is not an issue as they are legal provided you are not using them for illegal acts. However, you still have a hurdle to pass through when you set out to put them make into use – websites will block you. Websites do not like being accessed using a proxy server because they believe proxy users are trying to game the system and carrying out tasks against the rule of their platforms. For this reason, web services set up anti-spam systems that detect and block proxies, and as such, you will need a high-quality proxy to scale through.
For free proxies, they are the easiest to be discovered because they are of low quality, and their providers do not put in much development into making them stealthy – and also because they have already been abused and blocked on other platforms by other users of the proxies since they are shared and open proxies.
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Many Free Proxies are Residential Proxies
There is one surprising thing you need to know about free proxies – most of them are residential proxies. Ironically, residential proxies are known to be expensive when compared to datacenter proxies. So how is it easy for them to provide the expensive ones? This still brings us to the fact that they are set up on compromised and malware-infected computers, mobile phones, and other Internet-enabled devices in residential and office areas. If you want to confirm what we are saying, try visiting the top free proxy list websites and check the type of IP of the proxies listed – you will discover a good number of them are residential proxies. the datacenter free proxies are gotten when a misconfigured server is infected.
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Free Proxies are Slow
Do you get frustrated with a poor Internet connection? If you answer yes to this question, then free proxies are not what you should go close to. This is because getting a free proxy service that is fast is a hell of work and takes a bit of luck that comes once in a while, except you are well experienced with your search. The slow speed of free proxies has reasons that can be associated with them. one of the major reason why they are slow is that they are shared proxies, and a good number of users are using them at the same time – one of the secrets, why paid proxies are fast, is that they are usually dedicated and private.
Another reason why free proxies are slow is that they are set up on low-quality infrastructure such as a home PC that’s not built for use as a proxy system. Also important is the fact that the developers behind them are only out to make quick money and not develop a system that will stand the test of time and, as such, won’t invest the time required to make them better.
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No Human Face Behind Them
Many of the paid proxy services in the market are not anonymous – they have a team behind them and have an office. Some are even registered companies that conform to regulations. You might as well move away from them if you are thinking of doing something fraudulent as they will leak you out to the government. In the case of free proxies, you will hardly a proxy service that provides a free proxy service. Most of the free proxies you see online are provided by free proxy list websites, and these websites provide a disclaimer that they do not own the proxies but scrap them from the Internet.
While you might see this as nothing, I will advise you to see it as a big deal and the reason you should avoid free proxies. This means that if anything happens, there is no one you can hold accountable and no one to help you. Considering the fact that the Internet is becoming a beehive of cybercriminals, hackers, and scammers, you should worry.
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Free Proxy Providers Still Make Money
Have you ever thought that because they are free proxies, the team behind them does not make money? Well, even though you are not paying them, they are actually making money – and you are most likely the product they use in making their own money.
That will come as a surprise if you are inexperienced, but that is the truth. How then do they make money? Free proxies can inject ads into web pages they feed you with, compromise your system, track you and sell your data to advertising companies. There are many ways they can use depending on the skillset and money-making model they are conversant with.
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Free Proxies Are Used by Bad Actors and Script Kiddies
Are you probably wondering, If free proxies are slow, do not have good uptime, are not reliable and secure, who then is using them? Well, it turns out that there are a good number of Internet users that make use of them. But these users are not regular users – they are actually experienced and know how to use them to their advantage. Hackers and other bad actors like spammers use them a lot. They are used for carrying out coordinated DDoS attacks meant to overwhelm and shut down a network. Some hobby-level script developers also used them.
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Free Proxies are not Worth it
After all, is said and done, you need to know that free proxies are not worth it. I have used them in the past, and some Internet users, both experienced and non-experienced, have also used them – and are still using them.
However, the truth of the matter is that if you want to stay secure on the Internet, avoid getting frustrated, or even ruining your project; then you have to avoid free proxies as they do not offer you what you expect. Forget the marketing gimmick – the situation is not the same with their real performance.
That’s all Essential Facts You Must Know About Free Proxies
In the fact sheet above, you will learn all you need to know about free proxies in an interesting and enjoyable manner.
