Proxy Network: Myths & Truths

Just like every other service provision, proxy networks have some facts that users need to be aware of. Unfortunately, these facts are not as popular as they should.

Knowing about them will help you understand the nature of the market, avoid paying more than you should, and sticking to a proxy network that works.

No Proxy Network is Foolproof

All proxy networks are common in one aspect – claiming to be foolproof. Almost all of them have got words such as undetectable, highly anonymous, fast, reliable, and affordable on their website. This means that if your source of finding out about a proxy service is from the information on their website, you will never find out the truth until you make payment.

However, if you go about reading honest proxy reviews by real users and not proxy reviewers, you will get to know that no proxy service in the market is 100 percent what you want from a proxy service.

Many of these proxy services are living on hypes. Some go as far as paying proxy reviewers to give them a positive review, while others even have a proxy review blog that masquerades as an honest proxy review blog. This means that except you come in contact with a real user, all of what you will read about them might just be made up to get you to buy.

There are More Proxy Networks than you Can Ever Know

One interesting fact about proxy networks is that there are numerous of them that if you are thinking of creating your own that I will beg you not to, except you have something unique to offer. The barrier of entry into the proxy service market is low, and as such, everyone can set up a proxy service. Interestingly, many of them never make it to the spotlight.

While having many providers is not a problem, you will find it difficult to choose the best for your use case. I was marveled at the number of high-quality proxy networks on BlackHatWorld and other Internet marketing online forums.

The interesting part is that some of these services have higher quality than the proxy services considered the top providers. It is a game of who has a better marketing strategy and pocket to buy positive reviews – and not about service delivery as some top providers are shitty providers.

Same IP Address Can Be Used by Different Proxy Network

IP addresses should be unique, shouldn’t they?

Well, proxy networks do not get that. It might interest you to know that the reason ISPs have unique IP addresses assigned to them is that there is a central body that oversees them, and the space is regulated.

In the case of proxy networks that get their IP addresses, usually through Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks, there is a high chance that the IPs in their pool are not unique to them.

This is because one device can be in more than 3 or even more P2P networks. And because there is no central authority, there is no way a provider will know that it is sharing the same IP with another provider. This means that a proxy network that depends on P2P networks cannot provide you dedicated IPs as the IP might be in use by another proxy service.

Free Proxy Networks are Not Worth It

There are some proxy service providers that will offer you free proxies to use. With all confidence, I am telling you that you should run away from any free proxy service provider.

At their best, all they would offer you are low-quality proxies that could ruin your project – and at their worse, their free proxies can be likened to the devil’s gift. Setting up and maintaining a proxy service costs money, and as such, nobody would set up a proxy server for you to use without requesting money.

If a provider does that, then know that you have been turned into the product. They could turn around and use your own computer as a tool, ingest ads into your pages, or steal your browsing and personal data and sell them.

Datacenter Proxies are the Fastest

Are you looking for high-speed proxy servers to use for either gaming or watching movies?

Then you will have to settle for datacenter proxies or the hybrid ISP proxies that use the datacenter proxy model. Residential and mobile proxies are not fast as they would need to reroute traffic via another device.

While that makes them undetectable and quite effective for websites with effective anti-spam systems, it makes them slow. Datacenter proxies on the are very fast, especially if you get your hand on high-quality ones, but they are easily flagged as the IPs they utilize are hosting service IP addresses and are easily detected.

Proxy Networks Can Track You

Proxies are taunted as a tool that will provide you anonymity and privacy while you carry out your tasks online. What proxy networks wouldn’t obviously tell you is that you are only anonymous to your ISP and the web services you access via their service.

Because your web requests pass through them in their purest form, they do not only know your real IP address, but what you do online – heck, they can even read all of your requests, and that’s why it is not advisable to use proxies for your banking details. While some of them claim to adhere to a strict no-log policy, you cannot be so sure as their system is no open for all to see.

Also important is that proxy services in certain regions keep logs and would present them to government agencies in and outside of the region. This means that you are given a false sense of anonymity, and when the time comes, the same proxy network that you pay to keep your anonymous is the same proxy network that will be mandated to expose.

Proxy Networks Engage in Malicious Activities

Some IT experts believe that except you are trying to carry out a malicious act or game the system, you wouldn’t need to make use of a proxy server. Well, it might also interest you to know that proxy services themselves engage in malicious acts.

According to a paper published by IEEE, proxies are dark service and evil – if you read this, you will discover how services that claim to be completely legal in their approach are only telling the half-truth. In the same vein, there are several articles published on how proxy services infect computers with malware, so they could use the infected computers as proxies for forwarding traffic.

IM Marketing Forums are the Best Source of Honest Review

Proxy customers depend largely on reviews in other to make informed decisions. Unfortunately, honest reviews are hard to come by as reviews are now bought. You can see 10 out of 10 proxy review blogs give a provider a positive review only for you to buy proxies from them, and the proxies did not work as claimed. The rate at which reviews are bought and no longer done independently by review blogs without interference is alarming.

For this reason, Internet Marketing blogs are the best source of review. BlackHatWorld is arguably the largest IM forum on the Internet. There, you can find independent reviews of users who have used a proxy network.

It might interest you to know that the forum is even the first place some providers start selling. If you cannot get reviews of a proxy service on BlackHatWorld, then it is not worth it to take the risk of buying from such a provider.

Pricing is Not Everything – But it Matters

Make no mistake about it; when it comes to the quality of a proxy server, the amount you pay matters. Some proxy services will advertise themselves as cheap proxies, and the offers they would provide you would be irresistible. Do not always fall for cheaper pricing as that could also mean lower quality service delivery.

As a rule of thumb, just know that the cheaper a provider is able to make its proxies, the more it would compromise on quality. However, that does not mean you should go ahead and buy overpriced proxies from providers with big marketers on their list. Instead, go for proxies with competitive pricing and tons of positive reviews from BlackHatWorld.

Free Trials and Money-Back Guarantee are Lifesavers

Forget all the marketing and hype behind a proxy network – at the end of it, all it is your money they want – and as such, you will have to protect it at all cost. For this reason, I will advise you do not to fall for recommendations blindly.

If a provider does not offer a free trial and does not have a customer-friendly refund policy, then you need to avoid such a proxy service – you are simply not protected and could lose your money. Any provider that is consumer-focused should have a free trial plan. From the free trial, a user can try out their service and see if they work for his use case without making a monetary commitment.

Some providers do not provide such because some users abuse free trials. However, they do have a friendly refund policy in place. If a provider does not have any of these, then you should take the risk – go for another provider.

That’s all Myths & Truths about Proxy Network

That’s all the interesting facts about Proxy Network, The above are some of the interesting facts presented in an easy to understand terms.