What Are Proxies? Ultimate Beginner’s Guide

What are proxies, and why should you use one? Aren’t they only for hackers or tech experts?

Wrong! From regular people to businesses, the use of proxies is quite common. If you’ve been hearing about proxies but still don’t get what they do, this guide is for you.

You’ll learn exactly:

• what proxies are
• how they work
• why people use them
• what are the types of proxies for different uses
• how to set up a proxy.

What Are Proxies & How They Work

To understand what are proxies and how do proxies work, you should first know how normal browsing works.

When you browse normally, your browser interacts directly with the websites you visit, and those sites see your real IP address.

But proxy changes that. When you use a proxy, your browser doesn’t directly interact with websites. Instead, a proxy server steps between your browser and the website as an intermediary.

When you attempt to access a website, the request goes to the proxy server, which forwards it to the website. And when the website sends back a response, the proxy server catches it and sends it back to you.

In this type of connection, the website only sees the proxy’s IP address, not yours. And that’s how your identity stays hidden in the background, and you manage to access even the banned websites.

This hiding of your real IP address with a proxy’s IP address is called IP address masking.

Proxies vs VPNs: How They Differ

Now, don’t confuse proxies with VPNs. People do that a lot since both hide your IP address.

But there’s a difference in how they do it and the coverage they provide.

VPNs encrypt all your internet traffic and work across your entire device. But proxies usually work at the application level (like just your browser) and don’t always encrypt your data. Most proxies don’t encrypt traffic.

But you can achieve system-level coverage with proxies, too, by configuring them on a system level.

Who Uses Proxies and What For

Now you might ask, why use a proxy server for browsing in the first place?

There are plenty of reasons.

Online Privacy

All websites you visit track and log your activity to sell it to marketers. Privacy-conscious people don’t like this, and proxies allow them to stop it. Well, not really stop, but by using a proxy, you hide your original identity with a fake identity, and websites end up logging that.

Accessing Blocked or Geo-Restricted Content

Another group of people who use proxies need to access content that’s blocked in their country (e.g., TV shows, sports, etc) or by their ISP only. Some people of this group also turn to proxies to bypass IP bans they might be facing from these websites.

Anonymous Market Research & Web Scraping

Then there are individuals and businesses who use proxies to anonymously gather market data from websites without detection. This group is called data scrapers or web scrapers, and proxies help them bypass data scraping measures used by websites.

Managing Multiple Social Media Profiles Safely

Some freelancers and small businesses have to manage multiple social media accounts as part of their work. But those social media platforms allow a limited number of profiles on a device. So this group uses proxies from different locations, so it doesn’t appear that the accounts are being run from the same device.

Types of Proxies by IP Source

Now proxies come in different types. One way to classify them is by the source, i.e., where the proxy’s IP address is coming from, in which case the following are the types:

• Residential proxies: These proxies use IP addresses from real home internet connections. The original owners of those IPs or the ISP of those IPs have allowed proxy providers to use those IPs. So when you use residential proxies, you’re browsing from the original IP owner’s location.
• Datacenter proxies: Unlike residential proxies that come from homeowners, datacenter proxies belong to corporations like offices. That’s why they’re fast and cheap, but at the same time, easy to detect because of their history of use (or abuse) for work purposes.
• Mobile proxies: As the name suggests, mobile proxies come from mobile devices. They route your traffic through cellular networks (4G/5G).
• Static/ISP proxies: These proxies use IPs that are registered under real ISPs, like residential proxies, but hosted in data centers. So you’re getting the best of both worlds, i.e., speed and legitimacy.

Types of Proxies by Anonymity

Another way to classify proxies is based on the level of anonymity they provide.

There are three types of proxies when you’re going by their anonymity.

• Transparent proxies: When websites can detect you’re using a proxy, you’re likely using transparent proxies. These don’t hide anything, which is why offices and schools use them for content filtering only.

• Anonymous proxies: Anonymous proxies hide your IP address so your identity stays protected. But websites will still be able to tell you’re using a proxy. In other words, there’s partial anonymity.

• Elite proxies: Elite proxies provide high anonymity. When you use them, you look like any other regular visitor to websites. They won’t be able to detect your real IP address or the fact that you’re using a proxy.

Checklist: What Proxy Do I Need

After learning what are proxies and their different types, you might be wondering which is the right one for you.

Here’s how to figure that out:

• What’s your specific task? Follow a rule of thumb to answer this question:
  • Go for mobile proxies if you want to set up new accounts on apps like TikTok or LinkedIn because they trust mobile IPs more.
  • Use a datacenter proxy if fast speed is a priority and legitimacy isn’t.
  • Choose residential proxies for tasks like web scraping because they help you appear like a regular user.

• What’s your budget? Residential proxies are expensive but have better security. Meanwhile datacenter proxies are the cheapest and fastest but don’t guarantee security.

• How fast should your proxy perform? If speed is non-negotiable for you, a datacenter proxy is your best bet. They’re especially good for quick tasks or streaming content.

• How anonymous do you need to be? As we mentioned, proxies provide different levels of anonymity. Elite proxies provide the highest anonymity. Anonymous proxies provide moderate anonymity. Transparent proxies don’t hide much at all.

• Which proxy protocol fits your needs? HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS are three main proxy protocols. Out of these, HTTP can handle basic browsing. HTTPS is good for secure connections. Socks proxy works for any type of traffic, including gaming or torrenting.

Checklist: Choosing a Decent Proxy Provider

With so many proxy providers out there, it becomes hard to decide which one to go for.

So, how to choose the right proxy provider?

Always evaluate the following five factors when making that decision:

• Pricing: Shortlist providers and compare their paid plans and the value for money you’re getting. Go for the one that’s providing more for less or better quality IPs.
• Company reputation: User reviews are the best way to screen proxy providers. So look up reviews and check what people complain about the most and what they like the most. Make sure the reviews are real, not by bots or sponsored.
• Geographic coverage: Make sure the proxy provider has servers in the countries you need. Most proxy providers list the countries their proxy pool covers.
• Types of proxies available: Does the provider offer all the types of proxies you might need? It’s better to go for the provider with all options. Unless you are certain about the type of proxy you’ll need in the future.
• Real human support: When something breaks at 2 AM, you want actual people who can help. You can figure this out by directly asking the provider as a pre-sales question. Or you can read user reviews to get an idea.

5 Biggest Use Cases for Proxies

Most people use proxies for one of these common reasons:

• Web scraping: Running web scraping scripts on websites while using one IP address gets you banned for bot activity. A safer way to scrape websites is by rotating through different proxies so your scraping looks like regular traffic from different users.

• Bypassing geographic restrictions: Streaming services like Netflix and websites that only operate in select countries limit their content based on your location. You can bypass their restrictions by connecting through a proxy in a country where your desired content is available.

• Privacy protection: You can also use proxies to mask your real IP address and prevent websites and advertisers from following you around the internet or tie your browsing history to your identity. You’ll be surprised knowing how detailed profiles advertisers and websites can build about you by tracking your browsing behavior.

• Managing multiple accounts: Social media platforms will flag or ban you for running several accounts from the same IP. Assigning each account its own proxy makes them look like completely separate users to the platform.

• Market research across regions: If you’re a business, you’ll need to see how your website and ads appear in different countries. Proxies provide an easy way to do that without using special services.

How to Set Up a Proxy

Configuring a proxy is easier than you might think, but it depends on your browser and OS.

If you use Chrome, it will send you to your computer’s proxy settings. The same goes for Safari and other Chromium-based browsers like Brave, Microsoft Edge, Opera, or Vivaldi. They don’t have built-in proxy settings either and will direct you to your OS settings.

The process differs for Windows and MacOS users, but it’s basically entering proxy credentials in the Network settings area. Find all the steps for any browser and OS in our article – How to connect a proxy to your browser.

Windows proxy setup area

Bonus: Convenient One-Stop Proxy Browser

By now, you’ve learned what are proxies, how they work, their types, how to pick the right type for your needs, and how to configure a proxy.

But one thing you didn’t learn here is that regular browsers only let you use one proxy at a time. And this means they completely fail at multiple account management.

That’s where the Gologin browser comes to the rescue. It lets you create separate browser profiles with different proxies for each one. Every profile is completely isolated.

You can have one profile using a residential proxy for LinkedIn, another with a mobile proxy for TikTok, and a third with a datacenter proxy for quick research tasks. The possibilities are endless because you can create unlimited browser profiles.

Gologin comes with built-in connections to top proxy providers, and you even get 5 free proxies when you sign up. You can even test your proxy connection before launching a profile.

Try Gologin’s forever-free plan today, or test out the paid features with a 7-day free trial.

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