Should You Choose a Paid Proxy Service?

Why go for paid proxy services when there are many free proxies available? We all know that free stuff is awesome. You can take advantage of what is out there without even using your wallet. But the reality is that proxies need resources for maintenance, monitoring, and scaling – so how do they make a sustainable business?

In this article, we’ll cover the advantages of paid proxies, features, and complexities to help you decide whether you should choose paid proxy services or not.

What is a Proxy Service?

The proxy service is an intermediary role played by an application or a dedicated computer system between an endpoint tool and a client requesting the service. It may exist on a separate server or the same machine. With proxy services, a client can connect to a different server and offers easy access to services like web pages or files. It defines the communication interface, transport type and settings, security settings, and the associated message processing logic.

The main objective of proxy services is to filter requests to make sure no unsafe traffic enters with the application of strict routing rules and to enhance the system performance. Basically, proxy services are of two types – reverse proxy and forward proxy. A reverse proxy is used to protect and secure the server, while the forward proxy is for retrieving different sources. Other types of proxies are highly anonymous proxies, anonymous proxies, transparent proxies, and DNS proxies.

Key Features and Complexities of a Paid Proxy Service

Some of the key features of paid proxy services are:

• Customer Service – Some of the providers provide a specialized team of support operators available all the time and ready to handle your inquiries. In addition, some providers include FAQ and knowledge base.
• Legit IP Addressing Ownership – Proxy server vendors with IP leasing services that own the IPs will offer more clarity on the source of the IPs. They own the IPs where proxies are routing traffic from.
• Different Kinds of Proxies – SOCKS and HTTP proxies are the most common proxies offered. HTTP is not recommended for web browsing until it is used for web scraping.

• Diversity at an Affordable Rate – Ipv6 proxies are usually cheaper and faster. They have a wider IP addressing scope than Ipv4.

A few complexities of paid proxies include their cost, especially the private and dedicated ones. Also, paid servers can break down, which is not appropriate as you pay them for a fail-safe connection. Another one is its lack of guarantee of full anonymity.

Free vs. Paid Proxy Service – What’s the Difference?

In this section, we’ll go into detail about the free vs. paid proxy services:

Why Choose a Paid Proxy Service?

Free proxies are also available as a great option as they offer all the benefits for free. They can offer some level of anonymity and can be used by anyone. However, free proxies offer zero to little reliable protection. There is also a poor server configuration or malware. A complete lack of encryption is another problem. On the other hand, paid proxies offer a range of advantages and provide custom parameters like access rate, region, and response time, to name a few. Paid proxies are highly reliable and secure. Many of them feature encryption to keep your online identity hidden. As soon as your IP address is masked, no visited website can track back your original location.

What’s more, these paid proxies are available in a variety of ways. There are rotating or static proxies, private or shared centers, SOCKS or HTTPS proxies, and more. As the service providers stay around for a long time, there is no need to worry about the proxy disappearing. Paid proxies are also good for geo-targeting, which makes them ideal for many automation tasks, such as web scraping, unblocking websites, and social media automation, among others. As these proxies are offered by famous service vendors, you get much support.

In addition, you can rely on paid proxies for better reliability and speed since they offer stronger infrastructure and less user traffic. Paid proxy service providers, at a reasonable rate, give a sufficient level of protection. They use improved security measures to protect clients’ devices from threats.

Final Words

Paid proxies are far better than free proxies. They can be used to execute basic tasks, have many limitations, and are not completely safe. Paid proxies, on the other hand, are quite secure with better uptime. Also, they can be used to target any particular region of choice. So, paid proxies come with a lot of features you can take advantage of. All you need is to purchase your paid proxies from a trustworthy proxy provider. For more information on all things proxy, check out Oxylabs.