Common Mistakes Made By Proxy Users

The best way to hide your IP is by using a proxy, HTTP proxy or SOCKS5 proxy.

In this article we will explain a few things regarding proxies and proxy speed. A proxy server is basically a computer system that acts as an intermediate between two communication parties (the client – you and the server). During this process there is no direct communication between the client and the server. Since the proxy server is the one that sends requests for various resources, the proxy server will be serve all the requests. The web is crowded with information about proxies, but some of it is general and doesn’t really answer the basic questions of a proxy user. As a result, most people buy proxies - private proxies or static residential proxies and wonder why they don’t do all the things advertised by the proxy provider. In this article we try to explain some of the common mistakes regarding proxy servers in general and proxy speed.

Take a look at the following most common mistakes made by proxy users and improve your proxy usage skills!

1. The confusion between HTTPS proxies and SOCKS proxies

What is the difference between HTTP/HTTPS proxy and SOCKS5? 

A SOCKS proxy can establish connection at the TCP level and HTTP proxy interprets traffic at the HTTP level. In other words, SOCKS proxies can be used with all types of protocols while HTTP proxies can deal only with HTTP traffic. Technically speaking, SOCKS proxy servers establish a TCP-type connection to a remote server at the request of the client and then routes the traffic between the client and the server back and forward. HTTPS proxies aren’t very different but they can be used by clients who are behind a firewall that prevents them from making constant TCP connections to other servers located outside that particular firewall. Unlike SOCKS servers, HTTPS proxies are able to decipher and interpret the network traffic between the client and the downstream server, specifically the HTTP protocol. Therefore, even though HTTPS proxies can handle only HTTP traffic, they do it in a very smart manner. Actually, they can identify successive requests and cache all the replies in order to improve performance. Nowadays, most ISPs offer HTTPS proxies regardless of the browser configuration because all the traffic is simply routed through the proxy server on port 80.

2. Proxy speed  is always slower than your Internet Connection. Do not buy proxies to increase your internet speed,  all your requests will pass through a proxy server.

Buying a private proxy or static residential proxy to improve your internet speed isn’t a good choice. Proxies will never help you improve your  speed and they will actually slow it down a bit, since all your data will be transferred to the proxy server before reaching the server that you want to access.

3. Setting up your proxies with a random port

Most proxy providers give you a proxy list that consists of the proxies’ IPs and a port used for the connection to the HTTPS or SOCKS5 proxies. That port number has to do only with the connection between your computer and the proxy server, not with the connection to the website that you want to access. Therefore, don’t try to setup the proxies using a different port than the one assigned by your proxy provider. Very many proxy users who try proxies for the first time set them up using the port 80 and notice that the connection cannot be established. This doesn’t happen because port 80 is closed but because the connection to the proxies can be established only with a specific port.

4. Trying to hide your location while the browser language is in a language different than English

Nowadays websites have very good detection systems. Even though they can’t check every visitor, having an USA proxy while your browser language is Russian will raise some question marks. Apart from the browser language, you should also adjust your time settings. The computer of an American accessing a USA website would never show the European time. Never underestimate the websites that you’re trying to access.