Suppose you are a stakeholder in the data scraping industry. In that case, you should know the advantages of employing a residential proxy over a data center proxy to aid in info gathering. Residential proxies have links to real people and devices, making them more authentic and less likely to encounter restrictions from websites.
Unlike data center proxies, residential proxies are on the higher end in pricing. Today, we will explain why this is the case, why a high-quality residential IP address is worthwhile, and why you should avoid providers offering cheap proxies.
Why is It So Difficult to Get a Low-cost Residential Proxy?
The answer to this question lies in the very nature of residential proxies. They hold IP addresses assigned worldwide internet service providers to real customers. If you’re reading this from a laptop connected to your home Wi-Fi, you’re most likely using a residential IP address.
As a result, residential proxy IP addresses belong to actual persons. They are harder to obtain for this simple reason. For proxy providers to gather residential proxies that they may sell to you ethically, they must establish agreements with the holders of these addresses. These firms usually reward the IP owners for granting them access to their IPs. This makes obtaining residential proxies costly. However, with the right provider, you can create endless residential connections without hurting your pocket at the same time.
Datacenter IP addresses, on the other hand, are more common and less expensive since they don’t involve providers negotiating with real people selling their connections. They don’t tie to home addresses or ISPs. Data centers generate and administer these IP addresses, which explains how they’re less authentic.
Due to their inherent value, residential proxies are more expensive. They offer a considerably broader range of uses than datacenter proxies, are more secure, and can ensure greater success rates during operations such as web scraping.
Reasons to Avoid Using Free or Low-cost Residential Proxies
Buying a residential proxy is a complex and expensive process. However, that does not mean you will not come across free or cheap ones on the market. On that matter, we advise that you avoid such residential proxies for the following reasons:
Unethical Sourcing
Given how costly it is to legally source for residential proxy IP addresses, many providers obtain free residential proxies using unethical means.
Ironically, some free proxy services obtain residential IP addresses by secretly stealing their consumers’ IP addresses. The owners of these IPs are usually unaware that their addresses result as proxies. Owners may unknowingly give away their rights to an IP address by signing a lengthy terms and conditions document without reading it through. In other cases, unscrupulous actors use malware to access residential IP addresses.
While unethical sourcing is not confined to free service providers, it is more prevalent among them. It’s important to note that nothing is truly free in life and on the internet. You don’t want to be associated with morally prejudiced persons and organizations.
Security Threats
Some people and institutions supply free residential proxies to engage in cyber crimes. To access their free products, you will have to give them access to your personal information. Here, you’re giving them full rein to use your information as they please and, to some extent, even change it without your permission.
Slower Speeds
One disadvantage of residential proxies over datacenter proxies is that they are often slower. Most paid providers work to mitigate this problem to improve their consumers’ experiences. A free supplier is unlikely to go above and above to offer such enhancements. Worse, free services are frequently used by a large number of individuals at the same time. As a result, the activities of other users using the same residential proxy IP address may cause network speeds to deteriorate.
Potential Bans
Since free proxies are widely available, there is a good chance that someone who has used the address in the past has had it blacklisted from websites you wish to access. Alternatively, you may begin using the IP address successfully only for someone else to do something suspicious with it, causing it to face restrictions from a specific website.
If you intend to perform data scraping using free residential proxies, you might be in for some disappointment. The chances of bans are much higher, and they’ll perform at much slower speeds.
Conclusion
Obtaining residential IP addresses is challenging; finding an affordable solution is a hustle. However, residential proxies are a game changer in the data scraping field. If your business relies on regularly scraping massive amounts of data, residential proxies are a worthwhile investment that will help you both short and long term. The key to a successful operation is a trustworthy provider. To find one, check out review websites like TrustPilot and BestProxyFinder.
