Residential and datacenter proxies: Which one is better?
25 March 2020
Astro is a data gathering infrastructure which is there to help users achieve a higher level of anonymity while looking for important information. Its main goal is to ensure that users obtain information without violating laws or someone else’s interests. Like at any other trusted proxy website, at Astro anyone can buy the best residential, mobile and datacenter IPs or try them for free. We offer geo targeted proxies as well as static, rotating, individual, anonymous, etc.
Today, let’s compare residential and datacenter proxies, which are the best to buy.
Why use a proxy?
Every time you go online, browse, download/upload files, you leave fingerprints, which your ISP and visited websites see and by which they can identify and trace you. There are lots of things you may need to do, which they do not appreciate like, for example, visiting a site many times from different accounts. In this case you should not be surprised to find your account suspended or blocked one day.
Once you set up an IT connection, an IP address is assigned to your device (a PC, laptop, smartphone, tablet, etc.) Your ISP and websites that you visit see it every time you browse or do something online. If you spend a little while visiting a website from different accounts with the same IP address, the site will regard this as suspicious activity and block you.
To overcome these barriers, users have to look for ways to mask their IPs, for example, with the help of a proxy server. They buy residential, mobile or datacenter proxies from trusted websites to do so. A proxy acts as an intermediary server. Located between you and the target server, it lets data, which you exchange with the target server, pass through itself. Proxy servers (both datacenter and residential) are increasingly popular among users, who seek anonymity. They have something in common, yet there are some differences.
Residential proxies
Residential IPs are ones that ISPs assign to home owners once they connect to the Internet. The trick is that you can connect to such an IP and use it as a proxy server to conceal your real IP behind it. Once you have done so, the target website will see this residential IP, not your real one. This is how services like Astro work. They can arrange for you to connect to a different IP at a time. Now you can harvest information online via different IPs and be a trusted user on any website.
Datacenter proxies
Basically, datacenter proxies serve the same purpose as residential ones, which is hiding a real IP behind one provided by a datacenter. But unlike residential proxies, datacenter ones are not owned by ISPs. When you go online vial a datacenter proxy, your target site will see the datacenter’s IP, not your real one. Also, they will see some data about the datacenter’s owner (usually a company). Astro offers the best datacenter proxies to help you with a safe connection.
Who uses what?
As follows from the above, people buy residential and datacenter proxies to enhance anonymity on the Internet, yet in different ways and for different purposes. Say, when you buy residential IP, you trick websites into thinking that you are a different person.
For those who would like to just know more about certain things and not intent on any malicious acts, residential proxies appear to be a better option. Their striving for anonymity usually lies within a scope of non-threat activities, such as digging adequate prices for goods and services and thus avoiding discrimination. Just for you to know, many companies (hotels, booking offices, online stores, etc.) track potential buyers’ IPs, figure out their location and set discriminative prices for residents of some regions.
Also, residential proxies are favored by those who need to dig information for business purposes. If the target website spots multiple visits from different accounts with the same IP or browser parameters, they may deliberately direct the user to a page with misleading information or block access completely. They do so for fear of competition. From a legal standpoint, browsing like this does not constitute an offense. Masking a real IP behind one or several residential IPs tends to be effective.
Finally, residential IPs look to websites as regular users, so they buy the trick and do not raise flags. However, residential IPs are more expensive and less widely spread than datacenter IPs. It is a well-known fact that not all users are trustworthy, and many of them want to secretly access websites for malicious purposes like spamming, data stealth, etc. Most of these bad boys and girls rely on datacenter IPs. This has earned datacenter proxies a bit of notoriety, which makes the majority of websites want to scrutinize anyone trying to access them and showing signs that they are using a datacenter IP.
Differences between residential and datacenter proxies
The difference between residential and datacenter proxies lies in four factors:
- Who owns it (an ISP or a business),
- Who uses it (datacenter IPs have become notoriously attractive for hackers, and many websites double-check on users, who they have identified as datacenter IP users. Ironically, this reputation-based legitimacy seems to be a good reason to believe that a residential proxy is a more promising option),
- Why use it,
- What’s the price (even the best datacenter proxies are cheaper than residential because the former are more available and cheap).
Why use residential proxies from Astro?
As we have said, residential proxies have a better reputation, because hackers find them expensive and not easy to handle. This alone is quite a reason to buy a residential IP from a proxy website, because you are trusted and will not get flagged.
This does not mean that your use of a datacenter IP will automatically blacklist your name. It all depends on the quality and reputation of your proxy. If it has a clean record, your target website will not take any action against you. Not all datacenter IP users are hackers! However, nowadays it is advisable to use high quality fingerprint masking.
Astro is a rapidly growing provider of IP connections, both residential, datacenter and mobile. You buy our proxies and get all the advantages mentioned above, and we offer the following opportunities:
- Running several accounts, not just one, at the same time. We provide you with real residential IP addresses to handle a variety of operations. With geo targeted proxies you can perform cross-platform account management without any possibility of geographic discrimination. The function enables easy targeting of an audience in a specific country, region, city, etc. All IP addresses will work independently, so websites won’t see any reasons to suspect you of ill intentions.
- Market research. Residential IPs help users view adequate prices for goods and services. Not uncommonly, businesses track potential clients’ IPs and run discriminative pricing policies against some categories of buyers. We will help you evade this kind of discrimination and evaluate current market conjuncture fairly. After this, you can outline an appropriate pricing strategy and compete successfully (if you are running a business online).
- Copyright protection. An ability to properly mask an IP allows you to monitor websites, which you suspect of using your copyrighted content without your permission. Once you get the needed information, you can use protection tools to block or redirect intruders without their knowledge.
- Ad verification. Through an anonymous residential IP you can check ad links for consistency, ensure their proper placement and block those that have been placed for nefarious purposes.
- SEO. We can help you connect via individual IPs and collect reliable search engine optimization data in any location.
Let’s sum it up why buy residential IPs
Here is a brief sum-up on why a residential IP is the best option in many ways:
A datacenter proxy is run by a data center, which is owned by a business, not an ISP provider. A user who connects to this kind of proxy gets a new IP address, which appears on a target website. The website’s security system will see this IP, not the user’s real one. By this IP address, the website can tell some data on the datacenter and its owner, identify the type of proxy (datacenter proxies are popular among hackers) and take steps to protect themselves. The reputational risk is the biggest weak spot of all datacenter IPs.
A residential proxy is provided to a homeowner by an ISP. It masks a user’s real IP address in the same way as a datacenter proxy. A website visited via a residential proxy will see the homeowner’s IP address, not the user’s real one. Because homeowners are ordinary users (hackers do not use residential IPs), website owners are less suspicious about them.
As a trusted proxy website, Astro operates on a legal basis and guarantees stable access to whatever information you need. We provide quick access to residential proxies located in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Germany and France.
