What is an HTTPS proxy?

Every Internet Protocol is a set of communication principles, which tells devices how to exchange data through the WWW. It includes standards for addressing and routing data packets. Imagine people from different countries speaking different languages. Languages are like protocols on the Internet. But mind the fact that devices are polyglots and can speak different languages. The main rules of such communication are the same, regardless of whether you use a  trusted proxy website, or not.

How does data transfer through the web?

Even when you buy residential and mobile proxies, they connect to Internet pages according to generally accepted rules. Let's have a look at a connection between two devices. The first one is the client, a customer of Internet services. The second device is called “a server”, or service provider. It provides different data, such as text, pictures, video, scripts etc.

The first device (PC, Mac, smartphone, laptop) encodes data according to the specified rules and sends it to the IP address and the port of the second device. Then the server accepts a request, checks it using the protocol and sends a response. A sequence of “request - response” messages is being formed every second we spend on the Internet.

The proxy in this scheme is in the middle, between the client and the server. The proxy server site receives requests from a computer or smartphone, analyzes them, and sends them further: to the desired web page, game server, data cloud, etc. To minimize the probability of your personal data leakage, it is better to buy a proxy from a trusted proxy website, such as Astro.

What are the internet protocols?

HTTP operates the network protocols of the lower level. There are:

1. ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) is a supporting protocol. It serves not to exchange data, but to check the connection. ICMP finds out whether the message will reach the destination. 
2. TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) is a transport protocol transferring data. Before transmission it establishes a connection between two devices. The first is referred to as a client, while another is a server, the one who sends data. The tunnel helps to provide reliable delivery. If data is lost because of any error, TCP detects it and sends a packet of data once again.
3. IP (Internet Protocol) is a protocol guiding data packets from one host to another. It is widely used along with TCP.

HTTP is an accurate and reliable way to deliver a message due to TCP/IP technology.

Features of the HTTP protocol

HTTP stands for “HyperText Transfer Protocol”. Hypertext consists of hyperlinks connected to different webpages. By clicking on them, we navigate between resources on the Web. That's how the internet works.

HTTP is the most popular protocol on the Internet. It is used by browsers and some other programs (such as Google Maps). You are reading this article via HTTP also, no matter if you use best datacenter proxies, or not. Your browser as a client has sent a request to access the Astro.com blog. And our site has sent a response back. 

How does HTTP work?

Each request sent through HTTP includes a header and a payload. A header contains source and destination IP addresses and other metadata necessary for delivering. A payload is the data itself. A lot of information in the header helps to identify the sender. To hide it, you may buy residential and mobile proxies, or buy a residential IP.

Types of HTTP proxies

Each trusted proxy website offers elite proxies. They are able to:

• clear the HTTP header,
• hide your real IP address,
• replace it with another real device’s IP.

As a result, the destination host can’t detect where the request came from. And can’t say whether the proxy was used. This is the highest level of anonymity. The other two types of HTTP proxies are transparent and anonymous. 

A transparent proxy transmits the real IP of the client computer, and reports the presence of a proxy. An anonymous proxy replaces your IP with its own. But the fact of a proxy usage is still obvious for designated server, so it could ban your device. Even best datacenter proxies could be flagged this way. So for better security we advise you to buy residential and mobile proxies. They are more expensive, but more safe.

What is special about HTTPS?

The main issue of the HTTP protocol is its openness. The tunnel that two devices establish for data transfer is not secure. The content of a payload could be intercepted and read by a hacker or fraudster.

HTTPS is an extension that solves this problem. It encrypts the data using SSL certificates before sending it. A destination host needs a special key to read it. This key is only known to client and server hosts, and changes with every new request. Earlier HTTPS was used only for online payments. Now it’s a common practice for most web pages. 

Another advantage of HTTPS is its support for POP3, SMTP, and IMAP mail protocols. This makes it easier to securely receive and send emails through the best datacenter or other proxies.

What can HTTP do?

An HTTP proxy by a trusted proxy website is used for: 

• Speeding ​​up websites. The proxy saves page elements (text, images, hyperlinks etc.) in the cache. Next time the proxy do not download it again, so Internet pages open faster,
• Avoiding network congestion. TCP has different technologies to control the flow of requests and data transferred (CWND and others). It makes a connection more stable and less vulnerable to hackers attacks,
• Getting access to web pages from different locations. Our geo-targeted proxies provide IP addresses from dozens of countries. It helps to check the advertisement campaign progress, or get access to restricted sites and services,
• Scraping web data. HTTP is the most popular web protocol. It raises the effectiveness of reading and decoding the big amounts of information obtained by scrapers, parsers or other bots. Combined with residential and mobile proxies bought, such programs would provide you with reliable useful data ready to work with.

What are the main HTTP proxy benefits?

TCP is a connection-oriented protocol, so is HTTP. That’s why HTTP proxy has a high level of reliability, and transfers data accurately, with no losses. It is compatible with a wide range of parsing software, because it appeals directly to the HTTP structure of web pages. 

It is also useful to work in social networks over HTTP proxies. Also, most of antidetect browsers are compatible with HTTP and SOCKS, the HTTP is used more often. It is because of a realistic fingerprint, which looks like an ordinary user to Facebook, Google and Amazon. Especially when software is combined with high-trusted geo targeted proxies.

So, HTTP proxy is the best option, if you don't intend to send special DNS queries, or perform traffic transmission via UDP or FTP. But we also recommend you to run a proxy trial test if possible. It would help you to evaluate the speed and compatibility of your software with the protocol.

Why use HTTP proxies from Astro?

When you buy residential, datacenter and mobile proxies at our site, you always get dynamic proxies for a reasonable price. Change IP address at any moment, and in any way needed (with every new connection established, at time interval, or on demand) — and reduce chances to get banned or be flagged.

The main thing about our service is that all our proxies are both HTTPS- and SOCKS-based! 

As shown in the picture above, there are two ports opened for a one node, both HTTPS (№ 10635) and SOCKS (№ 10636). You need only one click (or tap) to copy all the attributes of your proxy to the clipboard. 

So use it with pleasure and stay with us!