Why residential proxies are better than datacenter proxies

On Astro, a trusted website, anyone can buy the best residential, mobile and datacenter proxies or try a pool of IPs for free. We offer geo targeted proxies as well as rotating, individual, anonymous, transparent and other types. As a reliable provider, we guarantee our users top-notch services and expert support!

What is a proxy server?

Proxy servers are intended for setting up high-anonymity Internet connections. Initially, they were a tool to counter hacker attacks and surveillance. A proxy server is a device (a PC, laptop, etc.), which is an intermediary between a user’s device or local network and the global network (the Internet). High anonymity is achieved through masking of a user’s main IP-address behind the proxy’s.

When you connect to a server directly, then whatever website or online resource you visit, it will track your IP address. Your direct IP address is that your ISP has assigned to you. Once you connect to a proxy server, that IP address is no longer visible to the website. They will see the proxy’s IP instead.

Why use proxies?

People buy residential and mobile proxies to change their visible IP-address when browsing. This is not to justify any nefarious or felonious activities: all you want to do is avoid barriers, not conceal your identity. Users turn to trusted proxy websites to buy the best datacenter, residential or mobile IPs for several purposes:

• To avoid restrictions and bans: some ISPs may geo-block access to websites. To overcome such barriers, you can buy geo targeted proxies, connect to an IP located in the website’s home country. Likewise, if a website is blocked in your country, you can connect to a proxy located outside your country, from where the website is accessible, and view it. It is the same with searching and downloading things on the Internet. 
• To scrape data: to run a website or a business successfully, one should have sources of information close at hand. If you hang around an online resource for a long time, its owner might not be okay with that, so they will block you by IP. You can change your IP address and take suspicion off yourself (at least for a little while) and continue to scrape data.
• To verify ads on websites: you can use geo targeted proxies to check the accessibility of your website and ads in other regions of the world. You can access your own page from a foreign proxy and see whether or not it is displayed properly and ensure that the content looks alright.

Why choose residential proxies?

There are various types of proxies that differ in structure and reliability. The most common are datacenter and residential proxies. Let’s see which is best and which type to buy.

Datacenter proxies are popular because they use advanced software and technical solutions. They boast speedy and stable connections. Mostly, they are used for vendor purposes: ISPs rent servers and IP pools that are owned by data centers and then sold to users.

You can purchase a group of IPs and change them from time to time, making it even harder for websites to track you. The best datacenter proxies are cheaper to buy than residential or mobile. They are affordable yet not without a weak spot.

Their effectiveness attracts crowds of users, and not all of them are decent boys and girls. Cybercriminals and bot networks choose them more often than not, so they have pretty much fallen into distrust. Many whales, such as Craigslist, Facebook, Google, Instagram, etc. have blacklisted large pools of datacenter IPs. Therefore, if you have connected to a datacenter proxy and are now browsing actively, admins will definitely check your IP and ban it if it is blacklisted (which is quite possible). Such a tiny thing as using a datacenter IP becomes a good reason for many sites to keep a close watch on you.

For this reason, residential proxies are getting more trust. For any work on websites, they are used more often. A residential IP is an address which an ISP assigns to ordinary users (mostly homeowners). Homeowners willingly allow other users to route their traffic via their devices (PCs, laptops, tablets, smartphones or routers) and use them as proxy servers. Once you have connected to such a proxy, your main IP-address will be masked behind the proxy’s address.

Residential proxies are managed by networks, and Astro is one of them. It handles as much as 2, 000 000 residential IPs in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Germany and France. Our trusted proxy website lets you connect to any residential IP located in these countries. With us, you have perfect geo targeted proxies with zero chance of banning.

Our network is based on the NAT technology, which allows hundreds and thousands of devices, each one having its own IPv4 address, to connect to one public residential IPv4 address. It is impossible to provide a public IPv4 address to each and every user, so NAT appears to be an excellent solution. A large number of addresses can hide behind the public IPv4 address and be invisible to websites, as these users browse. Every time you visit a site via a residential IP, it tracks that public residential IP address, which belongs to the owner of the residential proxy (he is just an ordinary user), not your real IP address.

Also, there are backconnect residential proxies, which allow you to change IPs several times a day and make it even harder to track you. For that reason, websites do not block residential IP addresses, they just see no reason to suspect ordinary users of nefarious activities. There is no anti-bot or anti-spam system that can distinguish you from a regular user. Also, blocking residential IPs would not be good for websites, because it would harm both bots, scrapers, account managers and regular users.

When you buy residential IPs, you pay more than for even the best datacenter proxies. This is because residential proxies are more convenient and reliable. They will most likely outrun data centers in popularity. Many savvies consider datacenter proxies obsolete, because with them you are very likely to get blocked soon after you connect to them. Consequently, you can hardly work online. 

If you would like to check your proxy server’s category and ensure that it is reliable, please check https://proxyleak.com (Extended Version -> IP address). If you see that it is a datacenter proxy, look for another one, because sites will automatically list your address as suspicious, you will lose access to your favorite websites and eventually waste your money. 

Where to buy the best residential proxies?

On a trusted proxy website you can find responsible and quality services. Buying residential IPs there is worthwhile. Free proxy lists, on the contrary, are dead and lack the expert support users need. The proxies from our network are all clean and live, so users browse without fearing bans, and access any relevant information.