Proxy servers are the middle point between your device and the web server. Proxy service ensures your online anonymity by providing you with a proxy IP and routing all requests through the proxy.

A residential proxy server stands out as often the best solution for this task. If you have heard of proxies and looking for more information regarding what they can do for you, residential proxies are the right place to start. Let’s see what differentiates them and how they are employed in various cases.

Residential Proxy In Short

A residential proxy is a network of IP addresses hosted on real residential devices all over the world. What makes a device residential? The simple answer is that it has an IP address provided by an Internet Service Provider (ISP).

ISPs all over the world issue unique IP addresses to routing devices purchased by users. Whenever someone connects to the router with their desktop computer or laptop, they have this IP address visible to websites as they browse.

Residential proxies are servers that use these actual IP addresses to hide the real IP address of the proxy service user. Thus, if you connect to a residential proxy, the websites you visit take it as though that other device is making the requests.

What Are Not Residential Proxies?

There are two main alternatives to residential proxies, based on how the IP address is hosted. The more common data center proxies and the mobile proxies.

Datacenter proxies

When you are using a data center proxy, the IP address assigned to your device is hosted on a server in a large data center somewhere in the world. These IP addresses are not issued by any ISP, thus, when you use them, the websites can tell that the traffic does not come from a real residential user. This lets the website know that you are using a proxy, which might be a disadvantage if such activity is banned on the particular portal.

Mobile Proxies

Mobile proxies, as the name indicates, assign your session an IP address of a mobile device. This is only possible when the device is using mobile data rather than connecting to a WiFI. Mobile devices have a different type of IP addresses than computers, thus, with a mobile proxy you can mimic the activity of an organic user surfing the net with a cell phone or a tablet.

What Makes Residential Proxies Essential?

Residential proxies are the top solution when you want to hide your identity online. Although sometimes you might need to go with its alternatives, for many use cases, residential proxies can offer the most. Its main benefits include:

• High reliability. Residential proxies are extremely reliable since they are unlikely to be identified as proxies by the website. Some servers block proxies from connecting due to the fear of overload or malicious activity. As residential proxies perfectly imitate the activity of an organic user, they are less likely to be detected.
• Great performance. Residential proxies offer peak performance, especially when using a private proxy dedicated to only one user. Then you get all the speed and bandwidth that the residential device offers for proxy services and can expect great connectivity.
• Perfect fit for organic activities. A residential proxy allows one to do everything an internet user would. Thus, you can quickly access all kinds of content and manage various tasks and software tests while using a residential proxy infrastructure. More on these use cases below.
• Easy to target specific regions. There are available residential IP addresses from all over the world that can be used as proxies. Therefore, you can target specific regions to interact with websites and applications the way a user from that location would.

These advantages make residential proxies the first choice for online anonymity and security for private users. However, businesses can benefit from this solution even more, as we will soon see.

The Broad Functionality Of Residential Proxies

Companies of all sizes turn to residential proxies because they are perfectly suited to advance various business objectives. Below you can find some prime examples of how residential proxies can be used in business and why that matters for the final results.

1. Unblocking content. Businesses are faced with various geographic restrictions when accessing content or applications hosted on servers in particular places. A residential proxy can easily access anything an organic user from that location could. Thus, firms improve the efficiency of their research and other tasks.
2. Web scraping. The gathering of public web data is essential for market and competitive research. A secure proxy infrastructure allows automatically extracting information from different websites. Residential proxies are the best to ensure that the servers see your scraping activity as organic requests and do not block your scraper.
3. Purchasing in bulk. Many small businesses and solo entrepreneurs profit by following the old strategy of buying low and selling high. Residential proxies allow purchasing items on online shops effectively for future resale. With proxies, you can make more automatic requests to clinch a better spot in the virtual line and have a chance of buying more of the coveted items.
4. Running app tests. Users accessing apps and websites from different locations might get varying results. App developers might want to see how their product appears to a residential user in a specific location. By using a network of residential proxies you can test various features of the app for your entire customer base.

All these use cases form the foundation of what businesses can do with a reliable infrastructure of residential proxies. From there on, it is all up to the skill and imagination of the tech teams using this solution.

As businesses become increasingly digital, there is a growing number of online activities their profitability depends on. A residential proxy is the perfect solution to advance these activities by automating them and removing all the roadblocks. Thus, finding a trustworthy provider of a residential proxy network can make all the difference to the bottom line.

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