Free Proxy List 2020 [Proxy Server List To Hide Your IP Address]
With the internet becoming a hotbed for tracking activities and an ever-growing race to collect data, it has become essential to find a means to hide your digital footprints, especially if you are a privacy fanatic. There are several methods to browse the internet anonymously, but the options are a tad limited if you’re looking for free ones. One of the safest options is using a free proxy.
Proxy servers offer a convenient way to hide your IP address and browse the internet without worrying about trackers and websites tracking you. You can easily find free proxy lists on the internet, but it has to be a good fortune if you stumble upon a list of free proxies that are really working.
Free proxy lists are used by many, including data scrapers and those looking forward to bypassing the paywall or rate limits, but free proxies come with certain caveats. You need to make sure that you’re using credible proxies since the incoming and outgoing traffic from your PC will be visible to it. To make it easy for you, we have compiled a free proxy list that you can use for your different needs.
Free Proxy List 2020 & Proxy Servers To Hide IP Address
1. Free Proxy – Best free proxy server to use for data scraping
If you want to use a data scraper bot, there is no better site than ‘Free Proxy. ’ As evident from its name, the website offers a host of (7350 proxy servers at the time of writing) proxy servers.
You can choose from a variety of protocols, including HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS4, SOCKS5. The Free Proxy website offers three anonymity levels – Level 1 (Elite), Level 2 (Anonymous), and Level 3 (Transparent).
There is also an option to choose free proxies according to a particular country. The website’s neatly designed user interface offers information about anonymity level, speed, uptime, response, and the last time when the free proxy was checked or updated.
2. ProxyScrape – Popular Proxy site with ~10, 000 free proxies
ProxyScrape is a popular name amongst those who frequently search for free proxy lists.
What makes this site unique is that all the proxies enlisted here are frequently checked, therefore eliminating the chances of finding a free proxy that doesn’t work. Here, you can find a proxy server list for a variety of purposes like adding an extra layer of protection to your internet traffic or scraping data from a website without harming it, and more.
ProxyScrape also offers premium proxies if you want them better and faster.
Also Read: 5 Best Free Proxy Servers To Visit Sites Anonymously In 2020
3. ProxyNova – Free proxy list updated every 60 seconds
ProxyNova is another website to get a list of highly functional free proxies. The website checks over a million proxy servers daily, with most proxies, tested every 15 minutes, and the proxy list is updated once every 60 seconds.
On the ProxyNova website, you can filter proxies according to country and anonymity level. You will see options like proxy speed, proxy port, uptime, proxy country, and the level of anonymity on the homepage. Most of the top proxies on the website are not more than a minute old.
However, there is a big caveat that unlike other sites on this list, ProxyNova needs to be updated manually and does not get refreshed automatically.
4. SSL Proxy – Get free and working SSL proxies
The number of free proxies available on this website is relatively less compared to other sites enlisted here. With a meager 100 free proxy sites, the website hosts proxies from various countries around the world.
To compete with other free proxy offering websites, SSL Proxy has recently launched a new product named Rotating Proxy that works like a regular HTTP(s)/Socks5 proxy, without any app. However, it has 3252 stable IPs behind and supports IP/Pass auth and country filter. There are two types of rotating proxies – fast-rotating proxies and slow rotating proxies.
The HTTP proxies on the website are updated every 10 minutes, according to the homepage’s claims.
5. – Free proxy server to surf web anonymously
needs no introduction in a list of free proxy servers, and it should not be a surprise entry here. You can find the free proxy tool under the VPN apps section as the website primarily focuses on VPNs, which is another way to hide your digital presence on the internet.
To visit a site anonymously on, you will need to enter the website in the text box, choose the country (the options are limited though), and choose from other options available – allow cookies, encrypt URL, encrypt page, remove scripts, remove objects.
also offers Chrome and Firefox extensions to access a website anonymously from within the browser quickly.
6. HMA – Access blocked websites with free proxy sites
HMA or Hide My Ass is a rather popular website used by several users to bypass internet censorship. HMA offers a regularly updated free proxy service that allows you to hide your original IP address and routes your internet traffic via proxy address.
To use the free proxy server service, enter the website in the textbox. Then, choose whether you would like to allow cookies, remove scripts, and encrypt the URL in the connection setup menu.
HMA’s proxy servers are majorly meant for individual users who want to unblock blocked websites in their region. For professional purposes, you can use other enlisted websites that offer a free proxy server list.
7. Open Proxy Space – Free proxy list
If you’re a freeloader hunting for free proxy lists, you must try the Open Proxy Space. This website offers a list of always updated proxies, and there is also an option to upload your proxy sites. You can choose from a variety of countries offered on the website.
Free proxies on Open Space Proxy are enlisted according to the last time when they were updated. It goes without saying that the older the proxies are updated, the fewer chances they’ll be working. After choosing a batch based on the time of updation, the next step is selecting the country. The IPs can also be exported in a text if you intend to use them in an API.
8. ProxyScan – 5000+ Free proxies
ProxyScan is a standard site offering a free proxy list with more than 5000 proxies in store for users. All the proxy sites offered by ProxyScan are checked every 10 minutes.
We have included this website in the list because of the parameters it offers for choosing the best proxy site. You can apply parameters like ping, country, city, type, and degree of anonymity.
The website also offers other tools like a proxy checker, proxy filter, and proxy scraper. The website updates automatically with freshly added proxy sites.
Free Proxy List FAQs
1. What is the best free proxy? There are several websites offering free proxies. You can refer to the list above which contains websites like Free Proxy, SSL Proxy, ProxyScrape, and ProxyScan. 2. Is free proxy list safe? Most of the free proxy lists offer proxy sites that are volatile and you can not really rely on these proxy servers for performing activities like carrying out payments and other exchange of confidential data. 3. How do I use a free proxy server? To use a free proxy server in Google Chrome, go to Settings> Advanced> System> Open your computer’s proxy settings. Under Manual proxy settings, enter the proxy address and port.
4. Where can I find proxy? You can find several websites on the internet offering proxy sites. Above, we have enlisted 8 websites offering free proxy list. You can visit sites like ProxyScrape, ProxyNova, ProxyScan and Open Proxy Scan to find proxy sites.
The Best Free Online Proxy Servers You Can Use Safely – MakeUseOf
Proxy sites and proxy servers allow internet users to bypass internet restrictions and access content that would otherwise be blocked.
Lots of free proxy providers exist, but which are the best? Are there any risks of using a free online proxy? And what alternatives are available?
Why Use a Free Proxy Server?
We’ve all experienced blocked sites. Schools, companies, public Wi-Fi networks, ISPs, and governments restrict access to certain types of content.
A free proxy is one of the many ways to circumvent restrictions if content is being blocked based on your geolocation. They route your traffic through a server in a different country, thus hiding your true location.
The Risks of Using a Free Proxy Server
Using a free proxy is not a risk-free endeavor. Some of the risks of using proxy servers include:
HTTPS: Research has shown that 79 percent of free proxy servers do not use an HTTPS connection, meaning data on the server you’re using is not encrypted—people can see it.
Malware: It is hard for regular users to verify the security of a free proxy. There’s a risk that the server could abuse your connection and use it to serve malware to your machine. Aggressive ads also pose a problem.
Service: Free proxies are often slow, overloaded, unreliable, and struggle to display many forms of content.
Read our article on reasons why you should avoid free proxy servers if you would like to learn more.
Which Is the Best Free Proxy Site?
Only a few free proxy sites offer the right mix of security, reliability, service, and reputation.
Our top five picks are:
1. HideMyAss
HideMyAss is best known as a VPN provider, but the company also offers a free proxy service that anyone can use.
Servers are available in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic.
Unlike many free proxy sites, HideMyAss does offer some security options for your proxy connection. You can choose to encrypt your URL, disable cookies on the websites you visit, and prevent scripts from running.
2.
Again, is an established VPN provider that also has free proxy servers.
The list of supported countries is smaller than the HideMyAss proxy; servers are only available in the US, Germany, and the Netherlands.
However, the free proxy makes up for its lack of locations with a longer list of security options. In addition to the features available on HideMyAss, you can also opt to remove objects and encrypt the page.
A Chrome extension and a Firefox extension are both available.
3. KProxy
KProxy is perhaps the most reliable of the free proxy sites that do not also provide VPN services.
Ten free US-based servers are on offer. Its single-country status means it’s a perfect way for people in the US. to bypass network-based site restrictions, but it will not work as a tool for accessing geo-blocked content.
4. Whoer
Whoer is yet another VPN company that provides free proxy servers. It is only available as an extension on Chrome, Firefox, Yandex, and Opera.
The company has proxy servers available in Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Stockholm, London, and Dallas.
5. Megaproxy
If you can look past the site’s dated interface, you’ll discover Megaproxy is a free proxy provider unlike the other four we have discussed.
It’s one of the only free proxy sites that can also hide your browser and operating system, making it perhaps the most secure of the bunch.
Other features include a toggle to prevent the repetition of on-site animations and an ad-blocker. Megaproxy has a limit of 60 pages in five hours, so it’s not a great long-term solution.
If you’d like even more options, we covered them in our list of the best web proxies.
Notable Paid Proxy Sites
We always suggest that you should use a VPN over a proxy server. ExpressVPN and CyberGhost are both highly recommended.
VPNs can hide your location like a proxy, but also come with several security benefits such as encryption, kill switches, and no logging.
If you want to use a proxy, there are paid options that don’t suffer from the same issues as free proxy sites. They are mainly aimed at business users.
1. Luminati
Luminati is the largest proxy provider in the world. It offers more than 30 million IP addresses (both mobile and residential) in 20, 000 cities across 195 countries. The service is excellent for businesses who want to verify ads, compare prices, source talent, and test their systems.
There are no session restrictions, exclusive IPs are offered, and there’s 24/7 support available.
Luminati offers three different paid packages. A shared proxy is $0. 50 per GB, a private proxy is $0. 60 per month per IP, and residential and mobile IPs are $12. 50 per GB.
2. RotatingProxies
If you only need US-based proxies, you should check out Rotating Proxies.
The company provides backconnect proxies (a server that uses a pool of residential proxies) for businesses to perform processes such as SEO, ad verification, account creation, scraping, and more.
All RotatingProxies packages offer unlimited bandwidth and five-minute rotation between proxy switches.
The cheapest package requires you to purchase 10 proxies. It costs $39 per month. Deals go all the way up to 1, 000 proxies for $1, 683 per month.
3. Smartproxy
Smartproxy provides users with more than 10 million residential proxy IP addresses. The proxies are available in 195 locations around the world and have an average response time of 3. 1 seconds.
Like its competitors, Smartproxy’s proxy servers are great for automation, accessing local data, improving marketing, and scraping the web.
At a more user-friendly level, the company’s proxies will let you access sites like Facebook and Twitter if they are blocked on your network.
An entry-level plan cost $75 per month with 5GB of bandwidth. Plans are also available for $200, $400, and $600—each with improving terms.
The Best Solution?
There is a serious question mark over whether free proxies are worth your time. Unless you make sure you use a reliable provider, they are arguably no better than the free VPN services.
Not sure what we mean? Check out our piece on why you should never use a free VPN.
11 Amazing Android Apps That’ll Change How You Use Your PhoneHere are the most amazing apps for Android that will change how you use and interact with your device on a daily basis.
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About The Author
Dan Price
(1605 Articles Published)
Dan joined MakeUseOf in 2014 and has been Partnerships Director since July 2020. Reach out to him for inquires about sponsored content, affiliate agreements, promotions, and any other forms of partnership. You can also find him roaming the show floor at CES in Las Vegas every year, say hi if you’re going. Prior to his writing career, he was a Financial Consultant.
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What is a Proxy Server and How Does it Work? – Varonis
The actual nuts and bolts of how the internet works are not something people often stop to consider. The problem with that is the inherent danger of data security breaches and identity theft that come along with the cute dog pictures, 24-hour news updates, and great deals online.
But what actually happens when you browse the web? You might be using a proxy server at your office, on a Virtual Private Network (VPN) or you could be one of the more tech-savvy who always use a proxy server of some kind or another.
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What’s a Proxy Server?
A proxy server is any machine that translates traffic between networks or protocols. It’s an intermediary server separating end-user clients from the destinations that they browse. Proxy servers provide varying levels of functionality, security, and privacy depending on your use case, needs, or company policy.
If you’re using a proxy server, traffic flows through the proxy server on its way to the address you requested. The request then comes back through that same proxy server (there are exceptions to this rule), and then the proxy server forwards the data received from the website to you.
If that’s all it does, why bother with a proxy server? Why not just go straight from to the website and back?
Modern proxy servers do much more than forward web requests, all in the name of data security and network performance. Proxy servers act as a firewall and web filter, provide shared network connections, and cache data to speed up common requests. A good proxy server keeps users and the internal network protected from the bad stuff that lives out in the wild internet. Lastly, proxy servers can provide a high level of privacy.
How Does a Proxy Server Operate?
Every computer on the internet needs to have a unique Internet Protocol (IP) Address. Think of this IP address as your computer’s street address. Just as the post office knows to deliver your mail to your street address, the internet knows how to send the correct data to the correct computer by the IP address.
A proxy server is basically a computer on the internet with its own IP address that your computer knows. When you send a web request, your request goes to the proxy server first. The proxy server then makes your web request on your behalf, collects the response from the web server, and forwards you the web page data so you can see the page in your browser.
When the proxy server forwards your web requests, it can make changes to the data you send and still get you the information that you expect to see. A proxy server can change your IP address, so the web server doesn’t know exactly where you are in the world. It can encrypt your data, so your data is unreadable in transit. And lastly, a proxy server can block access to certain web pages, based on IP address.
What are Forward Proxies
A forward proxy server sits between the client and an external network. It evaluates the outbound requests and takes action on them before relaying that request to the external resource.
Most proxy services that you’re likely to encounter are forward proxies. Virtual Private Networks and Web content filters are both examples of forward proxies.
What are Reverse Proxies
A reverse proxy server sits between a network and multiple other internal resources. A large website might have dozens of servers that collectively serve requests from a single domain. To accomplish that, client requests would resolve to a machine that would act as a load balancer. The load balancer would then proxy that traffic back to the individual servers.
Some popular open source reverse proxies are:
Varnish
Squid
Why Should You Use a Proxy Server?
There are several reasons organizations and individuals use a proxy server.
To control internet usage of employees and children: Organizations and parents set up proxy servers to control and monitor how their employees or kids use the internet. Most organizations don’t want you looking at specific websites on company time, and they can configure the proxy server to deny access to specific sites, instead redirecting you with a nice note asking you to refrain from looking at said sites on the company network. They can also monitor and log all web requests, so even though they might not block the site, they know how much time you spend cyberloafing.
Bandwidth savings and improved speeds: Organizations can also get better overall network performance with a good proxy server. Proxy servers can cache (save a copy of the website locally) popular websites – so when you ask for, the proxy server will check to see if it has the most recent copy of the site, and then send you the saved copy. What this means is that when hundreds of people hit at the same time from the same proxy server, the proxy server only sends one request to This saves bandwidth for the company and improves the network performance.
Privacy benefits: Individuals and organizations alike use proxy servers to browse the internet more privately. Some proxy servers will change the IP address and other identifying information the web request contains. This means the destination server doesn’t know who actually made the original request, which helps keeps your personal information and browsing habits more private.
Improved security: Proxy servers provide security benefits on top of the privacy benefits. You can configure your proxy server to encrypt your web requests to keep prying eyes from reading your transactions. You can also prevent known malware sites from any access through the proxy server. Additionally, organizations can couple their proxy server with a Virtual Private Network (VPN), so remote users always access the internet through the company proxy. A VPN is a direct connection to the company network that companies provide to external or remote users. By using a VPN, the company can control and verify that their users have access to the resources (email, internal data) they need, while also providing a secure connection for the user to protect the company data.
Get access to blocked resources: Proxy servers allow users to circumvent content restrictions imposed by companies or governments. Is the local sportsball team’s game blacked out online? Log into a proxy server on the other side of the country and watch from there. The proxy server makes it look like you are in California, but you actually live in North Carolina. Several governments around the world closely monitor and restrict access to the internet, and proxy servers offer their citizens access to an uncensored internet.
Now that you have an idea about why organizations and individuals use a proxy server, take a look at the risks below.
Proxy Server Risks
You do need to be cautious when you choose a proxy server: a few common risks can negate any of the potential benefits:
Free proxy server risks
You know the old saying “you get what you pay for? ” Well, using one of the many free proxy server services can be quite risky, even the services using ad-based revenue models.
Free usually means they aren’t investing heavily in backend hardware or encryption. You’ll likely see performance issues and potential data security issues. If you ever find a completely “free” proxy server, tread very carefully. Some of those are just looking to steal your credit card numbers.
Browsing history log
The proxy server has your original IP address and web request information possibly unencrypted, saved locally. Make sure to check if your proxy server logs and saves that data – and what kind of retention or law enforcement cooperation policies they follow.
If you expect to use a proxy server for privacy, but the vendor is just logging and selling your data you might not be receiving the expected value for the service.
No encryption
If you use a proxy server without encryption, you might as well not use a proxy server. No encryption means you are sending your requests as plain text. Anyone who is listening will be able to pull usernames and passwords and account information really easily. Make sure whatever proxy server you use provides full encryption capability.
Types of Proxy Servers
Not all proxy servers work the same way. It’s important to understand exactly what functionality you’re getting from the proxy server, and ensure that the proxy server meets your use case.
Transparent Proxy
A transparent proxy tells websites that it is a proxy server and it will still pass along your IP address, identifying you to the web server. Businesses, public libraries, and schools often use transparent proxies for content filtering: they’re easy to set up both client and server side.
Anonymous Proxy
An anonymous proxy will identify itself as a proxy, but it won’t pass your IP address to the website – this helps prevent identity theft and keep your browsing habits private. They can also prevent a website from serving you targeted marketing content based on your location. For example, if knows you live in Raleigh, NC, they will show you news stories they feel are relevant to Raleigh, NC. Browsing anonymously will prevent a website from using some ad targeting techniques, but is not a 100% guarantee.
Distorting proxy
A distorting proxy server passes along a false IP address for you while identifying itself as a proxy. This serves similar purposes as the anonymous proxy, but by passing a false IP address, you can appear to be from a different location to get around content restrictions.
High Anonymity proxy
High Anonymity proxy servers periodically change the IP address they present to the web server, making it very difficult to keep track of what traffic belongs to who. High anonymity proxies, like the TOR Network, is the most private and secure way to read the internet.
Proxy servers are a hot item in the news these days with the controversies around Net Neutrality and censorship. By removing net neutrality protections in the United States, Internet Service Providers (ISP) are now able to control your bandwidth and internet traffic. ISPs can potentially tell you what sites you can and cannot see. While there’s a great amount of uncertainty around what is going to happen with Net Neutrality, it’s possible that proxy servers will provide some ability to work around an ISPs restrictions.
Varonis analyzes data from proxy servers to protect you from data breaches and cyber attacks. The addition of proxy data gives more context to better analyze user behavior trends for abnormalities. You can get an alert on that suspicious activity with actionable intelligence to investigate and deal with the incident.
For example, a user accessing GDPR data might not be significant on its own. But if they access GDPR data and then try to upload it to an external website, it could be an exfiltration attempt and potential data breach. Without the context provided by file system monitoring, proxy monitoring, and Varonis threat models, you might see these events in a vacuum and not realize you need to prevent a data breach.
Get a 1:1 demo to see these threat models in action – and see what your proxy data could be telling you.
Frequently Asked Questions about free or public proxy servers
Are there any free proxy servers?
Which Is the Best Free Proxy Site?HideMyAss. HideMyAss is best known as a VPN provider, but the company also offers a free proxy service that anyone can use. … Hide.me. Again, Hide.me is an established VPN provider that also has free proxy servers. … KProxy. … Whoer. … Megaproxy.May 15, 2019
Are public proxy servers safe?
Improved security: Proxy servers provide security benefits on top of the privacy benefits. You can configure your proxy server to encrypt your web requests to keep prying eyes from reading your transactions. You can also prevent known malware sites from any access through the proxy server.May 7, 2021
Which is the best free proxy site?
Here’s the list of the best proxy servers that you can find in 2021.KProxy – Best free proxy.HMA – Best proxy browser.VPNBook – Best for security.ProxySite – Best for smartphones.Whoer – Best value for money.GeoSurf – Best for unlimited IP connections.Zyte – Best for scraping websites.More items…