Is using a proxy server legal?
Yes, it is legal to use a proxy server. Proxies have many different uses, including enabling remote work; setting up a support system for users who are located outside a particular network; protecting networks and Internet users from malicious content; streaming online content from outside a country and more.
When are Proxy Servers Illegal?
Keep in mind that there are some circumstances in which using a proxy server is illegal. For example, some websites stream content that is only available to audiences who have paid their license fees to access it. If you did not pay license fees and tried to access that content via a proxy server, that act would be considered illegal.
Why Use a Proxy Server?
Let’s say you are living in the United Kingdom, and trying to log onto a U. S. based website to watch educational documentaries or your favorite TV programme. However, you discovered that IP addresses in the UK have been blocked. Don’t feel down just yet because proxies allow you to circumvent web filters that are blocking you from your geographical location.
There is content out there that may have been produced for individuals to view for free, so why shouldn’t you be able to view or access it? As long as using proxies do not appear to be an infringement of copyright law, you can use proxies to stream content while enjoying complete peace of mind.
Good Practices for Using Proxies Legally
Before you use a proxy server to stream any content that has been blocked in your geographical location, you should carefully read the target website’s terms and conditions. This practice ensures you avoid breaking any terms and conditions that may lead the target website to take legal action against you.
At Proxy Key, we offer stellar proxies that grant you instant access to your favorite content online with just a few clicks. Contact us today for more information.
What Is a Private Proxy? [Quick Guide 2021] – Blog | Oxylabs
A private proxy acts as an intermediary between a client and the internet. Applying a private proxy means that one client is exclusively using the dedicated IP address at a given time. When a private proxy is in use, requests run through the proxy server (which masks the client’s original IP address) first, and only then connects to the internet resources to fulfill client’s requests.
Whenever you connect to the internet, your IP address allows other websites to track your browsing activity, regardless of its nature. The only way to stay anonymous is knowing how to hide IP address, and this is where private proxies come in handy.
When it comes to proxies, there are a few different types of proxies one can look into:
Residential proxiesDatacenter proxiesShared proxiesPrivate proxies
Also, exclusivity is something that defines their quality and, usually, the price. That’s why most proxy providers offer shared, semi-dedicated and private proxies. Shared proxies can have their own benefits but usually buying private proxies is the way to go as the former can experience significant slowdowns, reduced privacy and increased chances of blocked IPs. Today, we’re taking a closer look at private ones.
What is a private proxy?
A private proxy, also known as dedicated proxy, refers to a proxy type that is used only by one user at a given time. It’s not shared with anyone else, so you have full control over how and when this proxy is used.
A private proxy carries an exclusive IP address allocated to one single user. Since the IP address belongs to one person only, there’s no need to be cautious about other proxy users performing activities that might lead to the IP blocking by specific websites, thus preventing you from accessing the same websites. Owning a proxy privately gives an increased level of privacy and control over your proxy, but it also comes with higher prices compared to shared and public proxies.
Private proxies for personal and business needs
Private proxies provide you with the highest level of anonymity, and that’s why they are used not only for personal but also for business purposes. While personal use cases usually involve anonymity and you can setup your Chrome browser to use a proxy which will route all traffic via a specific endpoint, business uses are more sophisticated.
For example, ad verification companies use private proxies to check advertisers’ landing pages anonymously. Or, let’s take travel fare aggregators whose businesses almost entirely depend on private proxies. For travel fare aggregators proxies enable automated data collection of flight company websites, online travel agencies, and other sources without IP blocks or bans.
Private proxies are also used to get pricing data (e. g. for MAP monitoring), buy limited edition products, create and manage social media accounts, and for many other reasons. Of course, to perform these tasks with the use of proxies requires users to understand the differences between residential and datacenter proxies. Residential private proxies are better when imitating an average internet user is important while datacenter proxies are better when high internet connection speeds are required.
Private residential and datacenter proxies
Proxies differ not only by their usage but also by their point of origin. Two common points of origin are residential and datacenter proxies. Both of these types can also be shared or private proxies.
Residential proxies are servers that are created by Internet Service Providers. These proxies are hosted on real, physical machines and they provide a dedicated IP. Additionally, these private IPs are the best choice for ad verification, pricing intelligence data gathering and many other internet activities where maintaining the identity of a regular consumer is critical.
What is a residential proxy? A residential proxy is a dedicated IP address provided by an Internet Service Provider to a homeowner. It is a genuine IP address attached to a real physical machine.
Datacenter proxies, on the other hand, are created by hosting virtual machines on powerful servers. One server can host large amounts of proxies without compromising connection speeds. These private IPs are perfect when traffic-intensive activities (such as email protection or market research) are being performed.
What is a datacenter proxy? A datacenter proxy is a virtual IP address created by a server. These dedicated IP addresses are generally provided by businesses instead of Internet Service Providers.
Dedicated IPs from datacenter proxies do have a drawback – they all come from the same subnet. Destination servers can see that a large amount of similar dedicated IPs are using their services which might trigger anti-bot detection algorithms.
Understanding the differences between datacenter and residential proxies is incredibly important whenever a decision to buy a private proxy is being made. We have outlined these differences in greater detail in our blog post where we compare datacenter and residential proxies in general.
The advantages of using a private proxy
Private & secure
The main benefit of private proxies is that, well, they are, in fact, private. If you buy these proxies, no one else will have access to them. By using private proxies you’ll face little to no risk of having your personal information compromised which gives you a higher level of ivate proxies will always show up as a different IP address than your usual one. Residential private proxies will provide an additional layer of privacy as it will seem as if a regular internet user is browsing the Internet.
Multiple locations
Usually, private proxy providers offer IP addresses from various locations. This enables you to access content that may otherwise be unavailable in your location. For example, use a Germany proxy to access content in Germany, or Brazil proxy, to browse the web as if you were in Brazil. This can come in handy for multiple occasions. For instance, if your target website uses geo-blocks or if you want to get localized SERP data.
Extremely fast
Private proxies won’t negatively affect your browsing speed. They are assigned to one user, so there’s a little chance of the bandwidth overload. Private proxies are also more reliable than shared ones and, in most cases, have unlimited bandwidth. If a datacenter private IP proxy is chosen, the internet speeds will be extremely high as servers generally have an enviable internet connection plan.
Wrapping up
The main downside is that private proxies are usually more expensive. However, they come with many benefits. If you’re interested, we suggest you read our dedicated IP vs shared IP article to understand the main differences between shared and private proxy types.
Using private proxies proved to be the most reliable option for many of our clients. If you want to find out how proxies can boost your business, discover other useful tools for data acquisition, decide what to choose according to your business needs: proxies or a scraping API, we have many great blog posts available!
Lukas Motiejunas is an Account Manager at Oxylabs, and he places a strong personal interest in the market research field. Mainly, in the merge of business sector and digital tools utilization to distinguish the most effective practices to carry out automated market research operations. So if you have any questions relating to market research, he’s your guy to answer them. Lukas believes that he has a hidden talent to be a great chef, although rumor has it, he uses the smoke alarm as a timer.
All information on Oxylabs Blog is provided on an “as is” basis and for informational purposes only. We make no representation and disclaim all liability with respect to your use of any information contained on Oxylabs Blog or any third-party websites that may be linked therein. Before engaging in scraping activities of any kind you should consult your legal advisors and carefully read the particular website’s terms of service or receive a scraping license.
SOCKS Proxy Primer: What Is SOCKs5 and Why Should You Use It?
co-authored by Darshan S. Mulimath, Megha B. Sasidhar, and Ashiq Khader
In computer networks, a proxy or proxy server is a computer that sits between you and the server. It acts as a gateway between a local network and a large-scale network, such as the internet.
A proxy server works by intercepting connections between sender and receiver. All incoming data enters through one port and is forwarded to the rest of the network via another port.
Aside from traffic forwarding, proxy servers provide security by hiding the actual IP address of a server. They also have caching mechanisms that store requested resources to improve performance. A proxy server can encrypt your data so it is unreadable in transit and block access to certain webpages based on IP address.
Now that we have a general sense of how a proxy works, let’s zoom in on a specific type of proxy — SOCKS — and, specifically, the SOCKs5 variant.
What Is a SOCKS Proxy?
SOCKS, which stands for Socket Secure, is a network protocol that facilitates communication with servers through a firewall by routing network traffic to the actual server on behalf of a client. SOCKS is designed to route any type of traffic generated by any protocol or program.
A SOCKS proxy server creates a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection to another server behind the firewall on the client’s behalf, then exchanges network packets between the client and the actual server. The SOCKS proxy server doesn’t interpret the network traffic between client and server in any way; it is often used because clients are behind a firewall and are not permitted to establish TCP connections to outside servers unless they do it through the SOCKS proxy server. Therefore, a SOCKS proxy relays a user’s TCP and User Datagram Protocol (UDP) session over firewall.
SOCKS is a layer 5 protocol, and it doesn’t care about anything below that layer in the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model — meaning you can’t use it to tunnel protocols operating below layer 5. This includes things such as ping, Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), etc. From a security perspective, it won’t allow an attacker to perform scans using tools such as Nmap if they are scanning based on half-open connections because it works at layer 5.
Since SOCKS sits at layer 5, between SSL (layer 7) and TCP/UDP (layer 4), it can handle several request types, including HTTP, HTTPS, POP3, SMTP and FTP. As a result, SOCKS can be used for email, web browsing, peer-to-peer sharing, file transfers and more.
Other proxies built for specific protocols at layer 7, such as an HTTP proxy that is used to interpret and forward HTTP or HTTPS traffic between client and server, are often referred to as application proxies.
There are only two versions: SOCKS4 and SOCKs5. The main differences between SOCKs5 and SOCKS4 are:
SOCKS4 doesn’t support authentication, while SOCKs5 supports a variety of authentication methods; and
SOCKS4 doesn’t support UDP proxies, while SOCKs5 does.
A SOCKs5 proxy is more secure because it establishes a full TCP connection with authentication and uses the Secure Shell (SSH) encrypted tunneling method to relay the traffic.
Why You Should Adopt SOCKs5
Below are four key benefits to using a SOCKs5 proxy with SSH tunneling.
1. Access Back-End Services Behind a Firewall
Usually, a cluster is hosted in the cloud behind a firewall to minimize potential security vulnerabilities. There are two ways to access any backend services that are running inside a cluster, and each has its limitations:
Expose backend services to public (and accept the associated security risk); or
Whitelist the client or user’s IP to allow traffic to backend services (this is not the right solution for when a user’s IP changes, however).
A SOCKs5 proxy with dynamic port forwarding using SSH can be an alternative to the two undesirable options above. An administrator or developer could access any backend services within a cluster that is hosted in the cloud behind a firewall for debugging, monitoring and administrating from a public network without exposing the backend service ports or whitelisting specific IPs.
Let’s look at a use case. For security reasons, the administration or monitoring application APIs or web user interface (UI) ports for monitoring Hadoop cluster are closed by default when hosted on the cloud. To access these APIs or web UIs, you can use SSH dynamic port forwarding to master or edge a node cluster, since the master node will have a public IP and run SSH services by default, which is exposed so the user can connect from outside.
For another example, say you’re working with a virtual private cloud (VPC). You can deploy a bastion host to securely access remote instances within a VPC by limiting their access to the outside world. You can access the bastion host from the outside world, and only port 22 (SSH) is opened. Using SSH dynamic port forwarding (SOCKs5 proxy), you can access the remote instances that are running in the VPC.
2. No Special Setup Required
SOCKs5 doesn’t require special setup, as long as you have SSH access to either the Edge node or gateway of a cluster. Therefore, users such as administrators and developers can access back-end resources behind the firewall using an SSH tunnel without requiring a virtual private network (VPN).
3. No Third-Party Public or Free Proxy Server in Your Deployments
Since a SOCKs5 proxy routes all kinds of TCP and UDP traffic to their respective service through SSH tunneling, no layer 7 application-related special proxies are required for each service to route application requests.
4. Fewer Errors, Better Performance
Unlike other application proxies, SOCKs5 does not rewrite data packets. It just relays the traffic between devices. Therefore, it is less prone to errors, and performance increases automatically.
How Does SOCKs5 Work in Practice?
Any CISO wouldn’t jump at the chance to embrace the benefits listed above. But what does a SOCKs5 proxy look like in the context of an enterprise security strategy? Where do security leaders begin when implementing SOCKs5 in their environment? Below are some key steps to help you get started.
Setting Up a SOCKs5 Proxy Connection
To SOCKSify an IT environment, the client application must have the capacity to support the SOCKs5 protocol. The syntax below is based on the SSH client on Linux; it shows how to create a SOCKs5 proxy server running on your local computer and then authenticate to the Edge node of a cluster or gateway hosted on cloud that routes traffic to the servers inside the cluster:
$ ssh -D 30001 [email protected] -C -f -N (password: xyz; or
$ ssh -i /path/to/private_key -D 30001 [email protected] -C -f -N
The above command starts the SOCKs5 server and binds to port 30001, then connects to Edge Node, Master Node or Gateway Node over the SSH tunnel hosted on the cloud.
The options used in the above command do the following:
D 30001 tells SSH to create a SOCKs5 server on port 30001 on the client computer.
C compresses data before sending.
N means “Do not execute a remote command. ” This is useful for simply forwarding ports (protocol version 2 only).
F requests SSH to go to the background just before command execution.
Accessing the Endpoints Using the SOCKs5 Protocol
Once a SOCKs5 proxy is created, configure your clients to access the internal services of the cluster. To keep it simple, we use a command line URL (cURL) that supports the SOCKs5 protocol. Other methods such as using a web browser require some additional setup and configurations.
The below cURL command shows how to access one of the HTTPS application endpoints listening on port 8000 behind a firewall using the SOCKs5 proxy over the SSH tunnel created above:
curl -x socks5hlocalhost:30001 -v -k -X GET EdgeNodeSSHserverIP:8000
The above cURL tool connects to port 30001 on localhost. Upon receiving a HTTP GET request on port 30001 from the cURL, the SSH client sends the same request via SSH tunnel to the SSH server.
The remote SSH server handles the request and passes the request to a back-end service listening at port 8000. The response is sent back to the client over the same SSH tunnel to the client’s SOCKs5 proxy. The proxy relays the response to the cURL, which displays the response.
Once you have created a SOCKs5 proxy using the SSH dynamic port forwarding method, you can also use the netcat utility to test the TCP connection. As shown below, a TCP connection test is made for back-end services listening at port 8443 with the SOCKs5 proxy:
ncat –proxy 127. 0. 1:30001 –proxy-type socks5 EdgeNodeSSHserverIP 8443 -nv
In Summary
A SOCKs5 proxy is a lightweight, general-purpose proxy that sits at layer 5 of the OSI model and uses a tunneling method. It supports various types of traffic generated by protocols, such as HTTP, SMTP and FTP. SOCKs5 is faster than a VPN and easy to use. Since the proxy uses a tunneling method, public cloud users can access resources behind the firewall using SOCKs5 over a secured tunnel such as SSH.
Frequently Asked Questions about webshare proxy
Is Web proxy illegal?
Yes, it is legal to use a proxy server. Proxies have many different uses, including enabling remote work; setting up a support system for users who are located outside a particular network; protecting networks and Internet users from malicious content; streaming online content from outside a country and more.
What is private proxy?
A private proxy acts as an intermediary between a client and the internet. Applying a private proxy means that one client is exclusively using the dedicated IP address at a given time. … Whenever you connect to the internet, your IP address allows other websites to track your browsing activity, regardless of its nature.
What is SOCKS5 VPN proxy?
A SOCKs5 proxy is a lightweight, general-purpose proxy that sits at layer 5 of the OSI model and uses a tunneling method. It supports various types of traffic generated by protocols, such as HTTP, SMTP and FTP. SOCKs5 is faster than a VPN and easy to use.Sep 27, 2019