What Are Datacenter Proxies and When to Use Them
Whether you need access to geo-restricted websites or internet privacy, datacenter proxies can help. These are one of the most commonly used proxy servers that hide your IP address when surfing the web. While they are useful in many cases, they may not be the most appropriate solution to others.
That’s why you need to know a few important things about datacenter proxies before using them.
Everything You Need to Know About Datacenter Proxies
To help you decide whether datacenter proxies are the right choice for you, we’ll discuss their advantages, disadvantages, and use cases. So let’s start by explaining what they are and how they work.
What Are Datacenter Proxies?
Datacenter proxies are proxy servers that come from data centers, so they are not related to any Internet Service Provider (ISP). They are practically IP addresses that, unlike your real IP address which is assigned by an ISP, come from data centers or secondary corporations offering cloud services.
They work as a middleman between your client and the servers or sites you want to visit. When you send a web request, it first goes to the datacenter proxy which then sends it to the destination website on your behalf. The response goes to the proxy which then forwards it back to you.
They are often shared with multiple users at the same time, hence the lower price. The best datacenter proxies are considered private datacenter proxies as they are not shared with anyone else.
Advantages of Datacenter Proxies
Here are a few good reasons why you may want to use datacenter proxies:
- Affordable price
Datacenter proxies, especially shared ones, are considerably cheaper than residential proxies. When using them, you don’t have to worry about paying additional costs for bandwidth.
- Speed
When using these proxies, expect a very high bandwidth because they are designed to support connections with multiple users. This makes them ideal for activities like online gaming where you don’t want lag issues. If you want to check the speed of your datacenter proxy, click here.
- Suitable for most needs
The most common reasons why people want to use proxies is to browse the net anonymously and access geo-restricted sites. And, datacenter proxies are helpful in both cases.
- Volume
If you buy datacenter proxies in bulk, you’ll get an extensive volume of IP addresses. This way, you can use a different IP for different purposes or switch to a new one when the last one gets banned.
Disadvantages of Datacenter Proxies
Although datacenter proxies tend to be cheaper and faster than residential proxies and provide you with online anonymity, they do have certain disadvantages:
- Easily identifiable
Most servers or sites you want to visit with datacenter proxies can easily see the IP address you are using is coming from a data center rather than an ISP. As a result, they can block you. In fact, some sites block all IP addresses coming from data centers, so you may not even get a chance to use your datacenter proxy as planned.
- Risk of getting banned
Sharing the same datacenter proxy with others increases the risk of getting banned as you can never know if some of the proxy co-users are using it for malicious activity.
When to Use Datacenter Proxies
Taking all these pros and cons of datacenter proxies into consideration, we’ve selected their top use cases:
- Accessing geo-restricted content
With datacenter proxies, you can fake your geographical location and access sites and apps that are not available in your region. You just need to choose a proxy with an IP address from a supported location and you’ll get access to the site you want.
- Gaming
Being faster than other proxies makes them ideal for gaming. Datacenter proxies will help you reduce lag in gaming, which is especially useful when playing online multiplayer games.
- Copping sneakers
Datacenter proxies can make you appear as multiple customers and allow you to buy multiple pairs of limited-edition sneakers. They can also help you use bots for copping sneakers anonymously, thus avoiding bans from online shops.
To Sum Up
Datacenter proxies are the first choice of proxies for many people because of their affordable price and fast speed, as well as the ability to browse the net anonymously. However, they are easily identifiable so you need to think carefully before deciding if they are the right option for you.