The Best Proxy Servers of 2024

Proxy vs. VPN: What’s The Difference?

Proxy literally means “to act as a stand-in for someone,” and that’s precisely what a proxy does in networking. A proxy server acts as a middleman to the internet that relays your traffic to websites. It hides your IP address; instead of seeing your real one, the websites you visit see the proxy’s IP address.

VPNs operate similarly, as explained in our VPN guide. But rather than just rerouting your traffic, a VPN encrypts your data as well. That’s the main difference between a VPN and a proxy.

Think of using a proxy like taking an Uber for online privacy. You’re in a different car, so people who know what you drive won’t easily spot you. But if someone peeks through the window, they’ll know you’re in there. Using a VPN on the other hand, is like riding in a security convoy. And if someone tries to peek in, you’ll have security detail to stop them. The same goes for your data with VPNs. Even if your internet provider, the government, or a hacker sees that you’re sending data, they won’t be able to see what’s inside because of VPN encryption.

VPNs are more secure and private than proxy, but some might prefer using proxy for a few reasons:

• For one, proxy servers are faster because they don’t have to encrypt data. That’s good if you want to access a website blocked in your country or network only.
• Second, it’s easier to set up a proxy than manually set up a VPN on devices that don’t have native VPN apps, such as gaming consoles.
• Lastly, getting access to proxy servers is usually cheaper than VPN subscription costs.

We’ll look at those use cases as we explore the best proxies available. Without further ado, here they are.

Expert Take

From Subbu Sthanu, Chief Commercial Officer of IPVanish

“A support agent shared a story with me about a customer with a slow internet connection who needed to hide their IP while downloading a large file. The customer used a VPN, but even with a lightweight protocol, the download was painfully slow and frustrating for them. After running a speed test, the support agent explained that a proxy server might have been a better choice. Since the customer only needed basic IP privacy, a proxy could have masked their IP without the VPN encryption’s weight. Using a proxy through the download client could have significantly sped up the download rate. Unfortunately, the customer only found this out after the fact but they were set up for a better download experience in the future.”

Read more about Subbu Sthanu →

VPN or Proxy?

You might have noticed that all our top picks are VPN providers with complimentary proxy servers, and there’s a good reason for that. We recommend using a proxy only for very specific situations, especially if the goal is to protect your privacy.

A proxy doesn’t encrypt your data; it changes your IP address only. That’s one way to protect your privacy, but it’s not foolproof. For example, your internet provider can still see what you’re doing online. And with that, it can track what websites you’ve visited, what you downloaded, and more.

» Did You Know?: Difference Between a Static and Dynamic IP Address

With a VPN, you also get encryption. Your traffic is encrypted before it leaves your device, so even if your internet provider can see that you’re sending data to a VPN server, it can’t see what’s inside.

So, when should you use a proxy? The answer is only for online activities that require you to change your IP address but are not a privacy risk. Some examples that come to mind are:

• Gaming: If you want access to a game server in a different location, a proxy might provide faster speeds and less uptick in latency, although the best gaming VPNs are fast too.
• Accessing a blocked website: Changing your IP address is enough to give you access to a blocked site, as long as the website is available in the location of the proxy server.
• Changing streaming location: Similarly, changing your IP address gives you access to the streaming libraries available in the server’s location.

You can do all of those things with a VPN, but since proxy servers don’t offer encryption, you might experience better speeds if you use a proxy.

Tips for Choosing a Proxy Server

With that in mind, if you choose to use a proxy server, there are two specific things you should consider:

Proxy Location

First is the location of the proxy server. One thing we noted while testing proxy servers is that changing server locations is not as easy as changing locations with a VPN. With a VPN, you can just launch the app and select a different location in the server list. With a proxy, you’ll need to manually set up the proxy connection by pinging the server address to get a proxy IP address. Bear in mind that you’ll have to go through the entire process whenever you change your location.

Another thing to keep in mind is that most proxy providers offer only a handful of locations. For its VPN, NordVPN has over 5,000 servers in 60 countries. For its proxy, it has only nine servers in five locations. That’s why you need to select a provider with proxy servers in the locations you want to use. For example, if you want to access Netflix Italy using a proxy, find a proxy with a server in Italy.

>> Learn about: VPN Proxy Master

Proxy Protocol

The other factor to consider is the proxy protocol. We touched on this earlier, but just to elaborate, a proxy protocol dictates how you connect to a proxy server. It tells your device which port to use, how to chop up traffic into data packets, how to label those packets, and so on. It’s a complex mechanism with lots of moving parts.

Some protocols are better than others depending on how you use the proxy. Some examples are:

• HTTP/HTTPS: This proxy protocol is commonly used in browsers only, but it doesn’t work on external apps such as torrent clients.
• SSL/TLS: This is a more secure protocol that uses encryption to scramble data being transferred, but because it was last updated in 1996, its encryption has vulnerabilities.
• Shadowsocks: This is a high-performing protocol good for bypassing firewalls. It’s widely used in China to get around censorship. It encrypts data much better than SSL/TLS, but it’s still not as secure and private as VPN encryption.
• SOCKS5: This is a secure proxy protocol because it requires authentication to access a proxy server, which means not just anyone can access a server. It still lacks the data encryption power of VPNs, but it’s the most secure proxy protocol there is right now.

Of those protocols, the safest to use are SOCKS5, Shadowsocks, and HTTPS (but not HTTP; the “S” stands for “Secure”).

Are Free Proxy Servers Safe?

Your data’s privacy when using a proxy server is contingent on the protocol, but even if a free proxy service uses SOCKS5 — the most secure proxy protocol — we’d still recommend not to use free proxy services.

The logic is simple: When you send traffic through a proxy server, the server itself has access to your data. That’s true for both paid and free proxy services. Now, running a server network costs money, so if a free proxy is able to keep its servers up, it must be getting funds from somewhere else. Usually, that “somewhere else” is you — or, more specifically, your data.

If you use a free proxy service, you’re more likely to encounter a provider that logs data and sells it. That could open you up to privacy risks, identity theft, and ad targeting, none of which is good for your personal and digital safety.

While there might be a few honest free proxy providers — for example, HMA and its free browser proxy — there’s a whole bunch more that offer free services only to profit off of your data. It’s simply easier to avoid free proxy services altogether.

Do Proxy Servers Work on Smartphones?

After choosing a proxy service to use — hopefully not a free one — the next part is to set up the proxy on the devices on which you’ll need it. We know that proxy connections work on Windows and macOS, but do they work on smartphones as well?

You can set up a proxy connection on an iPhone or Android, but bear in mind that only HTTP proxy servers are supported. If your proxy uses SOCKS5 or Shadowsocks, it won’t work.

Moreover, with both iPhones and Android, not all traffic is diverted to the proxy server — only browser traffic from Chrome, Safari, or any other third-party browser that supports HTTP (all of them, basically). Traffic from apps — for example, Netflix — will not route through the proxy server. That means if you’re browsing from a browser app, your IP address will change, but if you’re using a different app, it will not.

Learn how to change IP address location on an iPhone and change location on Android more effectively.

Setting Up Proxy on iOS

1. Obtain the proxy IP address and port from your provider or by pinging the proxy server address.
2. Open the Settings app.
3. Go to Wi-Fi and select your Wi-Fi network.
4. Scroll to the bottom and tap Configure Proxy.
5. Tap the toggle switch to turn it on.
6. Enter your proxy IP address and your credentials from your proxy provider.

Setting Up Proxy on Android

1. Obtain the proxy server address and port.
2. Open the Settings app.
3. Go to Network & Internet, then Wi-Fi.
4. Select your Wi-Fi network.
5. Look for the Modify option.
6. Select Advanced Options.
7. Under the Proxy menu, select Manual in the drop-down list.
8. Enter the server address and port details.
9. Tap Save.

Setting Up a Proxy on Other Devices

If there’s any other device you need to use proxy on, the setup process is mostly the same. As long as the device allows you to change network settings, there’s more than likely an option to manually set up a proxy connection. Just remember to have these three things handy:

• Proxy server or IP address: You can get these straight from the proxy provider. If your device requires a proxy IP address, just ping the server address given to you using a Windows or Mac computer.
• Port: This tells your device which network port to use when sending traffic to a proxy server (usually 1080 or 8080). You can also get this information from the proxy provider.
• Credentials: Secure proxy servers require account credentials before giving you access. You can get your account credentials usually by logging in to your proxy account and requesting a username and password from your proxy provider.

Once you have those, it’s just a matter of filling in the blanks in your device’s proxy settings menu.

Conclusion

Using a proxy is a good way to gain some online privacy while also getting around website blocking, censorship, and network restrictions. It’s also a good way to make it appear as though you’re browsing from a different location.

However, keep in mind that proxy servers are secondary only to VPNs in terms of the privacy they provide. They don’t provide encryption, so your browsing activity is not really private when you’re using a proxy server.

» Learning Guide: How Do Private Browsers Work?

If you want to hide your browsing activity, it’s better to use a VPN.