Daniel - May 18, 2021
Free Proxies vs Paid Proxies
Here is the free proxies vs paid proxies bout. Read on till the end to find out the winner.
You can get several proxies on the internet for free. Alternatively, you can choose to pay for proxies. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, so, which should you go for? Find out as I compare free proxies vs paid proxies.
Difference Between Free And Paid Proxies
Free and paid proxies will work almost the same way. The primary difference between the two is the cost. While you pay monthly or annually for premium proxies, you don’t pay any money for free proxies. Free proxies don’t only include no-cost proxies; very cheap priced proxies are considered free too.
Another major difference is the sources. Free proxies can be offered by anyone. Some premium proxy providers offer a few proxies to entice users but the majority of free proxies out there are from relatively unknown sources. They can be from regular programmers. Furthermore, most free proxies are datacenter proxies.
Paid proxies, on the other hand, are mainly offered by renowned service providers. In addition to datacenter proxies, most of these premium proxy providers work with internet service providers in different countries to offer residential proxies in different regions.
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Notably, the internet is filled with a lot of free proxies than paid proxies.
Advantages And Disadvantages Of Free Proxies
The major advantage you get with using free proxies is that you don’t pay. If you want to save money or you don’t have the funds to purchase a premium proxy, then a free proxy will help. These proxies are readily available so you can get them at any time.
However, the disadvantages outweigh this advantage. In one analysis of 443 free proxies, about 79% are malicious. People use proxies to conceal their online identity but with most free proxies, you get the opposite. These proxies aren’t exactly private and could be stealing and selling your private data.
Unreliability is another issue with free proxies. They can stop working at any time due to poor connections. Also, these proxies can get clogged with too many users which results in lagging and a slow browsing experience for you. These proxies don’t last either.
As mentioned earlier, some of these free proxies are offered by regular programmers. Therefore, they may be around today and delete the next day. You don’t get any reliable support with these proxies which is a major disadvantage considering how technical proxies can be.
Some legit free proxies feature a lot of ads that will affect your browsing experience. Since you don’t pay for them, their owners make income via these advertisements. Finally, some free proxies are injected with malware which can corrupt your computer.
Advantages And Disadvantages Of Paid Proxies
The only disadvantage of paid proxies is that they can be very expensive, especially the dedicated and private ones. Nevertheless, if you spend money to purchase a paid proxy, you have to worry less about every other thing.
When using a proxy, protection is the most important thing. These paid proxies are very reliable and secure. Majority feature encryption to keep your online identity hidden. Once your IP address is masked, no website you visit can track back your original location.
Furthermore, these paid proxies are available in a variety. You can get rotating or static proxies, shared or private centers, HTTPS or SOCKS proxies, and more. You don’t have to worry about the proxy disappearing as the service providers stay around for a long time.
Paid proxies are great for geo-targeting. This makes them ideal for a lot of automation tasks like web scraping, sneaker purchase, unblocking websites, and social media automation amongst others. Since these proxies are offered by renowned service providers, you get as much support as you need to use them.
Free Proxies vs Paid Proxies – Which Is Better?
Paid proxies are a lot better than free proxies. No one would take their time to build a very reliable proxy and offer it for free online. Most programmers who create proxies do so to execute basic tasks after which they share them with others.
Therefore, you can’t count on most free proxies when you have serious proxy tasks to execute. Paid proxies are very secure with better uptime. Furthermore, they can be used to target any specific region of choice.
That said, not all paid proxy providers are reliable. You can pay money and get a poor proxy. To be on the safe side, you should purchase your paid proxies from a trustworthy proxy provider like ProxyRack. ProxyRack proxies are highly reliable with 99.9% uptime. Furthermore, you can get mobile, residential, and data center proxies.
Bottom Line
Free proxies don’t stand a chance against paid proxies. You can only use free proxies to execute basic tasks and they have lots of limitations and are still not entirely safe. Paid proxies come with a lot of features you can take advantage of.
With ProxyRack, you don’t have to spend much on a paid proxy; the proxy prices are very affordable.
