Last Updated on June 2, 2023 by theadmin

Is it Worth Buying Residential Proxies?

In the world of internet marketing and social media promotion, there is an increasing demand for a special type of proxies.  In fact it’s probably one of the most asked questions in these sectors – where can I find residential proxies for sale?  Most people are finding that if you try and run multiple accounts or promotional tools and bots through standard datacenter proxies you’ll get all sorts of issues.  Simply put they have become too easy to spot and clued up sites like Instagram will detect them easily and flag your account for special scrutiny.

If that happens forget using any promotional tools like Jarvee or running a few accounts from your connection.  You’ll be marked and any accounts you administer will be watched very closely indeed.   Many large web platforms have decided (with some justification) that IP addresses registered from datacentres are much more likely to be from proxies.  Indeed it’s become the simplest method of determining whether a proxy, VPN or other IP hiding account is being used – check the registration of the IP address range it’s using.

Finding those Residential Proxies for Sale

So it makes sense if you want to fly under the radar and run a few extra accounts or cut the time required for social media success by using some automation that you need to look more like a normal user.  Which means using the same sorts of IP addresses they use, not the ones commonly assigned to huge server farms.  This mostly means you have two different options – mobile IP addresses or those from residential ranges.   Neither are easy, but lets discuss residential ranges here as these are arguably more accessible.

Except it’s not that easy to find where to buy residential proxies either as they’re not that simple to obtain.  In fact  the vast majority of residential IP addresses are strictly controlled and allocated through internet service providers.   You can get one sure, just sign up for a residential plan and they’ll let you connect through their gateway which will assign you a suitable IP address.   This of course, isn’t going to work if you’re a proxy service promising to supply thousands of IP addresses for the top marketers or social media management companies.  Getting any sort of volume will be almost impossible doing this on a case by case basic.

So where do all these residential IP addresses come from???

Some of the well established proxy companies do manage to get access to a large number of residential IP addresses to use, but they’re certainly in a minority.  Have a little look at this simple graphic for an idea of how the majority set their residential proxy services up –

You can see our proxy user on the left hand side, subscribing to a nice, cheap residential proxy service.  Our user fires up their tools and points the browser at the proxy address supplied by the service provider.  This is then relayed through a pool of residential IP addresses which are normally leased or rented from other providers. Then the connection is relayed through to the target  web site making the connection look completely legitimate even if it’s from a Jarvee account managing dozens of profiles.

So where are these residential IP addresses coming from? Are they all obtained legitimately or from some dark underworld of proxies? It’s worth knowing before you invest, especially when the proxy service doesn’t own or control them.  Well the answer is that normally they’re from short term leased from other sources – often from one of two places.

Source of Residential IP Addresses

The first, and arguably most legitimate source of residential IP addresses is from piggybacking other people’s internet connections.  There’s a host of ‘free’ services and software which people can use in exchange for limited use of their connections.  Often these are simple apps or pieces of software which users will click through the terms and conditions without realizing.  For example one of the biggest commercial providers of residential IP proxies is Bright Data who obtain those from their free VPN service which is called Hola.

This program has been around for ages and is used by millions of people to hide their internet connections or bypass common geoblocks online.  What many subscribers fail to notice though is that the price of using Hola is allowing others to use their internet connection and bandwidth.

By doing this Luminati gains access to millions of residential IP addresses all over the world. They don’t need to own the addresses or even register them, they can simply use them to relay connections from their paying customers through the Luminati brand.  It’s a simple and elegant solution which gives them access to a massive, global network of residential IP addresses from right across the internet.

This is effectively what many others do to gain access to residential addresses too.  Simply supply some free service or software, yet state in the terms and conditions that the user allows access to their connection whilst active.   Few people read this text and so the network can grow quickly – free services are rarely hard to sell.  Other options are providing software suites or SDKs ( Software Development Kits) in exchange for using connections. No doubt other options will appear as the demand for residential IP addresses continues to grow.

It’s important to remember just how little control that the proxy service provider has in these instances.  They are simply renting access to a huge pool of residential IP addresses which are generally only available for a small period of time. They have virtually no control over these addresses and how they are assigned.  Indeed the only component which most can control is bandwidth which is why you’ll often find this used to set charges,

Other Options for Residential Address Pools

If sneakily hijacking people’s internet connections because they’re too lazy to read the small print isn’t bad enough.  Unfortunately some sources of residential IP addresses are even worse.   A large number of addresses come from Botnets comprised of thousands of infected and hacked PCs which are used to relay internet connections through.

Often the proxy service themselves is unaware of the source of the IP addresses, simply paying to lease the addresses for their paying customers.  Again though they will have little control or access to these IP addresses directly.  Which is why you’ll rarely find the ability to get fixed IP addresses or the ability to rent the same address for a period of time.

Some people won’t care about this as long as the price is decent, after all they’re still residential IP addresses.  However if you’re managing your clients Instagram’s accounts directly because malware has been installed on some poor soul’s computer then you’d be right to be a bit nervous.  After all what else is running on that machine? What else is originating from that very same IP address ?

It might work for some people, but managing your social accounts through a Botnet is probably not a smart idea even if you’re morals will cope with it.  Yes the price may be good but there’s a reason that those cheap residential proxies are so inexpensive!

Now of course, not all residential proxy service providers use these methods.  Unfortunately these are by far the most accessible and simplest methods to gain access to large numbers of residential IP addresses.   The use of free software is of course, perfectly legitimate provided the supplier warns the user – so many large corporations use Luminati for their proxy requirements. It’s only a small step to the dark side though before you’re using a Botnet so be careful with any provider who promises too much for little money!  It really is difficult to gain lots of residential addresses so please be aware of this when you’re speaking to any supplier.

Our recommendations if you’re looking for safe residential IPs for sale are Storm and Rotating Proxies for those, who are worth checking out.