Mobile proxies are becoming increasingly popular, but what are they and what do they do?
by Carl Gamutan
Publishing Date: July 13, 2022
If you were researching about proxy servers and stumbled upon mobile proxies, you would have learned that these types of proxies are recognized as the most effective proxies in the market and are often used when other types of proxies can’t get the job done. If you want to learn more about mobile proxies, this article will explain more about them, why they’re effective, and what are its disadvantages.
Mobile proxies use IP addresses from mobile devices using their mobile data. It has to be specifically mobile data as using Wi-fi for internet connection simply makes them residential proxies instead of mobile proxies. This essentially means that you’ll be utilizing real IP addresses that were assigned by the mobile phone’s mobile carriers and your traffic will be redirected to their network.
The number one thing that makes mobile proxies so effective is that mobile IP addresses have the best IP reputation there is. Websites are quite hesitant in blocking these types of IP addresses so you can get away with a lot more by using mobile proxies.
Websites are reluctant to block mobile IP addresses because a single IP address represents hundreds of users. This is due to the IPv4 shortage since IPv4 only supports 4 billion IP addresses worldwide, many of which are banned by the government. This means that mobile users have to share IP addresses and the reason why websites are so reluctant to block a single IP address as blocking one mobile IP address means websites are blocking a huge number of internet users instead of just a single one.
Even if mobile proxies are the best and most effective type of proxy, they still have their fair share of disadvantages. Some of which are:
Expensive Price. As mobile proxies are the best but also the hardest to get by providers, their price point also reflects that. They are several times more expensive compared to residential proxies and much more compared to datacenter proxies. Free mobile proxies are also almost non-existent.
Slow Speed. Mobile proxies use mobile data for connection so they are inevitably slower compared to datacenter proxies and even residential proxies. You should also expect high latency when using mobile proxies.
Mobile proxies are quite expensive so make sure that you need them before buying them. The best use case for mobile proxies is for extremely strict websites with advanced systems that detect bot or proxy usage. Social media platforms are the best example of these kinds of websites.
With mobile proxies, social media managers won’t have to worry that much when using bots to automate any social media activity. You can create and manage multiple social media accounts through an automation tool and the number of obstacles, like blocks and CAPTCHAS, you‘ll face will be quite low.
Other uses for mobile proxies would be for developers to test applications or websites and companies that want to do ad verifications. Tasks like web scraping e-commerce websites or search engines
The effectiveness of mobile proxies is undeniable and they’re the best in the market but, with their high price point, you should only use them when the other types of proxies just aren’t enough. Datacenter and residential proxies should be good enough for most tasks but if they’re not, then you can use mobile proxies.
