James Meadow
Product Marketing
James covers how proxies work and how to choose them: proxy types, comparisons, buying guides and what is new at Shifter.
Writes about
- Proxy types and fundamentals
- Comparisons and buying guides
- Product launches and news
Articles by James Meadow
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October 9, 2026 · Residential Proxies
When You Don't Need a Residential Proxy
We fetched 30 public sites from a datacenter IP and through residential exits. Over half needed no proxy at all. How to tell which kind of site you have.
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October 8, 2026 · News
Introducing Shifter's Free Web Proxy, Built on Residential IPs
Shifter Web Proxy is free: open any website through a real residential IP in any of 54 countries, with no signup, no ads and nothing to install.
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October 6, 2026 · Knowledge
Web Data Collection for Academic Research: Reproducibility, Ethics Review and How to Cite a Scraped Dataset
Scraped data is now common in research, but often hard to reproduce, review or cite. How to collect web data that survives peer review, ethics boards and reuse.
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October 5, 2026 · Knowledge
Public-Record Collection for Investigative Reporting: Method, Ethics and Verification
Public records drive investigations, but only if collected carefully, preserved as served and checked before publication. A method for newsrooms.
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October 4, 2026 · Knowledge
Accessibility Auditing Across Markets: Testing What Users in Each Country Actually See
An audit of your US homepage says little about your German or Japanese one. We audited 23 sites from four countries: a quarter had market-only problems.
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October 2, 2026 · Scraping
Proxy Selection as a Multi-Armed Bandit Problem
Which proxy configuration should the next request use? Treat it as a bandit problem. In our simulation, adaptive selection came within 2% of perfect hindsight.
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October 1, 2026 · Knowledge
Using hreflang to Find Every Language and Country Version of a Page
hreflang lists every localized version of a page. We checked how top sites use it, what breaks, and why some versions only open from inside a country.
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September 30, 2026 · Knowledge
Normalising Prices, Numbers and Dates Across Locales
1.234,56 € and $1,234.56 are both prices, and 03/04/2026 is two different dates. How to parse scraped values correctly by locale, with tested code.
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September 29, 2026 · News
Introducing IP Info: A Free IP Geolocation API, No API Key Needed
IP Info is Shifter's free IP geolocation and ASN API. It runs on the same database behind our proxy pools, needs no signup or API key, and is ready for AI agents.
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September 29, 2026 · Scraping
Sitemaps as a Discovery Source: Finding Every URL Without Crawling the Whole Site
XML sitemaps list a site's URLs, and sometimes when they changed. How to read them properly, and why you should never trust lastmod without checking it.
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September 27, 2026 · Knowledge
Cost per Clean Record: The Scraping Metric Finance Actually Understands
Gigabytes and request counts do not tell finance what data costs. How to measure cost per clean record and per useful change, and which levers move it most.
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September 26, 2026 · Knowledge
robots.txt, AI Opt-Outs and Reservation Signals: What Web Data Collectors Should Honour in 2026
robots.txt now carries legal weight in the EU, and new AI signals are spreading. What each one means, what AI crawlers honour and how data teams should respond.
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September 25, 2026 · Knowledge
Monitoring Your Suppliers' Public Footprint: A Practical Collection Method
Supplier risk usually shows up in public before it reaches an audit. A step-by-step method for monitoring sanctions lists, registries, websites and local news.
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September 23, 2026 · Knowledge
Subnet Contagion: When One Blocked IP Poisons Its Neighbours
Blocklists and reputation systems often judge an IP by its neighbours. What research shows about range-level blocking, its collateral damage and how to spot it.
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September 22, 2026 · Scraping
Cost-Aware Crawl Scheduling: Spending Your Budget Where It Changes
Most recrawl budget is spent confirming nothing changed. How to schedule by expected value per cost, and why the pages that change fastest are not the best buy.
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September 21, 2026 · Knowledge
Which Countries Get Geo-Blocked Most, and by Whom
Sanctioned countries top every measurement of geo-blocking, but they are not the whole story. What the research shows about who blocks whom, and how.
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September 19, 2026 · Scraping
How to Monitor Employer Reviews and Ratings Across Sites
Employer reviews shape who applies. How to monitor ratings and themes across review sites, benchmark competitors, and stay within each site's rules.
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September 18, 2026 · Knowledge
Grounding LLM Agents with Live Web Data via Proxies
Grounding ties an agent's answer to sources it can cite. What grounding is, how a live-web grounding loop works, and the places it silently breaks.
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September 17, 2026 · Knowledge
Contact and Company Enrichment: Data Sources + Proxy Infrastructure
Data enrichment fills gaps in records you already hold. What each enrichment type needs, where the data comes from, and where proxy infrastructure fits.
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September 16, 2026 · Knowledge
How to Monitor the Dark Web and Paste Sites for Leaked Credentials
Most credential leaks surface on paste sites and public channels, not hidden markets. How to monitor them, triage what you find and stay within the law.
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September 15, 2026 · Knowledge
Scraping JavaScript-Heavy Sites: When You Need a Web Scraping API
Once a site needs rendering, the real choice is running your own browser fleet or using an API. What each costs to operate, and how to decide per target.
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September 14, 2026 · Knowledge
Best Web Scraping APIs for Amazon Monitoring and Price Intelligence
The best API for Amazon depends on the job. How the three kinds of API compare, what to test before buying, and where each fits in a price stack.
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September 12, 2026 · Knowledge
Building a Real-Time Housing Market Data Feed
Housing has no price tick. A real-time feed detects listing events, and its hardest problems are property identity and stable coverage, not speed.
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September 11, 2026 · Scraping
How to Detect Third-Party Sellers Hijacking Your Listings
A hijacker does not steal your product, they attach to your listing. The signals that give it away, how to watch for them, and what evidence to keep.
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September 10, 2026 · Knowledge
How to Verify Localized Campaigns Across Every Market
Your campaign is approved in every market. That is not evidence it is being served correctly. How to verify localized campaigns from inside each market.
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September 9, 2026 · Scraping
Building a Real-Time Competitive Price Feed for Dynamic Pricing
Dynamic pricing is only as good as the feed under it. How to build a competitive price pipeline with freshness, confidence and a safety layer.
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September 8, 2026 · Residential Proxies
The Malware Economy Behind Cheap Residential Proxies: What Enterprise Buyers Need to Know
Malware-sourced residential proxies can create compliance, security and operational risk. Learn what enterprise buyers should verify before procurement.
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September 7, 2026 · Scraping
How to Track Competitor Promotions and Discount Cycles
A promotion is an event with a start and an end, and price snapshots miss both. How to record promotions as events and reconstruct a competitor's calendar.
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September 6, 2026 · Knowledge
Scraping Intent Signals to Power Sales Intelligence
Buyer intent data is mostly public if you know which signals to read. What the useful ones are, how fast they decay, and how to collect them at scale.
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September 5, 2026 · Scraping
The Web Needs a Vantage-Point Standard: Why Public-Web Datasets Should Record Where Data Was Observed
Data provenance should record where web data was observed. Learn why geography, network, device and session context matter for auditable datasets.
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September 4, 2026 · Scraping
How to Set Up Residential Proxies in Node.js with Axios, Fetch and Got
The agent wiring is ten lines. Setting up a Node project so proxies stay configurable, verifiable and cheap is the part that takes longer. A setup guide.
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September 3, 2026 · Knowledge
How SEO Platforms Use SERP APIs for Rank Tracking and Keyword Monitoring
If your product runs on search data, collection is a cost centre rather than a moat. Here is what SEO platforms buy, what they build, and where economics bite.
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September 2, 2026 · Knowledge
Trademark Abuse Detection Without Getting Blocked
Trademark abuse hides in ads and listings that never surface from one location. Detection is the easy half; staying able to collect is the hard one.
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September 2, 2026 · Knowledge
Monitoring Unauthorized Sellers and MAP Violations at Scale
Both problems come from one dataset: who sells your products, where, and at what price. Here is how to collect it and act on it without drowning in noise.
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September 1, 2026 · Knowledge
Catching Cloaked and Geo-Targeted Ads Competitors Hide From You
Competitor ads you cannot see from your desk are not hidden by accident. Here is how cloaking and geo-targeting work, and how to see what real users are shown.
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September 1, 2026 · Knowledge
How to Detect Ad Fraud Across 195+ Countries in Real Time
You cannot detect fraud from the dashboard reporting it. Detection means checking placements from real user vantage points, in every market, continuously.
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August 31, 2026 · Knowledge
Are Residential Proxies Legal? What You Need to Know
Using a proxy is legal in most places. What you do through it, and how the network sourced its addresses, is where the actual risk sits.
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August 30, 2026 · Knowledge
How Residential Proxy Providers Ethically Source Their IPs
The addresses are real people's home connections, so the question that matters is whether they agreed. Here is what good sourcing looks like and how to check.
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August 30, 2026 · Knowledge
Which Countries Have the Best Residential Proxy Availability?
There is no fixed ranking, and the only availability that matters is the one in your markets at your concurrency. Here is what drives it and how to measure it.
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August 29, 2026 · Knowledge
Are Residential Proxies Safe? Security Risks and How to Reduce Them
Routing traffic through someone else's connection carries real risk. Here is what a provider can and cannot see, where the danger sits, and how to reduce it.
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August 27, 2026 · Knowledge
Residential Proxy Glossary: Key Terms Every Buyer Should Know
Vendors use the same words to mean different things. Here are the terms that actually affect what you buy, in plain language and grouped by decision.
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August 26, 2026 · Knowledge
Why Accurate Rank Tracking Requires Residential Proxies
Your tracker says position three, your client sees seven, and both are looking at real results. Usually the difference is the network your checks go out over.
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August 26, 2026 · Knowledge
Residential Proxy KPIs: The Metrics That Actually Matter
Success rate alone hides more than it reveals. Here are the metrics that tell a scraping team lead whether the pipeline is healthy, and what each one moves.
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August 25, 2026 · Knowledge
How to Detect SERP Volatility and Google Algorithm Updates from Your Own Data
Public volatility trackers measure someone else's keywords. Here is how to build a volatility signal from your own rank data and tell a real update from noise.
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August 25, 2026 · Knowledge
Residential Proxy SLAs and Uptime Guarantees Explained
A proxy SLA covers gateway availability, not whether your targets let you through. Here is what the numbers actually promise and what to ask before signing.
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August 24, 2026 · Residential Proxies
Real vs Fake Residential Proxies: How to Spot Datacenter IPs Sold as Residential
Some providers sell datacenter IPs as residential. Here is how to tell the difference before you buy, using checks you can run in a few minutes.
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August 22, 2026 · Residential Proxies
Scraping App Store and Google Play Data Across Countries
An app does not have one ranking, one price, or one set of reviews. It has a different set in every storefront, and you can only read each one from inside it.
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August 19, 2026 · Knowledge
How to Measure Accurate Keyword Rankings at Scale
There is no single rank for a keyword. It shifts with location, login, and device. Here is how to pin those variables and track true rankings at scale.
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August 16, 2026 · Knowledge
Collecting Web Data for AI and LLM Training with Residential Proxies
Building a training or eval corpus means crawling the web at scale, across regions, without getting blocked. Here is where residential proxies fit.
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August 14, 2026 · Residential Proxies
Mobile Proxies vs Residential Proxies: When Each One Actually Makes Sense
Mobile proxies are the hardest to block but the priciest and least stable. Residential wins on pool size, geo, stability, and cost. Here is when each fits.
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August 13, 2026 · Knowledge
15 Residential Proxy Providers, Ranked on One Identical Test
Every major residential proxy network ranked on measured data: pool depth, network spread, price and response time, from one identical test. Full scores for 15 providers.
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August 3, 2026 · Knowledge
The State of Web Scraping in 2026
AI made data collection strategic, anti-bot went network-level, blocks turned invisible, pricing shifted to bandwidth. Where web scraping stands in 2026.
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July 30, 2026 · News
Introducing Automatic Wallet Top-Up
Set a threshold and refill amount, and your Shifter wallet refills itself so usage-based charges never pause your proxies. Monthly cap, off anytime.
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July 21, 2026 · Knowledge
Residential Proxies for Flight, Hotel and Travel-Fare Data Collection
Travel fares are point-of-sale priced, session-based, and perishable. Why accurate flight and hotel data collection depends on residential proxies, per market.
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July 19, 2026 · Scraping
How to Use Residential Proxies for eBay Listing and Seller Data Collection
eBay's sold listings are the closest thing to a public price oracle. How to collect listing and seller data accurately, per marketplace, with proxies.
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July 12, 2026 · Knowledge
Residential Proxies for News and Media Monitoring
News coverage is regional, geo-gated, and bot-defended, so you only see it as a real local reader. How residential proxies make media monitoring accurate.
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July 9, 2026 · Knowledge
Residential Proxies for Digital Shelf Analytics
Your digital shelf, rank, content, availability, reviews, is geo-personalized per retailer and market. How residential proxies measure it as a real shopper.
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July 7, 2026 · Knowledge
Residential Proxies for Alternative Data
Investment firms trade on web-sourced signals, but only if the data is accurate. How residential proxies make alternative data complete, geo-true, unblocked.
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July 4, 2026 · Knowledge
Monitoring AI Search and Google AI Overviews with Proxies
AI Overviews and answer engines vary by location. How residential proxies let you monitor your AI search visibility accurately, per market.
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July 2, 2026 · Residential Proxies
ISP vs Residential Proxies: Which Should You Choose?
ISP and residential proxies are both real-ISP IPs, so it's not about trust. It's static vs rotating and per-IP vs per-GB. A clear guide to picking the right one.
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June 29, 2026 · Residential Proxies
What Is a UK Residential Proxy and Why Businesses Need One in 2026
A UK residential proxy routes traffic through real British home IPs. What it is, why SEO, ecommerce, and ad teams need one, and how to choose a provider.
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June 28, 2026 · Residential Proxies
What Is a US Residential Proxy and Why Businesses Need One in 2026
A US residential proxy routes traffic through real American home IPs. What it is, why SEO, ecommerce, and ad teams need one, and how to choose a provider.
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June 26, 2026 · Knowledge
Is Web Scraping Legal? A Practical 2026 Overview
Is web scraping legal? Usually yes for public data, but it depends on what, how, and where. A plain-English overview of the law, key cases, and best practices.
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June 24, 2026 · Knowledge
What Is IP Reputation and Why Does It Matter for Residential Proxies?
IP reputation is the trust score sites assign every IP. What feeds it, who scores it, and how to evaluate a residential proxy pool's reputation before you buy.
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June 22, 2026 · Scraping
ISP Proxies vs Datacenter Proxies for Large-Scale Scraping
ISP vs datacenter proxies for scraping at scale: how they differ on ban rate, speed, cost, and stability, and a clear rule for which one your workload needs.
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June 17, 2026 · News
Introducing Team Workspaces on Shifter
Invite teammates into your Shifter account with three role tiers, switch between multiple workspaces from the sidebar, and keep billing scoped to who actually owns the plan.
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June 12, 2026 · Knowledge
Best Proxies for AI Agents That Browse the Web
Learn how to choose the best proxies for AI agents that browse the web, with clear guidance on IP type, session control, geo-targeting, cost, and scale.
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June 10, 2026 · Residential Proxies
Residential Proxies for Localized Google Search Results
Residential proxies for localized Google search results help teams collect geo-accurate SERP data at scale with fewer blocks and better precision.
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June 6, 2026 · Residential Proxies
Ethical Residential Proxies for AI Data Collection
Ethical residential proxies for AI data collection help teams scale public web access with consent, compliance controls, and reliable geo-targeting.
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June 3, 2026 · Residential Proxies
Residential Proxies for AI Search SEO
Learn how residential proxies for AI search engine optimization improve SERP accuracy, geo-targeting, scale, and data quality for enterprise teams.
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May 31, 2026 · Knowledge
How to Bypass Geolocation Restrictions Legally
Learn how to bypass geolocation restrictions legally for research, QA, SEO, and data collection while staying compliant and avoiding risk.
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May 26, 2026 · Knowledge
When City Level Proxy Targeting Matters
City level proxy targeting improves data accuracy for localized scraping, ads, SEO, and QA by matching requests to real user geography.
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May 23, 2026 · Knowledge
Best Proxies for Ad Verification in 2026
Find the best proxies for ad verification with the right IP type, geo-targeting, session control, and scale for accurate campaign monitoring.
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May 20, 2026 · Residential Proxies
What Are Residential Proxies?
What are residential proxies? Learn how they work, why teams use them for web data collection, and where they fit in large-scale proxy infrastructure.
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May 18, 2026 · News
Introducing the New Shifter Residential Proxies
A new gateway model with improved speed, 205M+ residential IPs, bandwidth-based pricing, and precision targeting by country, region, city, and ASN.
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April 28, 2026 · Residential Proxies
Why the Per-Port Proxy Era Is Over
Port-based proxy plans made sense in 2012. They stopped making sense around 2020. How the industry settled on bandwidth pricing and what it means for buyers.
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April 24, 2026 · Knowledge
Why the Open Web Matters More in the AI Era
Paywalls, login walls, and app-first content keep narrowing the open web. AI grounding makes that narrowing more expensive. The case for public web access.
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February 12, 2024 · News
Introducing Ice Payments on Shifter
Discover seamless crypto transactions with Ice payments on Shifter. Streamline your proxy service purchases and unlock new opportunities with Ice integration.
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April 4, 2023 · Residential Proxies
Are Proxies Legal? Web Scraping Laws, Safety and Ethics
Learn when proxy use and web scraping are legal, how rules differ across the US, UK and EU, and what ethical IP sourcing involves.
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March 1, 2023 · News
ice Network vs Pi Network: Open Source Wins
Discover why ice Network's open-source model is more transparent & trustworthy than Pi Network's closed codebase for mining digital currencies.
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January 6, 2023 · Residential Proxies
What Are Rotating Proxies? How Rotation and Sticky Sessions Work
Learn how rotating proxies work, including per-request rotation, sticky sessions, backconnect gateways, setup options and common use cases.
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December 12, 2022 · Knowledge
Types of Proxies: A Complete Comparison Guide
Compare residential, ISP, datacenter, mobile, static and rotating proxies by speed, detection risk, cost and best use case.
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December 6, 2022 · Knowledge
Proxies vs VPNs vs TOR: Key Differences
What is the difference between a proxy, a VPN, and a TOR browser? When should a company use one of these solutions? Check out and discover it!
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September 16, 2022 · Knowledge
Proxies for Ad Verification: Advantages and Use Cases
Do you want to engage in an ad verification process? Click and check our article and discover how proxies can support the integrity of your ads.
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August 23, 2022 · Knowledge
How to Use Proxies to Protect Your Brand? Guide
Do you want to protect your company’s brand image and story from online threats? Use proxies to go online in complete privacy. Click and find out more!
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June 14, 2022 · Knowledge
Proxy vs VPN: What to Choose For Your Business?
Residential proxy vs VPN? What to choose for your business, and what major questions need to be answered to do it? Find out more on our blog!
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June 14, 2022 · Residential Proxies
Residential vs Datacenter Proxies Compared
What is the difference between Residential and Datacenter Proxies? Which ones are better for your business projects? Click and read our blog post!