Are you looking for ways to evade IP address block set aside by websites to enforce IP-based rules? Then come in now and discover the best techniques you can use to circumvent IP blockers.
Overview of IP Blockers <Paid & Free>
- VPN Service to Bypass website: ExpressVPN, NordVPN, & Surfshark
- Residential IP Proxies for Scraping: Luminati, Smartproxy & GeoSurf
- Mobile IPs for Social Automation: Soax, Proxy-cheap & Luminati
- Private Proxies for IP Blocking: Myprivateproxy, InstantProxies & SSLPrivateProxy
- Free IP Blockers, Tor Network, Hola VPN, Betternet VPN, Proxysite…
IP Blocker Evasion Techniques
IP blockers have dealt with me. I have been prevented from buying some products online, denied access to certain content online, and have even scraped wrong data points because of my IP address.
I know what it feels like to be denied access because of your IP address and can help you evade the blocking system set aside by websites. The techniques I will be recommending to you consist of both paid solutions and a few tested and trusted free solutions. Before going into the recommendation proper, let take a look at an overview of IP blocker.
What is an IP Blocker?
Every computer on the Internet has an identity attached to it to facilitate communication and identification. This identity is known as an IP address. Whenever you send a web request, the request you send has your IP address bundled with it.
During the handshake with the website the request is meant for, the website will have to look up your IP address using a set of defined rules; the website will either allow you access to the content you want, provide you an alternative content, or deny you access completely.
This system that looks up your IP address and denies you access if your IP address met or did not meet certain criteria is known as an IP blocker.
Reasons Why Websites Use IP Blockers
IP blockers are put in place by websites for two main reasons – to prevent spam and to enforce geo-location rules.
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Spam Prevention
The most important reason why websites have IP blockers is to prevent spam. The IP blockers of websites, through IP tracking, can deny requests coming from certain IP addresses because too many requests have been sent through such IP addresses. They also keep a list of blacklisted IP addresses and from third-party and use to prevent IP addresses associated with spammy behavior from accessing their systems.
Learn More, How to Scrape a Website and Never Get Blacklisted?
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Enforcing Geo-location Rules and Restrictions
Websites on the Internet are becoming localized and creating ‘geo-fence’ around their content. Just in case you don’t know, your IP address reveals your location.
Learn More, What Does an IP Address Tell You?
Web services use this information to geo-target web content and prevent users from accessing certain content if they are not froma specific location. For instance, the BBC iPlayer service allows only Internet users from the United Kingdom to access its service.
Techniques for Evading IP Blockers
While IP blockers can be effective, it is important you know that they are only effective against those that do not know how to evade them if you do not know how to bypass them, you will learn how to do that in this article. Below are some of the techniques you can use.
VPN Services
VPN services are some of the services that will provide you protection against IP blocker. They do this by creating a virtual private network that your web traffic is routed through,and your IP address is replaced with a different IP address before getting to the intended websites.
They are used by privacy concerned individuals. For you to use a VPN service, you will have to install its software – this facilitates the encryption of your traffic to provide you better privacy and security. Let take a look at some of the popular VPN services in the market.
ExpressVPN
- Locations: 94 countries supported
- Platform Support: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and browser extensions
- Cost: $12.95 per month
The ExpressVPN service is arguably the best VPN service in the market. With this VPN service, you can enjoy unrestricted access to the Internet as it allows its users to choose from one of the 96 countries it support.
ExpressVPN has support for many platforms, including Windows, Mac, Android, iPhone, and Linux. It is also available as a browser extension for popular browsers (Chrome and Firefox). One thing you will come to like about this service is that they provide their users a 30 days money-back guarantee.
NordVPN
- Locations:59 countries supported
- Platform Support: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and browser extensions
- Cost:$11.95 per month
NordVPN is another VPN service that will provide you protection against IP addresses. Just like every other VPN service, NordVPN will not only encrypt your traffic but will also get your IP address masked with a different IP address.
They have software for popular platforms and can help you evade geo-location restrictions, and they have services in about 59 countries. NordVPN has cheap pricing – and the pricing gets cheaper as you pay for longer periods. With NordVPN, you will enjoy a fast and stable Internet connection.
Surfshark
- Locations: 63 countries supported
- Platform Support: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and many others
- Cost: $12.95 per month
This VPN service has 63 countries, which means that you can use it to access localized web content in 63 countries. Surfshark, just like the others above areaffordable,e and the pricing gets cheaper as you pay for longer periods – you can even save up to 81 percent if you pay for 24 months.
The headquarters of Surfshark is in the British Virgin Islands. As such, you are far away from the prying eyes of the 14 eyes countries – they keep a no-log policy and make use of the best firewall technology to protect you.
Proxy Services
Proxies are just like VPNs – they replace your IP address with a different one as your traffic pass through them. However, they are a few fundamental differences. For proxies, you do not need to install any software – all that is required is the port and IP pair – and a means of authentication, which could be either username and password, or via IP authentication. They are faster than VPN services. Proxies are used for tasks that require many IP addresses for IP rotation purposes. There are generally 3 types of proxies according to the source of the IP address – data center, residential, and mobile.
Datacenter Proxies
Datacenter proxies make use of IP addresses sourcedfrom data centers such as Digital Ocean, Amazon AWS, and many others. They are easily detected and not suitable for some on websites with strict anti-spam systems. They are the fastest type of proxies and are also the cheapest in the market.
MyPrivateProxy
- Locations: US, Canada, and EU region only
- Concurrency Allowed: Up to 100 threads
- Bandwidth Allowed: Unlimited
- Cost: $1.49 per proxy for a month
MyPrivateProxy is arguably one of the best datacenter proxy providers. Unlike many other datacenter providers, MyPrivateProxy has support for many locations in across North America and Europe.
MyPrivateProxy sells both shared as well as private proxies. For the best performance, I will advise you to go for their private proxies. The pricing of MyPirvateProxy is affordable. This provider is one of the providers that have its servers powered by wind energy.
SSLPrivateProxy
- Locations: US, Canada, and EU region only
- Concurrency Allowed: Up to 100 threads
- Bandwidth Allowed: Unlimited
- Cost: $1.75 per proxy for a month
Just like MyPrivateProxy, SSLPrivateProxy has support for a good number of locations in North America and Europe. One thing that differentiates them is that SSLPrivateProxy has support for specialized proxies that are engineered for some specialized use cases.
These specialized proxies include Instagram proxies, Pinterest proxies, and classified ad proxies, among others. These specialized proxies cost high than regular proxies. On a general base, SSLPrivateProxy costs higher than MyPrivateProxy.
Highproxies
- Locations: US, Canada, and EU region only
- Concurrency Allowed: Up to 100 threads
- Bandwidth Allowed: Unlimited
- Cost: $1.40 per proxy for a month
Highproxies is one of the premium datacenter proxy providers. I have tried their proxies, and they have proven to be high anonymous proxies – they are elite proxies that evade detection as proxies and also keep your IP address hidden.
Just like the other datacenter proxies above, proxies from Highproxies come will allow you to enjoy unlimited bandwidth.This provider also sells specialized proxies for social media management, classified ad, and ticketing.
Residential proxies
Residential proxies are those proxies that replace their clients’ IP addresses with residential IP addresses. Most of the residential proxy providers source their IP addresses by creating peer-to-peer networks that Internet users can join and give permission for their devices and IPs to be used.
Residential proxies provide a middle ground between pricing and compatibility with popular websites. Below are some of the top residential proxies you can use to evade IP blocker.
Luminati
- IP Pool Size: Over 72 million
- Locations: All countries in the world
- Concurrency Allowed: Unlimited
- Bandwidth Allowed: Starts at 40GB
- Cost: Starts at $500 monthly for 40GB
Luminati is a market leader in the proxy market. Its residential proxy network is arguably the best. As at the time of writing this article, Luminati has the largest residential proxy pool with over 72 million residential IPs. The size of the pool is not just the plus, but also the fact that it comprises of IPs from all countries around the world.
One thing you’ll come to like about Luminati is that its IPs are ethically sourced. Luminati proxies are rotating proxies that either change IP after requests or after a specific period. It is fast, secure, reliable, and compatible with all popular websites, as proven by our scraping compatibility test. The major problem associated with Luminati is that its minimum monetary commitment is expensive.
Shifter
- IP Pool Size: Over 31 million
- Locations: 130 countries
- Concurrency Allowed: Unlimited
- Cost: Starts at $249.99 monthly for 10 ports
There’s one downside to Luminati not mentioned above – its pricing is based on metered bandwidth. This makes it not suitable if you require proxies for streaming huge video files. In a case such as this, Shifter will be a better alternative provided it ticks all the other boxes.
Shifter is a backconnect residential proxy service that will allow you to enjoy unlimited bandwidth usage. Its IPs are from major cities and many countries around the world. With this provider, you can enjoy unlimited sessions and fast connection speed. It is priced based on ports, and its pool size is 31 million.
Smartproxy
- IP Pool Size: Over 40 million
- Locations: 195 locations across the globe
- Concurrency Allowed: Unlimited
- Bandwidth Allowed: Starts at 5GB
- Cost: Starts at $75 monthly for 5GB
Smartproxy is another residential proxy network that can help you evade restrictions and unblock websites provided the restrictions are IP-based restrictions. This is because it has over 40 million residential IP addresses. Not only the size of its IP pool but also because of its excellent location support.
Smartproxy has support for almost all countries around the world – and many cities. This means that you can not only use their proxies to unblock websites; you can also use them to access localized content in over 195 locations around the world. Just like Luminati, it is priced based on bandwidth.
Mobile Proxies
Not minding the price, mobile proxies are the best type of proxies. They make use of mobile IPs that do not easily get blacklisted. Mobile proxies enjoy this because of their shortage, making it difficult for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to assign them statically.
They are rotated and the IP assigned to a mobile device can be more than 2 in a day.Web services are aware of this and, as such, do not easily block mobile IPs. However, they are expensive when compared to residential and datacenter proxies.
Soax
- IP Pool Size: Over 3.5+ million
- Locations: All countries
- Concurrency Allowed: Unlimited
- Bandwidth Allowed: Starts at 2.73GB
- Cost: Starts at $40 daily for 2.73GB and 10 ports
Soax maintains one of the cleanest mobile IP pools in the market. Currently, it has a pool with over 2.5 million mobile IPs. These IPs are from many countries around the world. Their pool is regularly updated, and you can trust their IP addresses.
This provide has excellent support for geo-targeting as you can filter out not just proxies from a specific country, but also specific states, cities, and even mobile carrier. Soax has a flexible rental duration; you can buy weekly and even daily proxies from them. While they are flexible in terms of rental period, they are not the cheapest mobile proxy provider out there.
Proxy-cheap
- Locations: US and France only
- Concurrency Allowed: Unlimited
- Bandwidth Allowed: unlimited
- Cost: Starts at $50 monthly
Proxy-cheap mobile proxies have support for only US and France IP addresses. If you are looking for mobile proxies from other locations, then I will advise you to stick with Soax or even Luminati, which is the premier mobile proxy provider in the market. Proxy-cheap proxies make use of real phones with real sim cards.
One thing you’ll come to like about Proxy-cheap is its support for unlimited bandwidth usage. You will have to choose between US mobile proxies and France mobile proxies at the time of subscribing. US proxies are cheaper compared to France proxies.
Free IP Blocker Evasion Techniques
The above techniques of evading the IP blockers are all paid – that’s, you will need to part with some money. If you are looking for free techniques to walk around IP blockers, then this section has been written for you. You need to know that the free method hasits drawbacks, with slow speed being a major concern.
Tor Browser
The browser is the browser for The Onion Router (Tor). This technology seeks to prevent Internet users from surveillance, tracking, and censorship by routing users’ web requests through a volunteer network of nodes (computers) before routing the request to the intended web service.
As your request goes through the network, your IP is stripped out and as such, this can help you avoid IP related restriction. The Tor network is free to use but can be very slow because of the series of routing involved. It is also important you know that some web services detect Tor traffic – making them not effective on such web services.
Web Proxies
Web proxies are just like regular proxies – they route your web requests through proxy servers and replace your real IP address bundled with the requests with a different one.
The difference between web proxies and regular proxies is that while you get IP and port pairs for regular proxies, web proxies do not provide you that – they provide you an interface on a web page that you will use to browse websites, and your requests will be routed through their proxy servers.
The proxies will work only for URL you visit via their websites – and other tabs will use your real IP address. Web proxies are free, but you can only use them in the browser environment.
Free Proxy List
Free proxies are proxies that do not require you to pay for them before you can use them. They are open proxies and do not require any form of authentication. Most likely, you will be sharing the proxies with a lot of users, and as such, you should expect that the speed should be slow.
They are not useful on many popular websites as they easily get detected. They are also not reliable and can be very unpredictable. For a list of websites you can get free proxies from, click here.
Conclusion
IP-based restrictions enforced by IP blockers make the Internet restrictive. Fortunately for us, IP blockers are easy to evade. The above techniques are the options available to you.
For personal usage and unblocking web services, go for VPNs. Proxies are for IM tasks that require many IP addresses. If you do not want to spend money, you can use one of the free options available to you and deal with the setbacks.
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