Are you looking for the best alternative to Proxyscrape for free proxy servers? If you answer yes to this question, then you are on the right page as we would be discussing some of the best Proxyscrape alternatives in the article below.
There are a good number of proxy services in the market. Some are good – others are not so good or absolutely bad for you to use. The ProxyScrape proxy service is one of the popular proxy services that send a lot of signals; while it works for others, it does not work for some. While you might want to see it as a normal thing as there is no proxy service without weaknesses, that of ProxyScrape cannot be overlooked.
For that reason, we would be taking a lot at it, providing you an overview of the service, including why you will want to make use of it and why you should avoid it. We would also be taking a look at some of the best alternatives if ProxyScrape did not work for you.
What is ProxyScrape?
The ProxyScrape service is a proxy provider that focuses on offering proxies for scraping. While its most marketed proxies are the shared datacenter proxies, it does offer dedicated datacenter proxies as well. This service has over 40K datacenter proxies with which you can scrape data from websites on the Internet.
For its residential proxy network, it has over 7 million IP addresses in its pool, according to the information provided on its website. In terms of location support, they have support for 7+ countries for their datacenter proxies. If you ask me, I will tell you ProxyScrape's greatest strength remains its cheap pricing.
ProxyScrape Review <Pros & Cons>
Pros for ProxyScrape's Proxies
If you take a look at its website, you will see that it claims its datacenter proxies are premium proxies and reliable. In reality, that can only be said to be the situation in the past as they have gone bad.
And you can learn more about why users like ProxyScrape's Proxies from this video review,
And as such, cheaper pricing does not matter if the service does not work for you.
for this reason, we would advise you to make use of an alternative.
But why should you?
Cons for ProxyScrape's Proxies
So, let's learn Why proxy users don't like Proxyscrape's proxies, that's the reason to find the alternative to proxyscrape premium.
Why Use a ProxyScrape Alternative?
There is no doubt that the service work for some people – but there is also no doubt that it doesn’t work for others. Below are some of the reasons why they are not useful for some users.
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Unreliable Proxies
When making a purchase, the whole idea of paying less for more freaks you. However, I have come to discover that the reason you are paying less for more in terms of ProxyScrape service is that the service is not reliable.
A good number of persons have complained that a good number of the proxies they were offered were simply unusable and dead proxies. Others are easily detected. Also, there is also the issue of Captcha blocks disrupting you.
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Customer Support can Be Toxic
One other aspect aside from the unreliable nature of its proxies is its customer support. They have a history of closing users’ accounts without notice, and they do this without offering a refund. All it takes is for you to ask for a refund, and you might lose your account without actually getting the refund.
For this reason, even if you intend to go ahead and use them for the sake of their cheap proxies, then you need to know that if the proxies do not work for you, there is nothing you can do about it.
Top ProxyScrape Alternatives for Free Proxies
Looking at the above, you can see that using ProxyScrape datacenter proxies for web scraping is a gamble that you might not want to. Fortunately for us, there are a good number of alternatives that you can make use of, and these would be discussed under the following headings – free proxy list, free proxy API, and scraping API.
Free Proxy List Alternatives
Aside from their paid proxies, ProxyScrape also offers a free proxy list for those that cannot afford to pay for their proxies. For an alternative to their free proxy list, this section has been written.
It is important I stress here that we do not encourage the use of free proxies regardless of the provider, except the free version is just for a free trial. However, if you have decided to use free proxy lists, then the below are the websites you can get them from.
HideMyName
The HideMyName service offers a good number of tools, including a speed test tool, a proxy checker, an email checker, and a free proxy list. Our focus is on their free proxy list. While the reliability of their free proxies, just like in the case of others, is questionable since they do not have control over it. From this website, you can get proxies of the different protocols, including HTTP(S) and Socks5.
For the anonymity level, they have got support for high, average, low, and no. I will advise you to filter the proxy list and only make use of proxies with high anonymity, as using another one might reveal your IP footprint. In terms of location support, we can say that they have got extensive location support.
Free-Proxy.cz
The Free-Proxy.cz website is dedicated to publishing the list of free proxy lists. It is one of the alternatives to ProxyScrape free proxies for web scraping. One thing you need to know about Free-Proxy.cz and most other websites that publish free proxy list is that they do not own the proxies they publish – the proxies are scrapped from around the Internet.
For this website, it makes money by displaying ads on its website and does not provide you any guarantee that the proxies would work. However, they carry out their own test and present the result of the tests(speed and uptime check) alongside the proxies – but at the time you will get your hand on the proxies, things must have changed.
Spys.One
The Spys.One website is another website you can get free proxy list alternatives to ProxyScrape. For some hobby-type scraping projects, you can try out proxies from this page. This website has support for about 165 countries. However, a good number of the locations do not have many proxies in them.
They have got a list of 12 countries they call their top 12 countries, and this is available on their website. One thing you will come to like about this website is the number of free proxies available for you to use. the proxies are also checked and the result of the checks published.
Read more,
Geonode Free Proxies
The Geonode service is a new proxy service that has been developed to offer you all of the perks of premium proxies without their downsides. While they intend to do so for their paid proxies, you shouldn’t expect much from their free proxies. They have got a free proxy list published on their website for web scraping.
While their paid proxies are fast, their free proxies can’t be an aid to be fast. However, you are assured that they are of better quality than the others described above. You can download their free proxy list as a TXT, CSV, or JSON file. Another thing you will like about this service is its location support which is considered extensive.
Free Proxy API for Scraping
What if I tell you that there is an easier of accessing proxies than visiting a website? If you are a coder, you can simply integrate a proxy API that would provide you proxies without you visiting the website every now and then. Below are some of the free proxy APIs in the market.
GetProxyList
The GetProxyList is a rotating proxy API that automatically provides you a random IP address anytime you use the API. The API works like a regular API, and for every request, you get a proxy address, port, country, protocol, speed, and a host of other details. To its usage to be effective, you should check the other metrics and make sure it meets your requirement before you send your requests through it.
Aside from their free proxy API, they have got a paid API that offers you high-quality proxies and some advanced features. The tool is quite easy to use and quite useful for web scraping.
Proxy Orbit
The Proxy Orbit is one of the top alternatives to ProxyScrape. It is not only good for web scraping but also good for accessing geo-targeted and geo-fenced content, among others. This proxy service is offered as a proxy API. All you need to do is send a web request, and you will get a JSON response with the details of a proxy you can use.
One thing you will come to like about Proxy Orbit is that it offers information on the popular websites you can use its proxies on. However, one thing you will not like about this service is that it has only a few IPs in its pool and, as such, might not be the best for you if you need many IPs at once.
PubProxy
You can tell the meaning of PubPproxy is Public Proxy, and yes, the proxies are open to the public to use with no authentication required on your part. This service is also a proxy API that you access its proxies by calling the required API – no registration required.
Just like the other free proxies, you can only use them on websites that are not effective at detecting proxies. If you use it on popular websites, then you need to avoid sending too many requests in a short time to avoid getting blocked.
Read more,
Premium Scraping APIs for Web Scraping
<Top Alternative to Proxyscrape premium>
If you are serious about web scraping, then you wouldn’t use any of the above. Instead, you will invest in high-quality tools that will make sure you are not blocked.
Scraping APIs are services that help you take care of proxies, handle browsers, and Captchas so that you can access any data you want on any website, provided it is publicly available. However, unlike the above tools, the scraping APIs we would be discussing below are all paid.
ScrapingBee
The ScrapingBee service is arguably one of the best web scraping APIs in the market. Without sugarcoating it, ScrapingBee is a better scraping tool than ProxyScrape. This is because its proxies are high-quality proxies. Aside from handling proxies, browsers, and Captcha, ScrapingBee also offers an extraction API that you can use to parse out data from any web page easily.
One thing you will come to like about ScrapingBee is that you only get to pay for successful requests. If you register and pay for their service, you get a dedicated account manager for a more tailored customer service experience.
Related,
ScraperAPI
ScraperAPI is another scraping API that you can use as an alternative toProxyScrape – and yes, it is better than using ProxyScrape. This service the likes of Amazon, Symantec, and LegalZoom using its proxy API. It has a large proxy pool with over 40 million IPs in it. In terms of geo-location targeting, ScraperAPI has support for 50+ locations, making it possible to access localized content for such locations.
This tool is also a paid tool but provides you whooping 5K free requests as a new user to try out the service before making a monetary commitment. This tool is available as a restful API – you send a web request for a page, and it returns the page HTML as a response.
Proxycrawl
The Proxycrawl service is a full web scraping package. It has a scraper API that you can use for scraping the Internet by collecting structured data from web pages. Compared to ProxyScrape, it is a better tool for web scraping. Currently, Proxycrawl has support for Amazon, Google Search, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
It allows you to enjoy unlimited bandwidth and make it easy for you to web scrape. With Proxycrawl scraper API, you do not need to be fixing a scraper every time the page layout of a website changes as it does that for you. The scrapers they offer are built on top of the ProxyCrawl infrastructure, which is a scraping-focused infrastructure.
FAQs about ProxyScrape
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Is ProxyScrape Safe to Use?
The ProxyScrape service is safe to use as there is no noticeable security issue with their service. However, that is only true for their paid proxies; we cannot say much for their free proxies.
Another thing you need to know is that there is more to a proxy service than just being safe, and ProxyScrape flops in some, such as in the area of reliability, and that is why we do not recommend them.
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How Do I Get a Free Proxy List?
Free proxy lists are not difficult to come by on the Internet. A simple Google search would reveal to you a good number of proxy lists. In the article above, we provided you a list of 3 websites you can get free proxy lists from.
The problem is getting a high-quality proxy list that is free, and that is not easy to see – you will have to pay for high-quality proxies.
Conclusion
ProxyScrape turns out to be like other providers in its league. Because of the downsides, you might want to make use of an alternative.
While we listed some free proxy providers above, it is advisable you stick to the paid scraping API (ScrapingBee, ScraperAPI, and ProxyCrawl) if you are serious about web scraping.
