Glossary

Proxy terms, in plain English

One sentence per term up top, the detail underneath, and a link to the guide that goes further.

/24 subnet

A block of 256 consecutive IPv4 addresses that share their first 24 bits.

Anti-detect browser

A browser that manages a separate fingerprint profile for each account, usually with a proxy per profile.

ASN

An autonomous system number: the identifier of a network that announces IP ranges on the internet.

Backconnect proxy

A single gateway endpoint that forwards each connection to a different exit IP from a pool.

Bandwidth billing

Charging for proxy use by the amount of data transferred, usually per gigabyte.

Browser fingerprint

A profile of a browser built from many small signals, such as fonts, screen size and graphics rendering.

CAPTCHA

A challenge a site shows to separate people from automated traffic.

CIDR

A notation for a block of IP addresses, written as an address and a prefix length such as 203.0.113.0/24.

Concurrency

The number of requests or connections open at the same time.

Datacenter proxy

A static IP address registered to a hosting company and served from a data centre.

Dedicated and shared IP

A dedicated IP is used by one customer; a shared IP is used by several at once.

DNS leak

A lookup that goes out over your own connection instead of through the proxy, revealing where you really are.

Exit IP

The IP address a target site sees when your request arrives through a proxy.

Geo-targeting

Choosing the country, region or city an exit IP appears to be in.

Geolocation database

A lookup table that maps IP ranges to a guessed country and city.

HTTP and HTTPS proxy

A proxy that speaks the HTTP proxy protocol; for HTTPS sites it opens a tunnel with the CONNECT method.

IP allowlist authentication

Authenticating to a proxy by having your own server's IP address on an approved list, with no username or password.

IP reputation

A site's accumulated judgement of how trustworthy an IP address or range is.

ISP proxy

A static IP address registered to a consumer internet provider but hosted in a data centre.

Proxy authentication

The check a proxy makes to decide who may use it.

Rate limiting

A cap a site places on how many requests one address or account may make in a period.

Residential proxy

A proxy whose exit address comes from a consumer internet connection and rotates through a pool.

Rotating proxy

A proxy that sends requests out through a changing IP address from a pool.

SOCKS5

A general-purpose proxy protocol that relays TCP connections, and optionally UDP, without understanding HTTP.

Static proxy

A proxy whose IP address stays the same for the whole rental term.

Sticky session

A rotating-proxy session that keeps the same exit IP for a set time or number of requests.

Username and password authentication

Authenticating to a proxy with credentials sent with each connection.

See it in a price list

The terms above are the columns of the price list. Read it before you sign up.

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