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Best free proxies for Web Scraping

· 8 min read
Mark

Finding a list of free proxies can seem like a huge success, only to find that someone else has already claimed the gold nugget. Many people see proxy lists as their dreams coming true; however, this can quickly become a nightmare.

Sites block new proxies as their usage increases. This means new free web scraping proxy websites are likely too good to be true — they might work for a short time, but then get blocked by all the sites they're used on.

While paid proxies can be blocked, their risk is lowered because they're not listed on a public proxy list. This makes them harder to block since they don't have to use proxy addresses with public IPs. Free proxies are more susceptible to blacklisting due to the lack of control their provider has over them.

Free proxy servers are often banned due to them sharing IP addresses with other web browsers and anonymous users. By using these servers, you’re unintentionally connecting to people who have shared IP addresses with others. This can lead to bans and damage the viability of these servers. The benefit of using a free server is that no one else shares your IP address ban because they were blocked on your server. There are many free proxy lists to choose from. This is why we created the best proxy lists for web scraping and the top free proxy lists. These lists are completely free and provide an alternative to commercial services.

1. BrowserCloud.io

Website: https://browsercloud.io

BrowserCloud.io Review:

In their BrowserCloud Review, the experts give the app a rating of 5 stars.

One reason BrowserCloud tops our list is because of its inclusion as one of the best-paid proxy services. After only a few steps, the free 2,000 API credits every month it offers the public beat most other services. Additionally, this scraper tool offers the best free proxies in comparison to others on our list. Without a paywall, free proxy lists leave their IP addresses open to everyone. This leads to bans and improper IP use quickly. BrowserCloud’s paid service offers the same quality IPs as its free counterpart - with one exception. Free users don’t have to deal with the mess of other users publicly sharing IPs. Aside from the paid plans, the free plan has access to 5 concurrent proxy connections across the world. Additionally, it provides 24-hour support for any questions regarding its web scraping tools or any other issues.

2. ProxyScrape

Website: https://proxyscrape.com/free-proxy-list

ProxyScrape Review:

ProxyScrape features an extensive list of free, standard-fare proxies sorted into categories such as country, SSL, and anonymity. Users can sort results by country using two - or three-character country codes instead of full country names.

They can also toggle a “timeout” slider that lets them restrict results to those whose timeout threshold is less than or equal to a given value in milliseconds. In addition, the website features a fairly easy-to-use interface with standard sorting options like country, anonymity, and SSL.

This service provides premium features like rotating proxies and additional functionality. However, its users can’t try these features for free like many of the other services on this list. They need to purchase these benefits instead through a paid trial.

3. GatherProxy

Website: http://www.gatherproxy.com

GatherProxy Review:

Like most other proxy websites, GatherProxy offers a table of free IP addresses. However, the way users can sort the addresses is different and interesting. On the homepage, there's a list of the 50 recently checked IP addresses. These include when they were last updated, the country of origin, anonymity level, uptime and response times. A continuous stream of data constantly updates a blank field labeled “city”. This data field is automatically refilled every 30 seconds, despite the fact that proxies aren’t actually being updated that frequently. Occasionally the top addresses in this list will show an update time from over 5 minutes ago— an unlikely event considering most free proxies typically last much longer.

The included information on ports and countries makes the database ideal for selecting a specific set of proxies. Half of the database's 11,000 proxies have been confirmed active in the past 24 hours.

4. Proxy Nova

Website: https://www.proxynova.com/proxy-server-list

Proxy Nova Review:

GatherProxy’s main feature is automatically displaying the top-ranked proxy addresses. This list is accessible through the website’s menu, and can be manually refreshed by visitors. This is a convenient feature; it’s very frustrating when browsing the site and finding a good proxy address. Only to have it disappear because the page auto-refreshed and there was no way of locating it again. On the other hand, Proxy Nova lists all available proxies on a single page. This is much more convenient, since viewers need only refresh the page to find a new proxy, without any issues with auto-refreshing.

The top-listed proxies maintain very modern data feeds; we’ve noticed that they haven’t been out of date longer than a minute. This information is also included with each link. A blank space sits next to “YouTube” on the table listing proxies. There aren’t many sorting options; only country and anonymity are available for sorting, and no one can tell how many free proxy IP addresses are currently available. Updates are frequent and new information about the proxy table is always added to the description.

5. SSL Proxy

Website: https://www.sslproxies.org/

SSL Proxy Review:

SSL/HTTPS Proxies are checked every 1 hour. The proxies on the list have different countries, with limited availability. There are only 100 free proxies on the list; other countries with elite or anonymous proxies are sorted by country name and two-character country code. Much of the information contained in the “Google” field comes from Google’s support for proxies. Some of the addresses listed simply state Google is unsupported, so we couldn’t test this functionality. The list only contains HTTPS proxies— with SOCKS and HTTP proxies offered for a higher price.

6. Open Proxy Space

Website: https://openproxy.space

Open Proxy Space Review:

The Open Proxy Space provides three different types of proxy lists. Each batch is labeled according to when it was created. These include the SOCKS4, SOCKS5 and HTTP/S batches. A list is considered active if it was created within the last 3 hours, 1 day, 2 days or any other specified time. Users can explore older lists, which contain inactive proxies due to being older than a certain time.

New lists are created every day with the most recent proxies from those older lists. With proper permissions, lists can be created with any countries selected. After that, users can choose which countries to include or exclude in their list. Then, they can export the IP addresses found on the list as a text file. The sorting options for lists are limited for free users; paid premium members have access to additional sorting options including custom scripts, ports and more.

7. Spys One

Website: http://spys.one

Spys One Review:

Proxylist.one is a database of proxies maintained by Spys.one. This site is accessible through HTTP or HTTPS and lists IP addresses originating from more than 170 countries. However, many countries have only a few proxy addresses available. The top three countries on the list are the United States, Germany, and Brazil. There are over 800 proxies from each of these countries; other countries are also represented by thousands of proxy addresses. Other subcategories of the HTTP proxy list include SOCKS proxies, HTTPs and SSL/HTTPS proxies; other sorting options include anonymous free proxies and transparent proxies.

Roughly 70% of all proxies listed have an uptime percentage over 70%, which indicates that they have been working for at least a week. About a quarter of all proxies list checked dates, which allows users to determine if a proxy is still functional. Many proxies list with high latency and low speed; this is common when listing free proxies.

8. Free Proxy Lists

Website: http://www.freeproxylists.net

FreeProxyLists.net Review:

The layout of Free Proxy Lists is one of the most straightforward and easy to use among all the free proxy websites reviewed. It has only HTML and HTML SOCKS proxies, so those searching for SOCKS must search one more proxy drawer. Users can choose between different ports, anonymity options, and countries when specifying search criteria. The list provides up to 38 pages worth of sorting options. After that, users can sort by city or region. This is the only issue with the free proxy list; otherwise, it's easy to use. Additional information is provided by color-coded bar graphs next to each address. These graphs display the current response and transfer rates, but provide no numerical data.