What Are Dedicated Proxies Used For?
If you run a business online, the chances are that you’re already well familiar with the ever-increasing need to hide your identity online. Well, proxies excel at that. Using proxies is one of the most effective ways to hide your IP address and stay anonymous online.
When we’re talking about the main types of proxies, we typically refer to the everlasting battle between dedicated and shared proxies. With that in mind, we’re going to explain what proxies are, the main types of proxies, how the use of dedicated proxies can help your business, and what are the differences between dedicated IP vs shared IP addresses.
Basics of Web Proxies
A proxy is an intermediary between you and the internet. Its main job is to handle your request and facilitate access to wanted content on the internet while protecting your privacy, providing anonymity, and hiding your IP address.
Similarly, dedicated proxies are exclusive proxies used by a single device or user. The user chooses this type of proxy to visit multiple target websites via the same IP address for a longer period. Their primary purpose is to ensure the highest level of online privacy, which is why they’re also called private proxies.
Businesses use proxies for a crucial purpose — increased levels of security. Proxies are also used to safely gather quality data from top target websites without getting banned, detected, or blocked. They inspect content to check for any malicious links, identify top target websites, help extract data, keep the users anonymous, and so much more.
Types of Proxies
Essentially, there are two main types of proxies: dedicated and shared proxies. The main difference between the two types is the dedicated (private) proxies are exclusive to only one dedicated user, whereas shared proxies have multiple users, as their name suggests.
These users can use shared proxies at the same time. Both proxy types excel at hiding your identity online, which is why so many businesses use proxies for data aggregation and to increase anonymity and privacy. Proxies keep your real IP address hidden.
Now, when it comes to a dedicated IP vs shared IP, both solutions benefit businesses in a wide variety of ways. However, since our focus is on dedicated proxies, let’s see how they can help your business. If you’re interested in these proxies, we suggest you read Oxylabs’ dedicated IP vs shared IP article for more information.
How Are Dedicated Proxies Used
The best way to use proxies is for web scraping. Dedicated proxies allow you to browse the web, target websites with the wanted content, and extract data without getting detected or banned. They keep the same IP all the time, which increases your privacy in return with no data, identity, or location leakage in the process.
The best thing about dedicated proxies is their exclusivity. People use dedicated proxies to manage social media accounts because they allow users to limit it to a few accounts to avoid getting a ban.
People can also use these proxies for safer browsing. They allow the user to access restricted servers across different locations, which is the biggest reason why businesses use dedicated proxies for web scraping and data collection.
Their Benefits
The reasons to use dedicated proxies are many:
- They help hide your IP addresses
- They provide access to restricted data and content on the web
- They bypass blocks and defeat firewalls
- They offer an additional layer of protection
- They ensure increased privacy and anonymity online
- They provide exclusive access to the proxy IP address
- They are exceptionally fast (much faster than shared proxies)
The most common uses for private/dedicated proxies include instant messaging, video chatting, managing multiple social media accounts, web scraping, data aggregation, and improving internet connection speeds.
You can also use them to prevent bandwidth overload, secure an IP address, use streaming services online, improve online anonymity, browse the web securely, increase safety and financial protection, manage website accounts, and location testing.
Why Choose Dedicated Proxies?
Dedicated proxies are slightly a better solution for businesses, and here is why:
- They are extremely fast — speed is crucial for every action you take online. The most significant advantage of dedicated proxies over shared proxies is the fact they are lightning fast due to the users having all the bandwidth to themselves.
- The user controls when and how a proxy is used — since dedicated proxies are exclusive to only one user at the time, no one else can access them, which gives you full control. It allows you to avoid IP blocks and bans.
- High levels of reliability and security — dedicated or private proxies are highly secure and reliable simply because they are private and exclusive to the current user only. In other words, they don’t compromise your private, personal, or professional data in any way. Thanks to their exclusivity, dedicated proxies also ensure protection from bandwidth overload.
Conclusion
In the last couple of years, proxies have become quite important to businesses, mostly because most modern enterprises went through digital transformation successfully and are now operating over the internet.
Since they depend on data to go about their daily business, they need proxies to access that data in an approachable and usable way.
The use cases and benefits we mentioned here are just the tip of the iceberg. Whether you’re using the internet as a private user or a business user, proxies can help you protect your anonymity and privacy and achieve your personal and professional goals.