You will not find many mobile proxy providers compared to residential, datacenter & ISP proxies. To shed more light on mobile proxies, I am here with a complete mobile proxy guide.
This mobile proxy guide will help you learn more about mobile proxies functioning. You will also learn how mobile proxies are different than other proxies.
What is a Mobile Proxy?
A mobile proxy does not mean providing real device mobile IPs like residential proxies. Instead, it assigns mobile device IPs that seem that the user is connected to a mobile data network. Mobile proxies mask your original IP address and function the same way as other proxies do.
Still confused?
Just remember that residential proxies use real device IPs including mobile phones. But mobile proxies do not use mobile phone IPs. So if a smartphone is connected to a residential proxy, it does not have a mobile IP when using WiFi at home.
How Does A Mobile Proxy Work?
A mobile proxy network uses a 4G or 5G cellular network. The service provider assigns IPs to portable devices which is why mobile proxies are more secure, and provide high anonymity.
By using mobile proxies, you get real & authentic IP addresses making you a resident of the location that you selected. You become undetected and browse anonymously to access geo-restricted content.
Till now it must be clear that a mobile proxy does not need to have a mobile device as the IPs are assigned by the mobile network carrier. These IPs are available for different locations and count in tens of thousands.
Mobile proxies are available as rotating and dedicated mobile proxies for both 4G & 5G.
Types of Mobile Proxies
When you search for a cellular network, you will find 3G, 4G, 5G, and LTE. LTE is nothing but 4G proxies and is faster than the 3G proxies.
The 3G network is almost extinct but you may find some underdeveloped areas that might be using a 3G network. But you will still find proxy providers providing 3G proxies along with 4G and 5G proxies.
The 5G network is still in the testing phase in many countries, but there are nations that have a 5G network running in many areas. If you are targeting a country, city, or state for a faster connection, then 5G proxies are beneficial. These are the costliest proxies compared to 3G and 4G proxies because of the speed and network uptime.
In all there are 3 types of mobile proxies, namely:
- 3G proxies
- 4G proxies
- 5G proxies
Difference Between Mobile Proxy and Other Proxies
| Parameters | Mobile Proxy | Residential Proxy |
|---|---|---|
| IP Type | Mobile carrier | Real device |
| Anonymity | Very high | Medium-high |
| IP Pool | Small | Large |
| Targeting | City, State | City, State, ASN, Carrier |
| Classification | 4G & 5G (rotating + dedicated) | Rotating + Dedicated |
Use Cases of a Mobile Proxy
Web Scraping:
Mobile proxies can be used to scrape web data by accessing geo-restricted content and avoid IP blacklisting and bans. This helps extract web data efficiently.
Manual data collection is a tedious task and takes time longer than expected. To make the mining process simple and time-saving, mobile proxies come as a valuable data extraction tool.
Social Media Management:
Social media engagement is a must for any individual or business. Sometimes, you need to make multiple social media accounts, or maybe you have to manage multiple social media accounts for your clients. Doing so is not as easy as it sounds and you might get blocked.
This mostly happens when managing ad accounts for multiple clients. Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter flag suspicious IPs. To overcome this mightily challenge, mobile proxies is the need of the hour.
Zero Captchas:
When accessing censored websites, you might have seen Captchas which blocks you from accessing the website. This happens when accessing large websites. The reasons for getting IP flagged or blocked are too many login attempts or page views from the same IP address.
Google finds this activity suspicious and therefore blocks IP. Using mobile proxies can help you log in multiple times and access websites many times even in a short span of time by providing fresh IPs from a verified pool of proxies.
More Use Cases:
Other mobile proxy use cases include cryptocurrency trading, price comparison, and sneaker copping.
How To Set Up Proxies On Mobile?
To set up a proxy on your mobile device, sign up and register for a free proxy trial or buy a proxy from renowned mobile proxies.
Once you have your proxy details, send a request to the proxy server. The proxy server will authorize your request and you can access websites in the preferable location.
Setting up a proxy in Google Chrome
Proxy settings might vary for different browsers. Let me show you how to set up a proxy in Google Chrome.
- Open Google Chrome and go to settings.
- Click on the System, and click on “Open your computer’s proxy settings”.
- A new window will open up showing proxy settings.
- There are two options, Automatic proxy setup and manual proxy setup.
- Toggle the manual proxy setup option and enter the address and port number. Click on Save.
- You can now check your IP address which will be changed to a new proxy IP.
- Enjoy browsing!
Which Mobile Proxies Should You Choose?
As I said earlier in this article you won’t find many mobile proxies as there are few proxy providers. You can check my list of mobile proxies where I have handpicked only the best ones. I even tested a few mobile proxies and my top 3 recommendations are:
1. Smartproxy – 14-day money-back guarantee
2. Bright Data – CCPA & GDPR Compliant
3. Oxylabs – 20M+ Mobile IP
Conclusion
Mobile proxies are still not very popular because of their availability. The IP pool of mobile proxies is less but as more mobile proxy providers come into play, you will see it increasing.
FAQs
Are Mobile Proxies safe?
Mobile proxies are safe but are mostly used by fraudsters to mask their IP addresses and attempt fraud activities.
Should I use shared mobile proxy or dedicated?
A dedicated mobile proxy provides more security and anonymity as it is used only by an individual. A shared proxy uses the same server to provide different IPs to different users. If one IP is flagged, other IPs become suspicious.
Can I use free mobile proxies?
Free proxies are not safe and might steal your identity. Free mobile proxies do not provide a stable connection and there’s a high risk involved as you do not know who all are using the same free proxy.
What's the difference between 3G, 4G, and 5G proxies?
The difference lies with the speed associated with all the mobile proxies. 4G proxies offer high speed compared to 3G proxies. 5G proxies are the latest addition and so provide fast connection speed compared to 4G proxies.
Are rotating proxies better than static proxies?
Rotating proxies are more advantageous than static proxies as they rotate in a specific time interval. By rotating proxies, it becomes difficult for the websites to block users. Rotating mobile proxies is very beneficial for scraping, SEO, mining, social media management, etc.