Residential Proxies: Types, Benefits, and How They Work

To help you make an informed decision, this article will cover all the key details you need to know about residential proxies. We will discuss how residential proxies work, their best use cases, and more. After reading this article, you will have a clear idea of whether residential proxies are right for you.

Key Takeaways

• Residential proxies: They work by routing traffic through real user devices
• Residential IPs: These are IPs of the home devices that replace your device IP before sending it to the target. 
• Residential proxy types: Rotating residential proxies automatically change IPs, static proxies maintain the same IP per session.
• Common residential proxies use cases: Data scraping, SEO tracking, ad verification, bypassing geo-restrictions, price monitoring, and testing apps
• Key ProxyWing advantages: With our residential proxies services, you will get access to 24/7 support, 70M+ IPs, multi-platform support, high uptime, and HTTP/SOCKS5 support

What Are Residential Proxies and Residential IP?

Just like the other proxy types, residential proxies serve as an intermediary between client devices and servers. When using residential proxies, all your requests are routed through another device or server before being sent to the target server. These devices have IPs assigned to them by local internet service providers.

What makes residential proxies different from the other types is that real home devices are used as intermediaries to route user traffic. Ultimately, the target servers will only see the residential IP addresses of these home devices and not that of your device, keeping the connection anonymous. 

What is a Residential IP?

A Residential IP is the IP address of this intermediary home device that is used as a relay in the residential proxy setup. Some of the common home devices used to power our residential proxy network include smartphones, computers, routers, and more. In this set up, your device IP address is replaced with an IP from one of these home devices. 

In the end, the destination servers for your connection will only see the IP of the home devices in the network instead of your real device IPs, making your traffic anonymous. IP addresses of our residential proxies are assigned by internet service providers, making it uncommon for any websites to block them.

How Do Residential Proxies Work?

To make it easy to understand how residential proxies work, we will break down the steps from the point that you send your request to the moment you get a response from the destination server. 

• Step 1: Your request →  residential proxy provider: When you make a request to access a website like google in your browser, this request will first be sent to the providers’ proxy servers before being forwarded to the destination website. 
• Step 2: Proxy assigns a new IP address: Your residential proxy provider will assign you a new IP address from one of the home devices in the pool. From now on, your connection will bear this IP address.
• Step 3: Traffic goes to the target website: From the website’s point of view, your connection will appear to be coming from a real home device and not a datacenter. That means if they have firewalls that block certain data center IPs, your connection will easily bypass them. 
• Step 4: Response is sent back: Finally, the target website sends the response to the above assigned IP. Your residential proxy provider will then forward it to your real device IP to complete the cycle. 

Throughout these four steps, the target website never sees your real IP addresses. It only interacts with the IP of the residential proxies that an internet service provider assigns to your connection, ensuring your traffic remains anonymous. 

Types of Residential Proxies

Rotating Residential Proxies

These residential proxies automatically assign a different IP address to your connection after a set period. This type of residential proxy solutions is ideal for tasks where having a large pool of IP addresses is necessary. Having the option for rotating IPs of these residential proxies minimizes the risk of facing IP bans, which ensures uninterrupted operations for tasks that are usually blocked by some websites. 

Static Residential Proxies

With this type of residential proxy, your connection is assigned a fixed IP address throughout the entire session. For use cases where consistency is crucial, using residential proxies with static IPs is the way to go. 

Mobile Residential Proxies

When using residential proxy solutions, the proxy provider assigns you IP addresses of mobile devices like smartphones or tablets connected to 4G or 5G networks. That means the target website will receive your connection as mobile traffic regardless of what device you are using. Mobile IPs are trusted by most websites and online services, making this residential proxy type one of the most effective if you want to minimize interruptions due to IP bans. 

Summary

Type	Key Feature	Pros	Cons
Rotating Residential Proxies	IP addresses change automatically per session or after a set period	Reduces IP bans riskHigh anonymity	Not ideal for tasks that need stable connectionsRelatively expensive
Static Residential Proxies	A single IP address is maintained through the entire session	Consistent IdentityLess expensive	They are easier to block if overusedLess anonymity
Mobile Residential Proxies	These assign your connection IPs from real mobile devices	Very hard to detect or blockTraffic from these residential proxies is the most trusted	More expensiveConnection speeds depend on unstable mobile network of the end user device

Residential Proxies vs ISP proxies

Let’s explore the differences between these two types, including their pros and cons, and typical use cases for each.

Residential Proxies

As stated earlier, residential proxies use IP addresses of real devices owned by users in a given region. The IP addresses of these home devices are assigned to them by ISPs in that region. Having IP addresses assigned by the ISP makes them much more trusted and  harder to detect than IPs sourced from servers in data centers. 

Pros

• Residential proxy solutions are very hard to detect and block
• Residential proxy services offer a large pool of IPs available in more regions
• They support both rotating and static IPs

Cons

• Residential proxy services are often more expensive than ISP proxies
• These proxies can sometimes be slower since speeds depend on inconsistent network of real user devices

Typical Use Cases Of Residential Proxies

• Data scraping on websites known for blocking proxy IPs
• Bypassing geo-restrictions, thanks to the large global IP availability
• SEO tracking to check localized results of your website in several regions
• Ad verification in multiple regions
• Mobile residential proxies are great for testing the performance of mobile apps and games

ISP Proxies

ISP proxies use IP addresses owned by ISPs and hosted in datacenters and not real user devices. That means they maintain the legitimacy of being owned by an ISP, but run on much more stable datacenter infrastructure, which can be an advantage in some use cases. 

Pros

• They have ISP-verified IPs, making them less likely to be blocked than mainstream datacenter proxies with datacenter IPs
• ISP proxies are often cheaper than residential proxies
• Faster and often more stable since they rely on datacenters
• Lower risk of disconnection

Cons

• Limited location diversity when compared to residential proxies
• They are much easier to detect than true residential proxies. 
• They are typically sold in smaller pools
• Cheaper than residential proxies but still more expensive than datacenter proxy services

Typical Use Cases of ISP Proxies

• Streaming and gaming, thanks to their faster and stable IPs
• Data scraping, but on less sensitive websites
• E-commerce automation
• Finance activities such as trading that need stable IPs 

Use Cases for Residential Proxies

• Web Scraping and data collection: Residential proxies are the hardest to detect, making them ideal for gathering data from websites that typically block proxies. Since they offer large IP pools, it is much easier to rotate between these IPs, making it harder to experience IP bans
• Price Monitoring and Comparisons: Businesses can use residential proxies to see the prices of their competitors in various regions. This information can be used to improve their pricing strategy in all the regions they target. 
• Bypassing geo-limitations: Residential proxies are also often used to access region-limited websites and content. Residential proxy servers often have more IPs available for different regions. We offer these IPs in over 190 countries. 
• SEO Tracking: Businesses that target users in different countries can use residential proxies to simulate the search experience for users in those regions. This can help tailor their SEO strategies to ensure high rankings in all their major markets. 
• Ad verification: By using residential proxies, marketers can view ads like how their users in different regions view them. It helps to ensure that their ads are presented in the intended format. This information can also be used for further ad optimization
• Purchase limited edition Items: Residential proxies are also great for purchasing limited-edition items like sneakers that may only be available in certain regions. You simply need to switch to an IP of that region to access such items. 
• Testing system resilience: With residential proxies, you can simulate real user traffic on your app or website to test their resilience. These tests can even be done for various regions to simulate the user experience in all these regions and make improvements accordingly. 

Why ProxyWing is the Best Residential Proxy Provider for You

• Global coverage: With our residential proxy server solutions, you will have access to IPs in over 190 countries. This makes our services great for users who need to bypass regional restrictions on content and websites in almost any country worldwide.
• Large pool of IPs: We give our users access to over 70 million IPs, including residential IPs. Our residential proxy solutions also offer a large pool of clean IPs, minimizing any chances of IP bans. 
• Flexible Options: Our users can choose between different types of residential proxies, including mobile, rotating, and static residential proxy solutions. This gives them the freedom to choose the appropriate residential proxy type based on their use cases. 
• Comprehensive support: Our technical team is available 24/7 to attend to all your issues related to residential proxies and more. Besides live chat, you can contact us or follow our latest updates on several other channels, including email, Telegram, Discord, X, and YouTube. We also have an FAQ section addressing all the common residential proxy issues faced by previous users.
• User-friendly Interface: Our website is intuitive and easy to navigate even for first-time users. This makes it easy to purchase and get details of your residential proxies without having to cycle through dozens of web pages. 
• Multi-platform support: Our residential proxy server IPs can be used on all major platforms, including Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, and Android. They can also be used with automation tools and all mainstream browsers, including Safari, Edge, and Google Chrome. 
• High Availability: With residential proxies, we guarantee up to 99.9% uptime, which ensures reliable and stable connections. Our large residential proxies IP pools from millions of home devices guarantee access with almost no downtime. 
• Positive customer feedback: ProxyWing is among the providers offering a premium proxy experience and this is reflected in our customer reviews. The positive reviews about ProxyWing services on platforms like Trust Pilot can give you a good idea of the experience to expect. 
• HTTP/SOCKS5: We support several secure communication protocols which makes our residential proxies ideal for a wide range of use cases. HTTP/HTTPs is ideal for web browsing and standard data scraping, whereas SOCKS5 is great for gaming and other high bandwidth tasks.

Are Residential Proxies Legal?

Yes, the use of residential proxies is legal in almost every country. You will face no legal consequences if you use them for ethical applications like privacy protection, ad verification, SEO tracking, testing apps or websites, and the other applications we covered in this article. 

However, the issue comes when you use our residential proxies for illegal activities like fraud, hacking, or spamming. Take time and read our terms of service to figure out what is accepted and what is not. 

Final Thoughts

Residential proxies offer more private access to the internet, allowing you to access websites and content without limitations. As discussed throughout this article, our residential proxies provide IPs in more regions than other proxy types, making them ideal for accessing region-specific websites and content. 

Since they use IPs from real user devices, they are harder to detect, which makes them more reliable. Yes, they might be slightly more expensive than datacenter proxies, but the increased anonymity and minimal risk of IP blocks make residential proxies worthwhile for several use cases. We also offer these proxies in various options, allowing you to choose the best one based on your needs.