Tips for Choosing a Proxy Server
With that in mind, if you choose to use a proxy server, there are two specific things you should consider:
Proxy Location
First is the location of the proxy server. One thing we noted while testing proxy servers is that changing server locations is not as easy as changing locations with a VPN. With a VPN, you can just launch the app and select a different location in the server list. With a proxy, you’ll need to manually set up the proxy connection by pinging the server address to get a proxy IP address. Bear in mind that you’ll have to go through the entire process whenever you change your location.
Another thing to keep in mind is that most proxy providers offer only a handful of locations. For its VPN, NordVPN has over 5,000 servers in 60 countries. For its proxy, it has only nine servers in five locations. That’s why you need to select a provider with proxy servers in the locations you want to use. For example, if you want to access Netflix Italy using a proxy, find a proxy with a server in Italy.
Proxy Protocol
The other factor to consider is the proxy protocol. We touched on this earlier, but just to elaborate, a proxy protocol dictates how you connect to a proxy server. It tells your device which port to use, how to chop up traffic into data packets, how to label those packets, and so on. It’s a complex mechanism with lots of moving parts.
Some protocols are better than others depending on how you use the proxy. Some examples are:
- HTTP/HTTPS: This proxy protocol is commonly used in browsers only, but it doesn’t work on external apps such as torrent clients.
- SSL/TLS: This is a more secure protocol that uses encryption to scramble data being transferred, but because it was last updated in 1996, its encryption has vulnerabilities.
- Shadowsocks: This is a high-performing protocol good for bypassing firewalls. It’s widely used in China to get around censorship. It encrypts data much better than SSL/TLS, but it’s still not as secure and private as VPN encryption.
- SOCKS5: This is a secure proxy protocol because it requires authentication to access a proxy server, which means not just anyone can access a server. It still lacks the data encryption power of VPNs, but it’s the most secure proxy protocol there is right now.
Of those protocols, the safest to use are SOCKS5, Shadowsocks, and HTTPS (but not HTTP; the “S” stands for “Secure”).