How to Test Proxies in 2023
Learn four proven methods to find out if your proxies are good.
Whether you’ve found a proxy list online or bought some IPs from a provider, it’s always a good idea to test your proxies before using them. Many proxy providers offer a money-back guarantee, but it only lasts for a short while or a small percentage of the bandwidth bought. In any case, knowing what you’re working with can save you from a large headache later on.
In this article, I’ll teach you how to test proxies using four simple but reliable tools. With them, you’ll be able to check if your proxies work, if they make you anonymous, and if they can access the websites you need.
Here’s a quick table comparing the methods. Clicking on their names will scroll down to relevant places of this page:
| Online IP checker | Proxyway’s proxy checker | Proxydrop’s proxy checker | IP database | |
| Price | Free for base functionality | Free | Free | 50-200 free lookups per day |
| Type | Online | Online | Local | Online |
| Best for | Checking if your IP address and location have changed after you’ve connected to a proxy server | Getting a well-rounded overview of a proxy server’s status, location, and speed | Checking if proxies work with specific targets and how fast they connect from your computer | Getting advanced information about a proxy server’s anonymity and connection type |
If you’d like something more powerful, there’s always an option to build your own proxy tester.
See If You’re Using a Proxy Server with an Online IP Checker
An IP checker is the most basic measure to test proxies. It shows your IP address and location. If they differ from your current IP and location, you can assume that connection requests are successfully going through a proxy server. There are many such services, but we’ll take ipinfo.io as an example.
IPinfo’s IP checker.
| What IP checkers reveal | Their limitations |
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How to use IP checkers: One way is to set up a proxy in your browser and then simply visit the proxy checker’s website. The second way is to send a cURL request using your operating system’s terminal. It’s more technical but doesn’t require to configure the proxies beforehand.
How to Test Proxies with Proxyway’s Proxy Checker
Our free online proxy checker provides an easy way to test proxies and their various aspects. You can enter multiple proxies at once to check if they work, where they’re located, and how fast it takes to connect to them. Depending on your use case, this can be all you need.
Proxyway’s proxy checker.
| What Proxyway’s proxy checker reveals | Its limitations |
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How to use the proxy checker: Go to the proxy checker’s page, enter a list of proxies, and press Submit. After the tests are done, you’ll see a table with the information. You’ll be able to export working proxy servers.
Test the Proxy Speed with Proxydrop’s Successor to FOGLDN Proxy Tester
FOGLDN used to be the industry standard for measuring proxy speed. It’s gone now, but Proxydrop has made a fine free alternative with even more features. You can choose any target, so it’s useful not only for testing sneaker proxies, but for other use cases as well. Proxydrop’s checker works on Windows and Mac computers.
Proxydrop’s proxy checker app.
| What it reveals | Its limitations |
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How to use Proxydrop’s proxy checker: download the tool to your computer. Open it, add a list of proxies, enter a website you want to target, and run the test. You can select a timeout threshold and export only IPs that were fast enough.
Learn More About Your Proxies with an IP Database
A database is like an IP checker but on steroids. It shows useful information about your proxies, such as which proxy type they belong to. Good IP databases cost money, though some allow checking a limited number of IP addresses free of charge. For example, the IP2Location database lets you check 50 (or 200 if you register) IPs per day without paying.
| What an IP database reveals | Its limitations |
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The IP2Location database results.
How to use IP databases: The principle is very similar to online IP checkers. One way is to set up a proxy server on your browser and visit the database’s page. Another way, if you know the proxy’s IP address, is to enter it on the website. And the third way is to use the provided API to get the information programmatically.
Building Your Own Proxy Tester
If you’re as serious about proxy testing as we are, you can build your own tool. Having one will give you much more control over which aspects you want to evaluate. You’ll be able to select multiple targets, connection concurrency settings, and the testing duration. Plugging in an IP database will give you further data about proxy locations, types, and even details like the protocol (IPv4 or IPv6) and subnet class of the IPs.
We have made our proxy testing script freely available on GitHub. You can use it as a template for developing your own benchmark.
Conclusion
So, now you know how to test your proxies. I hope this will come in handy. If by any chance you find your current proxies lacking, feel free to read our proxy provider reviews. We write about the leading residential proxy services based on in-depth research and extensive performance tests. Good luck!
Very cool guide! Is this the method you used when you tested best proxy providers?
Thanks! No, we have our own script for testing providers. We make a lot of requests, so it’s easier to work with and document the findings.
https://scamalytics.com/ip
works good. my home is is always 2-10% , nordvpn 80-100%. id be curious to test some residential proxyz .
dang, thats very detailed guide on how to test proxy speed. i got 18-50 ms. to get faster speeds I would need a different dc provider right? or is there a way to speed up?
I’m not sure why you’d want to go even faster. This is plenty fast.
I am doing research about anti-detection browsing for an ecommerce use case (preventing linkage and suspension of seller accounts due to using the same IP and other parameters). I came upon this SuperUser thread regarding preventing web services from detecting that I am using a proxy: https://superuser.com/questions/481879/is-there-a-way-to-prevent-web-services-from-knowing-that-i-am-using-a-proxy-to-c . It appears that some of the methods for ensuring non-detection is through certain methods deployed by the proxy provider on the server.
I have tested some of residential static IP proxies on pixelscan.net which is run by data scientists in the space and then compared the results without using the proxy. PixelScan was able to correctly detect that we were using a proxy and when we did not use a proxy, they correctly identified that we were not using a proxy. At the same time, I scored perfect zeros on https://www.getipintel.net/free-proxy-vpn-tor-ip-lookup/#web from another service.
My guess is that there is something about proxies in general that the tool is detecting but don’t know what it could be. The provider advised that I spoof different parameters such as fingerprint, WebRTC, etc. However, this seems to be a bit overkill if I could identify which specific parameters most detection tools are looking for and learn to spoof those.
Any ideas of what I should be looking for?
Hi Alex,
GetIPIntel and IP databases check proxies against their data. Websites like Pixelscan check proxies against your computer – whether the information they disclose matches the configuration of your hardware and software. So you should try to identify these data points and see where they mismatch.
For example, your computer may have a different timezone than the proxy IP address, which can trip Pixelscan. Or they may leak your IP address through WebRTC. It the proxy server itself is good (no identifying headers, relatively clean history, associated with residential ISPs), this is likely what’s causing the check to fail. Other than that, websites can see that the proxy server is hosted on a different OS through TCP/IP fingerprinting, but I doubt they use this method often.
All in all, doing the above can help you deal with the proxy part of identification. But if you want to create multiple profiles and hope that they won’t be linked, this alone won’t be enough. It’s a good idea to study an existing anti-detection browser to see why and how they mask certain parameters. Multilogin has a useful knowledge base that can help you: https://docs.multilogin.com/l/en