Best proxy server (free and paid) – Comparative 2020

On the internet, we are more vulnerable than we think. In fact, everyone blames you! It can be hackers, companies wanting to recover your data to better sell you their products, or your own government. So, the question is: how can you best protect yourself and be “invisible” and anonymous? This is where proxies come in.

We decided to compile and compare the best proxies available on the market today. This is only an indicative and non-exhaustive list. For the sake of brevity, we have tested some of the best on the market to see which ones are best suited to the “general public”. We offer both paid and free proxies, which will allow you to make the right choice. Here is our list of the best proxies on the market.

Meilleur Proxy	Points forts	Caractéristiques	Aller au site
Smartproxy	99.9% uptime Optimized for social networks 40 million IP addresses	Price: from 75$/month Free Trial Offer: 3 day money back guarantee	Discover Smartproxy
Luminati	More than 72 million IP addresses available Integrated Proxy Manager Free proxy via extension for Chrome	Price: from 0.65$/month per IP Free Trial Offer: NO	Discover Luminati
Kproxy	Economic Proxy free via the Kproxy website	Price: from 5$/month for 10 days Free extension: yes	Discover Kproxy
HideMyAss	Free extension Efficient VPN service	Price (VPN): from 2.99€/month Free extension : yes	Discover Hidemyass
Megaproxy	Free service	Price: free	Discover Megaproxy

Table des contenus

Best proxy #1: Smartproxy, 99.99% uptime for more than 40 million residential IP addresses

Smartproxy is our second choice in this comparison. Smartproxy is also aimed at web professionals and focuses on two main products: residential proxies and proxies shared via data centers in the United States. Just like Luminati, Smartproxy promises the absence of “ban” of its proxies and an unprecedented efficiency. Smartproxy focuses above all on quality on its IP address network. Residential proxies are thus undetectable since they are similar to an IP address of a banal device, whether mobile or portable devices (smartphones…).

Smartproxy promises an efficiency about 23% higher than its competitors, when targeting data providers such as Amazon, Google… It is possible to test Smartproxy services during 3 days for free, if you want to! Note that Smartproxy does not charge the proxy. You are debited each month with a fixed amount that does not vary. In this case, the first subscription plan starts at 75$/month (limited to 5GB of data, plus 15$/GB more). For this price, you will be able to access more than 195 countries around the world.

On the proxies side via datacenters, Smartproxy offers more than 40,000 IP addresses based in the United States. Data center proxies are generally more affordable from a price point of view. The subscription plan starts at $50/month for 100GB of data.

Smartproxy is optimized as :

Proxy for the main social networks: Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook…
Proxy for major ecommerce sites such as Amazon, eBay, Shopify…
For scraping.

Unlike Luminati, Smartproxy does not offer a chrome extension for one-off use. But don’t despair, the proxies we present below offer a free proxy!

Best proxy #2: Luminati.io, more than 72 million IP addresses available instantly.

Everybody likes to talk numbers. And it’s quite normal, numbers speak louder than words! On the side of numbers, Luminati proposes the following:

More than 770,000 data centers around the world, in more than 95 countries on 5 continents. It’s called having a lot of choice !
More than 90,000 IP addresses in more than 35 countries around the world.
72 million residential IP addresses. In all countries. 7 days free trial (as if that wasn’t enough…)
7 million mobile IP addresses.

However, we would like to make it clear that Luminati is primarily aimed at web professionals with “massive” proxy needs. Mr. Everyman will generally not have such an advanced need.

Luminati comes with several features including :

Automatic Data Collection Tool (ACD) that allows you to scrape the web without getting blocked (because that’s what we like). Luminati is optimized to break captchas.
Data Unblocking: Luminati’s promise is to allow you to play proxies without ever getting blocked. The upside is that you only pay for requests that work. Interesting when you also want to do data scraping, without ever getting blocked.
A proxies manager via an ergonomic interface, in order to constantly monitor what’s going on.
An API.
A chrome extension to use a simple proxy for free to surf the web without being blocked. You can easily switch between static and shared IP in one click.

In short, Luminati is an excellent proxy, both for professionals looking for a tool for data scraping, but also for the average user who simply wants to switch IPs on the fly.

Best Proxy #3: Kproxy, an economical proxy service starting at 5$

Kproxy is a proxy service with a free functionality. You can thus go to the Kproxy site and directly enter the URL of a site you wish to visit. If this site was previously inaccessible, it is now accessible! We particularly appreciate this free service. Kproxy also offers an extension for Chrome and Firefox. And if you don’t use either of them, Kproxy also offers a free browser.

For professionals wishing to go further, Kproxy offers 3 types of subscription for a punctual service in unlimited. The basic plan starts at 5$ for 10 days of use and goes up to 30$ for 180 days of use.

Kproxy is thus placed at the entry level of paying proxies, it is neither the best nor the worst, but will allow you to use proxies regularly at a lower cost.

Best proxy #4: Hidemyass, a free extension for a basic proxy service

Hidemyass is generally best known for its VPN. However, Hidemyass also offers a chrome extension to use a proxy. This allows you to browse anonymously on a single tab. The problem is that Hidemyass is free, and therefore collects your data. The “no-logs” policy usually interesting for premium VPNs is not respected. For a specific need, the extension may be sufficient. It allows you to access servers based in the UK or the Netherlands, but remains limited.

Best proxy #5: Megaproxy, a free service for occasional needs.

Megaproxy is another free proxy service for both professionals and simple web users. Just like Kproxy, you can simply go to the following URL to go to a site anonymously.

Megaproxy also offers subscription offers for these two types of targets.

Best proxy – Frequently asked questions

How does a proxy work?

The proxy is a remote server that will act as an intermediary between the website you want to visit, and your IP address. It thus acts as a filter that protects your connection data. The server can be located in a country other than yours, which conceals various interests.

What will a proxy do for me?

The proxy will allow you to do several things:

Anonymize your surfing on the internet.
Allow you to access blocked content (e.g. the case of google on Chinese territory).
Access different geographic content (for Netflix in particular).

Free Proxy: Avoid ?

On the market, there are free proxy services on the market, but also paid proxy services. Free proxies may be of interest if you have a specific need. If you intend to use them only once, they may be sufficient. However, if your need is recurrent, we strongly advise you to invest a minimum in a paid proxy.

Indeed, if at first sight a free proxy, may be enough, it may involve various problems, which are really not worth taking the risk. For example, a free proxy can retrieve your data and sell it to third party companies. As the saying goes, “if it’s free, you’re the product! ». However, if you use a proxy it is often to keep your information to yourself… Second, a free proxy means limited bandwidth. Your connection speed will probably be greatly reduced! Not great if you have to work, or watch Netflix…

A paid proxy will therefore allow an optimized bandwidth, and will allow you to use different servers around the world. Who says server geographically closer to you, says optimized browsing speed?