Mobile Proxies

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is a mobile proxy?
  Mobile proxies are devices with web connectivity capabilities – for instance, smartphones or tablets. They have mobile residential IPs issued by local carriers, which helps them avoid anti-bot systems like Cloudflare. Proxy providers (like Infatica) integrate these devices into a network, creating a mobile proxy.
• Why are mobile proxies so useful?
  Being a part of a proxy network, they allow users to route their internet connection through them to perform various tasks, all the while appearing as a genuine human user during browsing. This makes it possible to work with the mobile web at scale – a good example of that is data collection.
• Where can I buy mobile proxies?
  The optimal approach is contacting a proxy provider (like Infatica), which will be able to tailor the offer for your needs. Another option is renting a VPS to set up a homemade proxy server and merging several mobile devices into a proxy network – but this will provide poorer experience and performance.
• Do mobile proxies offer privacy?
  Public mobile proxies are typically free, attracting large numbers of users whom mobile proxy operators cannot vet. In this case, privacy is a component you have to sacrifice. Infatica’s private mobile proxy, on the other hand, is white-listed and ethically-sourced, which offers excellent privacy and anonymity.
• Are mobile IP addresses different?
  Both desktop and mobile internet use the same connectivity standards, so their basic functionality and IP addresses are essentially the same. When customers choose a mobile proxy plan in particular, they’re looking for mobile-specific features (e.g. mobile search engine results.)
• What is a residential IP address?
  This is an IP address issued by a local ISP or mobile carrier. A mobile residential network helps you see the mobile web like a real user. Proxy providers like Infatica can help you obtain a residential mobile IP in every major city all across the world.
• Can providers offer unlimited mobile proxy?
  An unlimited proxy access plan wouldn’t be cost-effective, so providers typically offer a basic set of features available for each plan (e.g. rotating proxy pools or geo-targeting) and additional customizable parameters (e.g. amount of included IP address and channel bandwidth.)
• Can mobile proxies bypass CAPTCHAs?
  Anti-scraping systems can detect web crawlers via IP addresses, among other things. To solve this problem, data collection software can use mobile proxies to make its requests appear human-like. Noticing IPs of mobile carriers, these systems assume that they’re dealing with a genuine user and avoid throwing them a CAPTCHA.
• Can mobile proxies bypass web restrictions?
  Yes: They mask your IP address, effectively changing the country you’re surfing the web from. Most web restrictions are geographic (i.e. prohibiting users from certain countries from accessing the given content.) With a new IP address, you can visit blocked sites without any hassle.
• Do your mobile proxies use only cellular connections?
  Please note that our mobile proxies are not limited to cellular connections only: Some mobile proxies in our pool may be using Wi-Fi connections when available. We do our best to filter out the Wi-Fi proxies. By using our mobile proxies, you agree to accept both types of connections.