4G Proxy Buying Guide
A lot of suppliers will try (and succeed) to sell their data center proxies as residential proxies, or even as 4G, some of them are just retailers charging you an extra for no reason and some of them cross sell your proxy to other people, lowering its trust score.
The only way to make private 4G proxies is with a physical SIM card â this is why they are called 4G, there is another way to make 4G proxies and that is to use someone elseâs smartphone internet connection, usually without them being aware of that (unfortunately, Apple and Google allow these apps in their app stores, just like they allow apps to track you 24/7 in real time and allow Facebook to read your SMS messages), but then you get a proxy which is shared with the real user of the smartphone and not a private proxy.
There is no way of making private 4G proxies without SIM cards and some sort of computing and networking devices (modems, smartphones, PCs, etc).
If you are running a legitimate proxy business and a customer asks to see the hardware that you are using, why wouldnât you agree ?
The first reason is that you are reselling the proxies and adding a markup on the price, the second reason is that you are not actually providing your customers with the proxy type they paid for (if you donât have the relevant hardware , how can you sell 4G proxies?) and lastly you are running a botnet and you donât have actual hardware.
In any case, if a provider refuses to show you his hardware, something is wrong, and he is definitely cheating you in some way or another.
If you have nothing to hide, showing your hardware shouldnât be an issue.
There are plenty of public databases on the internet that can help you get insight on the IP you are getting when you are connected to the proxy server.
Simply go to ipinfo.io/ip and get your public IP address, then copy it and do some research on it.
First, check who is the ISP, some ISPs are exclusive to mobile or home connections, if you are paying for a 4G proxy and the displayed ISP is only selling home connections, you are getting ripped off.
The second thing you can check is if your public IP is changing or is static, mobile proxies should automatically change IPs every few hours/days, and if they donât then your proxy is a home connection and not a mobile one. If your supplier can offer you a rotating proxy, it is most likely indeed a 4G proxy.
Lastly, you can run your proxy in a âquality testâ website which basically checks to see if it has or if it is known for some kind of spam history, 4G proxies should have really good quality scores.
A good place to do that is https://www.ipqualityscore.com/
4G and residential proxies are whatâs called âbackconnect proxiesâ, since these proxies rotate and change their IPs every once in a while (if they are really 4G/residential), it is impossible to connect directly to their public IP since you will have to change your login credentials every time.
To avoid this they back connect through a different static IP and then forward the traffic to the dynamic proxy, making it possible to connect to a static IP that doesnât require any login change even if the public IP changes.
To test this take a look at the login details you got from your provider (ip:port), if the IP in the login details matches your public IP, you proxy is 100% not a 4G proxy and 99% not a residential proxy.
Do not buy proxies from shady unknown suppliers as they are likely to scam you.
When picking a supplier always check for reviews from well known figures in the automation and growth hacking community or a good reputation in public forums, like here.