Free proxies are often seen as a dream come true but can quickly turn into a nightmare, and finding a free proxy list can seem like striking it rich, only to find that the motherload has been claimed by too many other prospectors.
In other words, free proxies for web scraping are often too good to be true. New proxies might work for a while, only to be blocked by more and more sites as their usage increases. Paid proxies can also be banned, but have a lower risk because the proxy addresses are not plastered on a public proxy list like most free proxies are. And with free proxies, the provider has little control over the use of their proxy addresses, so IPs can be blacklisted for a variety of reasons.
When you use IPs from a free proxy list, you are sharing addresses with other web scrapers and anonymous web surfers who often care little about maintaining a proxy’s viability, foregoing IP rotation or other means of avoiding proxy bans. With free proxies, it’s not what you did to get an address blocked, it’s what someone else did to get it blocked. Even so, there is one major benefit to free proxies: the obvious one. They’re free. But not all free proxy lists are equal, which is why we have created this list of the top 10 free proxies and free proxy lists for web scraping.
Web Scraper allows you to build Site Maps from different types of selectors. This system makes it possible to tailor data extraction to different site structures. Export data in CSV, XLSX and JSON formats Build scrapers, scrape sites and export data in CSV format directly from your browser. Scraper API is a tool that handles proxies, browsers, and CAPTCHAs so developers can get the HTML of any web page with a simple API call. Get started with 1000 free API calls or contact sales. SIGN UP WITH GOOGLE. Kids Search believes that children should be able to surf the internet safely and securely. All searches made through our Kids Search engine will first check against our keyword Database to screen out any potential adult websites. Some titles associated with Web Scraping include Data Scientist, Web Developer, Web Collection Specialist, Research Assistant, Application Developer, Web Mining Developer, Site Merchandiser, Market Intelligence Analyst, and of course, Web Scraper. In the U.S., Web Scraping can earn learners an average of $79,018 per year, according to ZipRecruiter. Scalable Web Scrapers. Scrape websites using our Proxy Scrapers and bypass any restrictions. Scrape data for SEO, content marketing, data analysis,etc without getting blocked. With the help of our Scrapers you can literally scrape millions of websites like Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Flipkart, Glassdoor,etc.
Website: https://www.scraperapi.com
Scraper API is a paid premier proxy providerthat also offers 1,000 API requests for free. One reason it tops this list isbecause, unlike the other providers on our list, these free proxies are offeredafter a quick signup process. Why is this good? Well, free proxy lists justleave proxy addresses out in the open for anyone and everyone to grab, leadingto IP misuse and bans rather quickly. With Scraper API, free users have accessto quality IPs just like the paid users, but without the free-for-all mentalityof most free proxy lists. The free plan offers 5 concurrent requests and IPlocations across the globe. And unlike most of the other free providers, theyoffer 24/7 support to answer questions related to using their proxies for webscraping or any other needs.
Website: http://spys.one/en
Spys.one is a proxy list database with IPs from171 countries around the world, though many countries have only a handful ofaddresses originating from their locations. There are more than 800 proxiesavailable from each of the top three countries on the list: Brazil, Germany,and the United States, and thousands more from any country you can imagine. Theproxy list is broken down into subcategories, with sorting options likeanonymous free proxy, HTTPS/SSL proxy, SOCKS proxy, HTTP, and transparent, sousers can narrow down the type of free proxies they are searching for. Eachaddress is rated for latency, speed, and uptime. As expected, most proxies havehigh latency and low speed, with uptime percentages averaging around 70%. Freeproxies are also listed with a “check date,” indicating when a proxy was lastchecked to be live. About a quarter of all proxies have been checked within thelast 24 hours, another quarter checked within the last week, with the remaininghalf of all proxies on the list having been checked over a week ago. Some ofthe more obscure countries haven’t been checked in over a month, and are mostlikely dead.
Website: https://openproxy.space/list
Open Proxy Space presents free proxy lists inthree types of batches: SOCKS4, SOCKS5, and HTTP/S. Each batch is labeled basedon when it was created, with each list containing only active proxies at thetime of creation. The lists are tagged with when they were created: 3 hoursago, 1 day ago, 2 days ago, etc. Users can explore lists that were createdmonths ago, but the older the list, the more dead proxies it will contain, andnewer batches are going to contain the active proxies from those past listsanyway. Once a list is selected, users can choose which country or countries toinclude or exclude from the list, then export the IPs in a text document. Thesorting options are limited for freeloaders, with paid premium members havingaccess to custom API scripts, ports, and more.
Website: http://free-proxy.cz/en
Free Proxy looks like something fresh out ofBel Air, and the list of over 17 thousand free proxies is easy to sort andbrowse. Users can select from different protocols like HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS4,SOCKS5, and anonymity levels like elite and transparent. This provider has someinteresting options that most of the others on this list don’t have. Selectingthe “Proxies by category” option at the bottom opens a page with some uniquelists: proxies by port, proxies by region, and proxies by city. Essentially, auser can select a free proxy from specific cities around the world. Ideally,this would be to emulate a certain location, or to test access to content basedon a world region. These sub-lists are alphabetized, but unfortunately cannotbe sorted in other ways.
Website: https://proxyscrape.com/free-proxy-list
ProxyScrape has your standard-fare list offree proxies with straightforward sorting options like country, anonymity, and SSL.Sorting by country can be a little confusing, as it uses two-character countrycodes rather than the full country name or even a vastly more understandablethree-character country code. One stand-out feature is a “timeout” slider whichpermits a user to limit proxy results to those which meet or exceed a certaintimeout threshold, measured in milliseconds. Like several others on this list,they offer a premium service with rotating proxies and other advanced features.However, ProxyScrape doesn’t have a free trial, so users will need to pay forthose benefits, which defeats the purpose of getting free proxies to beginwith. Those who are more charitably-minded might be interested to knowProxyScrape donates to several charities including Teamtrees and the AnimalWelfare Institute, although how one might help to contribute by using theirfree proxies is uncertain.
Website: http://www.freeproxylists.net
Free Proxy Lists has one of the simplest andeasiest to use layouts of all the free proxy providers reviewed. It has HTMLand HTMLS proxies exclusively, so those looking for SOCKS will need to searchin another drawer. You can specify search criteria like ports, anonymityoptions, and country. Beyond that, the free proxy list can be sorted by regionor city, but to find a specific location one must sort the list then clickthrough up to 38 pages of proxies in order find the city or region desired.This is the only major blemish to an otherwise easy-to-use list. Each addresshas two color-coded bar graphs next to it depicting the response and transferlevels, but there is no numerical data indicating what each level means, soit’s only useful as a vague comparison to other proxies listed side-by-side.Luckily, uptime is measured with a percentage.
Website: https://www.sslproxies.org
SSL Proxy has a tagline: “SSL (HTTPS) proxiesthat are just checked and updated every 10 minutes.” This is not actually true,although all the proxies on the list have been checked within the last hour.The free proxies are from various countries worldwide, but with a meager 100proxies on the list, the availability is limited. As expected, users can sortby country – this time with both the two-character country code and the wholename spelled out – and anonymous options, with nearly every proxy on the listbeing labeled as either anonymous or elite. There is also a field labeled“Google,” presumably having something to do with Google’s acceptance of theproxy or possibly a proxy originating from a Google source. When we reviewedSSL Proxy, all of the addresses listed “Google” as “no,” so we were unable totest its usage. As one might expect from the name, this list contains onlyHTTPS proxies, with HTTP and SOCKS proxies being offered for a price.
Website: http://www.gatherproxy.com
GatherProxy offers a table of free proxyaddresses not unlike almost every other proxy source reviewed here. The meansof sorting these proxies is a little different and somewhat refreshing. Thehomepage features a list of the 50 proxies most recently checked, complete withthe time each proxy was updated, country of origin, anonymity level, uptime,and response times. There is a field for “city” data but the entries are blank.The page auto-refreshes every 30 seconds or so, although the proxies are notactually updated this frequently. Often the addresses at the top of the listwill show an update time from over 5 minutes ago, though it’s unlikely most ofthe free proxies will cease working in such a short period of time. Instead ofusing an uptime percentage or bar graph, GatherProxy displays uptime date inthe form of a ratio, with “L” for live and “D” for down on the left and rightrespectively. Yet the most powerful feature is the assortment of tabs at thetop of the page, featuring: proxy by country, proxy by port, anonymous proxy,web proxy, and socks list. Selecting one of these options takes the user to a sub-pagewith links to filter the proxies based on criteria. There is even a countlisted for each country and port, making it ideal to choose from a pool ofparticular proxies. Of the total 11,000 proxies in their database, half of themhave been confirmed active within the past 24 hours. They also offer free webscraping and proxy checker software, complete with videos on how to use them.
Website: https://www.proxy-list.download
Proxy-List contains over 5,000 free proxiesand the list is checked every 2 hours. Standard sorting functions provided bythe other free proxy providers apply to Proxy-List as well, with the main listssorted into four options: HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS4, and SOCKS5. One nice feature isthe ability to export the proxy lists as a text file, or the data can be copiedinto one’s clipboard with the press of a button. They offer API access to theproxy list, and provide a Chrome extension for web scraping, which most seriousweb scrapers probably already have, but still might be worth trying out.
Website: https://www.proxynova.com/proxy-server-list
Proxy Nova also provides a list of freeproxies that sorts the freshly-checked addresses to the top. But unlikeGatherProxy, visitors to this website must manually refresh the page, which wekind of like. There is nothing more frustrating than finding a great free proxyaddress, only to have it disappear because the page auto-refreshed and you haveno easy way of finding it again. The proxies do stay pretty up-to-date; in ourexperience, proxies at the top of the list were never more than a minute old.Their speeds, uptime, and locations are all listed as well. One peculiar fieldon the table of proxies says simply “YouTube,” but it was blank for all theproxies listed. Sorting options are limited to country and anonymity only, anddespite the frequent updates there is no way of knowing how large the pool offree proxy addresses is.
“You get what you pay for” is a phrase most ofus have heard our entire lives, but in the case of free proxies this is only mostlytrue. Paying nothing for proxies should result in a list of 100% dead addresses,but as you can see, there are some quality providers offering active proxies inexchange for nothing in return or at the most a little ad revenue from visitingtheir websites. And while top-tier proxy providers do have paid packages foraccess to their exclusive proxy lists, a couple of them offer either freetrials or free API calls outright. The biggest caveat with any proxy gleanedfrom a free list is longevity. It is inevitable that free proxies will come andgo, requiring web scrapers to refresh their lists of proxies on a daily basis.What’s more, even free proxies confirmed to be active could be blocked by ISPsand websites, leaving users who paid nothing for those proxies feeling rippedoff.