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Visual Proxy Guide

Everything you need to know about proxies — explained through diagrams and infographics. Save, share, or embed these images anywhere.

12+ Diagrams Free to Use Updated 2026

How Proxies Work

The fundamentals — what a proxy does and how it routes your traffic.

Diagram showing how a proxy server works — client sends request to proxy which forwards it to the target website, hiding the client's real IP address

How a Proxy Server Works

Your traffic routes through a proxy server, replacing your IP with the proxy's IP. The target website only sees the proxy.

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IPProxy.site proxy validation pipeline — 4-step process: scrape 10 GitHub sources, deduplicate, validate with 100 concurrent async tests, serve validated proxies

How IPProxy.site Works

Our automated pipeline scrapes, deduplicates, validates, and serves proxies every 30 minutes — fully automated on AWS.

Proxy Types & Comparisons

Understand the differences between HTTP, SOCKS4, SOCKS5, VPNs, and Tor.

HTTP vs SOCKS5 proxy comparison table — SOCKS5 wins for speed, privacy, DNS leak prevention, and protocol support

HTTP vs SOCKS5 Proxies

Side-by-side comparison across 7 key features. SOCKS5 wins for most use cases.

Full comparison →
Proxy types explained — HTTP, SOCKS4, SOCKS5 protocols and transparent, anonymous, elite anonymity levels

Proxy Types Explained

All proxy protocols and anonymity levels — from transparent proxies to elite SOCKS5.

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VPN vs Proxy vs Tor comparison — three routing methods compared for speed, encryption, privacy, and cost

VPN vs Proxy vs Tor

Three different ways to route traffic with different trade-offs for speed, privacy, and cost.

Geo-bypass guide →
SOCKS5 vs HTTP vs SOCKS4 at a glance — feature comparison table with checkmarks showing SOCKS5 as the winner

SOCKS5 vs HTTP vs SOCKS4 — At a Glance

Quick-reference comparison table with checkmarks and X marks for every feature.

Security & Privacy

How to stay safe when using proxies — DNS leaks, geo-bypass, and more.

DNS leak explained — socks5:// leaks DNS queries to your ISP while socks5h:// resolves DNS through the proxy preventing leaks

DNS Leak Explained

Why socks5:// leaks your DNS and socks5h:// doesn't. Always use the "h" variant.

SOCKS5 Python guide →
How to bypass geo-restrictions with a proxy — shows blocked vs unblocked scenarios using a US proxy server

How to Bypass Geo-Restrictions

Route through a proxy in the target country to access blocked content.

Step-by-step guide →

Developer Setup Guides

Code-ready cheat sheets for using proxies in your projects.

Proxy setup cheat sheet for Python requests, curl, and browser FoxyProxy — with code examples and URL format reference

Proxy Setup Cheat Sheet

Quick reference for Python requests, curl, and browser proxy setup with URL format guide.

Python proxy tutorial →
Proxy setup code examples in Python, Node.js, Go, and curl — multi-language cheat sheet for developers

Multi-Language Setup Guide

Proxy setup code for Python, Node.js, Go, and curl — copy-paste ready.

Top 10 free proxy sources ranked — GitHub repositories providing free proxy lists updated daily

Top 10 Free Proxy Sources

The best GitHub repositories for free proxy lists — ranked by quality and update frequency.

Top proxy use cases in 2026 — web scraping, privacy, geo-unblocking, SEO research, ad verification, bypassing filters

Top Proxy Use Cases

What people actually use proxies for — and which type works best for each use case.

Live Stats & Infrastructure

Real numbers from our proxy validation pipeline.

IPProxy.site weekly proxy stats — 10,273 proxies scraped, 1,015 valid HTTP, 416 valid SOCKS5

Weekly Proxy Stats

Proxy validation pipeline stats — 100 concurrent tests, 10 second timeout, 87% validation rate

Validation Pipeline

IPProxy.site uptime stats — 99.9% uptime on AWS EC2 with Nginx and Flask

Site Uptime

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