Glossary · Core proxy

Residential proxy

Also calledresidential ip proxyhome ip proxy

Definition

A residential proxy routes traffic through IP addresses assigned to real home ISPs — high trust, high cost, often ethically opaque.

Explanation

In depth

Residential proxies use IPs from ordinary home broadband connections — Comcast, BT, Jio, Etisalat, and so on. Because those IPs look like real user traffic, they defeat most anti-bot systems that fingerprint datacenter IPs. The catch is cost — residential proxy bandwidth typically costs $5-15 per GB versus $0.10-1 for datacenter. The bigger catch is ethics — many residential proxy providers source their IP pool from users who installed free apps or browser extensions and consented (often unclearly) to their bandwidth being resold. Before buying residential proxy service, read the provider's peer-network consent policy carefully.

See alsoResidential vs datacenter comparison

Related terms

Datacenter proxyA datacenter proxy routes traffic through IP addresses from cloud providers — cheap, fast, but easy for anti-bot systems to detect.ProxyA proxy is a server that acts on your behalf — it makes network requests for you and hands the responses back to your device.IP addressAn IP address is a numeric identifier assigned to each device on a network — how packets know where to go.ISP (Internet Service Provider)An ISP is the company that provides your internet connection — assigns your public IP, routes your traffic, and often enforces country-level blocking policies.

Put the concept to work

Try AnyProxy free — no install, no signup, six regions.

Open a blocked page