Proxy Lists

A proxy list is a list of proxy servers which have replied to connection requests. It’s formed by special software, proxy checkers (deriving from “proxy check”).

Proxy lists may consist of free and paid proxy servers. Most often the difference lies in the quality of provided services. While not so many people are financially interested in development of free proxy servers, these server lists become out-of-date very quickly. For example, more than a half of servers can be non-functional in the list formed two weeks ago. The reason is that the proxy list has not been updated for a long time.

It’s hardly possible to find “dead” proxies in the paid lists. However, you will need to pay to get access to this list. For example, if using 5socks.net proxy service, for a reasonable fee you can get access to reliable and stable proxies updated every 5 minutes. Another disadvantage of free proxy lists is that you can easily get to a proxy server infected with malicious software. It will infect your PC through the proxy.
Also, you need to remember that free proxies can hardly ensure proper anonymity since most of them were created for caching data to accelerate information download when working with often visited resources.