More individuals and businesses are using proxies to improve their online security and anonymity and even to streamline processes such as web scraping, marketing, and automation. When you use a proxy for business, you want to be sure it can do what you need. If you require real-time data, you need a fast and reliable proxy to ensure accurate information. So, how do you know whether your proxy server can perform the tasks required? You’ll need to test it.
In this article, we’ll look at a few tools you can use to test the performance of your proxies. These tools can be used to test various types, including a mobile proxy. Before you test your proxies, make sure that you buy them from a reputable provider like Smartproxy.
What Tools Do You Need?
While it is possible to test your proxies manually, this can be a time-consuming and complex process. As such, it’s much easier to use tools to help you test the performance of your proxy servers. Let’s take a look at a few different tools you can use.
IP Databases
IP databases are vast collections of IP addresses that governments or private companies have collected. Users can check their proxies against these databases to see valuable information such as the location of the proxy, the type of proxy (residential, datacenter, or mobile proxy), and more. However, getting a database with advanced features that can show more information can be rather expensive. One of the most popular and accurate databases to use is IP2Location.
Best use: To check the location and type of proxy
NMap
NMap or Network Mapper is a free, open-source tool that you can use to scan your proxy and discover hosts, ports, and more. With NMap, you’ll be able to evaluate who hosts the proxy, scan the ports, and identify which operating system is used. This information is valuable as it shows you what hosts and services are available, the type of packet filters or firewalls in place, and more.
Best use: To discover hosts, check ports, and identify operating systems.
Angry IP Scanner
Angry IP Scanner is another free, open-source tool that you can use to test the performance of your proxy. This tool is pretty well-rounded and can provide you with quite a few metrics. One of the most important factors it tests is your proxy’s speed. It does this by pinging the server and recording the response time. It can also monitor the server’s uptime, scan the ports, and identify Mac proxy addresses.
Best use: To check the speed and uptime of your proxy server.
Proxy Verifier
Proxy Verifier is a tool that tests HTTP-based proxies. The tool works bi-directionally, acting as both the server and the client when testing the proxy. With Proxy Verifier, you can test whether your proxies work, their anonymity level, and their location, and even test certain capabilities such as tunneling and available protocols.
Best use: Checking location and anonymity levels of proxies.
Factors to Evaluate
When it comes to testing your proxies, there are three main factors that you would want to evaluate. These are speed, location, and reliability.
Speed
The speed of your proxy server directly impacts your connection speed because you’re connecting to the internet through the proxy server. If you choose a slow proxy server, your browsing and connection will also be slower. This can be a problem because it can cause delays and even keep websites from opening. If your business relies on real-time data, such as aggregator sites, then having a slow server means your data won’t be accurate.
Location
The location of your proxy server is another crucial aspect to evaluate. The main reason why you’d want to test the location is to ensure you can use the proxy to bypass geo-restrictions. For example, if you need to access content in the UK, you’ll want to use a server located in the UK to be able to gain access. Another reason you want to know the location of your server is that the further away it is from you, the slower the connection will be because the data has a longer way to travel. Ideally, you want to choose servers as close to you as possible to ensure optimal speeds and reliability.
Reliability
The reliability of servers is measured in uptime. This is how long the server has been active without any interruptions or drops in connectivity. The uptime directly represents the reliability of your server. While most quality proxy providers boast an uptime of 99% (or more), it’s always good to conduct your own tests as well.
Final Thoughts
Whether you use a residential, datacenter, or mobile proxy, it’s always good to know that their performance meets your needs. One of the best ways to be sure of this is to test them yourself. You can easily do this by using a few simple tools such as IP databases, Angry IP Scanner, Proxy Verifier, and others to test the performance of your proxy server.
