12 Best Free Proxy Servers in 2023. Best Free Anonymous Proxy Sites
12 Best Free Proxy Servers in 2023. Best Free Anonymous Proxy Sites
Most likely, you already know what an anonymous proxy is and why you need it. But before choosing a service, you need to know that a proxy does not provide the anonymity to view illegal, prohibited, or other harmful sites or to commit criminal acts.
After all, a proxy server was created to protect the user and his computer, to surf safely, and bypass the restriction of websites that are completely legal but are limited to the territory of a certain country.
Here is my quick list of the best free anonymous proxy sites:
- Hide My Ass
1. Best Free Anonymous Proxy Sites in 2023
1.1– Sponsored
Smartproxy isn’t a free anonymous proxy site but we felt the need to include it because we use it daily. This website is very powerful, allowing you to use proxies capable of bypassing firewall restricitons and unblocking pretty much any restricted site.
In addition, Smartproxy offers a variety of proxies, such as residential, data center, and dedicated proxies, making sure you get plenty of choices. One of its best features is the presence of Firefox/Chrome add-ons, which make Smartproxy very easy to use.
There’s also this feature called X Browser, which lets you change your IP and fingerprint to ensure online privacy and security. Smartproxy is also fast and performs well unlike some proxies that tend to cripple your internet speed and increase page-loading times.
Its tools like X Browser, browser extensions, and the No-Code Scrapper Extensions are all free and you can use them right away. But if you want to purchase a proxy, you get plenty of customization options and even the option called “Pay As You Go.”
This option lets you pay only for the resources you’re using to avoid spending money on things you don’t need. Once again, I know it’s not free but its starting price revolves around $10 a month depending on the plan, yet, for this price, Smartproxy is the most reliable and secure option on this list.
Pros
- Effortlessly bypasses all website blocks
- It’s pretty easy to set up and use even for beginners
- The X Browser addition lets you hide your IP and fingerprint
- It has extensions for Firefox and Chrome
- The “Pay As You Go” option wallet-friendly
- It’s very fast and performs well
Cons
- Smartproxy is not a free option
This is a free proxy server from a well-known VPN provider. The features are free but it offers very limited options. All you can do is just anonymously browse in one tab of your browser. You are able to hide your real IP and access the restricted websites without many efforts. Plus, everything works very, very quickly and also reliably, which makes working on this server enjoyable. And these functions will be enough for those who want to use an online resource that is banned in a certain network or country.
Pros
- No ads.
- Unlocks any website.
- No need to install the software.
- Several locations.
- Additional options.
Cons
- Quite low speed.
- Often offers to buy their VPN.
This is one of the very first proxy servers in the world. Of course, free proxy servers with good speed are not so easy to find, but this very “anonymous mouse” is just such a proxy. The service is German but offers an English version for international users. It has been functioning since 1997 and despite the fact that most proxies become paid after gaining some popularity, this case is one of the few exceptions. It started working as a free server and remained free even after so many years. By the way, many people are distracted by the very simple interface but the developers saved a lot of money on the website design in order to provide a good set of features.
Features
- Complete anonymity when using the service;
- Changing the IP-address, which can be done manually or automatically;
- High speed;
- Communication with modern browsers;
- The ability to visit the sites of any country in the world;
- Easy to use.
Pros
- Simple to use.
- Several languages.
- No limits.
Cons
- Outdated interface.
- No additional features.
Free residential Proxy. Hola VPN
- Location: 190 countries across the globe
- Platform Support: All platforms, including Windows (8 and later), MacOS (10.11 and later), Linux, Chrome OS, iOS (8 and later), and Android (5 and later). Browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Microsoft Edge, and Smart TVs with Android TVs coming soon!
- Cost: Free. PLUS version with advanced features also available
Hola VPN is one of the world’s most popular free unblocker or VPN proxy services, trusted by more than 200 million users worldwide . Its patented technology combines standard VPN architecture with peer-to-peer technology to guarantee a free service that is also refreshingly free of ads. Users share idle device IPs to route web traffic which also renders Hola VPN more difficult to detect and block.
Free users opt into Hola VPN’s community-based platform which gains speed by routing a negligible amount of traffic, roughly the equivalent of a short YouTube clip, through users’ devices when they are not in use. The amassed power gives way to unrivaled browsing speeds and exceptional unblocking capabilities.
It’s important to note that Hola VPN in no way gains access to devices and has zero impact on a user’s browsing or computer usage. Users can opt-out of resource sharing and take advantage of added privacy and security features by upgrading to Hola PLUS for as little as US$2.99 per month. Users of browser extensions, including Chrome, Firefox, Opera , and Microsoft Edge, are also exempt from sharing idle resources.
App users can toggle between countries to set the location where they want to unblock a website .
- European servers return speed of between 65-82Mbps
- US servers come in well over 48Mbps.
The hassle-free software takes approximately one minute to install with no configuration required. Hola VPN’s website has an extensive FAQ section and additional help is readily available via email or by completing an online support form. Compared to other free services, Hola VPN does not share users’ information with anyone in the Hola VPN network and never sells details to a third party for marketing purposes . Chrome Web Store gives Hola VPN a 5-star rating based on more than 340,000 reviews.
Note: Hola VPN FREE does not secure your traffic, but hola plus for that!
Free Proxy server list. The Best Free Proxy Servers
Not every online task will require you to have expensive private proxies with all the major features power users need. Using a free proxy to do basic tasks online can sometimes be good. In fact, you might even be browsing in a way that requires you to use these free proxy services to do certain tasks. Getting a free proxy is difficult, however, because you never know how a proxy was used before you got to it. You also don't know the history of the proxy, which could cause problems for you if you use it for something important. The free proxy could end up costing you much more in terms of lost reputation or getting banned.
The other issue is that you might find a free proxy web list that many others have access to. Obviously, that is going to cause problems with network speed degradation. If everyone is using the proxy at the same time, it is going to slow down dramatically. It will also be a lot more difficult for someone to maintain a free proxy server if they have thousands of people accessing it all the time. That is even more true if you want free residential proxies. A free residential proxy is likely one of the most hard-to-get commodities on the Internet. The same is true for a free socks5 proxy. A free residential proxy is difficult because of how important it is for accessing certain services. There are services on the Internet that you can only access from a residential IP address. That makes it crucial to have these proxies when you do something.
Best proxies. Oxylabs
Oxylabs has an extensive network of over 70 million residential proxies that cover all the countries and cities in the world. In addition to the country and city you can also target proxies based on the ASN (autonomous system number). However these residential IPs use backconnect gateway servers and you’ll have to manually modify this address to add parameters for targeting information.
Oxylabs claims that their residential proxies include mobile IPs as well, but the service provider doesn’t give you the option to choose them specifically for your tasks. These residential proxies rotate IPs at every request to ensure the target cannot block you.
The proxy provider also offers static non-rotating residential proxies that it procures straight from ISPs. Oxylabs claims these give you the best of both data center and residential proxies, in terms of speed and resilience. Also these static ones support the SOCKS5 protocol, unlike the standard rotating ones that don’t.
Its pool of over 2 million data center IPs that aren’t shared but dedicated for your exclusive use, also support the SOCKS5 protocol. These also offer a proxy rotator add-on to automatically rotate the data center IPs.
The one unique offering in oxylabs portfolio is the next-gen residential proxy that employs machine learning and AI to more successfully mimic a regular user’s browsing behavior and work around blocks and captchas.
Oxylabs also has a web scraping tool of its own called Scraper APIs that’ll fetch the data for you in either HTML or JSON format.
The service has tiered plans that get more cost effective as you increase your commitment.
With Webshare, the emphasis is on cyber security, along with speed. In fact, these folks make the bold claim that it has the ‘Fastest proxies’- which we can’t quite verify nor refute. Webshare has a global proxy network that gets fully ‘Encrypted and protected,’ continuously. They are certainly a high volume provider that processes in excess of 250 billion data points each month (yes, that is billion with a ‘B’), and used by over 12,000 businesses.
Webshare offers plenty of features to attract and satisfy its user base. This starts with support for both HTTP and SOCKS5 proxy, with availability for authentication or password authentication.
Not sure if this fits your needs? A standout of Webshare is the available free proxy plan. Sure, as would be expected, it is limited to just 10 free IPs, so it is hardly useful for a larger project. Still, it does not require a credit card, and it is a permanent plan, so not a time limited trial.
Overall, Webshare is an attractive proxy with clear benefits. It is easy to see the free tier, the high level of security, the emphasis on anonymity, the speeds of the proxies, and the choice of several plans. However, we are put off by the lack of support options, the prices on the plans, and also that competitors offer proxies in many more locations. Overall, the free proxy is worth trying, with all of the features, to see if this proxy meets your needs.