Billal Ainaoui
Billal Ainaoui is the founder of HProxy.com. He started it to make honest proxy infrastructure anyone can afford, and he still reads every support message himself. The guides he signs come from the prices, tests and support questions the team works with every day. HProxy sells proxies, so weigh his view with that in mind.
Founder of HProxy.com · 1666 articles
Tutorial
cURL vs Wget: the differences and which to use with a proxy
curl and Wget compared by test: output, redirects, broken downloads, retries, copying a site, speed, uploads, and which proxies each one can use.
October 11, 2026 · 11 min read
Explainer
Dynamic pricing explained: why prices change by location and how to compare them
Dynamic pricing explained with real data: a day of electricity prices that moved 17.5 times over, one app priced 22 times higher in one country, and the rules.
October 11, 2026 · 7 min read
Guide
How to create a proxy server: Squid, 3proxy and when to buy instead
Create your own proxy server with Squid or 3proxy: the setup, a login, SOCKS5, and the default headers that tell every site your address, tested on our server.
October 11, 2026 · 7 min read
Guide
How to hide your IP address: five methods compared by what they actually hide
A proxy, a VPN, Tor, iCloud Private Relay or another network: what each one hides, from whom, and four leaks we measured that still give you away.
October 11, 2026 · 8 min read
Explainer
HTTP cookies explained: how they work and why they matter when scraping
What an HTTP cookie is, what each Set-Cookie attribute does, which cookies 100 top sites set on a first visit, and why one cookie links requests across proxies.
October 11, 2026 · 7 min read
Explainer
IP address in the wrong location: why it happens and how to fix it
Why your IP address shows the wrong city or country: where sites get the location, six causes, and the fixes that work, tested on 400 ranges on October 11, 2026.
October 11, 2026 · 9 min read
Explainer
IP scrambler explained: what it claims and what actually changes your IP
An IP scrambler is a rotating proxy under another name. We sent 8 requests through 8 proxies: the address changed, the TLS fingerprint, user agent and cookie did not.
October 11, 2026 · 5 min read
Use case
Is Character AI down? How to check, and what to do when it only fails for you
Is Character AI down, or does it only fail for you? What each error page means, why its status link no longer works, and what to do. Checked October 11, 2026.
October 11, 2026 · 6 min read
Explainer
Is web scraping legal? What courts, laws and site terms actually say
Is web scraping legal? What US courts held in hiQ and Van Buren, what the GDPR and EU copyright law say, and what 20 big sites allow in their terms and robots.txt.
October 11, 2026 · 8 min read
Use case
Janitor AI alternatives: which ones work with a proxy or your own API key
Janitor AI alternatives, checked: four open-source front ends where you bring a model, six hosted apps, how free OpenRouter's free models are, and what proxy means there.
October 11, 2026 · 5 min read
Guide
League of Legends IP ban explained: what Riot bans and what a new IP does not fix
Riot documents no IP ban for League of Legends. What it bans instead, from accounts to your PC (error VAN 152), how to tell which you have, and how to appeal.
October 11, 2026 · 9 min read
Review
PIA S5 Proxy (piaproxy.com): the company, its owners and how it ended
PIA S5 Proxy ran under Mars Brothers Limited of Hong Kong, pitched itself as the 911 S5 alternative and went dark after Google named it in January 2026.
October 11, 2026 · 19 min read
Review
Proxy6.net: who runs it, its companies and its history
Proxy6's contract names no company, but its Requisites page has named three sellers since 2023, in Russia and Uzbekistan. The record from 2016 to 2026.
October 11, 2026 · 20 min read
Explainer
Reverse proxy vs load balancer: what each does and when you need both
A reverse proxy stands in for a site; a load balancer spreads requests over servers. Most web load balancers are reverse proxies. With a working demo and the headers of 100 top sites.
October 11, 2026 · 6 min read
Review
SOAX.com: the company, its owners and its history
SOAX is sold by SOAX LTD, a UK company formed in 2019. Who owns it, its 2022 Series A from TMT and Piton, and the record since the name was for sale.
October 11, 2026 · 20 min read
Guide
Steam regional pricing: how it works and what Steam's rules say about region changes
Steam regional pricing from Valve's own papers: 37 currencies, a regional dollar price in 41 countries, who sets each price, and what Steam says about VPNs.
October 11, 2026 · 5 min read
Guide
Valorant IP ban explained: what Riot bans and what a new IP does not fix
Riot documents no IP ban for VALORANT. Its real penalties, from queue timers to hardware bans for cheating (VAN 152), why a new IP does not help, and appeals.
October 11, 2026 · 7 min read
Explainer
WebSocket vs HTTP: the difference and what changes behind a proxy
How a WebSocket starts as HTTP and becomes a two-way channel, what one message costs on each, and why wss:// passed 8 of 12 free proxies while ws:// passed 3.
October 11, 2026 · 6 min read
Tutorial
XPath vs CSS selector: which to use for scraping
XPath vs CSS selectors, tested on one page in lxml, parsel, BeautifulSoup and Chrome: what each can find, the class trap that drops matches, and which is faster.
October 11, 2026 · 6 min read
Guide
415 Unsupported Media Type error: causes and fixes
A 415 means the server will not accept the body in the format you sent it. See which Content-Type your client really sends, and the one-line fix for requests, curl and fetch.
October 10, 2026 · 6 min read
Review
9Proxy.com: the company behind it, ConnectWise Limited, and its history
9Proxy's terms name ConnectWise Limited of Hong Kong. Its record: a 2023 launch, the BeeProxy merger of 2025, a price rise and a pause in 2026.
October 10, 2026 · 15 min read
Review
ABCProxy.com (ABC S5 Proxy): the company, its operators and its end
ABCProxy sold residential proxies from 2022 under Hong Kong firms named in its footer. Google tied it to IPIDEA in 2026; its domain now sits in a sinkhole.
October 10, 2026 · 17 min read
Guide
Amazon CAPTCHA explained: why Amazon asks and how to stop seeing it
Amazon shows three different checks: a text CAPTCHA, a continue-shopping robot check and an AWS WAF JavaScript challenge. What each reads and what fixes it.
October 10, 2026 · 8 min read
Review
Bright Data (brightdata.com), formerly Luminati: the company, its owners and its history
Bright Data is Hola's 2008 company, renamed Luminati in 2017 and Bright Data in 2021. EMK Capital controls it; revenue was $253m in 2025.
October 10, 2026 · 25 min read
Showing 121 to 144 of 1666
Proxies that don't die mid-job
Residential, ISP, datacenter and mobile, verified by the same engine that runs tens of millions of checks. They read as a real device and hold up under load. Pay as you go, and your balance never expires. $0.44/GB is the 2,000 GB+ rate; a single gigabyte is $0.50/GB, with no minimum order.
129M+ proxy checks run · 100+ countries · HTTP / HTTPS / SOCKS · re-checked every few minutes · no signup
HProxy.
Honest guides and comparisons on proxies, scraping and staying unblocked, from the team that runs the network.