Comparison

The English 'best Chinese proxy' roundups name only Western brands and zero real Chinese operators. Here is who actually runs China's proxy industry.

DePIN proxy tokens like Grass and Nodepay are residential proxy networks with a crypto wrapper. The real funding, the token crashes, and what you actually sell.

How to tell if your proxy provider just resells a bigger pool: shared gateways, identical pool sizes, WHOIS and ASN overlap, and rebrand chains.

Google's 2026 takedown named 13 proxy brands under IPIDEA: 922Proxy, PIA S5, IP2World and more, built on hijacked home devices. What it means for buyers.

IPIDEA runs IP2World, PIA S5 Proxy and a dozen storefronts on one pool through Hong Kong shells. Here is the shared infrastructure and how it was built.

NordVPN and Surfshark merged on February 2, 2022 under one Dutch holding company, Cyberspace B.V. Here is the sourced proof, and what it means for buyers.

Researchers tied two dozen 'independent' mobile proxy brands to one Belarusian software stack, ProxySmart. Here is the map and what it means when you buy.

Thordata claims a 2018 founding, but its Hong Kong company dates to 2023 and its own US trademark claims first use in 2025. Here is the sourced timeline.

AWM Proxy sold access to malware-infected PCs as proxies from 2008 until Google sued its operators in 2021. How it worked, who ran it, and the Glupteba link.

BuyProxies sold dedicated 'virgin' datacenter proxies at buyproxies.org. What it sold, why the private-proxy era faded, and if it is still worth buying.

GeoSurf was one of the oldest enterprise residential proxy networks. It lost a patent war to Bright Data and shut down all proxy services on December 20, 2023.

HighProxies sold private, shared, and social media datacenter proxies. What it was, why social-media proxies moved on, and if it is still live.

LimeProxies sold premium dedicated datacenter proxies from 2010, then went quiet. What it was, why it faded, and whether its domain still means anything.

LuxSocks was a Russian SOCKS5 proxy market prized by carders. It went dark in January 2022 in a reported Russian takedown. The story and the buyer lesson.

ProxyBonanza is a 2010s datacenter proxy veteran still trading today, but its UK company dissolved in 2013 and its tooling froze in 2019. Verify before you trust it.

RSOCKS sold millions of hacked IoT devices as proxies until the FBI and DOJ seized it in June 2022. How it worked, who ran it, and what replaced it.

Storm Proxies was the cheap backconnect rotating proxy everyone used around 2016. It never shut down. It stopped evolving, and the market moved past it.

VIP72 sold access to malware-infected PCs as SOCKS proxies for 15 years, then vanished in 2021. Who ran it, how it worked, and the sourcing lesson.

Shifter.io used to be Microleaves, a proxy service Kaspersky flagged as a trojan and that leaked its own users in 2022. Here is the sourced history and why a rebrand does not reset a network's origins.

911 S5 was called the largest botnet ever: 19 million hijacked IPs sold as residential proxies via fake free VPNs. Here is how it worked, how the FBI took it down, and the sourcing lesson.

Many 'independent' proxy and VPN brands trace back to one Lithuanian venture builder, Tesonet, and its founders. Here is the sourced ownership map, and why it matters when you compare providers.

HProxy vs Geonode on price: HProxy is the cheaper flat rate up to about 100 GB, and Geonode's tier rate dips below it only at large committed volume.

HProxy vs Massive on price and model: a much cheaper residential alternative at $0.65/GB, and where Massive's ethically sourced, AI-focused network is worth the premium.

HProxy vs NodeMaven on price, model and IP quality: a much cheaper NodeMaven alternative for residential proxies, and when NodeMaven's IP quality filter is worth the premium.