Readers land here mid-decision, usually with a cart open somewhere. The fastest thing we can do is set out what Socks-Proxy.net publishes, what it does not, and what a few dollars of testing settles better than any argument.
Socks-Proxy.net on the record
Socks-Proxy.net operates from socks-proxy.net. Our classification for them is free proxy list.
A price is missing here on purpose. We have not captured a sourced rate for Socks-Proxy.net recently enough to publish one, and a stale number in this market is a wrong number.
Copy down the entry rate, the commitment attached to the cheapest rate, the minimum top-up and the expiry rule. Those four turn a marketing figure into something you can compare.
What Socks-Proxy.net says about itself today
Read 9 September 2026, the homepage titles itself "Socks Proxy - Free SOCKS5 and SOCKS4 Proxy List". The blurb under their search result reads: "Here are some free socks proxies that are just checked and added into our proxy list. The proxy list is updated every 10 minutes to keep fresh."
Reading the same page for the things buyers actually ask about:
The product lines named on that page are residential and SOCKS5. They advertise 34 countries or locations. Payment methods mentioned: PayPal, crypto, Alipay and cards. The page offers some form of free trial. A refund or money-back term is mentioned. Their pricing page is titled "Buy Socks 8200 Proxy List (1 month), Didsoft".
All of the above is their copy, not our finding. A dated quotation is the weakest kind of evidence that is still evidence.
The domain record
The domain was registered on 8 November 2012, through Cloudflare, Inc, which makes it about 13 years old. That record was read from the registry on 23 April 2026. The Internet Archive holds 20 snapshots of the site, the earliest from April 2006. The registry shows it renewed to 8 November 2026.
Read that as a floor rather than a recommendation. Longevity says somebody has kept paying the registrar, and in a market with this much churn that is worth ten seconds of your attention.
Who is behind the list
We checked this one by hand on 6 September 2026. It is a list, and we record the operator as independent. It has been folded into another list rather than shut down, so the name survives as a redirect. Evidence recorded: 200 after redirect to free-proxy-list.net/socks-proxy.html. Part of the free-proxy-list.net family.
No proxy seller behind it that we could find. Independent lists tend to live on ad revenue, so expect the page to be busier than the data warrants.
The Internet Archive has it from 3 April 2006 to 17 January 2025, about 15 years of coverage. The domain was registered 8 November 2012 through Cloudflare, Inc.
The number that matters, and that no list page prints, is how many entries still work. Ours is public: 589918 addresses discovered, 4023 alive at the last check, median lifespan 145 hours. Apply that decay to any undated list you are reading.
What the advertised numbers cannot tell you
A pool total is not a promise
The number that matters is how many usable exits you can reach in the one country your job needs, this week. A pool total averages that away, which is why two providers with similar totals produce opposite results on the same site.
Why 195 countries tells you nothing
Almost every provider claims almost every country. What differs is depth, and depth decides whether a single city or a single carrier is usable. No published figure tells you that.
The day something goes wrong
Every provider works when nothing is wrong. The difference shows up on the day a subnet gets flagged or a gateway stops answering. Before committing volume, send one real question through the support channel and time the reply.
What separates them, in a table
This is the shortest table that still decides the purchase:
| Question to ask | Socks-Proxy.net | HProxy |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | Not verified by us, read their page | From $0.44/GB, pay as you go |
| Does unused balance expire? | Worth confirming in writing before you commit | Never |
| Minimum commitment | Their terms page answers this | None |
| Identity checks | Check the current terms, this one moves | Card orders are screened, and verification is sometimes requested |
| Targeting | Not published clearly, ask before paying | Country, city and ISP |
| Free way to evaluate | On their own terms page | Free proxy list and proxy checker |
That comparison covers what is publishable. What is not publishable, and what actually decides this, is how many of your requests come back correct.
A test worth more than this comparison
Do this once and you will never need a comparison page for this decision again.
- Open an account on each and add the smallest amount they take. Skip the trial if a paid unit is cheap enough to buy outright.
- Point both at your real target, through your real tool, on the same day, with the same mix of requests.
- Log successes, failures and gigabytes used. Cost per successful request is the figure you are after.
- Verify a slice of the exits independently. Country labels in this market are self-reported and are not always right.
- Take the winner and set a reminder to run this again, since a result has a shelf life of about a quarter.
Others in this market
Nearest alternatives by product shape rather than by who pays us, since nobody does:
- Awebproxy alternatives
- CheckerProxy alternatives
- clarketm proxy-list (GitHub) alternatives
- DidSoft alternatives
- Fauvet alternatives
- Free Proxy alternatives
Where HProxy sits in that test
We sell residential proxies from $0.44 per GB with no subscription and a balance that does not expire, plus ISP, mobile and datacenter in the same account. That is the pitch, and the test above is a better judge of it than this paragraph.
