SocksEscort (socksescort.com) sold residential SOCKS5 proxies through its own Windows app until 11 March 2026. That day an international operation led by the US Justice Department disrupted it, and the domain now shows a seizure notice. According to the Justice Department, its proxies were home and small business routers infected with malware. This page sets out what it sold, what officials said, and what to use instead, with a date on every fact. For the comparison, jump to the alternatives table.
SocksEscort at a glance
| what we found on 27 September 2026 | |
|---|---|
| status | seized; the domain shows only a seizure notice |
| seized | 11 March 2026, by a US federal court warrant |
| what it sold | static residential SOCKS5 proxies through a Windows app |
| last prices | $15 a month for 30 picks, up to $200 for 5,000 |
| IPs offered | about 369,000 since 2020, by the count of the Justice Department |
| refunds | none, by its own policy |
| operator | not named in the sources we read |
| domain | registered December 2011 |
What SocksEscort sold
Its last live page, archived on 9 March 2026, called the service "The Best Windows SOCKS5 Proxy Client". Buyers installed its app, picked a static residential IP, and sent traffic through it with unlimited bandwidth. The app let them sort IPs by speed, uptime, ISP, zip code, country, state and city, and check an IP against block lists first.
The page said who it was for in its own words: "anybody who work on Craigslist, Badoo, PoF, posting ads, surveys". On 9 March 2026 it counted 35,915 proxies in 102 countries, more than 14,700 of them in the United States.
What it charged
These prices come from the price calculator on its page of 9 March 2026. The same prices already stood in January 2023; in April 2021 its calculator priced 30 proxies at $2.88 and 2,000 at $57.60.
| package | price a month |
|---|---|
| 30 proxies | $15 |
| 100 proxies | $30 |
| 250 proxies | $45 |
| 500 proxies | $60 |
| 1,000 proxies | $75 |
| 2,000 proxies | $105 |
| 5,000 proxies | $200 |
A "proxy" meant one pick, not one address for the month. Its FAQ said: "Every time you assign an IP to a profile, 1 proxy is withdrawn from your balance." Its refund policy of 2025 said: "We do not offer any refunds at this time".
What happened
On Thursday 12 March 2026, the office of the US Attorney for the Eastern District of California announced the takedown. Its release said a court-authorized operation led by the Justice Department had disrupted SocksEscort the day before.
According to court documents cited in that release, SocksEscort "infected home and small business internet routers with malware" and sold access to them. Since the summer of 2020 it had offered access to about 369,000 IPs. In February 2026 its app listed about 8,000 infected routers, 2,500 of them in the United States.
The release says the service helped criminals hide their location in frauds, including bank and crypto account takeovers and false unemployment claims. The US seized a few dozen domains, and law enforcement in Austria, France and the Netherlands took down servers.
Europol announced the operation the same day under the title "Europol and international partners disrupt 'SocksEscort' proxy service". The Record, a news site run by Recorded Future, reported 34 seized domains, 23 servers taken down in seven countries, and $3.5 million in crypto frozen. It also reported that the FBI linked the service to AVrecon, a malware family that infects routers.
The archive shows the site live on 9 March 2026 and the seizure notice by 13 March. The registry record changed on 11 March and is now locked against updates.
If you were a customer
The account, the balance and the app are gone, and the service never offered refunds. According to the Justice Department, the IPs were routers infected with malware. Traffic sent through them passed through infected devices that belonged to other people.
When you choose a new provider, look for one that names its company, publishes its prices and terms, and tells you how to reach it.
Where HProxy differs
We sell proxies too, so read this part as the account of a competitor. Every HProxy fact here comes from our own product code and pages.
A named company. Our imprint names the company behind HProxy, which is entered in the German commercial register.
Static addresses by the month. Our static ISP starts at one dedicated address with unlimited bandwidth, at $2.70/IP for a month. Datacenter IPv4 costs $1.58/IP for a month.
Residential by the gigabyte. Lite targets by country at $0.50/GB for one gigabyte. Premium, our pool with state, city and ISP targeting, costs $1.49/GB for one gigabyte and $1.00/GB from 1,000 GB+. Its sticky sessions last from 3 minutes to 24 hours, and SOCKS5 lines carry UDP.
Payment and paperwork. We take cards, Alipay and thirty-two crypto options, and we ask for no documents at sign-up or at an ordinary checkout.
Where we are behind. We offer no choice by zip code, and our static addresses are sold by the month, not a few cents per pick.
The alternatives, side by side
One static ISP address for a month, at the smallest buy. Every figure comes from the page of each vendor, read on 26 or 27 September 2026.
| provider | smallest buy | per address, one month | note |
|---|---|---|---|
| ArnProxy | 1 address | $2.50 | US price |
| Shifter | 4 addresses for $10 | $2.50 | 7 countries |
| Massive | 10 addresses for $30 | $3.00 | United States only |
| Oxylabs | 5 addresses for $16 | $3.20 | dedicated |
| Decodo | 3 addresses for $9.99 | $3.33 | dedicated, plus VAT |
| HProxy | 1 address | $2.70/IP | dedicated |
Our reviews of ArnProxy, Shifter, Massive, Oxylabs and Decodo cover their terms in full. Our proxy checker shows whether an address answers, how fast, and from where, whoever sold it.
The limits of this review
We never used SocksEscort. Its prices and features come from archived copies of its own pages, and the account of the takedown comes from the Justice Department, Europol and The Record. We did not read the court documents themselves, and this page says nothing beyond those sources.
Every figure here carries the day it was read, and this page is due for a check by 27 December 2026.
Sources
- US Attorney for the Eastern District of California, press release "Authorities Dismantle Global Malicious Proxy Service that Deployed Malware and Defrauded Thousands of U.S. Persons, Businesses, and Financial Institutions of Millions of Dollars in Losses", 12 March 2026, read in its archived copy.
- Europol, "Europol and international partners disrupt 'SocksEscort' proxy service", 12 March 2026.
- The Record from Recorded Future News, "US, Europol disrupt SocksEscort network that exploited thousands of residential routers", March 2026.
- SocksEscort, socksescort.com: the seizure notice, read 27 September 2026, and archived copies of its homepage (April 2021, January 2023, March 2026), FAQ (July 2025) and refund policy (August 2025).
- Verisign, registry record for socksescort.com. Read 27 September 2026.
- ArnProxy, Shifter, Massive, Oxylabs and Decodo, ISP price pages. Read 26 and 27 September 2026.
- HProxy, our imprint, our own product records, price table and terms.
