Did you know that proxies were first used to cache web pages? Well, today their use cases are much more versatile. They are used for all kinds of online activities, from unlocking geo-restricted content to efficient web scraping.
But if you’re here, we assume you already know that and are just trying to choose the best option for you. One of the most confusing parts about proxies can be the protocol they support. Do they support the SOCKS or HTTP protocol?
Which proxy type do you need? How do you know which to pick?
In this SOCKS vs. HTTP proxy guide, we’ll help you understand the differences between the two proxy types so you can make your decision with confidence.
What Is HTTP?
It’s the protocol that plays the starring role in the play called “Internet.” It allowed people to access websites by making data communication over the internet possible. The term stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol, which is defined as a connectionless text-based protocol that transfers text, audio, images, or videos between web browsers and web servers.
This protocol helps clients send requests to web servers for specific data, such as a web page or image. Hence, the name client-server protocol. Once the request is made, the connection ends, so a new connection is needed for the next request.
What Is an HTTP Proxy?
An HTTP proxy is a proxy server that handles HTTP connections only, operating via the same client-server model. It utilizes the HTTP protocol to route online traffic between clients and websites. Just like regular proxies, it works by getting your web requests and sending them to the target website. Likewise, it gets the web responses and sends them back to your client.
An HTTP proxy is easy to set up. The encrypted form of this proxy is HTTPS, ensuring a secure data transfer via an SSL connection.
This is why HTTP proxies are used for improving online privacy, performance optimization, and content filtering. Every time you use them, they intercept, evaluate, and forward HTTP requests and responses between your device and the desired web server.
What Is a SOCKS Proxy?
To understand SOCKS proxies, you first need to know what SOCKS means. It’s short for SOCKet Secure – a network communication protocol.
A SOCKS proxy server supports Transmission Control Protocol or TCP, User Datagram Protocol or UDP, Domain Name System or DNS, and other connections. It can receive and forward FTP, SMTP, HTTP, and HTTPS requests.
This protocol is not restricted to any port number. It can’t read the data packets exchanged between your device and the destination server. This is why SOCKS proxies are ideal for many use cases but not so great for others.
SOCKS proxies are exceptionally fast, so people use them for large data transfers. There are providers that offer SOCKS4 and SOCKS5 proxies, both types coming from the original SOCKS proxy.
The Differences between SOCKS4 and SOCKS5
These network protocols route outgoing and incoming traffic between web browsers and web servers. They are different versions of the SOCKS protocol, SOCKS5 being the newest, providing more advanced features, security, and functionality.
Here’s how they differ.
Authentication Methods
SOCKS4 doesn’t support authentication, but its latest version, SOCKS5, supports several authentication methods. These include username/password authentication, null authentication, and GSS-API authentication.
It’s why SOCKS5 proxies come with user identity verification, making them a more secure option.
UDP and TCP Connection
TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and UDP (User Datagram Protocol) enable data transfer between devices and web servers. Mainly, TCP or Transmission Control Protocol is a better option when you need maximum reliability. UDP provides higher speeds, so it’s perfect for those who prefer speeds over reliability.
How is this related to SOCKS proxies? Well, SOCKS5 supports both protocols, making it a better option than SOCKS4 as it provides both high speeds and reliability.
SSH Tunneling
SSH tunneling, or secure shell tunneling, is a method that ensures data transmission over an encrypted SSH connection. This way, it provides secure communication between devices and web servers.
SOCKS5 proxies use this method to secure data transfer, as opposed to SOCKS4 proxies. This makes the first option better for use cases that require higher online security.
Advantages of HTTP/HTTPS Proxies
HTTP proxies are an excellent choice for users looking for reliability and security. They have original and valuable features that make them ideal for many private and business use cases. But before discussing when to use HTTP proxies, let’s explore their advantages.
An extra layer of security
With HTTP proxies, data is encrypted so no third party can access outgoing and incoming network traffic. The only ones that can see what data is sent over the network are the client, destination server, and proxy server.Increased scraper’s success rate
You can use these proxies to configure HTTP request headers to get access to restricted targets and reduce your risk of getting blocked. The multiple headers combined with IP address rotation will keep your scraper under the target site’s radar and increase its success rate.Clean data & data caching
HTTP proxies can understand data in network traffic, so you can use them to restrict or filter specific web content. This can help you separate relevant and irrelevant data while scraping, which is especially useful when you want to collect data in large amounts.
The ability to cache web data allows HTTP proxies to improve your web browsing experience and reduce proxy data consumption.
Use Cases of HTTP/HTTPS Proxies
After learning the benefits of HTTP proxies, it’s time to find out more about their popular use cases.
Data collection
Thanks to features such as content filtering, caching, and control over web traffic, HTTP/HTTPS proxies are a good option for web scraping. They allow the modification of HTTP request headers, helping you get around website-issued blocks and target specific data.Content filtering & access control
Organizations and companies can use an HTTP proxy service to restrict access to websites and services they consider inappropriate or irrelevant. So when an employee tries to access a blocked web source, the HTTP proxy gets the request, assesses it based on the company’s filtering rules, and either allows or blocks it.
This way, organizations and companies can prevent wasting time and bandwidth on irrelevant online activities and contribute to increasing employee productivity.
- Traffic monitoring Once again, organizations, institutions, and companies that want to monitor and analyze traffic within their network often use HTTP proxies. This way, they can discover their employees’ bandwidth usage and browsing habits, which can help them address performance issues and prevent security threats.
Advantages of SOCKS Proxies
Here are the most important advantages of SOCKS proxies that can make you want to use them.
- High speeds As we already mentioned, SOCKS proxies support various protocols, including UDP. This protocol doesn’t require prior communication, handshaking, or expected response when sending data to other IP addresses.
This makes them fast and, therefore, ideal for time-sensitive tasks like torrenting or audio and video streaming.
Geo-block evasion
Unlike HTTP proxies, SOCKS residential proxy servers are hard to detect and block. They use SSH tunneling to ensure unrestricted web browsing, free from blocks and restrictions.Application compatibility
A SOCKS proxy can be used with several communication protocols being protocol-agnostic. This means it can use any port while keeping your IP address and location hidden. As a result, you can use it with any application, even with those restricting proxy connections.Authentication support
The newest version of SOCKS proxies, SOCKS5 proxy servers, supports several authentication methods. This way, they don’t allow unauthorized clients to connect to the server.
Use Cases of SOCKS Proxies
SOCKS proxies are fast, flexible, and anonymous. This makes them a popular option for the following use cases:
Bypassing firewalls & geo-restrictions
Thanks to the secure SSH tunneling, SOCKS proxies are extremely hard to detect. This makes them great for bypassing firewall blocks, network-level restrictions, and geo-restrictions.Improving performance for P2P sharing
Since SOCKS proxies (SOCKS5) support UDP connections, they provide high speeds and low latency. This makes a SOCKS proxy service perfect for P2P file-sharing applications.Web scraping
With a SOCKS proxy service, you can scrape data from any UDP or TCP transport, whether for market research, price comparisons, or customer service.
The Main Difference: SOCKS vs. HTTP Proxy
Wondering how SOCKS and HTTP proxies differ in terms of speed, security, compatibility, and ease of use? Let’s find out.
Speed
SOCKS proxies tend to be faster than HTTP proxy servers. The UDP support makes processing even faster as the protocol neither converts data packets into a stream of fixed packets nor waits for them to arrive from the server or client to the other end. This makes SOCKS5 proxies the clear winner.
With HTTP proxies, you have to pay attention to the number of users. Generally, private HTTP proxies are the fastest ones because they are used by only one user at a time. Public HTTP proxies tend to be the slowest of all because too many users share the same HTTP proxy at the same time.
Security
Since SOCKS and HTTP proxy servers function as intermediaries between your device and web servers, they both add an extra layer of security. This, in turn, makes your online activities harder to track.
However, only HTTP proxies can interpret network traffic or understand data packets and allow you to filter them according to your needs. For that reason, they are preferred in cybersecurity and email protection.
SOCKS proxies may be more prone to Man-in-the-middle attacks, but the advanced SOCKS5 protocol supports SSH encryption. This makes them much safer than SOCKS4 proxies.
Compatibility
HTTP proxy services support only the HTTP protocol to fetch information via a web browser. Still, they are compatible with many popular tools. They support only port 90 and 443 (HTTPS.)
On the contrary, SOCKS proxies support multiple protocols and can, therefore, handle various types of online traffic. SOCKS proxy servers support ports 1080 and 1081, but they can also use any other port.
This is why SOCKS proxies are used in all sorts of applications.
Ease of Use
HTTP proxies tend to be easier to set up and use than SOCKS proxies. But in the end, it all depends on your specific needs.
To Sum Up
The protocol support plays a huge role in the way proxies function. So if you want the best proxies for you, you must know what you need – SOCKS or HTTP proxies?
Our SOCKS vs. HTTP proxy guide will help you learn how each protocol affects the performance and security of proxies. By the end of it, you’ll realize whether HTTP proxies or SOCKS proxies are the best option for you.
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