Glossary
Terms, defined before they are used
Short definitions with the one thing that matters about each. Where a term has a number attached, the entry says how that number should be defined.
- Autonomous system number (ASN)
- The identifier of a network operator on the internet, such as a carrier, an ISP or a hosting company.
- Bandwidth billing
- Charging by the bytes moved, request and response together.
- Browser fingerprint
- The set of properties a site reads from a client to recognise it, apart from its address.
- Carrier-grade NAT
- A carrier technique that shares one public IPv4 address among many subscribers.
- CIDR block
- A range of addresses written as a prefix, for example a /24 holding 256 addresses.
- Cost per success
- What you pay to obtain one successful result, whatever the billing unit.
- Datacenter proxy
- A proxy whose exit address is hosted in a datacenter and registered to a hosting company.
- DNS leak
- A hostname lookup that goes out from your own network instead of through the proxy.
- Exponential backoff
- Waiting progressively longer between retries, usually with a random component.
- Gateway (backconnect) proxy
- A single endpoint you connect to, which assigns an exit address behind the scenes.
- Headless browser
- A real browser engine run without a visible window, for pages that build content with JavaScript.
- HTTP CONNECT
- The method an HTTP proxy uses to open a tunnel for HTTPS traffic.
- IP allow-list authentication
- Authenticating by the address you connect from instead of a username and password.
- IP reputation
- An assessment of an address, from past behaviour and the kind of network it sits on.
- IP rotation
- Changing the exit address between requests or connections.
- ISP proxy
- A static address registered to an internet provider but hosted in a datacenter, held for a term.
- Know your customer (KYC)
- Checks a provider makes on a customer before enabling access.
- Mobile proxy
- A proxy whose exit address sits on a mobile carrier network.
- Rate limiting
- A target slowing or refusing a client that sends too many requests, usually with a 429 status.
- Residential proxy
- A proxy whose exit address is assigned by an internet provider to a household connection.
- Retry amplification
- The number of attempts made for each successful result.
- robots.txt
- A file at a site's root stating which paths automated clients should not fetch.
- SOCKS5
- A proxy protocol that relays TCP connections, and optionally UDP, without interpreting HTTP.
- Sticky session
- A session that keeps the same exit address for a period instead of rotating.
- Success rate
- The share of requests that returned a page passing a stated content check.
- Time to first byte
- The time from sending a request to receiving the first byte of the response.
- Web unblocker
- A request-based service that handles proxy choice, retries and rendering for you.