What Is A Proxy Server?
Proxy servers act as intermediaries between clients and other servers, performing such activities on behalf of another system.
In a nutshell, proxy servers act as a conduit between you and the internet, separating the end user from the websites they browse. However, there is less reason to remember proxies than you might think.
You need to determine what proxy suits your internet operations best and from where you can buy a proxy if you understand what a proxy is.
The internet offers a wide variety of proxy servers that target different geographic locations, but not all of them are reliable. When purchasing proxy servers, it is crucial to find the right and secure platform.
In order to make your search easier, we have elaborated an analysis of Bright Data.
What is Bright Data (formerly Luminati)?
There are now more than 72 million IP addresses in the Luminati proxy pool, making it the world’s most reliable proxy network. Not only that, but you can also use data collection tools that do not require any coding experience.
The company was established in 2014 and is one of the fastest-growing companies in the IPS and proxy fields, offering four types of proxy networks, including residential, data center, mobile, and static residential proxies.
With more than 750 patents, Luminati demonstrates their innovative approach to intellectual property, aiming to continuously develop several proprietary products.
Additionally, the company offers search engine crawler, data collector and data unblocker products, as well as a powerful and reliable proxy solution to access any website without getting blacklisted or blocked by the site administrators.
Bright Data Products
Bright Data offers two types of services – data collection and proxy. The focus here will be on proxy servers. There are four types of proxies Bright Data provides. These are as follows:
Residential Proxy
With residential proxies, you can select a particular location (country, city, or wireless carrier) and surf the web like a typical user in that area. Residential proxy networks are based on real, private IP addresses that are leased or bought from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) for commercial use.
These real household IP addresses originate from their Residential Network, which covers every country and city in the world. Data collection requests using these IP addresses are interpreted and handled as if they were coming from an actual location, making them highly effective and undetectable when properly used. A rotating proxy service offered by Bright Data offers the fastest and largest peer-to-peer IP network in the world.
ISP Proxy
An ISP proxy is similar to both a datacenter proxy and a residential proxy, in that it has both a data center and a residential component. Internet Service Provider proxy servers can only use IP addresses from Internet Service Provider networks rather than data center IP addresses since ISP proxies are typically hosted on data center servers.
You can now own real IP addresses in several countries around the world thanks to Bright Data, the first global ISP IPs network. Your IP addresses may be used for any purpose you need, whenever and wherever you need them. Our residential IPs are assigned by ISPs and leased to Bright Data for your exclusive use, ensuring that you don’t get detected or blocked.
Datacenter Proxy
A shared IP pool or individual IP purchases are available from Bright Data’s most advanced Datacenter network. Unlike Internet Service Providers (ISPs), datacenter proxies are not affiliated with any ISP. Authentication and anonymity are guaranteed by a secondary corporation.
The proxy servers used by many datacenters are usually provided by cloud servers. In the country of your choosing, you can purchase individual IP addresses (for unlimited BW or per GB). Prices will vary depending on how many IPs you use. As a result, this type of proxy is affordable for startups as well as corporations.
Mobile Proxy
Bright Data’s advanced mobile network offers the fastest and largest real-peer 3G/4G IPs. A mobile proxy is a portable device that has internet access using mobile data, such as a smartphone or tablet.
The device’s IP address can be masked with your own IP address by connecting to such proxies. Proxies offered by such services are always believed to be legitimate sources. The mobile residential IPs that Bright Data offers are available in every city and no concurrent connections are restricted.
Where does Bright Data Provide Its Service?
This amazing tool provides its service in almost all parts of the world. In addition to being located in a better location than its competitors, Bright Data has a dedicated deputy. There are more than 35 million Bright Data representatives worldwide. It combines this feature with the possibility to use the IP address of a city from a list of more than 20,000 cities, making it the king of the hill.
Use-Cases Of Bright Data Products
Utilize Bright Data to retrieve web data seamlessly to be the leader in your niche. Bright Data is the top leader in web data with over 2213 patents.
Take advantage of web data with Bright Data in the following ways.
AdTech:
You won’t lose any money with Bright Data because every dollar you spend is verified. Your brand will be protected and ad campaigns will be verified with high accuracy with Bright Data.
Your targeted audience will only see the right ads if you conduct ad intelligence.
Web Data extraction:
It is becoming increasingly difficult to extract data from a data aggregator. Websites have many restrictions, such as IP blocking and bot protection, that prevent you from accessing their services.
The web data can be scraped with accuracy using residential IP addresses from Bright Data. Residential IP addresses have been geo-targeted by countries or regions. As a result of a large database, you can easily find the specific information you are looking for.
Travel Aggregation:
As there are so many travel websites around the world, comparing prices can be difficult. Fortunately, Bright Data can help.
Using 72,000,000 IP addresses, you can aggregate and compare prices globally. The travel industry keeps track of price comparisons and provides misleading information to stay competitive.
You will be perceived as a customer using Bright Data residential proxies, not as a competitor. Consequently, you will be able to obtain accurate pricing information for any location.
eCommerce:
The eCommerce industry is not only growing, but also becoming tougher because of the competition between eCommerce giants.
Bright Data’s data collector ensures you are not left behind. Through this, you can monitor competitors’ inventory and pricing in real-time.
To scale your eCommerce business, you can now collect any data from an eCommerce website. Get promotional alerts and determine the best price for each SKU.
Stock Market Data:
Accurate technical data is crucial to stock market investment. If the information is incorrect, you are likely to lose money.
Using Bright Data’s Residential IPs, you can target specific countries, IPs, and more to get accurate data.
Only Bright Data’s innovative proxy solution can provide precise financial services using precise data.
How To Sign Up For BrightData?
At Bright Data, you can sign up for a free 7-day trial right away. In every Bright Data proxy, you have a choice of four different plans.
You can purchase residential proxy servers on the Residential proxy servers page.
Simply click on Start now and fill out the required information.
In the next step, create a password after you have successfully registered with Bright Data.
Your dashboard will appear once you have set a password. You’ll need to go through a KYC process first.
Bright Data will send you an email about the KYC process and how you can submit the required information.
A Bright Data representative will ask for a copy of your identity proof and learn about your use-case during the KYC process.
There are a number of prohibited use cases. If any of those apply to your use-case, you won’t be able to access Residential Proxies and Mobile Proxy Networks.
Getting approval takes time.
The dashboard of Bright Data can be accessed after approval. From there, you can manage your proxy accounts according to your needs.
Add Money to your Bright Data Account
If you want to use Bright Data’s services, you need to add money to your account.
Due to the pay-as-you-go nature of all Bright Data plans, you will have available funds in your account.
Adding a payment method can be done by clicking on “Billing.”.
You will be charged $1 when adding the card to verify your identity.
You may receive a $5 signup bonus if you validate your credit card.
How To Create a Residential Proxy?
Several tasks can be carried out with Bright Data Residential proxies, including web data extraction, advertising, and eCommerce.
The target website you visit using the software or computer recognizes you as a natural person from the chosen destination when you use a residential proxy (in your local PC, scraping software or in your custom application).
In the left sidebar menu of your dashboard, click on Proxies to start using Residential Proxies.
On the next screen, click “Add Zone.”
Buying proxy services from Bright Data is a smart move. As you create the zone, the system will suggest to you the recommended network type based on your generic use case (for example, Instagram follower software).
Select “Residential” from the network types since we will use residential proxies for now.
In this case, things get a bit complicated. There are several options you can choose from.
3 – Type the name of the zone. You will be the only one who can see this.
4 – Select the gIP’ type. You can use the same IP address for other zones when not in use. In the box, you can choose Exclusive if you want an exclusive pool.
5 – Regardless of whether it is an exclusive or shared IP, you may need to choose how specific you want to be about the IP location. A standard rate will apply if you wish to use only a particular country’s IP (which has already been checked).
When you choose IP addresses from a specific state or city, costs will rise.
6 – Monitor the “Monthly Cost.”
7 – Proxy networks usually have access to HTTP and HTTPS ports. Enter a port or range of ports if you want a specific port included in the Allowlist.
8 – Once you have filled in all the required information, click “Add Zone.”
Now is the time to create your Zone.
There are two types of residential IPs: shared and exclusive.
You can get exclusive access to a group of IPs with residential IPs. Using these IPs, you can collect data and target domains. The advantages of these IPs over shared IPs include increasing the success rate or removing roadblocks caused by duplicate usage.
Our residential proxy servers are guaranteed to be up 99.9% of the time. You can integrate them with the proxy manager. Sending unlimited simultaneous requests will increase efficiency.
Using Bright Data Residential Proxy in Chrome Extension
Assuming you have created the zone in your Bright data dashboard and it is active at this point, here is something you should try.
Let’s put it to the test in your Chrome browser.
Select the “Edit” icon immediately before the active zone on the dashboard >> Proxies.
1 – Note the username and keep it in a Notepad file or elsewhere.
2 – The password displayed can be copied and stored in a Notepad file. You can also use the pencil icon next to it to make changes.
You can download the Bright Data Chrome Extension from here once you have saved the details in a notepad file.
Click on Sign in with your copied username and password.
1 – Choosing the zone is the first step. The zone’s name will be the one you chose when creating it.
2 – Select the country from which you want a residential IP address.
Once you click on a country, the “Residential Proxy” will be activated.
1 – Check the proxy status.
2 – Verify your IP has changed to the selected zone by opening the external site.
3 – The IP address that your browser is using right now.
4 – Enable/Disable the switch.
You are good to go! You can efficiently now use Bright data Residential Proxy in your Browser.
Bright Data Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Coverage around the world
- Integration with third-party applications
- Guaranteed 99.9% uptime
- High reliability and flexibility
- Compliant with all regulations
- Account managers assigned to each client
- Support is provided 24×7
- Data extraction, crawling of search engine results, etc., are possible.
Cons:
- It is difficult for beginners to integrate APIs
- Comparatively, it is more expensive than other proxies
- Some regions might have proxy errors, but they are minimal.
BrightData Alternatives
Here are some BrightData alternatives you can consider if you aren’t convinced that BrightData is your go-to option.
- Oxylabs – Competitive proxy pricing (Here is a detailed comparison of Bright Data vs. Oxylabs)
- Netnut – one hop ISP connectivity.
- Smartproxy – Manage several accounts with an intuitive dashboard.
- Geosurf – premium proxy solutions with over 120 gateways.
- Proxyscrape – a wide range of shared, residential, & dedicated proxies.
- Infatica – over 2,500,000 residential socks5 proxies
Is Bright Data Worth It?
You made it to the end of the review, so you should choose Bright Data.
You should consider Bright Data if you have used a product similar to Bright Data. If you want to invest in Bright Data, you must have some technical knowledge about website hosting and development. You might face a dilemma when looking at the product’s pricing. However, you need to understand that the features that they provide are worth the price you are paying for. Plus, their service is apt, so you will always be #1 for them.
When compared to other alternatives, honestly speaking, Bright Data gave us the best quality for the quoted price. They are constantly updating themselves to give their users the best possible experience. Even when a business is at the startup stage, it will be able to see results if it has invested in Bright Data.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Bright Data?
Thousands of small businesses and Fortune 500 companies leverage Bright Data for web data analysis and scale. Bright Data makes it easy for businesses to collect the data they need.
What is Luminati network?
In 2014, Luminati was founded as a platform to help businesses ethically to make data available online and a network of the world’s largest data. In a P2P network, Luminati connects millions of devices to the cloud through virtual clouds.
Is Bright Data legit?
Luminati was the previous name of Bright Data. Providing global proxy coverage, it is a reliable and versatile proxy provider.
Who owns Bright Data?
Bright Data, previously called Luminati, is owned by EMK Capital.
How do I use Bright Data?
Bright Data offers a browser extension that you can install once you sign up for the Bright Data proxy.
How does Bright Data collect data?
Using their core proxy networks, they assist our customers in collecting data. The four proxy networks are data centers, residences, rotating residences, and mobile devices. As a result, their peer network utilizes IPs from real users from around the globe in these three instances. Through this network, all data requests are routed so that information is collected locally from the perspective of the consumer.
What is Proxy Waterfall?
By using the Bright Data Waterfall, active queries can be routed from the data center network to the residence network, then sent to the cell network. It boosts performance and lowers costs at the same time.
Is Bright Data Free to Use?
Bright Data is one of the most professional tools, so no, it is not free to use. The pricing section mentioned earlier will give you an insight on the same.
What happens if I exceed my minimum account commitment?
In the event that your account balance has been used up by 85 percent during a particular month, you will receive an email requesting that you add funds to your account. In the absence of funds added to your account, your account will continue to operate until you have used the entirety of your account balance. In the event that your account balance has been used up to 100 percent, your account will be suspended unless additional funds are provided. In order to keep your account active and working, it is recommended to turn on the auto recharge.
How does bandwidth get calculated?
For bandwidth calculation, you add together the data transferred to and from the target site: request headers + request data (POST) + response headers + response data. It’s important to note that traffic consumed during your trial will appear on your dashboard, but you won’t be charged for it.
What makes Bright Data different from others?
Bright Data might be just another proxy service provider in the market but is regarded as the best proxy network for several reasons as acknowledged by millions of users and several internet critics.
While it is hard to list down every reason that makes Bright Data the best in its domain, we have shortlisted a few reasons why Bright Data is different from other proxy providers and is a leader in the IP industry.