Your IP Address
44.222.118.194
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What Is A Proxy?

There are two types of proxies, a regular proxy or a transparent proxy. A regular proxy is one that you do setup/connect to intentionally for various reasons. Monitoring traffic at the office, caching traffic for speed, blocking sites at home..etc.

A transparent proxy on the other hand, also known as a forced or intercepting proxy,  is a middle man system deployed by your ISP. It is referred to as ‘transparent’ because the client is unaware of its existence. A transparent proxy acts as an intermediary between you and a website you want to visit. While you are connecting to that website, the proxy intercepts the connection, before passing it to the website. This does put your data privacy and online behaviour in jeopardy. Read on below to learn more. Some list of issues with transparent proxies are :

  • Censorship of the Internet. I.e. you can not connect to sites that are deemed inappropriate. Think family filter for adult content. Or government censorship on sites that are not pro-government “China, UAE, Iran etc”
  • Logging your online behaviour. What sites you access, at what times and how long you spend on those sites.
  • Eavesdropping on your traffic. If you are not using encryption during your access of a particular website or application, the content of your traffic is exposed to the ISP. This can go all the way from intimate photos to a comment on a forum.
  • Throttling your speed, a transparent proxy can limit the number of bytes you can download or upload.
Transparent Proxy Detection Tool

Transparent Proxy Detection Tool

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How to Detect Transparent Proxies?

We have thought a lot and tested ever more methods. We came up with a tool that does check for proxies in more different ways that any other proxy test tool online. You can use our unique proxy identification the tool above to detect whether your ISP is using transparent proxies or not. This tools also checks for :

 

  • The usage of a banned IP listed as dangerous “If you see this message it is highly likely that you have malware or spyware on your device”. We cross check across various online blacklists.If this one comes up, your traffic is most likely hijacked for malicious purposes.
  • Botnets , if you see this it means that your device is being used to trigger DDOS “large scale attacks” on the Internet. Basically a botnet uses infected devices as a swarm that is used to attack sites and services. These botnets are available for rent. You can be part of a botnet due to various reasons, from clicking on a fishy link to installing malware infected apps.
  • Check if you are behind known online proxies, this is different from a transparent proxy your ISP might use. If this result comes up your proxy check it means one of the following :
    • You are actively and on purpose using an online proxy. You might be doing that to hide your real IP or access geo blocked content. The danger here is that you cant really trust your online information to a proxy that is run by someone you dont know. After all running a public proxy for free is expensive, so the income for those proxies is probably selling whatever info they can gather about you while you are using their services.
    • You are not aware that you are using a public proxy. That suggests again that your device is infected with malware or spyware and the traffic is being proxied for malicious purposes. Apart from trying to steal personal information
  • Tor detection : The Tor network does provide some sort of anonymity and protection against snooping eyes. This tools does detect tor nodes. If this comes up try to change your tor node if that is an option.
  • VPN detection: A lot of sites these days do use VPN/proxy detection techniques to to identify VPN providers. This is normally done to block users using VPN from accessing these sites or from bypassing geolocation blocks. If our tool does not detect a VPN it suggests that the sites in question here wont detect that VPN as well.

 

 

Are there any are the benefits to a transparent proxy ?

At it’s best. Internet service providers mainly deploy transparent proxies with the aim of providing faster data transfer through caching.  This is outweighed by the disadvantages below “I am repeating some points, I cant emphasize how bad transparent proxies are”

  • The ISP detects and caches all your DNS queries. This means that the ISP knows about every site you visited.
  • The ISP caches your traffic. This means that the ISP knows about the sites you visited and which pages you accessed.
  • The ISP stores sensitive data. Depending on how aggressive the caching is, the proxy can cache personal images, emails, passwords..etc. 
  • The ISP can censor websites. Everybody wants full access to the Internet. However ISPs using a proxy service can block websites based on whatever criteria they chose.

Can I Bypass Transparent Proxy?

If your ISP is using transparent proxies, you might want to contact them and ask them to route you outside it. If the ISP does agree, you can test the result using our proxy check tool. A lot of ISPs tend to refuse such requests, however, stating technicalities as the reason. Your other option is to bypass a transparent proxy by using a VPN. A VPN connection allows you to encrypt all of your traffic which will then no longer go through the ISP’s proxies.

How to Bypass Transparent Proxies Using VPN

How to Bypass Transparent Proxies Using VPN

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The main benefits of a VPN are :

  • Encrypt your traffic
  • Bypass any proxies. Thus preventing censorships, bans and eavesdropping.
  • Preventing transparent proxy speed throttling
  • Change your geolocation and hiding your identity and address. The added benefit here is that you now can access geo-restricted content from sites that have license restrictions. Think “BBC IPlayer outside UK as an example”

You can read more about VPNs here. Enabling VPN for your traffic is a relatively easy process.

This is how you establish a VPN connection:

  1. First, sign up with a VPN service. If you’re looking for a credible provider, go for ExpressVPN.
  2. After that, get download the VPN app and install it on your device. You’ll find apps available on Android, iOS, PC, and Mac, Amazon firestick and more. If your deivce does not support native VPN or there is no VPN app for your device you can still enable VPN for your devices through your router.
  3. Once installed, sign in with your VPN credentials and check the server list.
  4. Connect to any server you prefer.
  5. Once the connection takes place, refresh the page, and check the Proxy Tool above.
  6. You’ll notice that all the proxy checks are under (Success).

If you want the process to go smoothly, make sure you try a VPN provider that has proper apps and support. . In the table below, you’ll find the top VPNs reliable for the job. We chose those VPNs based on rigorous process. We do test hundreds of VPN providers regularly to come up with the shortlist.

Rank
VPN Provider
Link
1
vpn-provider
  • 30-Day Money-back Guarantee
  • Unlimited Bandwidth
  • Apps For All Your Devices
  • 24/7 Live Support
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In short

The Internet is growing day by day,  so is the number of people trying to exploit your privacy and hijack your traffic, there is a lot of money to be made doing so. I did mention various method of doing so. From ISP monitoring to government censoring all the way to your traffic being hijacked. You might say you have nothing to hide, note here though that your online behaviour does mirror your physical presence. Your chat, intimate photos and all kinds of other information can be monitored, think of it as your house being full of  CCTV cameras that are monitored 24/7. It is up to you to decide whether you want an added layer of protection or not. If you have more questions leave a comment below.