What is a crawler proxy IP?

Hey, guys! Hello, everyone! Today, we're going to talk about where those mysterious and magical Crawler Proxy IPs come from. But before we do, let's explain what a Crawler Proxy IP is, it's a part of a web crawling tool that allows our crawlers to run as if they were using a real IP when they visit a target website.

Free Proxy IP Sites

Where does it find these proxy IPs? This is a curious question, so let's get to the bottom of it. First of all, the most common source is some free proxy IP sites. These sites are the equivalent of a public pool of proxy servers that provide a large number of IP addresses for us to use. Whether it is a high stash, transparent or ordinary proxy, you want the style, these sites have all. Let's take a look at a simple sample code:

import requests

url = 'https://www.free-proxy-list.net/'
response = requests.get(url)

# Parsing HTML with the BeautifulSoup library
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

soup = BeautifulSoup(response.text, 'html.parser')

# Find the tab where the list of proxy IPs is located
table = soup.find('table', id='proxylisttable')

# Iterate through each proxy IP row
for row in table.findAll('tr')[1:]:
columns = row.findAll('td')
ip = columns[0].text
port = columns[1].text

# Print the proxy IP and port
print(ip + ':' + port)

By visiting the Free Proxy IP website, we can obtain information about the proxy IP by request. However, be aware that the quality of free proxy IPs often varies, and stability and speed are not guaranteed. Sometimes, you can pick up a gem, but most of the time, you can only be dazzled to switch IPs.

Paid Proxy IP Service

Given all the problems with free proxy IPs, isn't a paid proxy IP service better? This question is kind of like asking, does money make the world go round? The answer is: not really! While paid services are relatively stable, they are not inexpensive and sometimes you can encounter unsuspecting providers. You don't want to be happily harvested by people in order to use their services!

However, smart developers can naturally find some cost-effective offerings from paid proxy IP service providers. These providers usually offer stable, high-speed and affordable proxy IPs, which is easier said than done. Look at the following example:

import requests

url = 'http://api.service.com/proxyip'
params = {'type': 'http', 'count': 10}

response = requests.get(url, params=params)
data = response.json()

for proxy in data['proxies']:: ip = proxy['ip'].
ip = proxy['ip'].
port = proxy['port']

# Print the proxy IP and port
print(ip + ':' + port)

As shown above, we just need to request the proxy IP service provider's server through the API interface, pass in the desired proxy type and number of parameters, and then we can get the corresponding proxy IP. simple and hassle-free!

How to choose a crawler proxy IP?

Well, now we already know the source of the crawler proxy IP, but the question comes, how to choose the most suitable proxy IP? Here to share a few tips, hope to help you.

First of all, stability and responsiveness are the key factors for you to choose a proxy IP. Just imagine, if you use a bunch of unstable proxy IPs, frequent acquisition failures will make you become burnt out and naturally inefficient. Moreover, if the response speed of the proxy IP is too slow, it is equivalent to putting a layer of obscure shackles on your crawler program.

Secondly, you can choose those proxy IPs that have been verified and screened.For example, you can write some proxy IP verification scripts by yourself, conduct usability tests on the proxy IPs at regular intervals, and save the results. This will help you screen out reliable proxy IPs.

Alternatively, using a professional proxy IP pool is also a good choice. There are many mature open source projects for proxy IP pools, and they usually provide reliable and stable proxy IPs, as well as some extra features, such as automatic proxy IP acquisition and timed detection. We can explore these projects oh!

How's that, now you have a better understanding of where crawler proxy IPs come from? From free proxy IP sites to paid proxy IP services, each option has its own advantages and disadvantages. The key is, according to your needs, choose the proxy IP wisely to make your crawler program run efficiently! Way to go, Junior!