Are you wondering if someone is using proxies to access your website and is stuck on how to identify them? Here are six methods that you can use to get started. Read with us to the end.
When managing an individual or business website, many people need help understanding if a particular person is using a proxy on their website. Regardless of the target, one thing we are sure of is that you want to stop someone from using proxies to access your site.
There are many reasons why you must stop such activities, like securing the individual identity, restricting access from a particular region, or even because of site privacy. From basic knowledge, it is easy to identify if someone is using proxies on your site.
In our article today, we will cover multiple methods which you can use to detect whether the user is utilizing proxies on your suite. Remember that we are only helping the proxy users, not the blockers, to have basic knowledge.
Using a proxy is not a bad idea; we also support it. No country should block users utilizing proxies. Therefore, without wasting time, let us dive into numerous methods through which you can check if someone is using proxies.
Ways to Check If Someone Is Using a Proxy
There are many methods to detect if someone is utilizing the proxy IP address on your website. This section will take you through the six best ways to detect proxy IP addresses. They are simple, follow along, and pay attention to details on what I am about to share.
Utilize a Website App
This Is the best and highly recommended method to access a rough hint on whether someone is using a proxy IP address to access the site. Web application guarantees results not only for revealing the proxy Ip but also gives you many more details about the user.
Such services include revealing the IP address details such as the country where it comes from, region, the hostname of the IP, showing the IPS or name of the organization, analyzing the current IP address, going deeper into the latitude and longitude of the Location then lastly offers the exact guess the city from which the IP is based.
You don't have to go into details to get the tool; you can access them free of charge online and get started.
There is a lot of software online, but I prefer the WhatismyIPaddress proxy checker. This is because the tool is easy to use, free, and straightforward without annoying ads. Visiting the site will reveal all your information. However, if you want to evaluate a different IP address, then for such a case, the IP Lookup can be a perfect option for you.
Understanding the proxy in detail leads me to the next method of detecting the use of a proxy.
Analyze ISP On Web Application
From the first method, you can build on it with the second move and analyze the ISP data to text if someone is using the Proxy Ip Addresses or real. You can still obtain the data using the IP Lookup tool. This is another reliable move to gauge if the IP address is real or from a proxy.
Considering other states worldwide, the data still holds, but there would be a difference in the companies. When we check the data obtained from the IP Lookup, you can analyze the ISP information by heading to the Organization tab or ISP to access the providers in your region. Still, the ISP in your area seems to have the words, including the names such as ‘ghost,' ‘server,' ‘ cache,' and ‘ proxy.'
Pay attention; when the organization does not ring the bell, your next guess should be the IP is owned by the proxy company, and the possibility is that the user is using a datacenter proxy. This is a remarkable and excellent method to detect eh proxy IP addresses.
The common host names of the proxy are Hostgator as well as OVH. But remember that the ASN and ISP that contains a small number of IP addresses can be evaluated as the proxy server. To estimate deeper info about the ISP and ASN, you can use tools like masmind.com and ipinfo.io.
Analyze the Location on the Web Application
The next aspect the specific of the Lookup is the Location. From the web application, center on the Location and get all the information you want about the IP address. Some places don't even look realistic for someone to stay or buy the internet.
If you get the Location to seem suspicious, then you must grasp the framework. For this case, I split the proxies to the datacenter as well as the residential. Residential proxies are linked to real users since they are sourced from the ISP, paying users, and even individuals in the house.
However, datacenter proxies are designed in huge server centers and then pumped into another thousand IP addresses to use as proxies. Hence, datacenters are based in flat places, such as massive computer warehouses. Most of the datacenters are in the middle of the US and states like Kansas, Lowa, and Nebraska.
This means when the lookup software gives you the coordinates like latitude and longitude, you can go deeper to narrow down and find out if the IP address is real or owned by a large center or an individual. To obtain the IP information on Location, you can use software like IP2Location.com.
But again, the issue arises when the proxy you are targeting is outside the country. Currently, many people are also using proxies from outside countries, intending to bypass the geo-location restrictions.
So, if you realize that an IP address is not in your country, not traced like from Norway, the guess is that the proxy is a datacenter. Though hard to evaluate generally, an IP address detected to be from outdated your country is definitely a proxy in use unless clarified to you.
Analyze User Agents
The User-Agent analysis is next in line with the ways to detect a proxy. This is outside the web application or lookup phenomena. For those who need help understanding the User-Agent, I am also here to guide you. Therefore, User Agent is simply the data or the identifying factors sent out by the IP addresses to the target site. In the data, you can access things like the computer OS as well as the browser user is utilizing.
Therefore, the site sends the recent graphics and the coding to the tar, making browning seamless. It stands to be true only if you are using the typical ISP IP IPs. This is because the proxy can change the user agent in two ways., which is preset by the provider manually. Thus, the user agent becomes the next aspect you can use to detect if the IP address is real or proxy.
So far, strange things like outdated information. If the IP address sends you the outdated internet explorer as the browser, then the user is not real because if it is typical ISP IPSs, the data must have been updated. The same tactics apply to the computer OS.
How do you go about checking the User Agent? You can use the applications like UserAgentString to analyze the user agent of a particular IP address. This is a popular software because it is simple and breaks down every user agent's data and what it implies.
Since it checks the current IP address, use this software only when you have added a questionable IP address to the browser. And in the end, when you realize that the information presented is not true as your computer is concerned, then the IP is a proxy. If you want to access the ISP IP user agent string, count on tools like AtomURL.
Analyzing the Last Visited Page and Time On the Page
Well, proxies must be kept to appear like human beings to avoid being blocked or banned since google is meant to be used by humans instead of machines. However, there are scenarios under which a proxy might fail to work, like evaluating the number of pages it visits and inspecting a particular web page time.
If a user visits a page within 2 seconds, and it displays over 500 pages, then definitely that is a proxy. No human can achieve such speedy results within that short time, even with a robot.
This method effectively checks the IP address and evaluates if the speed walked through the net, concluding it as a proxy. But when it is a typical ISP IP, the IP address will indicate the normal speed results. However, the practicality of achieving this is more complex than the idea at hand. There are many determining aspects here.
But the good news is that this method is simple when evaluating your IP address usage. Again, the usage stats on a website's analytic panel also contain this information. You will be able to identify a unique IP address that loads numerous pages quickly. from where you can test if the IP addresses are real or a proxy. You can use tools like Crazyegg.com to evaluate the user action on a site.
Evaluate Header Information
This is the simplest method to use while trying to detect the nature of the IP address visited on your website. Immediately go to the headers and study nature. You can create a list of the headers you want to evaluate. These can include X-FORWARDED-FOR. After that, try to iterate the header through the loop and evaluate if your entry exists.
For the PHP step, consider the below code snippet, which I used to achieve the above header:
Then in our case, we created multiple variables, which we termed as $headers and contained some of the usual proxy headers. After running the for loop while trying to evaluate the particular array with the global $-SERVER, the variable will indicate an error.
Can I Track the Real IP Address of a Proxy??
Yes, you can always track the actual IP addresses of a particular target proxy user and access their masked local IP address. However, the outcome is relatively proportional to the level of anonymity. This is because, first of all, you can use your website to identify the nature of your proxy as long as you send the request to the site. Therefore, in this industry, you will realize that there are 3 primary levels of anonymity.
Transparent Proxy
This is a unique anonymity level since it tends to send your information from the website you are accessing and includes your real IP addresses. With a transparent proxy, users will be able to know that you are using a proxy through the ‘Via' header and when you use the X-Forwarded-for, it also indicates the original IP address.
Avoid transparent proxies when you want to maintain high anonymity online. The best use case of these proxies is areas like filtering network contents, enhancing internet experience,, and accessing the caching features. see from the below request, you can locate both the X-Forwarded-for and ‘Via' headers.
Anonymous Proxies
This level of anonymity tends to cancel the local Ip address. But be warned, the site you are visiting can quickly evaluate if the IP address is real or from the proxy by finding out more about the connection on the ‘Via’ header that indicates the software of the proxy one is utilizing.
These proxies fall between the elite and the transparent. The “Via' header in the below code is vital in giving you data about the proxy tool someone is utilizing in the process.
Elite Anonymity
Elite is an anonymity level in its own game. It never shares information like the proxy server and real Ip address. This proxy does not in any way have the X-Forwarded-for header, thus guaranteeing people much-needed anonymity and security.
You cannot even track the local Ip address of the user or detect if they are using proxies. Check out the below code, and you cannot even spot anything that can give you a hint of the target site regarding the use of the proxy.
Conclusion
While online privacy is vital, checking on the nature of IP addresses and visiting your business website is good. In the above article, we have exhausted the 6 best methods to evaluate using proxies on the internet.
Read and grasp them since they are free but guarantee results. Regardless of the purposes, proxies are essential in our daily activities. Critically analyze the above ways and evaluate if the user uses a local or proxy IP address on the website.
Last Updated on December 12, 2023
