Proxy validation alternatives to increase speed

[navigator7477]

Two issues with scrape + validate proxy function. One issue is that the proxy validation takes extraordinarily long: for example, I scraped 2100+ proxies using the list from Soundcloud Manager site (took only 1 minute) but it took nearly an hour to validate (I use the ANON protocol) that list and to produce.....a list of just 30 proxies. This is a very long and tedious process (which can be automated by using the auto-bot-stream function, I realized, but still this is long and tedious). Further...
Issue 2 is that no matter what method I use to validate proxies, at least a half of them don't do the job (timeout, reject, misconfig error), and so the task queue is getting completed through much fewer proxies than those I validated, which dramatically affects (a) processing time and (b) bot authenticity.
Long story short, these questions are obvious:
1. Is it normal that proxy validation takes son long?
2. Since validation doesn't really guarantee performance, why not use proxies without validation? (Are there any real disadvantages to that?)
3. Does anyone have links to proxy directories/sources that are free or priced reasonably? (I would prefer free to keep the process truly anonymous) Or, perhaps you can recommend a method/approach for finding reliable anonymous proxies.... I mean, I am at a loss with google-search here because so many people sell proxy services and/or use proxies to execute system exploit attacks that their SEO efforts make it virtually impossible to find any useful information.
Any help is appreciated ~

[martin@rootjazz]

The verification process does take a long time, as it has to test each proxy.

That process is
1) Connect to proxy
2) Pull a test page (that outputs the headers)
3) Analyse the headers to see if your IP is leaked

Now, as most public proxies are slow / out right don't work / prone to failure. Many will timeout. The timeout setting is on the SETTINGS tab and probably set to about 20-30 seconds. So if 1/4 timeout, that is 500 * 30 seconds, so 250 minutes!

You can decrease the proxy timeout value, but you will lose a lot of proxies.

I prefer to use the proxy plays trick to find working proxies (and get plays as well)

When you use a proxy to increase a track plays, if it succeeds it is logged to your LOGS folder with the name
XXXXX_proxy-success.txt
where XXXX is a timestamp i.e. 20130918_

So if you scrape 1000 proxies, then setup an action to increase any track by 500 plays, once the action has complete you can go to your logs folder via:
HELP > LOGS > VIEW FOLDER
then look for the XXXXX_proxy-success.txt and that file will list all working proxies used for the plays action.

You can see this in the video tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RF19yD5wtKw

[martin@rootjazz]

To answer question 2. The issue is with public proxies themselves.

You are using them for free.
So are 100s / 1000s of others.

Public proxies are free and publicly listed for all. So they are very much used and ABUSED.

A proxy will only allow a certain number of connections. So what was working 10 minutes ago, may not be working in 10 minutes. Plus, when you use it later, the machine may be doing some heavy processing, so your process times outs. Also, a verification attempt just pulls a single page. Your actual use, may require pulling multiple pages, posting information etc etc. Thus more time on the proxy, means more time it is needs to be working.


Proxies are mainly use to verify your home IP is not leaked, not that the proxy is working (although by verifying IP it is assumed to be working).

A public proxy, may simply just claim to be your home machine, and pass on your home IP. So the site you are hitting, will know it is you. The proxy may hide the normal header and not decalre to be you, but may declare in another location it is you. Or it may totally hide you.

Whether it is worth it, depends what you are doing.
Signing up accounts - worth it
Plays - not worth it

[navigator7477]

Thanks for your detailed answers - plenty of information / comprehensive.