Digital privacy and security are the biggest concerns online. Hackers find new ways to intercept data and exploit it every day. VPNs, quality proxies, and anti-detect browsers are different ways to protect your digital identity and browse the Internet anonymously.
In this article, we will discuss the benefits and downsides of these tools and see how you can protect yourself in the online world properly.
A Brief About VPNs
A VPN refers to a perfect privacy solution since it uses encrypted communication technology, which is mainly used for connecting different private networks via its excellent tunneling technique. It works similarly to proxies but in a more efficient and safer way. It is a shield not just for your location but also for your traffic.
The best thing about a VPN is its superb ease of use owing to no parameter configuration. All you need to do is log in to the service and start using them.
Benefits of Using VPNs
There are numerous advantages to using top VPNs to keep hackers from stealing your valuable data.
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High-End Security
A VPN ensures top-notch security since it offers two main advantages. Firstly, you get a unique IP address, making your online surfing anonymous, and secondly, a VPN ensures military-grade encryption technologies AES-256/128 and ECC for all traffic protection. This means no third-party organization can get its hands on your real-time data.
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Zero-Log Policy
Most good VPNs follow a no-log policy that prevents them from selling sensitive details to any third-party organization. But it is only possible if you use a paid VPN. A free VPN may record some part of your log data and advertisements.
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Regional Content Access
Regional content is restricted to that particular region, making it difficult to access other parts of the world. VPNs have a feature called location spoofing that can help you change the location and tap into a server in another country. This can be used to help you get instant access to all international content.
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Two-Factor Authentication
VPN comes with a double authentication to never allow anyone to pass through simply with the password. Thus, using a reliable VPN mechanism will authenticate everyone who tries to log in twice. It is essential to keep all uninvited parties from tapping into a secured VPN connection.
Downsides Of Using VPNs
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Expensive Pricing
Since the VPNs use top-level encryptions, their pricing is higher too. No free VPNs have noteworthy features, and you should not trust them. They may leak your sensitive information at some point.
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Since traffic encryption and data privacy are handled perfectly, it takes a little longer. Thus, you will get a compromise on high-speed performance.
- VPNs do not provide complete protection from detection. Many sites can track you by your device and browser fingerprint.
Something About Proxy Servers
A proxy server acts as a go-between when you send a request to a web server through your browser. In simple words, a proxy server becomes a gateway between your device and the Internet. It uses a different IP to access the web server than your device’s original IP address. The mechanism protects your actual IP address and allows you to browse the Internet without revealing your IP address.
Importance Of Proxy Servers
The primary function of a proxy server is to act as a safeguard between a browser client and online resources. You can control Internet usage and enjoy privacy benefits. Let us discuss the benefits in detail.
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Anonymous Browsing
The fundamental function of proxies is to conceal your identity or IP address while browsing the Internet.
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Geo-location Rotation
With the correct optimizations, users can use proxies to access data dependent on geo-location. This is quite beneficial for market research, Web scraping, SEO, and price aggregation.
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Better Security Over the Internet
The correct type of proxies can help you secure the connection using encryption methods. Moreover, organizations can use proxies to block certain websites to avoid any illegal activity or security breaches. The security team can block the flagged sites that contain malware and protect their sensitive data.
SMTP proxies can help them safeguard their data from phishing attacks. Moreover, they can use reverse proxies against MITM and DDoS attacks.
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Web Filtering, Acceleration & Load Balancing
Organizations can use proxies to monitor and restrict their employees from using certain websites. Also, a proxy server helps to conserve bandwidth and raise the data transfer speed through caching. The cached data speeds up the data retrieval process, promoting better speed.
Besides, proxies can be used for smart load balancing to spread the requests evenly on servers and improve the overall speed.
Risks associated with using Proxies Alone
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Data Logging
A proxy server stores web requests and IP addresses of its clients. Some proxies don’t encrypt the information and may even sell it to other parties revealing sensitive data and causing data breaches. Users should go through all the terms and conditions before using the proxies.
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Weak Encryption
If the proxy is not secured with encryption, it will create an unsecured connection. It can compromise sensitive data as attackers can intercept unsecured connections and steal anything.
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Open Ports
Generally, the proxies run through open ports, increasing any organization’s security risks.
Difference between high-quality proxies and low-quality ones
High-quality proxies have better reliability, type advantage, and better protection against malware and advertisements. You can easily bridge the gap between location-based content availability using any proxy, but good proxies will protect your sensitive data and help you browse the Internet safely.
Different Types of Proxy servers
There are several types of proxies depending on the application, traffic flow, anonymity, IPs, accessibility, and service. Some classes are given below.
- Forward proxy server;
- Reverse proxy server;
- SOCKS proxy server;
- Protocol proxy server;
- SIP proxy;
- Anonymous proxy server.
A Note On Anti-Detect Browsers
There are several ways in which hackers and other third parties can track your activity on the Internet. There are cookies, IP addresses, and browser fingerprinting. You can delete the cookies regularly and use a good VPN to get a new IP address, but things get a little trickier when it comes to browser fingerprinting.
A browser or digital fingerprint contains dozens of several data points containing your IP address, software parameters, and hardware information about your device. They are collected through JS, HTML5, and other technologies.
When all the data points are collected together, anyone can distinguish a device among thousands of users on the Internet.
An anti-detect browser allows you to browse the Internet anonymously by creating new digital fingerprints for your device. You can run multiple accounts/profiles with the anti-detect browser easily and share them with your team members; this is why they are also called multi-accounting browsers.
Best antidetect browsers also let digital marketing organizations handle several advertising accounts and do competitive research without activating anti-fraud systems. Furthermore, organizations conducting market research may use these browsers to collect unbiased data across diverse geolocations and device characteristics.
How an Anti-Detect Browser Works
In simple words, it fabricates a new digital fingerprint to mask the original one of your device. It creates a fingerprint that is as generic as possible and different from the original one.
The anti-detect technology protects your browser information, location data, hardware information, and software parameters. However, to mask or cover up your IP address, you must invest in some proxies or VPNs.
Who are Anti-Detect Browsers great for?
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Affiliate marketers
They can use them to create several ads, social media, and forum accounts to widen the reach of their affiliate links.
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Dropshippers
They can use an anti-detect browser to expand their business using multiple non-linkable profiles.
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Social media agencies
Social media agencies can manage tons of user accounts from different locations and devices. Having a stable digital fingerprint for account management will reduce verifications’ stress, further avoiding account blocking.
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Developers
All developers can benefit from anti-detect browsers by using web scraping and web testing.
What Is Octo Browser, And How Is It Different?
Octo Browser is an anti-detect browser for multi-accounting. It is a single-stop solution for affiliate marketing, e-commerce, web scraping, privacy enthusiasts, and digital agencies. Besides multi-accounting, you can take full advantage of fingerprint, proxy, and cookie management.
The best thing about this browser is that you can easily share the profiles with your team members and control access to these profiles through permission management.
Perks of Using Octo Browser
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Fingerprint Spoofing
By using a Chromium-based kernel, the browser gives you deep control over the parameters of the profiles and makes it impossible to track your activity over the network.
Moreover, the spoofing passes security checkers like Pixelscan, Creepjs, Whoer, and BrowserLeaks.
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Quick Setup
You can create a profile with a single click of your mouse and start browsing the Internet with complete privacy.
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Multiple OS Support
The browser runs perfectly on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux without any glitches or errors.
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No Limits
You can run multiple accounts/profiles in the browser. You will only be limited by the number of resources on your device, not the browser.
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User-Friendly Interface & High Speed
Octo Browser has a clutter-free and clean interface which is pretty easy to use. Moreover, it offers high speed and performance while running multiple accounts.
What Should I Use for Stronger Anonymity?
The best solution to enjoy high privacy, speed, and performance for browsing the Internet safely is to invest in a good VPN, high-quality proxies, and a solid anti-detect browser like Octo Browser.
The VPN will offer high encryption, while the proxies will help you on the speed front. On top of this, Octo Browser will take care of the browser fingerprint, elevating your device’s privacy and anonymity to the next level.
How to use Octo Browser and VPN together?
- Download the setup file from the official page of the browser.
- Don’t change the installation path, and agree with the terms and conditions.
- Run the setup file and wait for the installation to complete.
- Create an account and enter the correct credentials to use Octo Browser. Also, start your VPN service. Choose a suitable location to mask your original IP address.
- After that, you can run the previously created Octo profile and make sure that the profile IP is the same as the VPN IP. You can learn more about creating a profile here.
- Now you can continue working as if you were using Google Chrome, confident in your anonymity.
How to use Octo Browser proxies?
- Click on the Proxies Tab.
- Click on the Add Proxy Button.
- Fill in the appropriate parameters.
- Now click on the Check Proxy button to verify and click on Confirm.
- You can even bulk-add the proxies. Make sure the format is correct.
- Go to the already created profile and click “Direct.”
- Choose the proxy you want, then start the profile and enjoy anonymous work in the browser.
Important! Using a multi-accounting browser together with VPN and proxies significantly strengthens your privacy, but sometimes you might notice that the connection becomes noticeably slower. This is usually caused by data having to travel further. However, sometimes a connection through a remote IP address can even increase the connection speed: this happens when a provider downgrades the connection for specific sites on purpose, but a VPN- or proxy-assisted connection hides your visits from the provider.
Final Thoughts
We have explained VPN, proxy server, and anti-detect browsers and how they work together. Every tool has its own benefits and downsides; however, using them together is the best way to achieve high levels of privacy and anonymity.
We have explained the usage of VPN, proxies, and anti-detect using Octo Browser, one of the best multi-accounting browsers. As you have seen, it allows for an easy setup of both VPNs and proxies and provides a great anti-detection multi-accounting experience. You can give it a try and see for yourself if it satisfies your online privacy needs!
