Tunnel Proxy vs. Regular Proxy: Which is Better for Your Scraping Application?

With the popularization of the Internet, crawler technology has been widely used in many fields. When developing crawlers, proxy servers are one of the indispensable tools. Proxy servers can hide the real IP address and location of the client, thereby protecting the privacy of the client. At the same time, some network restrictions and security mechanisms can be bypassed through proxies. In the use of proxy servers, tunnel proxies and ordinary proxies have their own advantages and disadvantages. In this article, we will compare and analyze tunnel proxies and ordinary proxies, and provide actual code examples to help you choose a proxy method that is more suitable for your crawler application.

1. Tunnel Proxy
1.1 Concept of Tunnel Proxy Tunnel Proxy is a proxy technology based on the Socket layer, which acts as a transmission channel in network communication. Tunnel Proxy encapsulates and encrypts the communication data between the client and the server by establishing a secure and encrypted Socket connection, making data transmission more secure and reliable. In a tunnel proxy, the communicating parties can be any network application, including HTTP, FTP, SMTP, POP3, etc.

1.2 Advantages of Tunnel Proxy (1) Tunnel Proxy can penetrate firewalls and NAT networks. Since tunnel proxy is a proxy technology based on the socket layer, it can communicate on the transport layer and can penetrate firewalls and NAT networks, thereby breaking through network restrictions and firewalls.

(2) Tunnel proxies have higher security. Since tunnel proxies can encrypt and encapsulate communication data, they can ensure the security of communication data and prevent data from being intercepted and tampered with. This is why tunnel proxies are widely used in scenarios with high security requirements, such as file transfer and remote control.

(3) Tunnel proxy can prevent IP from being blocked. Since the IP address of the tunnel proxy is usually dynamically allocated, it can avoid the risk of being blocked by the target website due to using the same IP for crawling.

1.3 Disadvantages of Tunnel Proxy (1) Tunnel Proxy Requires More Resources Since tunnel proxy needs to establish an encrypted socket connection, more computing resources and network bandwidth are required during the communication process, which may affect system performance.

(2) The use of tunnel proxies is more complicated. Compared with ordinary proxies, the use of tunnel proxies requires certain technical and network knowledge, and requires a certain understanding of network protocols and encryption algorithms. In addition, the construction and maintenance of tunnel proxies also require a lot of cost and effort.

1.4 Code Example of Tunnel Proxy Below we will demonstrate how to implement tunnel proxy using Python and PySocks library.

First, we need to install the PySocks library. You can use pip to install it:

pip install PySocks
Next, we can use the following code to send HTTP requests using a tunnel proxy:

import socks
import socket
import urllib.request

socks.set_default_proxy(socks.SOCKS5, "localhost", 1080)
socket.socket = socks.socksocket

url = "http://www.example.com"
response = urllib.request.urlopen(url)

print(response.read())
In the above code, we first use the set_default_proxy function to specify the SOCKS5 proxy type, the proxy address is localhost , and the port number is 1080 Then we modify the default Socket type of socket.socket to socks.socksocket to implement the proxy of HTTP requests. Finally, we use urllib.request.urlopen to send an HTTP GET request and output the response content.

2. General Agent
2.1 Concept of Common Proxy Common proxy is a proxy technology based on HTTP/HTTPS protocol. It establishes a relay server between the client and the server, sends the client's request to the target server, and returns the response to the client. In common proxy, the client can directly initiate HTTP request without special configuration and setting.

2.2 Advantages of ordinary proxies (1) Ordinary proxies have higher compatibility. Since ordinary proxies are based on HTTP/HTTPS protocols, they can be supported by almost all network applications and are more convenient and flexible to use.

(2) Ordinary proxies are easier to use. Compared with tunnel proxies, ordinary proxies are easier and more intuitive to use. You can easily use proxies by setting the address and port of the proxy server. In addition, ordinary proxies are easier to build and maintain, and do not require too much cost and effort.

2.3 Disadvantages of ordinary proxies (1) Ordinary proxies have low security. Since ordinary proxies are based on HTTP/HTTPS protocols, their communication process is not encrypted and encapsulated, so there may be risks of data leakage and tampering. If your crawler application requires high security, then ordinary proxies may become a hidden danger.

(2) The IP addresses of ordinary proxies are easily blocked. Since the IP addresses of ordinary proxies are usually fixed or belong to a certain IP segment, they are easily identified and blocked by target websites. This is why you need to pay attention to the management of the IP pool when using ordinary proxies to avoid being blocked by target websites.

2.4 Code Example of Common Proxy Below we will demonstrate how to implement common proxy using Python and the requests library.

First, we need to install the requests library. You can use pip to install it:

pip install requests
Next, we can use the following code to send HTTP requests using a normal proxy:

import requests

url = "http://www.example.com"

proxies = {
"http": "http://username:password@proxy-server:port",
"https": "http://username:password@proxy-server:port"
}

response = requests.get(url, proxies=proxies)

print(response.content)
In the above code, we first specify the target URL address. Then we define a proxies dictionary, which contains the proxy addresses of both http and https protocols in the format of http://username:password@proxy-server:port , where username and password are the authentication information of the proxy server, proxy-server is the address of the proxy server, and port is the port number of the proxy server. Finally, we send an HTTP GET request through requests.get method and specify proxies parameter.

Summary Tunnel proxies are more suitable for crawler applications than ordinary proxies. Because tunnel proxies can hide your real IP address, thereby improving the stability and security of crawlers. In addition, tunnel proxies can also provide better proxy quality and higher success rates because they are usually managed and maintained by professional proxy service providers. However, tunnel proxies are usually more expensive than ordinary proxies.