There are different types of proxies with different characteristics that make them ideal for certain uses. Data center hosted proxies are the most popular type because they are effective in providing online privacy protection for both personal and business purposes.
What are Virgin Proxies?
Virgin proxies are IP addresses that have never been used before as proxies. A data center virgin proxy runs on the IPv4 protocol. However, IPv4 addresses have not been able to be registered for a long time – all available subnets were already registered to different companies as early as 2012.
The situation with IPv4 is similar to the situation with short .com and .org domains: You can buy such IPs, but only privately from other companies or even through an auction. Also, this is only possible for a company registered in a particular way, the purchase is not possible for average consumers.
IPv6 proxies, on the other hand, are almost always “virgin”, due to their almost inexhaustible number, cheap price, and the ease of registering new IPs of this kind.
Many proxy vendors offer this kind of proxies partly for specific services. For example, Instagram proxies, which have never been used in any of the social networks, but probably for other online activities.
Where do Virgin proxies come from?
These proxies come from an organization called LIR (Local Internet Registry). The LIR owns a block of IP addresses that are provided by the RIR, the Regional Internet Registry.
LIRs consist of Internet Service Providers, businesses, and academic institutions. Proxy providers usually buy these proxies from LIRs and other companies in small blocks. Each block is analyzed to ensure that it is truly clean.
There are five regional Internet registries around the world. The RIRs manage all Virgin IP addresses for their respective regions. The Réseaux IP Européens, or abbreviated RIPE, is responsible for Europe.
What can be expected when buying virgin proxies?
Virgin proxies operate with any online resources specified by the provider that allows data center proxies to operate with them (unless the provider has explicitly restricted their use. See Chapter #6: Restrictions and Prohibitions)
These proxies play an important role in social media. The only way to avoid being banned is to use clean proxies.
Since a clean proxy is not associated with any account, has no history, you don’t need to worry about a social media ban. You are only responsible for your own actions, not the actions of others. This means that as long as you comply with the terms of use, you won’t run into problems. It’s similar to logging in with your own IP address, only your identity is hidden.
Also, virgin proxies are not on the blacklist (“ban”) of Google services, including Google Search and Google Mail, and are not on the blacklists of Spamhaus, etc
Nuances and possible pitfalls
- It is almost impossible for ordinary users to buy virgin proxies, i.e. unused IPs, these days. This is due to the following reasons:
- It is a stroke of luck if a provider manages to buy subnets that have never been used for hosting or proxy services
- Most likely, the proxy provider must have paid a considerable price for these “pure” IPs, and accordingly, they will not sell them cheaply, i.e. certainly not for $2-5 US dollars for an IP address (this is the average price of a private proxy)
- The proxy provider will not let you “test” these IPs before purchasing them. Because the probability that they are still “clean” after the test is somewhat low
- The proxy provider will most likely not refund the buyers’ money after the purchase if they are not satisfied
- It is in the interest of the proxy provider to sell these IPs directly in one large package, preferably the entire /24 subnet (256 addresses), i.e. x.x.x.0 – x.x.x.255.
However, this approach is contrary to the interests of the buyer, because he usually does not need so many IPs. The buyer usually only needs 20-100 IPs, preferably from different subnets, and all of them should be “virgin” ̶ which is simply impossible nowadays.
If the buyer nevertheless decides to buy the whole subnet, he will get consecutive IPs x.x.x.x.0, x.x.x.1, x.x.x.2 … x.x.x.255, which is a very strong footprint and will most likely lead to an immediate ban of this subnet.
“Real” virgin proxies are extremely rare today and thus expensive. Also, they are almost always sold at unfavorable conditions for the customer. So if you are interested in buying them, you should weigh up the pros and cons twice and clarify all details with the vendor before buying.
