UK Proxies – Why the Free Proxy Servers are Useless in 2023
This is a variation on quite a common email request I get – that is where can people get a British proxy server without spending any money. It is of course perfectly possible to access free proxies in any country, probably the easiest is the USA for obvious reasons. But sometimes people need a proxy in a certain country like the UK for a very specific reason.
How Can Proxies Be Free ?
Although there’s no shortage of UK proxy list websites on the internet. You should however be extremely cautious, even if you don’t read the rest of this article consider the following. Proxies cost a lot of money and effort to run, there’s hardware to buy, bandwidth charges plus support staff to maintain and update all this. Ask yourself, why anyone would spend lots of money providing an expensive resource completely free of charge to complete strangers? Plus, the high probability that lots of illegal or immoral business may be conducted through these servers.
If You’re Not Paying – You are the Product
Can you think of any reasons why these services would be provided completely free? Would you personally contemplate financing a free service that could be used for all sorts of people? It simply doesn’t make sense! However, there is a reason that there are lots of these proxy servers available online. Whether you’re after a proxy from the United Kingdom or anywhere else, you should consider carefully the risk of using these free proxy lists. Before you add those proxy servers to your browsers and configure the IP address port they specify, think who’s controlling them.
Nobody actually makes a loss running free proxies. They either don’t pay the bills or their using your connection to make money in different ways. Some install adware onto your computer producing advertising revenue whilst stuffing your browser full of adverts. Others are simply stealing your usernames and passwords to steal directly or using your credentials for use in identity theft crimes. They might simply use your computer and bandwidth for other purposes to generate income.
Why People Use these UK Proxy List Sites
Well, there are lots of reasons, why people want a British proxy. However, the reasons are increasing every day! They are all primarily linked to geotargeting that annoying feature of blocking access to your web site or specific content depending on which country you are based in. For many people this is the only reason they end up searching the web for proxies and proxy bypassing and similar strange sounding terms.
Watching TV Online – UK TV Proxy for BBC iPlayer
From my email box without doubt the main reason people want a British proxy is to access BBC iPlayer from outside the United Kingdom. Although obviously people want to hide their location for many different reasons. Watching stuff online though creates a huge demand for different proxies, for example most of the UK TV sites will only allow access to UK IP addresses. But lots of others restrict access for commercial reasons, web hosting companies who provide free web hosting usually only allow UK customers, there are web sites that allow you to send free SMS text messages – but again only if you’re in the UK.
Or should I say if you appear to be in the UK through a UK proxy Server.
Finding Free UK Proxies
Proxy Networks in Other Countries Too!
Of course, this works in lots of other countries too, virtually every large media company restricts access to domestic users. So, you’ll also find people online searching for French, US, Canadian, Spain and other proxies for similar reasons. The quest for Chinese proxies is not quite as fervent though plenty of people there use them to bypass the country’s strict internet censorship controls. Overall though the greatest demand is mostly for a UK or US IP address through a proxy based in those countries.
So, are there ways to access free UK Proxies then?
Of course, there are, as always on the internet there are numerous ways to achieve your goal and yes some of them are indeed free. There are thousands of free proxies available on the internet partly due to a couple of free proxy scripts which are very easy to install on any little piece of internet real estate – the two main ones are Glype and Zelune.
Simple Web Proxies
These scripts are commonly used by people to make a little money out of running a proxy service. Lots of people buy up cheap domains, cheap hosting plans and upload these scripts to various servers. These will allow a web-based proxy service which anyone can use, you just type in the URL and then the proxy server will fetch it for you.
Here’s an example, there’s lots of little buttons to request commonly blocked sites which when you click will be requested by the proxy. You then surf in a frame with all your web requests being redirected via the proxy wherever it is.
It will generally obscure your IP address although you will be surfing surrounded by adverts and it could be pretty slow. I generally like to see adverts around these sites though as they are a legitimate way of financing the proxies, if they are too fast and free then there is a very good chance they are being hosted on a stolen or hacked server with the intent of stealing your usernames and passwords.
Free Proxies are Blocked on Popular Sites
My advice is if you use these free proxies, never use them to access a site where you need to input any personal information, accounts or usernames ever. Glype is very simple to install and free – a much safer option would be to set it up on your own hosting space if you have – you can find it here – Glype.
I should add, in this little update several years later that for bypassing blocks free proxies have had their day. They might work for the odd site but popular sites like the BBC will filter them out automatically. It’s actually getting even more complicated in some areas especially those where some of us are trying to make a living. Free and paid proxies won’t get close to working for Instagram marketing for example. Here you have to have residential addresses ideally through rotating proxies in order to manage multiple accounts. In fact, in a year or two you’ll need something more specific for these platforms – perhaps a London proxy or a New York one!
But what if I want a Specific Country like a UK Proxy Server
By now I hope you’ve realised that there’s very little point in using free proxies anymore. They’re dangerous to use if you’re concerned with privacy and anonymity often creating many more risks than using nothing at all. Plus, they’re almost completely useless for bypassing the many geo-blocks on some of the web’s popular sites. Still there are a few legitimate reasons why you can use them if you’re very careful.
Well unless you set up your own then you obviously need some way to filter out all the proxies with non-UK addresses. Fortunately there are a few ways of doing this, but for the sake of brevity I’ll cover the simplest one here although definitely not the best way.
International Proxy Lists
You’ll find many web sites hosting these proxy server list things, one of the oldest and most popular is called proxy dot org , if you look at their listings, they have the facility to sort the proxies based on country, popularity, IP address software etc. If you want a UK proxy for a specific reason then you should find a free one you can use there. You’ll need to take a bit of time to search through the listings though as these proxies change, fall over and get shut down hourly but with some patience you should find some that work. Don’t expect too much though, they’re not fast, not well configured or secure but they are at least free :).
Honestly now the best free proxy is one that simply doesn’t try to steal your user credentials.
Tips for Free Proxies
So dude if you want a UK proxy for free that’s is one way to start. But I have to put some disclaimers before anyone uses these freebie proxies.
- Just use them for general browsing, never ever put any username and passwords into these websites. They are not safe !
- You can try them to bypass blocks at school, work or college but most modern content filters will easily spot these proxies.
- Be suspicious of any that don’t have adverts or any source of income. Adverts are annoying but they are they are at least a legitimate reason for people to set this site up.
- Don’t use these for security – if you have a genuine need for privacy don’t ever use these proxies – use a fast private network, which encrypts like NordVPN or next best is TOR is you have limited funds.
- Don’t bother trying to use free proxies to access media sites, they are far too slow and overloaded especially the UK and US proxies.
Choose a VPN Service for your Proxies in 2022
Hopefully we’ve illustrated that using free proxies in 2022 is simply not worth it. The risks are substantial – ranging from getting your PC riddled with basic annoying adware to viruses and even trojans stealing your data and bandwidth. You’ll occasionally find a decent one but even these will be extremely slow as they get overloaded with thousands of freeloaders !
VPNs and proxies are pretty much interchangeable in most use cases, although if you want proper security and anonymity the encryption layer that a VPN provides is essential. The majority of low cost services though are based on VPNs anyway so there’s usually little need for using a proxy.
Using NordVPN Accounts – UK Proxy/VPN Servers
If you want safety, speed and privacy then using a reputable VPN service is much easier than spending hours searching for a safe free proxy. Also as mentioned if you want to bypass the geo-location methods of most media sites like the BBC and others then you’ll have to use a commercial service. In fact in 2022, many paid services are blocked by the bigger media sites so be careful you use one that isn’t blocked too.
Changing Country using a VPN (London)
This video demonstrates using NordVPN on a laptop to change your ‘digital location’ by connecting through a VPN.
See Latest NordVPN Discount Page Here
We can currently recommend NordVPN for an inexpensive way to access hundreds of UK IP addresses which you can use online. Remember though that these addresses and servers are shared with many other people so are not suitable if you require dedicated access or indeed residential proxies.
