If you are researching various proxy options on the market, you’ve probably stumbled upon an IPv6 proxy. With so many options on the market, you can quickly get confused, but choosing the right proxy type is paramount, as each helps you achieve specific goals.
How do you choose, then? You should learn details about relevant proxy types. Once you understand the proxy types that you need, it will become easier to make an informed decision. Before we dive into the specifics of IPv6 proxy, let’s see what a proxy server is.
What is a proxy?
Every time you open a website or use an online service, you communicate directly with web servers. You send a request, and you receive a response. There is no intermediary between you and the rest of the web. The best way to understand what a proxy server is and what it does is to look at it as an intermediary inserted in your online communications.
When you start using a proxy, all your traffic will go through it. Your requests will be processed by a proxy and forwarded to target web servers. The same goes for responses. They will first go to the proxy server, which will then forward them to you.
Now that you understand what a proxy is let’s see what makes an IPv6 proxy unique.
Main IPv6 proxy features
While there are many types of proxies out there, they all share one thing in common – they got names after the features, protocols, and functionality they offer. As the name implies, IPv6 proxy uses IPv6 protocol.
The IPv6 proxy will assign you an IPv6 IP address when using it. There are a couple of features quite distinctive to IPv6 proxies. Let’s go through the most noteworthy ones.
IPv6 proxy addresses
IPv6 proxy assigns users IPv6 addresses, which consist of hexadecimal numbers separated by colons. Every IPv6 address consists of a 128-bit address scheme which contains eight 16-bit blocks. With IPv6, there are approximately 3.5×1038 possible address combinations. The types of addresses include multicast, unicast, and anycast.
Header fields number and packet size
IPv6 supports eight header fields, and the minimum packet size is 1208 bytes.
Security. IPv6 proxy comes with integrated Internet Protocol Security or, shortly, IPSec. With mandatory security, these proxies offer a safer solution to businesses and individuals.
Extension header
Since they are using IPv6 protocol, these proxies support extension headers. If there is a need to extend the protocol at some point, it can be done easily, and you can continue to use IPv6 proxies.
Customization
IPv6 proxies enable users to customize their proxy to unlock functions relevant to the proxy use cases.
Mobile support
IPv6 proxies are well-suited for mobile networks because they use colons instead of dot-decimal notation.
What makes IPv6 proxy different from IPv4 proxy
If you are wondering what makes IPv6 proxies superior to their IPv4 counterparts, you should know that there are several key differences. These proxies use different protocols, which explains the many differences.
Let’s start with address types. We already mentioned that IPv6 proxies could assign you multicast, unicast, and anycast addresses. IPv4 ones can assign unicast, broadcast, and multicast. There is no support for anycast addresses.
Then, we have the pocket size. With IPv4 proxies, the minimum packet size is 576, whereas, with IPv6 ones, the packet size is 1208 bytes.
You need to pre-configure IPv4 proxies before you can use them. IPv6 proxies don’t require pre-configuration. They work right out of the box, and you have the option to customize the settings.
In terms of security, IPv6 proxies are a much safer option when compared to IPv4 ones, mainly because they have integrated IPSec. They are a superior choice for mobile devices because IPv4 proxies only use dot-decimal notation.
Finally, IPv4 proxies don’t support direct addressing while IPv6 ones do, making them a future-proof solution for projects requiring a proxy server. Visit Oxylabs for a deeper look into IPv6 proxies.
The benefits of IPv6 proxies and their use cases
IPv6 proxies offer many benefits. The most noteworthy ones go as follows:
- Route any type of traffic;
- Increased security and better privacy and anonymity thanks to IPSec;
- Reduced chances of getting detected when web scraping thanks to IPv6 addresses;
- Outstanding performance thanks to smaller headers, better routing, and QoS support;
- Future-proof your operations because the IPv6 protocol is bound to become a standard.
When it comes to the use cases, companies use IPv6 proxies to:
- Facilitate web scraping operations – you can use these proxies to extract data from online; sources and achieve goals such as gaining competitive advantage, improving brand image, and managing online reputation;
- Improve security – Thanks to IPSec, IPv6 proxies offer advanced security to keep your sensitive data safe;
- Avoid bans and restrictions – these proxies assign IPv6 addresses that are more common and unique, making it easy to bypass restrictions and avoid bans.
Conclusion
We hope this answers your IPv6 proxy question. As you can see, these proxies are powerful and versatile servers you can use to achieve various goals. Since they are using a newer version of the protocol, they are a far superior option when compared to IPv4 proxies.