🔥Popular questions

1. Where are p0f spoofing and operating-system filtering available?

Network fingerprint spoofing (p0f) or device filtering by operating system is available on:

• Premium Residential - Device OS filtering
• Datacenter proxies - p0f spoofing
• ISP proxies - p0f spoofing
• Mobile proxies - p0f spoofing, but not with every operator

For Mobile proxies, see the operator restrictions on the Mobile proxies page.

On Standard Residential and Unlimited Residential, neither p0f spoofing nor Device OS filtering is supported.

More about the technology: Network fingerprint spoofing (p0f).

2. Which products support UDP?

UDP is supported on Datacenter, ISP, Mobile, Standard Residential, Unlimited Residential, and Premium Residential, subject to the following restrictions:

• Standard Residential and Unlimited Residential do not support UDP in the US 🇺🇸 location. In other locations, UDP traffic is currently limited to destination ports 8443, 8080, 3478, and 19302.
• Premium Residential supports UDP except in certain cities and on some macOS/iOS devices. The Standard and Unlimited port restriction does not apply to Premium.

See About the UDP protocol and Restrictions for the current list of exceptions.

3. Is QUIC supported?

Yes, QUIC is supported on every proxy where UDP works (see question 2). However, your software also needs to support QUIC.

For example, in the Vision browser you need to turn on the Enable QUIC option in settings.

4. Which proxies are static (with a fixed IP)?

Fully static proxies (the same IP for the entire rental period) are only:

• Datacenter proxies
• ISP proxies

Residential and Mobile proxies are rotational by nature, their IP changes during use (see questions 11 and 14 below).

5. Which products are individual (one order = one user)?

Sold without sharing, on a one-per-user basis:

• Datacenter proxies - one IP per user
• ISP proxies - one IP per user
• Mobile proxies - one port (one SIM card) per user

Residential proxies work through a shared address pool and are not individual.

6. I just bought / renewed a Datacenter or ISP proxy - it doesn't work

After purchasing or renewing a Datacenter or ISP order, 1-2 minutes are needed to sync the order with the proxy server. If after a few minutes the proxy still doesn't respond, please contact our Support.

7. How long do I have to renew a Datacenter / ISP proxy?

The renewal window for Datacenter and ISP proxies depends on the billing period. A monthly order can be renewed within 3 days after the paid period ends. An order with a shorter billing period can be renewed within 3 hours.

We recommend enabling the Auto renew option in the order settings so renewal is charged from your balance automatically.

8. I just bought a Mobile proxy - it doesn't work

After purchasing a Mobile proxy, the port needs to be activated in one of these ways:

• The Restart proxy button in the order settings
• Following the personal Reset URL link from the order

9. Are Mobile proxies unlimited in traffic?

Yes, Mobile proxies are unlimited in traffic. There's no cap on the volume of downloaded gigabytes, you only pay for the port rental period.

10. Why does my IP change periodically on Mobile proxies?

Mobile proxies sit on our mobile farms and operate via real SIM cards. IP address changes depend entirely on the carrier:

• On average the carrier refreshes the address once a day.
• The carrier may initiate a pool change at any moment, and the address will change earlier.

This is a feature of how mobile internet works and is outside our control. If you need rotation on a timer or by hotkey, use the IP Rotation feature in our extension.

11. What are TTL and Sticky on Residential proxies?

• TTL (Time-To-Live) is the session "lifetime" in seconds. Once TTL expires, the proxy chain is rebuilt and you get a new IP. Range: from 60 to 86400 seconds.
• Sticky / Random is the session mode. Sticky tries to hold the same IP within TTL, Random issues a random IP on every new connection.

Full description of all Residential proxy order parameters: Residential proxy configuration.

12. What is the Relay parameter on Residential proxies?

Relay is the balancing (fallback) server through which your traffic enters the pool of Residential devices. The Relay is chosen based on where you're connecting from, to make the route shorter and more stable.

• By default, EU is used
• Also available: RU and UA

13. Does Residential proxy traffic expire at the end of the month?

No. Unused traffic does not expire at the end of the month: it remains available until it is fully used. If the traffic runs out, the proxies temporarily stop working, but it's enough to click Add traffic in the top-right corner of the order, top up the package, and the proxies will start working again immediately.

14. Why does my IP change periodically on Residential proxies?

Residential proxies are hosted on the home devices of real users who take part in a paid traffic-sharing program. These devices may:

• leave the sharing network (for example, the owner turned the device off),
• experience signal / connectivity issues.

Any of these reasons leads to an IP change during the session. We don't manage the devices in the pool directly.

relay-eu.shardx.com:8080:plan-limited-country-any-sid-8dbryym0a32i:7nnrpl63344545gx

15. Why do I get Google / Cloudflare captchas often?

Google and Cloudflare captchas are usually not related to the proxy itself, but to the browser fingerprint. The most common causes:

• An outdated or low-quality antidetect browser is used
• The profile has a "sticky" / repeating fingerprint
• The browser leaks mismatched parameters (timezone, language, WebRTC, etc.)

What to do: generate new profile fingerprints whenever there's an issue, use quality antidetect solutions (for example the Vision browser), and verify leaks at IP Checker.

16. What restrictions do you have on the proxies?

On all products the following are blocked:

• Service ports often used for brute-force attacks: 22 (SSH), 23 (Telnet), 25 (SMTP) and several others.
• Banking and government websites, and Stripe and PayPal payment processors (this is a regulatory requirement).

The full list of restrictions by port, by site, by product-specific exceptions, and the limits for Unlimited Residential proxies are in the Limitations section.

17. Which payment systems are supported?

We accept the following payment methods:

• Credit Card / Google Pay - bank cards and Google Pay through Stripe. The minimum payment is $5.
• Nowpayments (Crypto) - cryptocurrency. The minimum payment is $5.
• USDT TRC20 - USDT on the TRC20 (TRON) network.

18. Do you have an API?

Yes, we have a full user API.

• Specification and Try-it-out: the User API section in this GitBook.
• Usage examples in Russian: github.com/ProxyShard/proxyshard-api-examples-ru
• Usage examples in English: github.com/ProxyShard/proxyshard-api-examples

19. Which countries are available for Residential proxies?

Residential proxies cover most countries in the world. The full up-to-date list with cities and regions is on the Available countries list page.

20. Which countries are available for ISP proxies?

ISP proxies are available in the following locations:

21. Which countries are available for Datacenter proxies?

Available locations:

• 🇲🇩 Moldova
• 🇺🇦 Ukraine
• 🇳🇱 Netherlands
• 🇩🇪 Germany
• 🇵🇱 Poland
• 🇺🇸 USA (coming soon)

22. Which countries and operators are available for Mobile proxies?

The list is regularly expanded. The current locations and pricing are on the Mobile proxy purchase page.

23. What are your prices?

24. I need an IPv4 connection, why is there a domain in my connection string?

On Mobile and Residential proxies the default connection address is a domain name, behind which there are many IP addresses. Balancing (backconnect) servers sit behind the domain, and the connection to the proxy devices is made through them, so we don't hand out a direct IPv4 in the string by default.

Example connection strings:

mobile.proxy-eu.shardx.com:1234:aabbbcc:password
relay-eu.shardx.com:8080:plan-limited-country-NL-sid-ABXdedq:AAAbbbbCC

If your software strictly requires IPv4, you can resolve the domain and substitute the resulting address for the domain name.

Option 1. Via a website. Open www.nslookup.io, enter the domain from your connection string, and you'll get a list of IPv4 addresses. For example, if the query returned 172.67.72.239, then instead of mobile.proxy-eu.shardx.com you can put this IP:

172.67.72.239:1234:aabbbcc:password

Option 2. Manually from the terminal. On Windows or Linux run:

nslookup mobile.proxy-eu.shardx.com

The Addresses section of the response will contain the IPv4 addresses - take any of them and use it instead of the domain.

25. Do you have IPv6?

No, we sell IPv4 proxies only.

26. How does rotation (IP change) work on mobile proxies?

In addition to the automatic address change on the operator's side (see question 10), you can change the IP manually, no more than once per minute, in one of two ways:

• follow the personal Reset URL link from the order;
• press the Restart proxy button in the order settings.

More about the order fields is on the Mobile proxies page.

27. Is there channel-consumption monitoring on the proxies?

Measuring the speed of the consumed channel is not built into any of the products. The following accounting is available:

• Unlimited Residential - there is an active-connections counter;
• Residential - there is spent-traffic statistics (in gigabytes);
• on the other products (Datacenter, ISP, Mobile) traffic measurement and request logging are not performed.

28. Why is Cloudflare DNS used on Standard and Unlimited residential proxies?

This is because, at the moment, DNS queries to the operators' servers are disabled on these plans, and resolving goes through public DNS (Cloudflare).

On ISP and Premium Residential proxies there is no such limitation.

29. How do I achieve the lowest latency (ping) on a proxy?

On residential and mobile proxies, the latency to the end node depends on several factors:

• the current load on the operator's base station;
• the signal quality on the device sharing the traffic;
• how far you are from the connection point.

In addition, the main balancing servers are located in the Netherlands. When connecting to locations like the USA or Africa, on top of your latency to the balancer there is also the overhead latency between the Netherlands server and the final proxy. Shortening this route is not possible.

For the lowest possible ping, connect from the same country where the proxy is located. This is usually achieved by renting a VPS / VDS / Bare-Metal server in the required country. For example, for ISP proxies in the USA it's ideal to work through a VPS in New York - the ping will be minimal, whereas connecting from Europe it will be at least 80–120 ms.

30. What timezone does the site use?

All orders and dates in the dashboard are shown in UTC +0.