
Ask HN: HTTP Proxy pool as a service – Should I bother with this idea? - aalhafoudh
For one of our project we have built a HTTP proxy pool that inteligently routes the HTTP requests to a proxy server which accessed the target website host the least.<p>By doing this we can rate limit how much each proxy server in the pool can access specific website in a period of time to avoid abuse and ban.<p>I am thinking about extracting this part of the project as a paid service.
The service would be for companies that do a lot of web scraping, web data analytics and processing.<p>What do you think about it?
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mswen
I know one of my clients - that does a lot of web scraping uses a proxy
service - I think maybe 30 or so different proxies and breaks up the jobs
manually. So if those ever get blocked they would need to go through the code
and update to a bunch of new proxy IP addresses.

I would think a slick service that had hundreds or thousands of proxies and a
good way to rotate scrappers through the proxies automatically would be of use
to them. I have no idea what they pay for their current service.

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Bino
No, no one uses proxies nowadays, you should aim for a VPN service which does
the same. That is, if you want to profit.

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aalhafoudh
I may have not explained it enough. The service would not be aimed for end
users for browsing websites. The service is for companies that do a lot of web
scraping, web data analytics and processing.

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Bino
No you did not :) and yes in that case, as a infrastructure for those
companies that may be a good idea.

