SOCKS vs. HTTP proxies?

What is the difference between SOCKS and HTTP proxies?

Is it true that not all HTTP proxies are anonymous?

Yeah, not all HTTP proxies are anonymous. Some of them will leak your IP address so it's very easy to find out who you are. The wikipedia article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOCKS has a pretty good explanation about the differences between HTTP and SOCKS proxies. The main difference is basically that SOCKS operates at a lower level.

Subsonic said:

Yeah, not all HTTP proxies are anonymous. Some of them will leak your IP address so it's very easy to find out who you are. The wikipedia article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOCKS has a pretty good explanation about the differences between HTTP and SOCKS proxies. The main difference is basically that SOCKS operates at a lower level.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I have looked over the wikipedia page.

So HTTP proxies can leak your IP. What about SOCKS proxies?

I understand that SOCKS is lower level, so it can be used for non-HTTP traffic, correct?

For HTTP traffic, are there any use cases in which I should prefer HTTP or SOCKS proxy?

So what's the difference then? I thought socks was just an ip AND a port?

I read wiki but didn't help. Can anyone explain as I'm interested...??

davids355 said:

So what's the difference then? I thought socks was just an ip AND a port?

I read wiki but didn't help. Can anyone explain as I'm interested...??

Click to expand...

You can differentiate HTTP and SOCKS through their ports.
For example : 1080 is Socks and 8080 is HTTP (...).

Then, to differentiate HTTP L1/L2/L3 (anonymous, high anonymous, ...), you must test proxies and read their replies.

(If I'm not wrong...)

Beny

kokoloko75 said:

You can differentiate HTTP and SOCKS through their ports.
For example : 1080 is Socks and 8080 is HTTP (...).

Then, to differentiate HTTP L1/L2/L3 (anonymous, high anonymous, ...), you must test proxies and read their replies.

(If I'm not wrong...)

Beny

Click to expand...

Don't see why it's necessary though. I get with a proxy you are going via another ip - so the destination see that ip and not yours. Why does it matter what port you are going through?

A guy on here a while back offered me socks and gave me a list with one ip and about 100 ports - what is the point of that?

Well, the difference lies in the way they actually are built first and foremost, way before classifying them according to their respective types...

Socks are in general a WAY more versatile kind of proxy than even an elite http proxy is, due to how the intrinsic protocol works. While http is meant to be mainly a protocol to relay the http protocol, socks is meant to be way less specific kind of relay allowing seamlessly most protocols. Look up the ISO/OSI stack to understand this thing of the protocols if in doubt...

IF the http proxy supports "CONNECT" calls they will merrily allow a general socket to be tunneled, but if the proxy lacks this capability (that's totally up to the http proxy admin to enable or not) you're gonna be stuck to the http (web) protocol.

Socks proxies have been designed with a way broader approach in mind, thus making them the ideal way to tunnel most tcp/ip connections. Various implementations of system-wide socks clients make it possible for a system to relay the entire tcp/ip stack thru specific socks proxy IPs on both windows and unix variants (socksify and torify that's the equivalent for tor are the first on top of my mind)...

Made clear the distinction among the two, each protocol has specific subtypes as already described.

Http proxies may be L1/L2/L3, categorized according to the specific headers the proxy itself sends (aka how anonymous you'll ultimately end up being for your endpoint..)

Socks proxies are known to have to main variants: version 4 and version 5 that without delving too much into it are very similar for the end user (you).

HTH

I know this is an old thread, but I just wanted to say thanks for the info. Was scraping the Internet for hours to find info for a project, when all I had to do was spend 10 minutes on BHW to understand the difference in protocols. Thanks guys

socks5 are better end of story.. (regarding HTTP(S)proxies)

vpn's is a diff story..

you mean you had to pull up a post a year old probably from page
2/3 when a simple google search would have done this ? ugh


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server

camstryker said:

I know this is an old thread, but I just wanted to say thanks for the info. Was scraping the Internet for hours to find info for a project, when all I had to do was spend 10 minutes on BHW to understand the difference in protocols. Thanks guys

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I agree, this is great.
sirgold I'm not sure if you're still active on this forum but thank you!

again you bumb a thread dead since 2011

Alive and kicking @tahworld just a little more shy lol

And of all the old threads (being from 2011 doesn't make something inherently OMG OMG not the latest fad OMG OMG unless you're 16 I guess...) that get constantly bumped I gotta admit ehm this ain't that bad info-wise...

sirgold said:

Alive and kicking @tahworld just a little more shy lol

And of all the old threads (being from 2011 doesn't make something inherently OMG OMG not the latest fad OMG OMG unless you're 16 I guess...) that get constantly bumped I gotta admit ehm this ain't that bad info-wise...

Click to expand...

Yes, I learned a lot from this thread. It's really good. :thanks:

A conversation spanning 3 years.....this is like sending letters across the sea in 1940 all over again

bartosimpsonio said:

A conversation spanning 3 years.....this is like sending letters across the sea in 1940 all over again

Click to expand...

3 Years.. try 4 Years... (now). Some damn ScrapeBox answer regarding whois scraping and HTTP vs SOCKS brought me here.. lol.

9 times outa 10 always some 10-30 post user with a 2-3 year old account
bumping old shit

a proxy server serves you websites, possibly filtered, and you browse as if you were that server, IP adress and all. if you do illegal stuff and the proxy logs, it is VERY tracable.

for ticketing HTTP