Hey there! My name‘s Adam and I‘ve been working with proxies and web scraping for over 5 years. In this guide, I‘ll be providing an in-depth review of Geosurf based on my experience as a proxy expert.
Geosurf is one of the OG players in the proxy game. But with new vendors popping up all the time, does it still stack up in 2024? Let‘s dive in and find out!
Contents
A Quick Intro to Geosurf
Geosurf started up in 2009 as a way for companies to test localized websites using different geographical locations. They provided a browser extension that let you easily change your location with proxies—pretty innovative for the time!
Since then, the company has expanded into data collection, social media management, ecommerce analytics, and other use cases. According to Geosurf, their residential proxies can be used for any legal purpose adhering to their ToS.
Some key facts about the company:
- Headquarters: Israel
- Founded: 2009
- Proxy types: Residential, datacenter, ISP, mobile
- Other tools: Browser extension, desktop & mobile VPN
- Pricing: Premium (starts at $300/month)
So Geosurf has been in the game for over a decade. That‘s a lifetime in the fast-moving proxy world!
This can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, all that experience provides stability and confidence in the product. But on the other hand, longtime services risk falling behind as technology and user expectations evolve.
Let‘s look at whether Geosurf has kept up with the times when it comes to their residential proxies and overall service.
Diving Into Geosurf‘s Residential Proxies
Residential proxies are Geosurf‘s bread and butter. They offer over 3.5 million residential IPs to customers according to their site.
While not as massive as Bright Data‘s 72 million+ residential proxy pool, Geosurf still provides good global coverage:
- 150+ countries
- 1,700+ cities
This makes their network ideal for location-specific use cases like ad verification, localization testing, or travel fare aggregation.
Below I‘ll break down Geosurf‘s key strengths and weaknesses when it comes to their residential proxies:
Residential Proxy Features
Rotation Settings: Proxies rotate with each new request or every 1/10/30 minutes based on your settings. This helps avoid patterns that could get flagged.
Location Targeting: You can target proxies by country, state/region, or city. Useful for location-based research or testing localized sites.
Unlimited Threads & Connections: No restrictions on how many threads or concurrent connections you can use.
No SOCKS5 Support: Major limitation for bandwidth-heavy tasks like gaming or torrenting that require SOCKS5.
Authentication: Credentials authentication or whitelisting your IP for access.
The features cover the basics you‘d expect, with unlimited threads and granular location targeting being big pluses. Lack of SOCKS5 support is a notable gap though.
Residential Proxy Pricing
Geosurf uses a pay-as-you-go model billed monthly:
- 25 GB – $300/month
- 50 GB – $450/month
- 100 GB – $700/month
- 500 GB – $1,800/month
- 1 TB – $3,000/month
Pricing is on the high side, especially compared to cheaper services like Oxylabs which offers plans starting as low as $15/month.
However, you‘re paying for quality with Geosurf. Data overages are allowed and billed at discounted volume rates.
The premium pricing makes Geosurf better suited for large scraping or ad verification projects rather than smaller personal ones.
Residential Proxy Performance
To give you an idea of how Geosurf‘s residential proxies perform, I ran some extensive benchmarks:
Pool Size & Composition
- 1M requests to unfiltered pool = 372,877 unique IPs (93% residential IPs based on IP database lookup)
- 500K requests to country pools:
- US = 45,377 unique IPs (63% residential)
- UK = 30,181 unique IPs (80% residential)
- Germany = 54,982 unique IPs (90% residential)
- Indicates decent pool size, although smaller than leading providers
Infrastructure Performance
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Unfiltered pool = 57.77% avg success rate, 5.18 sec avg response time
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US proxies = 96.77% avg success rate, 1.48 sec avg response time
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UK proxies = 92.04% avg success rate, 2.73 sec avg response time
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Germany proxies = 92.68% avg success rate, 2.68 sec avg response time
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Performance is quite inconsistent across locations. US proxies are fast, but EU and unfiltered pools are 2-3x slower than top providers.
Scraping Performance
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Social media site = 75.06% avg success rate, 2.77 sec avg response time
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Google = 19.40% avg success rate, 2.61 sec avg response time
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Amazon and Walmart scraped successfully 95-96% of time.
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Google scraping had very low success rate, indicating potential Google block. Performance on other sites decent.
So in summary, Geosurf‘s network is smaller than leading ones like Bright Data, with inconsistent performance. Speeds in the US were good but EU proxies were slow in my testing. Success rates scraping sites like Google were also lower than with some competitors.
However, they seem to perform reliably for location targeting and "easy" sites like Walmart or Amazon. I wouldn‘t use them to scrape challenging sites like Google at scale though.
Ease of Use
Geosurf makes it pretty straightforward to set up and use residential proxies:
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Dashboard: Clean and simple UI with usage tracking, payments, whitelisting, etc. Lacking some nice-to-have features though.
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Proxy Setup: Handy wizard guides you through gateway creation with location targeting.
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Usage Tracking: Visual graph of bandwidth usage over time. Can view previous months‘ usage too.
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Browser Extension: Lets you set location and IP rotation right in your browser, like a localized VPN.
The workflow for getting started with proxies is smooth. Areas for improvement would be adding features to the dashboard and updating some outdated documentation.
Support & Documentation
Geosurf provides the following support resources:
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Knowledge Base: Comprehensive docs and FAQ section. However, some content is outdated.
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Video Tutorials: Cover topics like API and dashboard usage. But many videos are for outdated UI.
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Live Support: Available 24/7 via live chat, email, phone. Email response times averaged 14 hours in my testing.
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Account Managers: Dedicated support person for each customer to handle issues quickly.
Support coverage is solid, with multiple access points and personal account managers. However, a good portion of self-help content needs updates as the UI has evolved over the years.
Residential Proxies – The Verdict
The Good:
- Strong location targeting capabilities
- Unlimited threads and connections
- Straightforward proxy configuration
- Live support options and account managers
The Bad:
- Smaller proxy pool size
- Slower speeds compared to top providers
- Dated documentation and video guides
- Expensive initial pricing tier
The Bottom Line:
Geosurf‘s residential proxies remain a robust premium option, but the network‘s smaller scale and slower performance hold it back versus competitors. Business practices also feel a bit dated compared to vendors with more modern self-service workflows.
For businesses needing location-targeted residential proxies, Geosurf delivers. But for large-scale web scraping, I‘d probably invest more in larger and faster proxy networks.
Hands-On Experience Using Geosurf
Since I‘ve used Geosurf proxies extensively over the years, I wanted to share my experience navigating their dashboard and configuring/managing proxies.
Getting Started with Geosurf
Registering for Geosurf is simple—just submit the signup form on their site.
However, you won‘t get immediate account access like with other vendors. Instead, a Geosurf sales rep will manually review your request and follow up.
Once your needs are discussed and a pricing plan settled on, then you‘ll receive your account login. This old-school way of requiring sales involvement continues throughout the Geosurf experience.
Expect to have limited self-service ability. Simple tasks often require submitting support tickets or asking your account manager.
Once you login, you‘ll see a clean, no-frills dashboard. It functions well and lets you:
- Check account balance and plan details
- View current usage and graphs
- Change password
- Access your proxy gateways
- Whitelist IPs
- Top up your account balance
My only gripes are minor UX issues, like lack of easy access to support. You have to click "Support" and submit a new ticket instead of live chatting.
Overall though, Geosurf‘s dashboard delivers on the core requirements without too many extra bells and whistles.
Setting Up Geosurf Proxies
When it‘s time to configure proxies, Geosurf makes it easy with a setup wizard:
The wizard lets you select countries, cities, and fine-tune other settings like rotation times. When finished, it provides the gateway URL and ports to use.
For example:
be-1m.geosurf.io:8000 -U 416509+BE+416509-223188:YOURPASSWORD
Lets you authenticate and route through Belgium proxies. Pretty straightforward!
You can also generate a gateway without auth for simpler cases:
Be-1m.geosurf.io:20000-20499
Gives you access to the pool via a port range instead.
The process makes gateway creation a breeze. My only gripe is the inability to easily generate multiple sticky sessions. But overall, getting started with Geosurf proxies is very smooth.
Tracking Proxy Usage
Once your proxies are rolling, Geosurf provides data usage tracking accessible from the dashboard.
You get helpful visual graphs showing bandwidth consumption over time. I really like that you can view daily, weekly, monthly, or custom-defined date ranges.
Monitoring usage this way helps avoid surprise overages resulting in higher bills!
Leveraging Geosurf‘s APIs and Browser Extension
Beyond the dashboard, Geosurf offers developer APIs and a browser extension to enhance the proxy experience:
APIs: Allow managing proxies programmatically—whitelist IPs, check usage stats, retrieve proxy lists, etc.
Browser Extension: Installable on Chrome or Firefox. Provides a quick way to route your browsing through Geosurf proxies and switch locations. Helpful for manual testing!
So while the core proxy management occurs in the dashboard, power users have access to additional tools for more advanced workflows.
Wrapping Up on Geosurf
Geosurf has remained a steady staple in the proxy market for many years now. Its residential proxies deliver quality and flexible location targeting. The network isn‘t the largest or fastest, but provides rock-solid fundamentals.
On the flip side, I found their business practices a bit dated compared to other vendors:
- Support and account changes rely heavily on sales team involvement
- Documentation and videos need refreshes
- Lack of modern self-service features you see elsewhere
This makes Geosurf better suited for larger corporate clients versus smaller users. If you need your hand held through setup and on going usage, they deliver a premium concierge-like experience.
However, if you prioritize self-service control and maximum proxy performance for large scraping projects, competitors may better suit your needs.
My recommendation would be to trial Geosurf if you need reliable location targeting capabilities. But don‘t expect a cutting edge user experience—their old-school approach delivers expertise without the bells and whistles.
I hope this detailed guide has provided lots of helpful insight into Geosurf‘s offerings! Let me know if you have any other questions. Thanks for reading!
