There's a version of the proxy business that nobody likes to talk about: exits that come from devices whose owners have no idea they're exits. I didn't want to build that. Proxymist is a consent-based web access network for testing websites from different locations and for web data work. Every exit is consented, every request is authenticated and every action can be traced back to who made it. It's in development. Today you get an account, a dashboard, documentation and a sandbox API. The actual exits are still being built.
Why consent is the starting point
If you've ever needed to see how your site behaves from another country, you know the options aren't great. You either trust a network whose sourcing you can't see, or you don't test at all.
I decided the sourcing question had to be answered before anything else. An exit that hasn't agreed to be an exit isn't an asset; it's a liability that just hasn't been noticed yet. So consent isn't a feature in Proxymist. It's the foundation the rest has to sit on.
The rules the network is built around
| Rule | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Every request is authenticated | No anonymous traffic through the network |
| Every exit is consented | The people providing exits agreed to it |
| Every action is attributable | Requests can be traced to an account |
Limits in front of the network
Authentication and consent cover who's on each end. The middle needs rules too. In front of the network sit destination policy, rate limits and spend limits. Destination policy decides where traffic is allowed to go. Rate limits stop one account from hammering a target. Spend limits stop a runaway script from turning into a runaway bill.
None of these are glamorous. All of them are things I'd want in place before any real exit carries any real request.
What a request goes through
The path as designed. Today it ends in the sandbox.
- Your client authenticates with the API.
- Destination policy checks where the request is going.
- Rate and spend limits are applied to your account.
- The request is routed to a consented exit.
- The action is recorded against your account.
Sandbox only today. Right now the API is a sandbox. It's there so you can test authentication and integrations. It does not route through live residential or mobile exits yet.
What you can actually use today
The account, the dashboard, the documentation and the sandbox API are available, and the sandbox is free. If you're building something that will eventually need geo testing or web data access, you can wire up authentication and integration now and find out whether the API shape suits you.
That's deliberately modest. I'd rather you build against a sandbox that's honest about being a sandbox than sign up for a network that's quietly only partly there.
What's still being built
Live residential and mobile exits aren't available yet. Neither are shared nodes. Usage-based pricing isn't published, because there's nothing to price until the exits exist. All of that will be announced when it's verified, and not before.
I'm not putting dates on any of it. Consent-based sourcing is slower to build than the alternative, and that's the trade I chose.
- Residential exits: in development
- Mobile exits: in development
- Shared nodes: in development
- Pricing: usage-based and not published yet
An exit that never agreed to be an exit isn't coverage. It's a problem with a delay on it.
— why Proxymist is slow on purpose
Who it's for
The obvious users are developers and QA people who need to see a site the way someone in another country sees it: localised prices, redirects, consent banners, content that changes by region. The other group is people doing web data work who want a network where the rules are written down and enforced, not implied.
If what you need is the cheapest possible pile of IPs with no questions asked, Proxymist is the wrong tool, and that's fine.
Questions to ask any web access network
- Did the people providing exits agree to it
- Is every request tied to an authenticated account
- Are there destination rules and not just bandwidth
- Can you cap spend before a script runs away
- Will it tell you plainly what isn't live yet
Note: How it's built. In general terms: an authenticated API with policy and limits enforced before routing, a dashboard for accounts and usage, and documentation written for the sandbox you can use today rather than for features that don't exist yet.
If you want to kick the tyres
The sandbox and docs are at proxymist.com. My other projects are on spicanet.net/products.
Proxymist: proxymist.com. Originally published on spicanet.dev.
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