When it comes to speed, Shifter (Microleaves) residential proxies performed averagely. Even though they never perform better than the other premium residential proxy providers, their performance was not that poor. Their average response time is 4.426s.
We also tested Shifter on Speedtest.net and the result we got was acceptable even though it wasn’t the fastest.
- Average Ping: 54ms
- Average Download: 48.21 Mbps
- Average Upload: 25.92 Mbps
When we gradually increased the number of concurrent connections and put the proxies on a huge load, the number of connection errors significantly increased. After running the same test a few more times, we can confidently say that Shifter has a huge problem with the connection error rate. With search engines such as Google and Yandex, we got many blocks. Shifter proxies are especially heavily blocked with Yandex. With Google, we also got many blocks, which were 503-error (Recaptcha).
When we connected to Amazon using this Proxy, we received many 503, 403, and 401 errors and CAPTCHAs confirmations. As a result, we had to increase the Shifter’s package to over a hundred ports to break the Amazon firewall. That was the same case we experienced with Best Buy and eBay. But for Aliexpress, the connection was fairly smooth and straightforward.
Note: We have published a blog about the Best Proxy Provider of 2022 for you, so you can look up and decide which proxy will fit best with your work.
Shifter Pros and Cons
Pros
Largest IP pool and location coverage
With over thirty million residential proxies found in major cities and countries around the world, only two providers have more proxies than Microleaves – Brightdata (Luminati) has over 72 million, and Smartproxy has over 40 million in their pools. This gives Shifter the third position in terms of IP pool size compared to other providers.
Being a leading proxy provider, Their proxies are of the best quality while being a fully trusted proxy selling service. They have been selling proxies since 2012 and have developed an intimate relationship with thousands of customers from all over the world. They provide three different types of proxies on their website which gives their customers a wider range of choices as to which proxies they want to use. They also provide locations in every country in the world for their Geo-Rotating Residential Proxies.
Unlimited Bandwith
All proxies that you buy from Shifter come with Unlimited bandwidth. This means that you do not have to worry about data limits when you're using the proxy.
Microleaves offer Unlimited bandwidth that is the same as Storm Proxies. Aside from the fact that their proxies are unmetered, they are also quite cheap. Their smallest plan costs $124.99 and comes bundled with 10 ports. Proxies can be used separately and will get you connected to a residential IP with the session control of 5 minutes before changing it to another. If you need more session control, I will advise you to check out Bright Data(Luminati).
Money-back guarantee
Shifter does not have any option for having a trial period and using the proxy beforehand to check the quality of the proxies. However, we can overcome this by the availability of their refund policy.
Their customer support is also commendable. They have a ticket support system. If you have any queries related to their website or the proxies, you can submit a ticket. Moreover, there is also a live chat option where you can chat with one of their customer support representatives.
Secure Proxies
Shifter has secure protocols like SOCKS5 and HTTPS that encrypt data and the backconnect IPs are highly untraceable as they change often.
The best thing about Shifter is that they provide Residential Proxies. Residential Proxies are the best when it comes to proxy solutions. Residential Proxies are more secure and safer than datacenter proxies. Almost all the residential proxies are rotating proxies. This means that the IP address of your Residential proxy keeps changing after every recurring period, and your IP never stays the same. Despite their higher price point, they are still one of the most used and demanded proxies on the internet.
Cons
- Session Control is Limited: Shifter only provides residential proxies that change with time. They do not have high rotating proxies that change IP after every request, you are tied to using an IP for a period of 5 minutes before getting a replacement except if it gets blocked.
- A high number of connection errors: On Google, you are going to be solving a lot of captchas for you to be able to use their proxies. You cannot use their proxies on Amazon also until you contact them to activate it for you. Even at that, they will provide you terms and conditions that you must follow or they will deactivate it. This makes Shifter not suitable for scraping data from Google and Amazon. Aside from these two sites, they are functional on other sites.
Conclusion
We would recommend them because of their pricing and their proxies' geographical distribution. However, because of the connection errors, lack of IP rotation by session, you should carefully consider before purchasing Shifter services.
Whether you need residential or datacenter proxies for high-quality results, Shifter.io is a great service – even though we found some of their claims to be not true.
Shifter is also one of the most secure with SOCKS, 5/4, and HTTPS. Even its secure authentication and whitelisting IPs make it highly recommended in the market.
We also post an article about reviewing Myprivateproxy. You can read about it here.
After choosing the right proxies, you have to use them with Hidemyacc to make your account undetectable. Hidemyacc software will help you hide original computer parameters and create multiple new computer parameters for each profile, supporting users to access the internet with multiple accounts without being detected. Download Hidemyacc and start your 7-day trial now!
If you have any further questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to contact us via Telegram, Skype, or Facebook Messenger support.
