Making business decisions is all about taking calculated risks. To make these decisions, there is one factor more important than anything else. Data. Say a company wants to launch a new product, they would need data. The question on how to obtain this data in its purest form then arises. Its answer is web scraping. Web scraping involves using a program to collect data from websites. Some of these data are not available on the surface of the website. This, as well as security, are reasons to use a proxy to get data.
Residential proxies, as an alternative from data center proxies, are becoming increasingly popular. A reason is the increased detection rate that data center proxies have today. With many people looking for residential proxies, a newcomer appears. NetNut is a young company that boasts about offering the best residential proxies. While this may be a bold statement, it certainly has features that others do not. This article reviews the somewhat novel residential proxy provider - NetNut.
What Netnut is
This service provider that is relatively new to the industry is different from the rest. While a majority of proxy servers rely on peer to peer (P2P) network, NetNut does not. Rather, this special service provider relies on DiviNetworks. This guarantees a more secure and efficient means of using proxy servers. A noteworthy fact about NetNut services is that they are lightning-fast. The speed with which they operate sets it apart from other proxy servers.
An easy way to describe NetNut is that it is a shield. The use of proxies is necessary against the dangers of the internet. Without the use of proxies, your IP address is vulnerable to attacks by strangers. And this means that anybody can find out where you are. NetNut, as a service, acts as a protection from these dangers. Using a proxy from sites like NetNut grants you another IP address. Thus, you would not have to worry about your IP address being vulnerable or its related harm.
How Netnut works
Using NetNut poses absolutely no difficulty. From the moment you sign up, the proxy provider provides support. For any questions or issues you may have to resolve, their customer support is great. It is always active and available. Likewise, the dashboard is easy to use. The design of the dashboard for NetNut offers a friendly user interface. This neat and clean design makes the dashboard less complicated. In fact, the majority of what is on the dashboard is information.
After you sign up for an account, you get the login credentials. These credentials are all you need to authenticate. It is worth noting, though, that several other proxy servers are easier to use than NetNut.
However, this is not by a large gap and can be negligible. The experience may vary from customer to customer. And this does not mean that NetNut is hard to use. It just means that there are other easier proxy servers to use.
After receiving your login credentials, you can configure your crawler. This allows your crawler to make use of the proxy network. You can then pick a country. Picking a country gets you a residential IP.
Features of Netnut
The following are the distinctive features that characterize the NetNut proxy provider:
DiviNetworks
The feature that sets NetNut aside from its competitors is the use of DiviNetworks. Netnut services make optimal use of DiviNetworks and are dependent on them. What this means is that Netnut gets the residential IP addresses directly from the ISPs. DiviNetworks works with a wide range of ISPs all over the world. As a result of this, getting residential IP addresses in different locations is easy. There is no need for the internet connection of others to work. Therefore, this makes for much more stable and efficient use.
Website targeting
NetNut offers the option to scrape specific sites for data. As such, there is support for customers who need to get data from these sites. This allows for the extraction of data from e-commerce websites and the likes. These sites provide useful information, like the rise in the cost of a particular product. NetNut charges nothing extra to scrape these sites. Whereas, other proxy providers may require you to pay extra for this feature.
Real-time dashboard
The dashboard on NetNut is in real-time and shows statistics, which correlate with traffic analytics and reports. It gets updated repeatedly to provide customers accurate data. Also, it shows you a complete rundown of your activities. And these include your request statistics. Overall, this is by far one of the easiest dashboards to use for a proxy provider.
Pros of Netnut
Speed
There two major factors to consider when thinking about speed. These factors are the response time and proxy connection speed. The proxy connection speed for NetNut is fast and reliable. This is because NetNut does not use peer to peer network. In turn, this makes it easier to optimize the time that proxy connection takes.
As for the response time, this feature sets NetNut apart from the rest. The response time for residential IP addresses is usually slower to get. Yet, it will need to meet the customers' time requirements. This slow speed is due to their usual peer to peer network. However, as mentioned, NetNut does not use peer to peer. Thus, this goes a long way in enhancing their response speed.
Customer support
The whole notion of proxies might be confusing to certain people. This is why when you sign up with NetNut, you get help. After signing up for NetNut, you get assigned to an account manager. The thoughtfulness of this action is great support. It goes a long way in showing that Netnut always has its customers in mind.
Using NetNut services assures you of help along the way, as you need it. Through Skype, you can communicate with your account manager. And the response time for this is quite fast. If the account manager is not helpful, then you may also send them an email. On the website of NetNut, there is also an excellent FAQ section. This will be helpful if you would rather not bother with communication.
Free trial
NetNut is not a cheap service when considered along with the competitors. Still, they have always presented themselves as a premium service. Looking from the consumers' view, it may seem like a risk to just commit to them. This is why NetNut grants a free trial period, which is quite rare for a proxy service provider. The seven-day free trial comes with all the benefits of an actual account. Here, you are not limited on the account of it being a trial. With a free trial, you can make an informed decision since it enlightens you of NetNut's benefits. And a trial is enough to convince you.
Easy and quick setup
Setting up a proxy with NetNut is a very easy and fast process. With your account comes a simple dashboard. This dashboard is well-designed and easy to navigate. Access to this dashboard allows you to see a plethora of information. From the dashboard, you can see how much bandwidth you have used and remains. If you wish to use the proxies, then there are guidelines for that. A benefit of this is that you can use their API in your applications. An API (Application Programming Interface) extracts data from sites.
Great scraping performance
Web scraping is a way to get data from an otherwise unavailable website. There is a lot of information trapped in websites. The best way to get the information out is by web scraping. The web scraping of NetNut is mostly successful. When it is not, it is often because of the sites that require captcha. However, if you have an efficient captcha solver, then you would be good to go. In comparison with other proxy providers, the results of NetNut draw ahead. While this cannot equate to being perfect or excellent, it is something. Time will show improvements and their success rate is likely to go up. Although the proxy provider is relatively new, more time will bring growth.
Netnut Cons
Cost
While NetNut may prove to be valuable, it is still costly. NetNut has many advantages and makes use of great technology. Thus, its relatively high cost is not surprising. This con, however, is not peculiar to NetNut. A lot of the premium proxy service providers are quite costly. When calculated, the results show that a GB on NetNut costs $15. Considering the price, it is safe to say NetNut is not pocket-friendly. The cheapest of the plans available is $300 for 20GB. This marks it as unfriendly towards small business owners.
Limited coverage
A fact that will take a while to change is that NetNut is new. Due to this, it has less coverage than other competitors. The number of IP addresses and the available locations are not entirely poor. It, however, becomes a minus when compared with the performance of other services. NetNut has an estimated half-million of IPs in its IP pool. Also, it has a presence in fifty countries. In comparison with other premium proxy service providers, it seems diminished. These premium proxy service providers have their services in up to 150 countries. Although its coverage is not wide, it is possible for NetNut to improve in this regard.
Netnut Pricing
After the trial period of NetNut is over, you need to purchase a plan to use the services. NetNut has a total of six payment packages. They are:
The Basic Custom plan
This plan costs $300 and allows for email support and the Google Chrome extension. It is valid for 30 days and has 20GB of use.
The Entrepreneur Plan
The entrepreneur plan goes for the price of $475. This plan allows for the features of the basic plan and more. Its added features are API access and static residential IPs. In all, this serves as an affordable plan for individuals. These individuals can use the data to make business decisions.
The Professional Plan
Here is a plan designed for the professional who uses data in business. The professional plan costs $700. It also has the added benefits of an account manager. The account manager acts as an in-demand guard, not a teacher. This plan also grants an IP whitelist. With this plan, it is 100GB for 30 days. It is an affordable plan for business professionals. Hence, businesses that need data from certain sites can get this plan.
The Professional Plus Plan
This plan takes the professional plan to a higher place. It has amazing added benefits for professionals. An added feature of this plan is the ability to select States or cities. This means that you can pick the specific locations. And this is for the price of $1250. It has 250GB and is for 30 days.
The Master Plan
The master plan is one of the largest available from NetNut. It goes for a whopping price of $3500 for 30 days. There is no particular new feature that is available with this plan. However, this plan is specially made for use by large corporations. Thus, it performs not just the extraction of data but in bulk. Also, it usually functions as a means to obtain data that one can act upon. The price offers a great deal for the services rendered.
The Master Plus Plan
This plan has no specified price tag. Thus, this gives room for you to negotiate your own desired price with NetNut. The advantage of this is that you can get a competitive price. It has 10TB available with this plan. Again, this is mostly geared toward corporations and large businesses.
Additional info: there is an unlimited bandwidth (or request based plans, when you flick the switch in the pricing section.
Frequently Asked Questions about Netnut
Is crawling an acceptable use case for NetNut?
Crawling is legal and allowed on NetNut. This is, however, by the license and agreement terms of NetNut. The duty to check if it is legal is on the user. Crawling laws vary from place to place.
Is crawling a particular site legal?
The use of a crawler to extract data is legal. It is okay to extract from specific sites in relevant business relations. You should note, however, that there are conflicting laws. And while crawling may pass on some, it will fail on others.
Is there a pricing plan that includes unlimited data?
The short answer is no. The pricing model by which NetNut uses to calculate is bandwidth. The rate per GB on their site is on a minimum monthly use. Essentially, the higher the commitment, the lower the rate will be.
Is there a way that the target website will trace it to users?
The traffic is secure at an IP level so it is possible to follow it. The traffic to websites originates at a residential IP. By using NetNut, you will have another residential IP, which is unrelated to you or your business. However, you may need to take other security measures.
How do I use the same IP for different requests?
It is possible to use the same IP for different requests. To do this, you need to do the following. In this format, put in the necessary information:
Username-country_code-sid
Sid-static_number
Static numbers can go up to eight digits. The numbers are random and not in a consecutive manner. This is for optimal results.
Which forms of payment are available?
The forms of payment available to customers are through credit cards and PayPal. The means of payment are straightforward and easy to navigate.
Must one login to pay?
Yes, it is necessary to log in to pay. From the billing page, there is a pre-payment email sent to your email.
Wrapping Up
NetNut is a new player in the proxy game, playing against older names. As highlighted above, there are many things that set NetNut above its competitors. One can only describe NetNut as innovative with its use of DiviNetworks. It runs a whole new system that delivers on speed and service. While it is not the ultimate residential proxy provider, it is no failure either. Again, NetNut is admittedly a newcomer so it may take a while to gain public trust. However, this might take no undue time at all because of the nature of NetNut. With time, its developers will most likely take care of the cons outlined earlier. As such, its prominence is likely to rise.