ProxyNova

ProxyNova operates the oldest continuously running free proxy directory online, a sprawling database of thousands of public proxies gathered from across the internet. The site launched over a decade ago and has remained remarkably consistent in its core offering: a searchable, filterable list of open proxy servers available to anyone without signup, payment, or even a username. The absence of gatekeeping means ProxyNova serves as a genuine common-use proxy directory, and that simplicity has kept it populated and visited for longer than most of its competitors have existed.

The raw proxy data on ProxyNova refreshes every 60 seconds, sourced from a continuously updated database that tests over one million candidate proxy servers daily. Most proxies in the database get verified at least once every 15 minutes, which puts ProxyNova ahead of several competitors in terms of update frequency. The list is extensive, covering proxies from over 100 countries, with particular depth in the United States (838 working proxies), China (1,776), Indonesia (1,094), and India (490). Users can filter by country, port, protocol, and anonymity level, then copy an IP:port pair directly into their application of choice. The interface is minimal and text-heavy, which speeds things up for users who know what they need but offers no hand-holding for newcomers.

ProxyNova's filtering lets users distinguish between three anonymity classes. Transparent proxies reveal your real IP and the fact that you are using a proxy, so they offer no privacy or IP masking. Anonymous proxies hide your IP but the server knows a proxy is in use. Elite proxies (also called high-anonymity) hide both your IP and the use of a proxy, making you appear to the target server as a direct user, which is what most people want when they request anonymity. The site displays uptime percentages for each proxy, speed measurements, and the time since it was last checked, which helps users pick from the list with some visibility into recent reliability. For a free directory that aggregates public proxies, this transparency around proxy condition is helpful.

Beyond the raw list, ProxyNova offers several companion tools. A proxy checker lets you test any IP:port combination to see if it works, what country it's in, its anonymity level, and speed. A port scanner identifies open ports on a given IP. An IP location lookup tool finds the geographic location of any address. An online anonymous email service (recently restored according to the site footer) lets you send messages through a proxy account. A password security checker tests whether you've been part of a known breach. These utilities don't make ProxyNova a productivity suite, but they fill gaps that someone working with proxies might encounter, and they are all free and require no signup.

The proxy list itself is completely open, meaning it is browsable without authentication. You do not need to create an account to see which proxies are available, where they are, or what speed and uptime they offer. This is a genuine strength for people who want to pick and test proxies immediately. The tradeoff is that anyone else can also see these proxies and use them, so congestion and interference from other users are real concerns. ProxyNova does not restrict connections or implement fair-use caps on individual proxies; once you pick an IP:port from the list, you compete with every other person using that same proxy, and your connection quality depends on how many others are using it right then.

The risks inherent in free public proxies are substantial and ProxyNova is relatively honest about them compared to some competitors. The site does not make false promises about uptime, encryption, or monitoring. What it does not emphasize is that public proxies may log your traffic, inject advertising, or be honeypots operated by researchers or malicious actors studying how people misuse proxies. The site does not encrypt the proxy tunnel; your traffic passes through the proxy server in the clear, so whoever operates the proxy can see what you are requesting and responding with. ProxyNova does not vet the operators of these public proxies or the networks they run on. This is the fundamental reality of free public proxy use: you are borrowing someone else's machine for free, and that person has complete visibility into everything you send through it.

Compared to paid proxy services that use dedicated infrastructure and enforce strong uptime SLAs, ProxyNova's free proxies live a shorter, less stable life. A proxy listed this minute might be offline by the next. Uptime percentages on the site often fall between 30 and 70 percent, which means the proxy is down roughly half the time. For a developer testing a proxy rotation strategy or someone occasionally bypassing a regional block, this is a known trade. For anyone sending sensitive data or expecting consistent availability, it is not an option. The site's FAQ and documentation do not make excuses for these limitations; they exist because the proxy infrastructure is owned and operated by others at no cost to the visitor.

ProxyNova's longevity is the most telling endorsement it has. It has not been shut down, abandoned, or absorbed into a paywalled product, and it has remained free throughout a period when other proxy directories have been consolidated or forced behind account walls. The interface is dated, the marketing is minimal, and the profit model is not obvious, but the site works and has worked consistently for years. For someone who needs a quick, large, no-friction list of open proxies to test against, ProxyNova delivers exactly that. It makes no claim to be fast, reliable, or private, and it lives up to that honesty.

The site's community and documentation also give it quiet credibility within the free proxy world. Proxy tools and scrapers reference ProxyNova by name, not as "a free proxy list" but as "the ProxyNova database." Web scraping frameworks include ProxyNova integration out of the box. Security researchers and educators use it as a reference point when teaching about proxy networks and open security issues. The site's articles on proxy usage (free proxy ethics, using proxies for legitimate purposes like geographic testing, setting up proxy rotation) are straightforward and neither oversell nor undersell the real risks. That documentation keeps ProxyNova from feeling like a throwaway service; it reads as a piece of internet infrastructure that has earned its place through decades of reliability.

Anyone choosing a free proxy list faces a hard constraint: you get what you pay for, and you are paying nothing. ProxyNova's value is that it packs the most working proxies into the least friction, and has done so reliably longer than anyone else. It does not seduce with false marketing, promise uptime it cannot deliver, or hide its limitations behind euphemisms. The proxies on the list will fail, sometimes quickly and often without warning. Some will log your traffic. Some will be operated by hostile actors. All of this is the cost of free, and ProxyNova is honest about the transaction. If you need reliability, you need to pay. If you need to test, iterate, or understand proxy infrastructure, ProxyNova is still the most mature option available at zero cost.