Understanding the Proxy's Network Path


A proxy's network path is defined as your data that you send when you visit a website.

In order for you to 'download' the website content to view on your computer, your request is sent to the website's server and then back to your home computer.

Unfortunately, your computer does not have a direct ethernet cable from your home computer to the website’s server, thus, network hops are required between many ISPs (POPs) to reach the end target.

With that in mind, your proxy's network path looks something like this:

Based on the image above, the total time taken from sending a request to download data back to your computer when using a proxy = 620 ms.

Now, if you remove the proxy from the equation, or move your computer closer to the proxy server, you reduce Blue's network latency (in theory).

Thus, customers who are experiencing slow speeds can many times be attested to the fact that they are connecting to one of our nationwide proxy servers (LA, Buffalo, etc), from a computer/server that is very far away (thousands of miles), which is connecting to a website that is additionally thousands of miles away -- and THUS, create a latency that is noticeable.