By the name alone, proxyware may sound like some sort of malicious program looking to harm your devices. However, that is not the case. In fact, proxyware is a rather popular way for users to earn extra money without any effort. In other words, passively.
But what exactly is proxyware, and how can you use it to earn? This is all you need to know about proxyware.
What is proxyware?
Proxyware is a type of application that shares the user’s unused internet bandwidth with others. The “others,” in this regard, are various businesses that require a lot of IP addresses in order to collect publicly available information efficiently. To put it more simply, by using proxyware, you are lending out your IP address to various businesses.
Just giving away your internet bandwidth, even though it is not used fully, does not seem like a wise thing to do. That is why most proxyware applications offer a monetary reward for letting them use the said bandwidth.
The providers of proxyware applications are usually affiliated with a certain proxy provider since proxy providers need a generous number of IP addresses at their disposal so they can provide big data solutions for other businesses in need of them.
Though it may sound risky to use proxyware, they usually do not cause any harm. The most noticeable difference could be an increased number of CAPTCHA prompts while you browse the internet.
Also, just to be sure, always check if the proxyware provider is affiliated with a reliable proxy seller that does know-your-customer procedures. This would ensure that your IP is not being used for nefarious purposes.
How can you earn from it?
Since proxyware apps provide completely passive income, earning from them is pretty easy. For most of these apps, all it takes is creating an account, downloading and installing the app itself, and keeping the app running while connected to the internet.
To provide a more detailed picture of what to expect and what earnings you may receive, take the Honeygain app, for example. It is one of the first proxyware apps to hit the market and is still rather popular.
Just as with other proxyware apps, the only active steps that you need to take is registration and installation. After these are done, Honeygain works silently in the background of your device, sharing traffic automatically, and you are getting rewarded with credits for it. It should be noted that this app does not collect any personal or private data and values transparency in how the traffic is used.
In this credit system, each 10 MB of traffic that is shared is worth 3 credits. 1000 credits are worth $1. Once you reach the payout threshold mark, which stands at $20, you have a choice of two payout options: PayPal and JumpToken.
If you are wondering what JumpToken is, it is a cryptocurrency created by JumpTask – a gig economy platform based on smart contracts. They partnered up with Honeygain soon after the launch of JumpTask.
As for the earnings themselves, it is hard to calculate how much you can earn since it depends on various factors. The most crucial one is the demand for traffic in your region. If the demand is low, the earnings will be smaller, and vice versa. This rule is true for pretty much any proxyware app since the needs of businesses using proxies are constantly changing.
What are the use cases?
Considering the market size in hundreds of billions of dollars, companies that use big data solutions have many use cases for the IP addresses that are provided via proxyware apps. Namely, as noted previously, the core goal is to collect publicly available information.
The usage of that information also varies depending on the business. Notable cases include ad verification (checking if a certain advertisement campaign is running correctly in a specific country or region), price aggregation (think of those websites that help you find the cheapest flights – collected data, in this case, are prices from many flight operators) and brand protection (traffic is used to scan the web and look for illegal copies of a company’s product and other intellectual property infringements).
Proxyware apps that are affiliated with reliable proxy sellers do not let their clients use your IP for illegal purposes, as it could cause a domino effect of sorts: users of the proxyware app will cease using it, and the proxy provider will no longer have a vital source of new IP addresses.
To conclude, proxyware is nothing to be afraid of, and it could be a great way to earn some passive income. As you are using your device for work, gaming, entertainment, and other things, you can earn from it without doing anything and with minimal risk.