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I am using a socks4 public proxy for more speed/bandwidth. I am currently using it for downloading files. Now I want to use it for social media or daily day usage. I know that they will get all my traffic. I use DNS over HTTPS in Firefox. So, I think that they won't be able to redirect a phishing site or something like that. But, what about other things like, my password? I also enabled HTTPS mode in Firefox. So, can I use it safely for daily usage?

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    "I am using a socks4 public proxy for more speed/bandwidth" - how that? A proxy does not decrease the amount of bandwidth needed and it does not speed up connections. In contrary - it adds additional overhead and thus adds latency.
    – Steffen Ullrich
    Feb 15, 2021 at 9:14
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    @Steffen I know, in my country our ISP gives more bandwidth for some sites like youtube, internal ftp servers and that proxy server uses the same IP address from that server list. I tested it and it's really working.
    – user251136
    Feb 15, 2021 at 10:11
  • A proxy does decrease bandwidth requirements by caching page details such that other requests access from multiple users can be served directly from the proxy server rather than requiring each request to be sent to, and replied from, the original external site. It does add some latency for the first request for a web page, but thereafter it lowers latency by replying with data from its cache.
    – BigAl_LBL
    Mar 8 at 13:00
  • @BigAl_LBL not all proxies cache: oxylabs.io/blog/socks-vs-http-proxy
    – schroeder ♦
    Mar 8 at 14:06
  • A normal (1) proxy does not cache HTTPS traffic for obvious reasons (it can't). (1) : This does not apply to TLS-intercepting proxy.
    – ysdx
    yesterday

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As long as you are using TLS (HTTPS), you will be safe from tampering and sniffing. But beware that it could read and tamper with data from any site that does not use properly-configured TLS. The proxy will also be able to see what sites you visit and for how long, but won't be able to view what you send.

For the purpose of evading censorship and simple throttling, you could also use an encrypted VPN.

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  • While there are a bunch of caveats/exceptions, in general , I don't recommend using a VPN to evade censorship. Countries with strong censorship tend to discourage VPN use.
    – Brian
    Feb 16, 2021 at 14:22
  • @Brian It's typically better than a SOCKS proxy, but I agree. There are better alternatives than VPNs in cases when the censorship is particularly aggressive, but it works in many cases where the censorship boils down to blocking sites based on SNI or DNS (e.g. censorship by the Russian RKN).
    – forest
    Feb 20, 2021 at 23:38

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