Question 1

Will an IPv6 proxy actually work on the site you are targeting?

Accepted Answer

An IPv6 proxy hides your real IP address and sends your requests to the target site on your behalf using a new IPv6 address. Because the proxy's new address is IPv6, the target site must support IPv6 for communication to work. So, if the site you’re accessing doesn’t support IPv6, it will not work with an IPv6 proxy.

Google IPv6 stats show a continuous increase in IPv6 adoption on the internet; however, almost 45-50% of sites are still using IPv4-only. This means that you need to check for IPv6 support on your target sites from time to time before deciding whether to use an IPv6 proxy or not.

To make this easier, we provide an IPv6 compatibility checker that lets you verify whether your target site supports IPv6. Simply add your site’s domain name, and the tool will check IPv6 DNS records, such as AAAA records, and verify whether the domain responds when accessed via IPv6. If it is buried behind a CNAME that does not have IPv6, the site will not appear on IPv6 networks.

Question 2

Why did IPv6 come about, and what does that mean for proxies?

Accepted Answer

IPv4 addresses consist of 32 bits, resulting in 4.3 billion unique combinations. When initially developed, this number was planned to cover the different devices that would connect to the internet, offering a unique identity for each device.  However, as the number of devices connecting to the internet increased dramatically (computers, smartphones, IoT devices), IPv4 addresses were exhausted. That’s why IPv6 was introduced; it provides a massive pool of available addresses with its 128-bit structure, allowing for a virtually unlimited number of devices to connect to the internet, and removing the need for workarounds like using NAT that are implemented to save the IPv4 address space. For proxy infrastructure, the vast number and availability of IPv6 addresses meant a cheaper per-IP price; this is in contrast to IPv4 proxies, which come at a higher cost due to the scarcity of IPv4 addresses. So, using an IPv6 proxy is cheaper and more economical than an IPv4 proxy, but the compatibility of the target sites needs to be considered first.

Question 3

Why are IPv6 proxies so much cheaper, and what is the catch?

Accepted Answer

Much like any other product, the scarcity or availability impacts the cost of acquiring or using the product. The same applies to proxies; since IPv6 has a massive number of available addresses, the cost of using IPv6 is much cheaper than IPv4; that’s why IPv6 proxies are much less costly. However, using an IPv6 proxy can also come with some limitations. First, it’s much less widely supported on target sites than IPv4, with only around 50% of sites currently IPv6-compatible. This means that you cannot use IPv6 proxies with every target site you’re accessing. Because IPv6 addresses are so abundant, security systems rarely block individual IPs. Instead, websites will ban an entire /64 or /48 network block, instantly killing millions of IPs. To bypass subnet-wide bans, you cannot simply rotate individual IPs within the same block. You must use an advanced proxy network that rotates your requests across entirely different subnets, ensuring your traffic always originates from an unblocked segment of the network.

Question 4

How does blocking differ on IPv6, and does the huge pool really help?

Accepted Answer

The vast number of available IPv6 addresses also influences how websites block suspicious traffic. In the case of IPv4, every single IP is considered a valuable asset on its own due to the limited number of addresses, so when a website detects an unwanted behavior that’s sourced from an IPv4 address, it usually blocks this individual IP only or a limited and small subnet range around this IP. In contrast, the massive IPv6 address pool makes it easier for proxy users to have many rotating IPs within a provided network block range; this makes blocking an individual IP address inefficient. So, websites typically block entire large IPv6 subnets or ranges when suspicious traffic is detected that’s sourced from an IPv6. Due to this, rotating IP addresses in IPv6 proxies is not just about the raw count or number of available IPs for rotation, because a large pool can entirely be blocked by websites, but what matters more is the rotation strategy and factors such as IP reputation, which have more influence on the effectiveness of the IP rotation.

Question 5

How do IPv6 proxies handle DNS and targets that also use IPv4?

Accepted Answer

When a website is "dual-stack," it supports both IPv4 and IPv6, meaning its DNS records contain both an A record (IPv4) and an AAAA record (IPv6). When an IPv6 proxy resolves the DNS name of a dual-stack site, it will receive both IP options. However, because the proxy operates strictly on an IPv6 infrastructure, it must bypass the IPv4 path completely and connect using the site’s IPv6 address. While standard web browsers use algorithms (like Happy Eyeballs) to test both paths and dynamically fall back to IPv4 if IPv6 is running slowly, a pure IPv6 proxy cannot do this. It lacks an IPv4 exit node. If the connection attempts to fall back to IPv4, the request will fail immediately. So in some scenarios, IPv4 addresses may be preferred and chosen even when routing through an IPv6 proxy, and the connection might quietly fall back to IPv4 usage even if the default preference is for IPv6. To keep your proxy connections predictable and efficient, always verify that your target domain actively resolves AAAA records to ensure proper IPv6 support. You should also configure your scraping client or automation bot to explicitly request IPv6 connections and enforce proper protocol binding. Finally, be sure to filter your target list to completely remove IPv4-only domains, as they will not work with an IPv6 proxy.

Question 6

What are the types of IPv6 proxies, and which one is the right fit?

Accepted Answer

We offer residential and mobile IPv6 proxies. Both types provide a high level of trustworthiness and legitimacy on target websites, enabling activities such as automation, scraping, multi-account management, and other operations that require anonymity to be carried out successfully. Mobile proxies route traffic through devices connected to mobile carrier networks like smartphones. This makes the IP address appear to be a normal, legitimate device that is trusted by the target website, making it difficult to block. They offer the highest level of trust and legitimacy for websites by allowing traffic to be genuinely routed through the mobile network. Residential proxies also provide IP addresses that represent real internet users. They route traffic through actual home internet connections of users, which means using ISP infrastructure IP addresses. This also offers a very high trust and legitimacy score for target websites.  Residential proxies should be the recommended general-purpose choice for most use cases, unless harder targets require mobile trust. You can try them on 1GB of free residential data before committing. Whichever network you choose, you are backed by the fastest proxy response times globally, with our residential speeds clocking in at an industry-leading 0.41 seconds and our mobile speeds at just 0.48 seconds [Proxyway’s Proxy Market Research 2026]. Note: For IPv6, we don’t offer a static proxy option; only residential and mobile IPv6 proxies are currently available. So if you want a static IP proxy, you should opt for an IPv4 proxy instead.

Question 7

How do you set up and use IPv6 proxies?

Accepted Answer

Adding IPv6 proxy configuration doesn’t differ from normal IPv4 proxies. You provide the IPv6 proxy endpoint information, including the proxy hostname/IP address, port, and authentication credentials.  However, a common misconception is that your local device or network needs native IPv6 connectivity to use them. In reality, a purely IPv4 local setup works perfectly fine, as the proxy gateway handles the IPv6 connection to the target site on its backend. Since our residential and mobile IPv6 proxies are rotating by nature rather than fixed single addresses, your device will automatically cycle through a fresh pool of IPs once the configuration is in place  Additionally, you can control the scaling and configuration of the IPv6 proxy dynamically and in an automated way using our REST API. For example, you can increase or reduce the proxy bandwidth according to your needs through our simple pricing plans.