Concepts
Understanding proxy freshness
Every proxy carries the time it last passed a real HTTPS check. Here is what that number means.
What “checked” means.
A proxy is listed only after a full check through it: a TCP connection, a tunnel (HTTP CONNECT or SOCKS), a TLS handshake with certificate validation, and a real HTTPS response. The time it passed is in the answer as tsChecked (Unix seconds) and verifiedSecondsAgo.
The age filter.
maxCheckPeriod sets the oldest check you accept, in seconds. It defaults to 3600, so by default every proxy you get passed a check within the last 60 minutes.
| You want | Query |
|---|---|
| The default | maxCheckPeriod=3600 |
| Checked in the last 10 minutes | maxCheckPeriod=600 |
| Checked in the last 5 minutes | maxCheckPeriod=300 |
A stricter limit means fresher proxies, but a smaller pool to draw from.
Rechecks and removal.
- Every live proxy is checked again about every 45 minutes.
- A proxy that fails a recheck is hidden at once and is not served.
- It gets one more chance a few minutes later; if that fails too, it leaves the pool.
In practice.
Freshness raises the odds that a proxy works; it cannot promise it. Pair a sensible maxCheckPeriod with short timeouts and a retry, as described in Handling timeouts and retries.
Keep building.
More guides to help you get the most from gimmeproxy.