On July 2, 2026, the FBI and Google seized NetNut's domains over the Popa botnet — about 2 million hijacked smart TVs sold as residential IPs. What happened, what it means for NetNut customers, and how to vet your next provider.
NetNut is gone. Here are five residential proxy alternatives with real July 2026 prices — ProxyHat, Decodo, IPRoyal, Webshare, and DataImpulse — compared on sourcing, traffic expiry, and who each provider actually fits.
Ethically sourced residential proxies come from devices whose owners opted in. The Popa botnet showed the alternative — 2 million hijacked smart TVs, a seized provider, and customers holding the risk. How consent-based sourcing works and what to ask any provider.
A practical migration guide for former NetNut customers — map NetNut's gateway, sticky sessions, and geo-targeting to their ProxyHat equivalents, run your first requests in minutes, and compare pricing before you commit.
Calculate the exact number of IP addresses needed for your SERP monitoring setup. Covers keyword count, locations, frequency, scaling strategies, and cost estimation with practical formulas.
Go behind the scenes of proxy pool infrastructure — learn how IPs are sourced, organized, health-monitored, and maintained to deliver high success rates at scale.
A detailed technical comparison of residential proxies and VPNs covering architecture, IP reputation, detection rates, performance, cost, and use cases for data collection versus personal privacy.
Learn how rank tracking tools use proxies to monitor search engine positions accurately. Compare proxy types, integration patterns, and scaling strategies for reliable SEO rank monitoring.
Head-to-head comparison of residential and datacenter proxies for web scraping. Success rates, cost analysis, speed benchmarks, and a decision framework for your project.
Master the four key proxy rotation strategies: per-request, timed sticky sessions, failure-based, and geo-distributed. Code examples in Python, Node.js, and Go.
Learn how IP rotation works under the hood — from gateway-level mechanisms and rotation strategies to sticky vs rotating sessions, with practical code examples.
A practical calculation framework for sizing your proxy pool based on target count, request volume, rotation needs, and budget. Includes formulas and sizing tables.
