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How residential & mobile proxies actually work

GeekProxy team · 10 min read

What you really buy, where your settings live, and why your login looks the way it does. Read this before you decide something is broken.

Covers Residential & Mobile

Both behave the same way: same host, ports, targeting, rotation, and settings. The only difference is the pool. Residential uses home-ISP IPs, mobile uses mobile-carrier IPs, and mobile traffic costs a little more. So everywhere below, "residential" covers mobile too.

Myth: "I got one IP."

You get one gateway host with access to the whole pool of millions of IPs. You pay for traffic, not for an IP.

Myth: "The login keeps changing. A bug?"

No. Your targeting lives inside the login. Change country/city/session and it's the username that changes. The host and port stay put.

Myth: "Where are all the settings?"

In the Proxy Configuration panel under your plan. It builds your login string, which you copy from the Proxy List.

Myth: "Saving locks the country to my login."

No. The country picker only previews the login it builds. Save stores just your session time and the anonymous pool. The geo rides inside the copied login.

What you actually get

A residential or mobile plan is not a single IP address. It is four things:

one gateway host, rs.geekproxy.io (or IP 67.213.121.89);
two ports: 823 for HTTP/HTTPS and 824 for SOCKS5 (rotating);
a login & password (or IP-whitelist auth);
a traffic balance in GB.

The one thing to understand

That single host is a door to the entire residential pool. Every request you send through it can exit from a different real IP, picked automatically from millions of addresses across 190+ countries. You don't manage a list of IPs. You send traffic through one address and tell the network which IP you want via your settings. Billing is per GB of traffic, never per IP.

geekproxy.io · Residential Proxy (subscription #1014) · Proxy Access

Proxy Access

user_3f9a2c81

Password 1

pwd_7b1e9d42

Proxy Host 2

rs.geekproxy.io

Http/Https Port 3

823

Socks5 Port 3

824

Traffic usage 4

21639 / 9081 MBUsed: 70.4%

1Login & Password. Your credentials, and where targeting parameters get attached (see §4).
2Proxy Host. The gateway you connect to. It's not an IP you exit from; it routes you into the whole pool.
3Ports. 823/824 rotate the IP; sticky sessions use ports 10000–20000.
4Traffic usage. You're billed by GB. This is your meter, and proof you're buying traffic, not addresses.

Where it lives in the dashboard

Log in → Subscriptions → find your Residential proxy (or Mobile proxy) card → click Options. That opens the page above (Proxy Access + Proxy Configuration). It's the same for both.

geekproxy.io · Subscriptions

Residential proxy Enabled

Traffic: 1024 MB
Packet: Resident
Begin: 13.06.2026
Expire: 14.07.2026
Access IP: –

Options → Renew

The Options button is the entire control panel for that plan. Everything below lives there.

Two ways to choose your IP & targeting

Same result, two methods. Use the dashboard for a default you keep; use the login for per-request control in code.

A · Use the dashboard as a string builder

Pick a country (and rotation, type, protocol). The Proxy List at the bottom updates to show the exact login you should use. Copy or download it. This is the part people miss: the panel builds the login for you; you then connect with that string.

What "Save configuration" actually saves

A common mix-up: picking a country and clicking Save does not bind that country to your account. The geo selectors only build the example login shown in Proxy List. To use a country/city/state, copy that login (it contains __cr.xx) and connect with it. Save persists just two things: your session time (rotation interval) and the anonymous pool (Anonymous filter).

geekproxy.io · Proxy Configuration

Default Targeting ✓Target Filters

Countries 1

United Arab Emirates (2718)

Andorra (58)

Afghanistan (19)

Exclude Countries

United Arab Emirates (2718)

Andorra (58)

Afghanistan (19)

Rotation interval

Anonymous filter

Enable ▾

Type 5

Rotating ▾

Protocol

HTTP ▾

Clear configurationSave configuration 2

Proxy List 3

user_3f9a2c81:[email protected]:823

CopyDownload

1Pick a country to build the login, and the Proxy List below updates to match. (It's a generator; the country itself isn't stored.)
2Save configuration persists only your session time and anonymous pool, not the country.
3Proxy List is the generated, ready-to-use login. Copy / Download it.
5Type = Rotating or Sticky (see §5).

Default Targeting vs Target Filters

The first tab (country / exclude country / exclude ASN) is included in the base price. The Target Filters tab (state, city, ZIP, ASN) is more precise but billed at double the rate, and a country is mandatory.

B · In the login (manual, per request)

Instead of saving a default, you can attach targeting directly to the username for a single connection. This is the source of "my login keeps changing": it's supposed to. The next section breaks it down.

A targeted proxy string looks intimidating but it's just five coloured parts. Only the magenta piece changes when you re-target, and it lives inside the username.

user_3f9a2c81__cr.de;city.berlin;sessid.42:pwd_7b1e9d42@rs.geekproxy.io:823

● base username ● targeting params (this is what changes) ● password ● host ● port

The rule

Parameters start after __ (double underscore). Each is key.value. Chain several with ; (semicolon). Host, port and password never change. Only the username tail does.

Parameters

Key	What it does	Example
`cr`	Target country (one or many)	`__cr.de` · `__cr.de,au`
`nocr`	Exclude country	`__nocr.de`
`noasn`	Exclude a provider's ASN	`__noasn.as20947`
`state` ×2	Target a state (needs `cr`)	`__cr.us;state.arizona`
`city` ×2	Target a city (needs `cr`)	`__cr.de;city.berlin`
`zip` ×2	Target a ZIP code	`__cr.us;zip.10001`
`asn` ×2	Target a specific carrier	`__cr.pl;asn.39603`
`sessid`	Hold one IP (~30 min) by id	`__cr.au;sessid.42`
`sessttl`	Sticky rotation, in minutes	`__cr.fr;sessttl.60`
`anon`	High-anonymity IPs only	`__anon`

×2 = Target Filter, billed at double the standard rate. cr is required with these.

Targeting a US state

State, city, ZIP and ASN are Target Filters: traffic through them costs double the standard rate, and a country is required. To target a US state, put it in the login right after the country:

user_3f9a2c81__cr.us;state.arizona:pwd_7b1e9d42@rs.geekproxy.io:823

Write the state name as it appears in the dashboard's Target Filters → State picker (that list is also the full set of available states). Like every geo filter, the state isn't saved; it lives in the login you copy.

Rotating vs Sticky

	Rotating	Sticky
IP behaviour	New IP (almost) every request	Same IP held for a while
Ports	`823` HTTP/S · `824` SOCKS5	`10000–20000`
Duration	Per request	1–120 min (default 30)
Good for	Scraping, max IP diversity	Logins, carts, multi-step sessions

You can also get sticky behaviour on the rotating port by adding sessid (an id you invent) and sessttl (minutes) to the login, with no need to switch ports.

Connect: copy-paste examples

# Rotating: new IP each request (HTTP)
curl -x "http://user_3f9a2c81:pwd_7b1e9d42@rs.geekproxy.io:823" https://api.ipify.org

# Rotating over SOCKS5
curl -x "socks5://user_3f9a2c81:pwd_7b1e9d42@rs.geekproxy.io:824" https://api.ipify.org

# Country = Germany, city = Berlin (Target Filter, ×2)
curl -x "http://user_3f9a2c81__cr.de;city.berlin:pwd_7b1e9d42@rs.geekproxy.io:823" https://api.ipify.org

# Sticky: keep one IP for 60 min
curl -x "http://user_3f9a2c81__cr.fr;sessid.42;sessttl.60:pwd_7b1e9d42@rs.geekproxy.io:823" https://api.ipify.org

Run the first two a few times. The exit IP changes every time, all through the same host. That's the pool in action.

Auth: password or IP whitelist

Either use login & password (above), or click Whitelist IPs on the plan to bind your own static IP and connect without a password.

Port access

Two different things get called "ports" here: the port you connect to on our gateway, and the destination port on the site you're reaching.

Connection ports: rotation vs sticky

The port you connect to on rs.geekproxy.io decides how your IP behaves:

823 (HTTP/HTTPS) and 824 (SOCKS5) give constant rotation: a fresh IP on (almost) every request.
10000–20000 are for sticky sessions: connect on any single port in this range to hold one IP for the set time (1–120 min, default 30).

Destination ports: open by default

80 · 443 · 5228 · 53 · 5060 · 8080 · 8090 · 8443 · 853

Restricted

Ports tied to mail and messaging (SMTP, IMAP and similar) are blocked.

To open a port

Contact support (live chat · Telegram @geekproxy_helpbot · Contacts) and include: the port you need, your use case in as much detail as possible, and the specific target you'll reach through it.

Blocked websites

To keep the pool healthy and our IPs in good standing, a few destinations are blocked on all residential and mobile plans:

All government websites
Banking and payment websites
Traffic-monetization platforms: GetGrass, NodePay, Gradient, etc.
HealthEquity
Moviestarplanet
SopranoVillas
Ticketswap
DDS hosting
Greenshades (greenshades.com, greenemployee.com, greenshadesonline.com, downloadmyform.com)
VFS Global (visa.vfsglobal.com)
fool.com
mspapis.com
openstreetmap.org, osm.org
rolimons.com
torbox.app
4chan.org

To request an unblock

Contact support (live chat · Telegram @geekproxy_helpbot · Contacts): name the website and describe your use case in as much detail as possible.

Common misunderstandings

"I only got one IP. Where are the rest?"

You got a host, not an IP. rs.geekproxy.io is a gateway to the whole pool. Send a request and the network assigns a real residential IP automatically; send another and you may get a different one. Run the curl to api.ipify.org twice to see it.

"Why is there all that text after my username?"

That's your targeting (__cr.de;city.berlin…). Parameters are carried inside the login, so changing country/city/session changes the username. That's by design, not a bug.

"I set a country in the dashboard but nothing changed."

Selecting a country doesn't save it. It only builds the login shown in Proxy List. Copy that login (it now contains __cr.xx) and connect with it. Save configuration stores only your session time and anonymous pool, not the country.

"Why was my traffic charged double?"

You used a Target Filter: state, city, ZIP or ASN. Those are billed at 2× the standard rate. Country-only targeting (cr) stays at the base rate.

"Error: no proxies available / NO_RAY."

Your targeting is too narrow, so no IPs match that city/ZIP/ASN right now. Loosen it (drop the city, keep the country) or try another location.

"It connects, then drops after a while."

A sticky IP expired (default 30 min). Set a longer sessttl, or expect rotation. Also check you're under the 2000 concurrent threads limit.

Error codes you'll actually see

Code	Meaning & fix
`503 NO_RAY`	No IPs for your targeting. Loosen city/ZIP/ASN.
`407 TRAFFIC_EXHAUSTED`	GB balance used up. Renew or top up.
`407 THREADS_EXHAUSTED`	Over 2000 concurrent connections. Slow down or contact support.
`403 PORT_BLOCKED`	Target port not allowed. Open ports: 80, 443, 8080, 8443, 8090, 53, 5228, 5060, 853.
`403 HOST_BLOCKED`	You blocked this host in the plan's Blocked Hosts.
`407 USER_BLOCKED`	Plan is blocked. Contact support.

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