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Cardano's Hoskinson: Ripple Folks Did Really Well in DC
GameFi Guides

Cardano’s Hoskinson: Ripple Folks Did Really Well in DC

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  • High-stakes roundtable 
  • Pitching SBR

Input Output CEO Charles Hoskinson has stated that Ripple representatives have done “really well” during crypto policy talks related to the industry-backed market structure bill in Washington, DC.

Hoskinson, who was also present during the talks, claims that “great progress” has been made. 

“Lot more work to do, but great progress is being made on bipartisan legislation being passed this year,” Hoskinson said. 

High-stakes roundtable 

As reported by U.Today, Hoskison revealed that he was going to Washington, DC, on Tuesday. 

It was later reported that a group of cryptocurrency leaders was on track to meet with the leadership of the Senate Banking Committee during a roundtable.

Apart from Ripple and Input Output, the roundtable reportedly included representatives from venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz, cryptocurrency exchange behemoth Coinbase, its rival Kraken, as well as other big names, including USDC issuer Circle. 

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The meeting was focused on discussing the language of the draft of the all-encompassing market structure bill, which is set to create a clear framework for digital assets. 

As reported by U.Today, Ripple previously criticized the draft of the bill, arguing that it would create more ambiguity and give the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) too much power. 

Pitching SBR

In the meantime, some prominent members of the Bitcoin community, including Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor, also had a busy day on Capitol Hill while lobbying for the establishment of a strategic Bitcoin reserve. They had a meeting with such prominent members of the Republican Party as Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn. 



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Solve your own murder and recover your brain in Blanksword, a roguelike RPG with a demo out today
Game Updates

Solve your own murder and recover your brain in Blanksword, a roguelike RPG with a demo out today

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There are few occasions where a game tells me it’s combining two genres that typically don’t go together and it convinces me it’s worth paying attention to, but Blanksword, a roguelike RPG, is quite different. In it, you are Blank, an angel stabbed in the head, brain destroyed, who somehow managed to survive such an ordeal – albeit without any memory of who you were. And now, you are on a quest through a series of islands governed by “Literally God” in order to figure out your mysterious past.


Blanksword has been in the works for a little while now, but a Kickstarter for the game just went live today. Taking one look at the game tells you quite quickly that it’s “one of those” kinds of indie RPGs. You like, like Hylics, Felvidek, or the blueprint for many of them, and one that just recently got a rerelease, OFF.

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In fact OFF is quite an important frame of reference for Blanksword, as one of the game’s directors, Quinn K., was the original translator for OFF. Not only that, but OFF creator Mortis Ghost is responsible for the game’s lovely key art, and may even design an area of the game if the Kickstarter raises enough funds.


The mechanics sound quite interesting too. Combat, like many RPGs, is turn-based, and you pick up new moves as you go along, all of which vary from run to run. There’s apparently “hundreds” of moves to pickup, alongside different bits of equipment and items.


And then there’s that beautiful thing we call narrative design. With Blank not having a brain and all, you can pick up different Angelic Brain Parts, restoring certain abilities of his. One item might allow Blank to intimidate and heckle his enemies, another will give him the ability to tell if something smells bad. Others might let him understand more complex topics, or grant him the ability to haggle for better prices in certain shops. You keep these brain parts forever, but you can only use a few at a time to keep things balanced.


Best of all, alongside the Kickstarter the game has a demo out on Steam for you to try out. Truth be told, while I’ve had my eye on Blanksword for a good while, I somehow missed that it was a roguelike on top of an RPG. Playing the demo for myself, I soon figured this out, but the roguelike element blended really nicely with the RPG side of it. They aren’t genres you often see combined, and in some ways could even be contradictory, but in my short time with it, I think something quite interesting is being brewed up. Here’s hoping the full game pans out just as well.


Blanksword’s “one of those” indie RPG vibes make it feel quite well positioned for a future fanatical following, a thing that’s often both a blessing and a curse. That all remains to be seen of course, the game needs to get funded first.


A release date hasn’t been set just yet, but the team behind it has conservatively estimated a 2027 release window. You can wishlist it, and try the demo out, on Steam here.



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Kuxiu’s X40 Turbo lays claim to best 3-in-1 travel charger
Product Reviews

Kuxiu’s X40 Turbo lays claim to best 3-in-1 travel charger

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Kuxiu already made my favorite 3-in-1 Qi2 charger, and now it’s back with an even smaller yet more powerful version. The MagSafe-compatible Qi2.2 charger folds up super compact for travel and unfurls into a “Z” to simultaneously charge an Apple Watch, AirPods, or other Qi-enabled earbuds, and a Qi2 25W phone like the new Pixel 10 Pro XL and iPhone 17 series — all from a single USB-C cable.

The $79.99 / €68.95 X40 Turbo charging stand supports the new Qi2.2 standard (aka, Qi2 25W), so it can wirelessly charge compatible devices at a maximum of 25W, up from 15W on last year’s $79.99 model. That price also gets you a 45W USB-C PD charger, carrying case, and cable in the box.

When I say it’s small, I mean it. The X40 Turbo is 25 percent smaller than its diminutive predecessor, measuring just 64 x 64 x 18mm (2.52 x 2.52 x 0.71 inches) when folded up.

These 3-in-1 Z-shaped stands are dime-a-dozen on Amazon and Temu, but Kuxiu is a brand I’ve used for a few years and trust. Like the company’s other products I’ve tested, it feels like quality due to the use of aluminum instead of plastic. I don’t have a Qi2.2 phone to test it with, but I have no reason to doubt its support for 25W wireless charging.

My iPhone 15 Pro only supports Qi2 (15W), which is what I saw it pulling from a power bank as the 16 N52 magnets held the phone tightly to the stand’s soft-touch surface. The spec sheet says it’ll charge a phone at 5W/7.5W/10W/15W/25W, earbuds at up to 5W, and an Apple Watch at up to 5W.

If you’re looking to jump on the wireless Qi2.2 train, own a bunch of Apple gear, and like to travel light, then Kuxiu’s X40 Turbo charging stand should be on your short list. Even if you can’t take advantage of that 25W max charge, you can still benefit from its extreme portability with a little future-proofing baked in.



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Bloodlines 2 Won't Lock Clans Behind Paywall After Fan Backlash
Game Reviews

Bloodlines 2 Won’t Lock Clans Behind Paywall After Fan Backlash

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The controversy surrounding the DLC clans in the upcoming Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is finally over. The studio behind the upcoming game has confirmed that it is walking back its plans to lock two clans behind a paywall after receiving lots of “feedback,” aka people yelled at them online for a while.

Last month, Bloodlines 2 devs The Chinese Room and publisher Paradox announced at Gamescom ONL that the long-awaited vampire RPG sequel would finally arrive on PC and consoles in October. After a lengthy and messy development cycle that involved multiple studios and delays, a lot of fans were just happy that Bloodlines 2 was actually, for real, coming out.  But then folks discovered that two of the game’s six vampire clans, which essentially act as your class, were locked behind a $30 paywall. People got mad, a lot of negative headlines were posted, and about a week later, on August 27, the devs announced they were going to make some tweaks to the DLC plans. And now we know what that means: All six clans are included in the base game.

On September 17, in the YouTube description of a new Bloodlines 2 gameplay overview trailer, the executive producer on the game thanked fans for the “frank feedback” about the game’s Premium Edition DLC before confirming that none of the clans would be locked behind a day-one DLC paywall. He also praised the devs for helping create two new story packs that will now be included in the Premium Edition.

“Thanks to our community for the frank feedback on Bloodlines 2 and the Premium Edition,” said Bloodlines 2 executive producer Marco Behrmann. “That feedback made it clear: Lasombra and Toreador belong in the base game, so that is what we are doing. We’d also like to thank The Chinese Room for their quick turnaround on the concepts for the post-launch Story Packs. We’re constantly impressed by their creativity and skill in weaving enticing narrative threads that expand on the main story in Bloodlines 2.”

The two new story packs are: “Loose Cannon“ (Brujah Sheriff Benny’s story) and “The Flower & The Flame” (Toreador Primogen Ysabella’s path). The plan is for this DLC, which replaces the missing paid access to clans, to launch in 2026. And so ends the Bloodlines 2 DLC saga. Hopefully, after all of this and all the years of waiting, the game is worth it all. We’ll find out when Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 launches on Xbox, PS5, and PC on October 21.



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8.18 Million Solana Committed on CME as SOL Options Prepare to Go Live
NFT Gaming

8.18 Million Solana Committed on CME as SOL Options Prepare to Go Live

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After multiple days of consistent price upsurge, Solana has suddenly flipped to the other side of the market. However, investors have shown resilience despite the negative price action witnessed today. 

As investors remain optimistic about Solana’s price potential, CME users have committed large amounts of SOL on the exchange, according to data provided by Coinglass.

The data show that open interest in Solana on CME Group has surged by over 6% in just one day as investors remain bullish on the leading altcoin. Notably, the key onchain metric shows that crypto users on CME have committed about $1.91 billion worth of SOL on the exchange.

CME shares big update for Solana

The surge in Solana’s futures activities specific to CME comes as the exchange disclosed plans to roll out options contracts for SOL and Micro SOL futures on its platform.

In a bid to fuel more exposure for the Solana ecosystem, CME also announced the launch of the Trading at Settlement (TAS) mechanism on SOL to allow users to seamlessly and precisely execute Solana trades.

The update has been warmly received by the crypto ecosystem, garnering hype for the leading altcoin and putting Solana in the spotlight.

The Solana-based product launching on CME has attracted more attention for Solana as it offers retail and institutional traders extended investment opportunities, allowing them to hedge their Solana market exposure.

Prior to this update, Solana had continued to attract capital as its fast transaction speeds and expanding ecosystem increasingly lured interest from large businesses, contributing to the surge in its futures activities.

With this move, Solana is set to garner massive traction in its derivatives market, weighing side by side with leading cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum in terms of institutional-grade trading tools. As such, this tends to boost confidence among investors for Solana and fuel higher demand for the asset, especially among institutional investors.

While this move promotes more adoption for Solana, it will provide more options for both its bullish and bearish traders to bet on its price moves.

Although the move positions Solana for more positive price actions, investors are closely watching the asset’s market dynamics, as there are speculations that some traders will opt to take profit once the SOL futures options go live on CME.



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Crypto Execs Met With US Lawmakers To Discuss BTC Reserve, Market Structure
Crypto Trends

Crypto Execs Met With US Lawmakers To Discuss BTC Reserve, Market Structure

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Members of the US Congress met with key figures in the cryptocurrency industry to discuss issues and potential laws related to the establishment of a strategic Bitcoin reserve and a market structure.

On Tuesday, a group of lawmakers that included Alaska Representative Nick Begich and Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno met with Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor and others in a roundtable event regarding the BITCOIN Act, a bill to establish a strategic Bitcoin (BTC) reserve. The discussion was hosted by the advocacy organization Digital Chamber and its affiliates, the Digital Power Network and Bitcoin Treasury Council.

“Legislators and the executives at yesterday’s roundtable agree, there is a need [for] a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve law to ensure its longevity for America’s financial future,” Hailey Miller, director of government affairs and public policy at Digital Power Network, told Cointelegraph. “Most attendees are looking for next steps, which may mean including the SBR within the broader policy frameworks already advancing.“

Source: Digital Power Network

Separately, several Republican lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill and Majority Whip Tom Emmer, met on Tuesday with executives from crypto companies, including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, to discuss issues related to the industry. The talks included the advancement of legislation for market structure, which the House of Representatives passed in July.

On Wednesday, another roundtable discussion with Republican leaders on the Senate Banking Committee, reportedly including Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, was held to consider the advancement of a market structure bill.

Republican senators said their version, tentatively called the Responsible Financial Innovation Act, was built on the CLARITY Act, which was passed by the House in July and expected to hold a committee vote by the end of September.

Related: US SEC crypto task force to tackle financial surveillance and privacy

The three roundtable discussions signaled that Republican lawmakers were continuing to focus on legislation related to the crypto and blockchain industry after ending a month-long recess in September. 

Crypto bills under consideration, awaiting votes

The BITCOIN Act is expected to codify an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump in March, opening a legal avenue for the government to hold up to 1 million BTC in a national reserve.

The market structure bill, though still under discussion in the Senate, is expected to clarify the role US financial agencies would have in overseeing and enforcing regulations related to crypto.

Magazine: Bitcoin mining industry ‘going to be dead in 2 years’: Bit Digital CEO



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An exploded view of the Logitech G RS50 direct drive racing wheel setup
Gaming Gear

Logitech has announced an affordable 8 Nm direct drive racing wheel setup with full TrueForce support, along with some fancy trick pedals I want to try for myself

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We’ve long been fans of Logitech’s sim racing lineup, given that you can get in on the ground floor with something affordable, like the gear-driven Logitech G923, or go all the way up to the very expensive (and very brilliant) Logitech G Pro Racing Wheel and G Pro Pedal set. Up until now, however, there’s been a big gaping hole in the middle of the range—which looks to be filled by the newly-announced direct drive RS50 wheelbase and RS Pedals set.

Unlike the 11 Nm G Pro, the RS50 tops out at 8 Nm of torque, a figure that Logitech says was arrived at based on data from their other sim racing products. An 8 Nm maximum is said to be the sweet spot when it comes to the balance between power and driveability, and as someone that’s raced with quite a few different direct drive setups at this point, I’d have a tendency to agree.

Image 1 of 2

(Image credit: Logitech)(Image credit: Logitech)

The wheelbase itself will be available as a standalone unit starting at $350/€300, and comes with full TrueForce support, which uses game data in combination with audio to approximate some of the details that other direct drive wheels can miss, like engine rumble and precise kerb simulation. Our Jacob was very impressed with the TrueForce experience provided by the G Pro, so using the same system in a more affordable direct drive option strikes as a good idea.


Related articles

However, beyond the base unit itself, you’ll still need a wheel and a set of pedals to get yourself started from scratch. The RS50 base will support pre-existing RS Wheel Hub systems and RS wheels, or you can buy the base and a wheel/hub combination together as the Logitech G RS50 System for $700, available in either Xbox or PlayStation versions. Both will support PC, though, so take you’ll be able to take your pick if you’re playing on God’s chosen gaming device.

As for the foot controls, it’d be worth taking a look at Logitech’s other major announcement, the Logitech G RS Pedals. These steel-constructed units look plenty robust, and feature a Hall effect acceleration pedal sensor and a load-cell braking mechanism as standard. Top points to Logitech here, as it’s still a major bugbear of mine when pedal sets don’t include a load-cell brake by default.

Image 1 of 2

(Image credit: Logitech)(Image credit: Logitech)

There’s another clever feature here I’m a big fan of, on sheer design principle alone. The rear of the pedals can be extended backwards to prevent them from tipping over on an unsecured surface, but the tips of the extensions can also be tilted upwards in order to make little feet, which can then be pushed against a rear wall.

Sim racing on a desk-based setup is always a bit of a faff when it comes to securing the pedals for heavy braking, so helping them press against the wall behind your desk seems like a nifty solution. They’re well-priced, too at $160/$150 for the basic set. You’ll pay an extra $45 for a clutch pedal, though, although most sim racers I see these days stick to paddle shifters. Still, I’d say that’s a very reasonable sum for the addition.

In fact, this all looks rather promising. Logitech has a knack for designing good sim racing gear, and the fact that all of this new kit seems very modular means it’s quickly building out a direct drive-based ecosystem that might make the likes of Fanatec and Moza sit up and take notice.

In my experience, all sim racers really want out of a direct drive setup is accurate feedback, robust components, and a straightforward racing experience—so if Logitech can do all that for a reasonable sum, I think it might have another success story on its hands.

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MoneyGram app (MoneyGram)
GameFi Guides

Crypto Exchange Kraken Sees Handful of Senior Execs Depart: Source

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Kraken, the cryptocurrency exchange preparing for a potential public listing in the U.S. early next year, has seen the departure of four senior executives from the institutional side of the business, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Those who have recently left Kraken are: David Olsson, global head of institutional sales; Shannon Kurtas, head of exchanges and a VP of product and the Pro service; Jeff Kramer, a director of OTC trading and Sanjay K, OTC trading lead for Americas, the person said, who declined to be identified.

Kraken declined to comment on the departures, none of whom immediately responded to requests for comment.

Kraken was reported to have trimmed “hundreds” of jobs ahead of a U.S. listing planned for the first quarter of 2026. Back in April of this year, a Kraken spokesperson said the firm was “making the difficult decision to eliminate certain roles and consolidate teams where redundancies exist, while continuing to hire in key areas of the business.”

Kraken’s income in Q2 2025 was 6.8% lower than in the equivalent quarter one year ago. The San Francisco, California-based exchange reported EBITDA of $79.7 million, versus $85.5 million in Q2 2024.

Read more: Kraken Sheds ‘Hundreds’ of Jobs to Streamline Business Ahead of IPO, Sources Say



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FC 26 Golden Generation: England '66 SBC solutions
Game Updates

FC 26 Golden Generation: England ’66 SBC solutions

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The release of FC 26’s Web app allows players to try their hand at the Golden Generation: England ’66 SBC group and earn impressive rewards.

While the SBC was originally teased and later revealed on the opening gameplay livestream, we had to wait for the Web app to launch. The SBC group has three separate tasks for the players to complete. Each smaller SBC has unique rewards, along with a bonus for completing the full group.

FC 26 Wembley Glory SBC solutions

The Wembley Glory SBC has the following requirements.

  • Leagues: Exactly 5
  • Nationalities: Exactly 6
  • Same Club Count: Max 2
  • Squad Rating: Min 80
  • Team Chemistry: Min 20
  • # of players in squad: 11

Here’s a set of solutions to use to complete the challenge.

  • Press ST 80
  • Leroux ST 80
  • Hatch LM 82
  • Sullivan CM 81
  • Fortounis 80
  • Dali CM 83
  • Robbe RM 77
  • El Kaabi 80
  • Marie 63
  • Lind CB 79
  • Clayton 75

FC 26 Continental Shift SBC solutions

Here are the requirements of the Continental Shift SBC.

  • Leagues: Exactly 4
  • Nationalities: Exactly 5
  • Same League Count: Max 4
  • Same Nation Count: Max 3
  • Squad Rating: Min 78
  • Team Chemistry: Min 25
  • # of players in squad: 11

Here’s a set of solutions to use to complete the challenge.

  • Stevens ST 77
  • Gboho LM 75
  • Bennison CM 77
  • Tolisso CM 81
  • Juanlu Sanchez RM 75
  • Angeldahl CM 81
  • Ainhoa Moraza RB 80
  • Davidson CB 79
  • Agoume CB 75
  • Murillo RB 76
  • Lund GK 79

FC 26 Local Heroes SBC solutions

Here are the requirements for the Local Heroes SBC.

  • Leagues: Exactly 3
  • Nationalities: Exactly 2
  • Same League Count: Max 6
  • Same Nation Count: Max 6
  • Player Level: Exactly Gold
  • Team Chemistry: Min 30
  • # of players in squad: 11

Here’s a set of solutions to use to complete the challenge.

  • Alvaro Garcia LW 80
  • Anita Marcos ST 77
  • Portu RM 76
  • Stevens LM 77
  • Groom CM 77
  • Sullivan CM 81
  • Emma Ramirez RB 75
  • Westphal CB 77
  • Ball CB 78
  • Kike Salas CB 75
  • Lund GK 79

Here’s the total list of rewards you’ll get from completing the full set.

  • One Small Electrum Players Pack
  • One Small Prime Gold Players Pack
  • One Gold Players Pack
  • One Mega Pack

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Oxylabs website
Product Reviews

Oxylabs Review: Pros & Cons, Features, Ratings, Pricing and more

by admin



Why you can trust TechRadar


We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

In 2015, the proxy software market growth was in full swing, so Oxylabs came into being to answer the need for IPs in different locations. It was born in Lithuania and has developed to have more than 175 million IPs in 195 countries (that’s practically the whole world), with the US, the UK, and Germany becoming home to its largest networks.

Through Oxylabs, users can gain access to residential, mobile, datacenter (regular and dedicated), and ISP proxies, as well as a web scraping API and comprehensive datasets (all scraped ethically from publicly available sources) required for various businesses.

On top of that, it supports the SOCKS5 protocol, making its proxies ideal for threat intelligence and cybersecurity, as well as the web unblocker for real-estate scraping and travel fare aggregation.

With this in mind, Oxylabs has a separate tier that targets businesses that need proxy services for their operations. Say you want to scrape data from e-commerce sites – you can do this with the provider’s proxy servers and a price comparison app.

Thanks to its cooperation with renowned data centers and the cyber insurance service, if you suffer damage due to a lapse in the proxy network, clients can feel safe and well taken care of by a capable proxy service platform.

    Oxylabs subscription options:

  • 1 month plan – $210 per month ($210 total cost)

Oxylabs: Plans and Pricing

Oxylabs’ pricing structure depends on the type and bandwidth of IPs on offer.

Residential has two plans: Regular and Enterprise.

The Regular option comes in the pay-as-you-go, no-commitment variant that starts at $4/GB and offers up to 50GB of traffic per month, as well as Micro at $3.87/GB for 13GB of traffic, Starter at $3.75/GB for 40GB of traffic, and Advanced at $3.49/GB for 86GB of traffic.

As for the Enterprise option, it includes Premium ($3.01/GB for 133 GB of traffic), Venture ($2.75/GB for 318 GB of traffic, plus a dedicated account manager to boot), Corporate ($2/GB for 1TB of traffic), and Custom + (starting at $2,500/month for over 2 TB of traffic) tiers.

ISP proxies start at $16 monthly for 10 IPs (i.e. $1.60 per IP). The higher the number of chosen IPs, the lower their unit cost. For example, 100 IPs cost $130/month ($1.30 per IP), 1,000 will set you back by $1,150/month (that’s $1.15 per IP), and if you need more than 1,000 IPs, you can contact Oxylabs’ sales team for a tailored quote.

Mobile proxies (4G, 5G, or LTE rotating IPs) have a similar price structure as their residential counterparts.

Hence, there are two tiers – Regular and Enterprise. The former charges $5.4/GB under the pay-as-you-go variant (1GB of traffic and up to 50GB available top-ups), $4.92/GB for the Micro option (12GB + up to 12GB top-ups), $4.74/GB for Starter (38 GB + 38 GB top-ups), and $4.5/GB for Advanced (80GB + up to 80 GB top-ups).

Enterprise pricing for mobile proxies ranges from $3.9/GB under the Premium pack (123GB + up to 123 GB available top-ups) to $3.6/GB under Venture (292 GB + up to 292 GB top-ups) to $3/GB for Corporate (600 GB + up to 600 GB top-ups). Need more? You can get it starting at $3,000/month for over 1TB of traffic, custom top-up options, and a dedicated account manager – an option also available with Venture and Corporate.

For datacenter IPs, you can choose regular or dedicated proxies.

If you want regular datacenter IPs, the choice of payment is yours – pay per IP or GB. The IP-based pricing (with unlimited bandwidth) ranges from the free tier for 5 IPs (no credit card required) through $12 per month for 10 IPs to $750 monthly for 1,000 IPs. On the other hand, bandwidth pricing starts at $50 per month for 77GB and ends at $2,200 for 5TB (no extra IP cost). If your needs surpass these packages, you can arrange for a custom deal.

Should you require IPs from a dedicated proxy server instead of a shared one, Oxylabs offers plans ranging from $6.75 per month for 3 IPs to $3,600 monthly for 3,000 IPs (unlimited bandwidth, with fair usage, which is up to 100 concurrent sessions and a a monthly data threshold of 100 GB per IP), with custom options available if your needs exceed 3,000 IPs.

The platform also has web scraping APIs on offer – regular and enterprise options – the former offering a non-committal free trial for up to 2,000 results, and paid options ranging from $49/month for up to 98,000 results to $249/month for up to 622,500 results. The latter starts at $499/month for up to 1.35 million results and ends at $2,000/month for up to 8 million results, with custom options starting at $10,000/month.

Finally, the web unblocker feature, an AI-powered proxy solution for block-free web scraping at scale, also offers regular and enterprise pricing alongside a 7-day trial. The regular pricing starts at $75/month for 8 GB of traffic and ends at $660/month for 88 GB of traffic. Enterprise options start at $900/month for 128 GB of traffic and a dedicated account manager, ending at $3,500 for 700 GB of traffic and a higher rate limit, with custom options available starting at $5,000/month.

All the packages (Regular and Enterprise) have a 10% discount if you sign up for the yearly subscription. Oxylabs accepts payment cards, wire transfers (both in US dollars and euros), AliPay, and PayPal.

Oxylabs: Features

A user’s journey with Oxylabs begins with registration. You can sign up with your email address or an existing Google account. After signing up, you’ll be redirected to a dashboard where you can access all features. Whether residential proxies, mobile proxies, a web unblocker, or a scraping API, this intuitive dashboard makes it easy to find what you want.

(Image credit: Oxylabs)

Let’s dive deeper into the features Oxylabs offers:

Residential proxies

Residential proxies are real IP addresses offered by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). They’re tied to real devices in physical locations, allowing you to bypass geo-restrictions for different purposes.

For example, price comparison sites need to scrape localized data from different websites to offer good deals to users. However, retailers are often against price scraping and use geo-restrictions to prevent their sites from being scraped.

A residential proxy lets price comparison sites bypass these geo-restrictions and harvest the required data. Because the residential proxy is tied to a legitimate device, the price comparison site operator can visit a website like any normal user.

Retailers also often have different prices for different locations. Residential proxies let price comparison providers visit localized versions of a retail website. Oxylabs provides access to over 175 million residential IPs across 195 countries, including over 10 million in the US, more than 5 million in China, 3.5 million+ in Germany, and roughly the same amount in the UK.

You can precisely target IPs by country, city, state, ZIP code, and even geographical coordinates, making it easy to get localized data. Oxylabs’ developer-friendly documentation and integrations make integrating these IPs into your app as smooth as possible.

Oxylabs’ IPs are legitimately sourced, which is important in a proxy sector that constantly grapples with illegitimately acquired IP addresses that expose customers to risks. It gets its residential IPs from consenting device owners who agree to join the network in exchange for a benefit, e.g., a VPN service.

ISP Proxies

Residential proxies are reliable for many use cases, but they have limitations regarding large-scale data scraping. Usage restrictions, such as bandwidth limits and available time per day, make them unsuitable for scraping massive amounts of data.

Oxylabs mitigates this situation by providing proxies leased directly from ISPs like British Telecom, Comcast, Lumen, Orange, and Frontier. You can request a shared ISP proxy (shared by up to 3 users) or a dedicated proxy, which is more expensive.

Oxylabs provides ISP proxies for enterprises with unlimited duration sessions or dynamic IP rotation. These ISP proxies are well-suited for heavy traffic loads, such as mass data scraping, app testing, and ad verification. The tradeoff is their high cost, starting at $1.60 monthly per shared IP.

Mobile proxies

Oxylabs provides access to a massive mobile proxy pool with 20 million+ addresses in 140 or so countries. You can filter these IPs by country, state, city, and coordinates to find precisely what you want. Its largest proxy pools are available in the US, Germany, France, Canada, the UK, and Mexico.

Mobile proxy servers act like mobile devices, enabling users to bypass geo-restrictions and general website blocks. For example, many websites use CAPTCHA to prevent web scraping bots from accessing their data. But with Oxylabs, you can use real mobile IP addresses to bypass CAPTCHA and scrape the needed data.

A mobile proxy is also an excellent tool for ad verification. Companies use them to monitor whether their ads are displayed to real traffic rather than bots. Likewise, businesses can combine Oxylabs’ mobile proxy service and scraping API to gather and respond to real-time reviews.

Data center proxies

Oxylabs offers datacenter proxies that aren’t sourced from ISPs. Instead, they come from secondary cloud service providers, offering anonymity and private IP authentication.

(Image credit: Oxylabs)

Datacenter proxies are high-speed and perform well, making them a great option for massive data scraping. You can buy them in bulk for a cost-effective sum, starting at $1.20 monthly per IP (a pack of 10 IPs), compared to $4/GB for Oxylabs’ residential proxies and $5.4/GB for mobile proxies.

Oxylabs provides shared and dedicated datacenter IPs, the latter of which is more expensive. Shared IPs have unlimited bandwidth, while the bandwidth for dedicated IPs varies by your chosen plan. For both types, you can connect to your proxy servers via the HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5 protocols.

Web Unblocker

Oxylabs offers a Web Unblocker that specializes in bypassing anti-bot systems. Many websites use sophisticated systems to prevent scraper bots, but Oxylabs enables you to bypass these systems and scrape the data you require.

It uses dynamic fingerprinting to simulate human-like browsing, with the same headers, cookies, and JavaScript rendering of a web browser. You’ll use a proxy, but the websites think it’s a legitimate user, and it serves the required content without hassles.

The Web Unblocker also uses machine learning techniques to select and rotate proxies, deciding what works best on a specific site. If your scraping request fails, the Web Unblocker automatically rotates proxies to send another request. This process occurs until the request is finally fulfilled.

Scraping APIs

Data scraping is a common use case of residential, ISP, mobile, and datacenter proxies. Companies use them to scrape data manually, a process that gets cumbersome when dealing with massive amounts of data. But Oxylabs solves this problem by offering APIs to automate data scraping.

You’ll select the type of data you want to scrape (text, images, prices, ads, social media likes, etc.) and choose your target website. Then, the API goes to work, scraping the data while you focus on other tasks. You’ll be alerted once your data scraping task is complete. Oxylabs offers distinct APIs for scraping search engines, e-commerce, or other public websites.

(Image credit: Oxylabs)

Other scraping solutions currently offered by Oxylabs include its unblocking browser, which is a ‘maintenance-free and anti-bot-ready headless browser,’ OxyCopilot, an AI-powered assistant for generating web scraping and parsing requests, video data API, and an AI studio with a smart crawler, scraper, browser agent mimicking human behavior when navigating, web search interpreter, and a website mapping tool.

Oxylabs: Ease of Use

Oxylabs offers an intuitive interface that’s easy to navigate. All features are neatly arranged on the dashboard, with the menu on the left and the viewing pane beside it. The interface sports a white background, purple and black text, and contrasting colours that look visually appealing.

This platform put considerable effort into its proxy integrations, making them easy to understand and deploy. If user friendliness were the only criterion for this review, Oxylabs would get a perfect score.

Oxylabs: Customer Support

Oxylabs provides 24/7 support for customers. You can start a live chat with a support agent or send an email and expect a response within 24 hours. Oxylabs’ support team was active and highly willing to solve inquiries during our test.

Customers can also access complementary support resources, primarily extensive documentation for its features. On Oxylabs’ website, you can find detailed guides and user manuals for all types of proxies, making them easier to configure.

There’s a ‘Scraping Experts’ section on Oxylabs featuring web scraping video tutorials. This section provides valuable knowledge from the Beginner to Advanced levels, teaching the ins and outs of website scraping with Oxylabs’ proxies. It is continuously updated with new videos and includes on-demand Q&A sessions to learn directly from scraping experts.

However, we noticed a drawback. There is no telephone support for customers, which is an inconvenience when paying for an expensive tool.

Oxylabs: The Competition

The proxy software industry is very competitive, with no shortage of rivals to Oxylabs. The main competitors we’d like to highlight are Bright Data, Decodo (formerly Smartproxy), and SOAX.

Bright Data is excellent for residential, mobile, and datacenter proxies. It also offers web scraping APIs like Oxylabs. The difference is that Bright Data offers more customizability and is a costlier solution.

Decodo is another reliable proxy server provider, with its datacenter proxies supporting the SOCKS5 protocol just like Oxylabs. However, Oxylabs has a larger IP pool of 175 million+ proxy addresses.

SOAX provides a massive proxy IP pool as well, and it has web scraping APIs and a Web Unblocker like Oxylabs. However, it outshines Oxylabs in terms of user-friendliness and customizability.

Oxylabs: Final verdict

All things considered, Oxylabs’ reputation as one of the best proxy providers in the industry is well deserved. Not only does it offer a 175 million-strong pool of proxy IP addresses for data scraping and other business tasks, but it also throws in a bunch of useful tools for good measure. This includes a sophisticated web scraping API, unblocking capabilities, an AI assistant, a video data API, and an AI studio.

As such, it’s not just great for individual users with demanding proxy requirements, but also for any business looking for a proxy provider that can serve its needs at scale. That said, it might be a bit expensive, especially if you’re a high-level user. Still, all the advanced features listed above certainly justify the price mark.

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