The Complete Proxy Glossary: 50+ Terms Explained

By Marcus Reiner · 2026-03-04 · 13 min read · Education

Confused by ASN, JA3, ISP proxies, sticky sessions, or peer SDKs? This glossary cuts through the jargon in 2 minutes.

Proxy types

**Residential proxy** — IP assigned by an ISP to a real consumer device.

**Datacenter proxy** — IP hosted in a commercial data center.

**ISP proxy** — Datacenter-hosted but registered to a consumer ISP ASN.

**Mobile proxy** — IP from a mobile carrier (4G/5G), shared via CGNAT.

Network terms

**ASN** — Autonomous System Number identifying an IP's owning network.

**CGNAT** — Carrier-Grade NAT, the mechanism that lets thousands of mobile users share one IP.

**Pool size** — Total unique IPs available in a provider's network.

Anti-bot terms

**JA3 fingerprint** — Hash of TLS handshake parameters used to identify bots.

**HTTP/2 priority** — Order and weighting of frame priorities, used as fingerprint.

**Cloudflare Turnstile** — Cloudflare's invisible CAPTCHA replacement.

**DataDome** — Bot management vendor used by major retailers and travel sites.

Pricing & sessions

**Per-GB pricing** — Charged on bandwidth used.

**Per-IP pricing** — Flat monthly fee per IP (datacenter/ISP).

**Sticky session** — Hold one IP for a defined window.

**Rotating session** — Fresh IP per request (or per N requests).