Steam Proxies To Level Up Your Online Gaming Experience

There was nothing more joyous to me as a kid than the various educational computer games compatible with our ancient Dell. At this point in faraway history (the late nineties), computer games came through discs and took forever to boot up. Many of the games I was allowed to play were based in basic math skills, history lessons, or grammar rules. These days, even video games for kids have so much more skill and storytelling involved that make them exciting from a young age. Many games have also moved to being hosted through the internet, which makes having a reliable internet connection all the more important. For people looking to enhance their online gaming, Steam proxies are the best way to have an uninterrupted, fast, and easy gaming experience.

If you’re an avid gamer and use Valve’s gaming service Steam regularly, this article is for you. We’re here to share the best tips for using a proxy for Steam and getting the best experience out of it. Proxies are a great way in general to avoid geoblocking, increase speeds, and keep your personal device’s IP address private. For the specific use of Steam, proxies can open up a lot of new possibilities and enhance your gaming experience. In this article, we’re outlining best practices for Steam proxies, so click around the table of contents to figure out what kind of proxy is best for you.

Table of Contents

What is a Proxy for Steam?

Before we get into proxies, we’ll define Steam. Steam is an online gaming platform developed by the Valve Corporation. In addition to the purchasing and playing of games, there is a social network feature so you can keep up with friends and play together. It’s a great online arcade.

Steam has tens of thousands of games available. When you buy one, the license goes into your account and allows you to play it. You can also stream your gameplay through Steam to share with others. There is also the opportunity access certain games before they’re released. In addition, their mobile app keeps you connected on the go. For avid gamers, Steam is the perfect way to keep tabs on the latest games and connect with people who share the same love of gaming that you do. You get to engage with a dedicated, interesting gaming community and also learn about high-quality tools that can help you develop and distribute your own games.

Why use proxies?

Proxies have a ton of value for gamers. If you’re wondering how to run Steam through a proxy, it’s as simple as setting up your proxy with your operating system and getting going. A proxy provides a different IP address sending requests to Steam so it doesn’t have access to your personal device’s IP address. There are many reasons people choose to conceal their IP addresses, but internet privacy is a big deciding factor in that. Proxies can help keep your information safe from hackers with the proxy IP address acting as a shield.

Most websites can and will track your behavior in order to tailor offers to you—Amazon is a big perpetrator of this behavior. In addition, marketing companies can collect data about your browsing habits and send creepily hyper-targeted pop-up ads to you through the websites you’re browsing. Proxies don’t stop ads from happening, but they hide your IP address and browsing behavior so you can have a more neutral internet experience. The proxy IP address is a mask for your personal device’s IP address so not every piece of browsing data is pegged to you specifically.

There are a few different kinds of proxies (dedicated, semi-dedicated, rotating) and you can make decisions on which ones to buy based on your needs.

How to Use Steam Proxy Settings

Searching how to connect to Steam through a proxy might yield some scary results about banning these days. Steam’s terms of service have recently changed in an attempt to curb customers from using proxy IP addresses to place themselves in different countries for game purchasing. Steam’s support page outlines explicitly that proxies and VPNs should not be used to change to a region inconsistent with your past activity on the platform. However, the use of proxies is not explicitly disallowed. It makes sense for Steam to recognize that a large share of its internet-savvy users will employ proxies in order to protect their browsing and do other things, not necessarily just for changing the country of the IP address.

In order to buy a game now, you have to buy it with a payment method tied to the region in which the game is headquartered. A proxy IP address can be located in a different country, which used to be enough to allow users to unblock Steam content then wanted to access. There is an extra step in the payment method now so Steam can have an extra layer of protection enforcing their rules.

However, there are pretty valid reasons why one might use a proxy in order to unblock Steam content available in another country. If you’re a frequent traveler, studying abroad, or simply located in another country for a little while, a proxy IP address located in your home region can allow you to avoid the restrictions of the country you’re currently in. If you want to get back to your game without interruptions, a proxy can help you do that. However, the more Steam cracks down on country switching, you have to pay attention to their restrictions and make sure that you’re not violating their rules. Trying to adjust Steam proxy settings to let you get into different regions is not something Steam is okay with.

The reasons they’ve changed their rules about proxies is probably because of people using proxies to bypass location and regional restrictions. For games that are available worldwide, there are countries where the game might be available at a lower price point. In addition, there are games that do not have the clearance or ability to be globally available yet, so users might try out a Steam proxy that allows them access to that game. However, Steam is now cracking down harder on this and they’re within their rights to ban your account.

Proxy IP addresses can help your connection run a lot faster. If you get your proxy from a reliable seller, it will also probably have higher bandwidth and improve your overall experience. The security you get with anonymous browsing is also hugely beneficial to a lot of users. The benefits are not just about how to tell if you’re blocked on Steam from certain regional games but giving you faster connection speeds and security.

Choosing a Proxy for Steam

Although I’ve advocated for buying a proxy in this article, there are free options available on the internet as public proxies. It might seem like a good idea to try out a free option for a Steam proxy before you commit to buying one, but public proxies are riddled with issues that essentially make them unusable as proxies.

Public proxies don’t have a cap on the number of users, so they’re likely to be a lot slower. Additionally, online hackers can easily access sensitive user information from public proxies. Even if you’re able to escape the clutches of malicious hackers, public proxies offer limited resources (like bandwidth and speed) to an unlimited number of users. 

If you’re looking into paid options, there are three main types: dedicated, semi-dedicated, and rotating. A dedicated proxy is one proxy IP address that is exclusive to you. A semi-dedicated proxy is one proxy IP address that up to three users share. The bandwidth and speed are unlikely to be affected. Finally, a rotating proxy is one that rotates between proxy IP addresses. This is more useful for a business using the proxy IP addresses for web scraping. The rotating IP addresses allow you to move to new proxy IPs if certain IP addresses get banned.  

How to Find a Steam Proxy

The good news is that there are so many other options to find a good Steam proxy. Dedicated and semi-dedicated proxies are by far the better option. As opposed to a public proxy, both will give you better connection speed, so you’ll have fewer delays in gameplay. If you’re looking to save a little money, a semi-dedicated proxy is a great option that still has more regulation than a public proxy. Up to three people can share these proxies and their resources, which still ensures your anonymity and security.

However, if you want to make sure there are no possible hiccups in your proxy and want to be the only user who has access, you should go with dedicated proxies. You’re the only user of the one proxy IP address. This is great for Steam users who want no interruptions in gaming time. Dedicated and semi-dedicated proxies come in all shapes and sizes, including both HTTP and SOCKS, and also choices between IPv4 and IPv6 proxies.

Rotating proxies with multiple IP addresses can work if you want to constantly have new IPs to protect your identity. Also, they’re better for online MMORPGs if you’re using them for botting.

When you’re looking for a reliable proxy provider, you want to make sure they offer unlimited bandwidth, speed, diverse proxy locations, customer service assistance, and more. 

Final Thoughts

Gaming has come a long way from discs and Nintendo packs that you needed to blow on to fix. Video games will keep changing as long as gamers are invested in the expansion of gaming worlds. Tech-savvy gamers will try to keep up as best they can. Using Steam proxies can enhance your experience, especially with regard to security and network speeds. However, it is important to be careful and abide by Steam’s rules so you don’t get banned from their service.

When buying proxies, you should take the same approach when buying a really sturdy pair of hiking boots. You want them to make the journey better, especially through a rough terrain. Steam is a great service that can work even better for you if you have the right proxy. 

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