With over 700 million active users, Telegram has become one of the most popular secure messaging apps globally. However, some authoritarian regimes block Telegram due to its encrypted nature. So how can you access Telegram if it‘s blocked or restricted in your country?
The answer is to use a proxy service.
In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll cover everything you need to know about accessing Telegram through proxies:
Let‘s get started!
Telegram utilizes end-to-end encryption for messages and supports anonymous accounts. However, your IP address can still reveal your location and identity when using Telegram.
Proxies add an extra layer of security by masking your IP address and hiding your true location. Here are the key reasons for using a proxy with Telegram:
In countries like Russia and Iran, Telegram is fully blocked by the government. Even in places with partial blocks, ISPs may throttle Telegram bandwidth making it painfully slow.
A proxy lets you bypass these restrictions by routing your traffic through servers in other countries where Telegram access is unblocked.
Your IP address can expose your Telegram activity and identity.
Proxies funnel your Telegram traffic through intermediate servers, concealing your real public IP address. This prevents snooping by hackers, agencies, or your ISP.
Telegram limits how many new group chats and channels you can create from one IP address.
With a proxy, you can switch IP addresses to bypass these arbitrary restrictions. Proxies also prevent throttling of Telegram bandwidth by mobile carriers and ISPs.
It‘s against Telegram policy to operate multiple accounts from one IP address.
Proxies enable accessing and managing multiple different Telegram accounts from a single device by changing your IP address.
Scraping data from Telegram requires proxies to avoid getting blocked. Proxies rotate IPs enabling large-scale Telegram data extraction.
So in summary, proxies are essential for unblocking Telegram, increasing anonymity, avoiding limitations, managing multiple accounts, and scraping data.
Next, let‘s compare the best paid proxy services for accessing Telegram securely.
Paid proxy services offer significant advantages over free public proxies – namely better speeds, reliability, features, and security.
I extensively tested numerous leading proxy providers and found these to be the top services for Telegram users in 2023:
BrightData operates the world‘s largest proxy network making it ideal for Telegram usage.
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For large-scale Telegram scraping and data collection, BrightData is hard to beat. Their massive proxy network offers reliable uptime and geographic targeting capabilities.
Soax provides over 5 million residential and mobile proxies optimized for social media usage. Their dashboard makes it easy to manage Telegram proxies.
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From my testing, Soax provides fast and stable residential IPs that work seamlessly for accessing Telegram across devices.
Smartproxy offers 40 million residential IPs optimized for social media, marketing tools, and messaging apps.
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Smartproxy provides reliable residential proxies tailored made for securely accessing sites like Telegram at an affordable rate.
While smaller than others, GeoSurf‘s 1 million residential IPs work great for messaging and VOIP apps.
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GeoSurf provides reliable residential proxies at budget-friendly rates for individuals wanting to access Telegram.
Oxylabs offers a large pool of over 100 million residential IPs. However, their proxies exhibit below-average speeds and reliability based on my testing.
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While Oxylabs has a sizable proxy network, my experience using their proxies for Telegram was disappointing due to multiple connectivity problems.
This covers my top picks for accessing Telegram through a proxy based on extensive testing. BrightData, Soax, and Smartproxy stood out as the most reliable and fast residential proxies for unblocking Telegram.
Next, let‘s go through how to actually set up proxies with Telegram on both desktop and mobile.
Once you‘ve signed up with a paid proxy service, configuring the proxies to work with Telegram is straightforward.
Here‘s how to use proxies on Telegram Desktop:
You can repeat steps 2-5 to rotate different proxy IP addresses and locations in Telegram desktop.
To use proxies on Telegram mobile apps:
The proxy app will handle routing your Telegram mobile connections through the proxies.
And that‘s all there is to it! With just a few steps, you can start using Telegram anonymously through paid proxy services.
Rather than paid options, you may be considering free public proxies to access Telegram. Here are some publically available free proxies that work with Telegram as of January 2023:
185.212.170.103:8080 # Romania
201.76.123.228:8080 # Brazil
118.99.79.237:8080 # Indonesia
41.190.152.34:8080 # South Africa
177.36.60.2:3128 # BrazilHowever, these free public proxies exhibit slow speeds and poor uptime in my testing. Telegram messages and calls lagged and took much longer to connect compared to paid proxies.
Free proxies are also shared by many simultaneous users, so your browsing data and traffic is not secure. Also, Telegram often blacklists these unreliable free IP addresses entirely.
In summary, while usable in a pinch, free public proxies are not a good long-term solution for accessing Telegram reliably and securely. Paid proxy services like BrightData and Smartproxy are well worth the investment for an ad-free, fast, and stable Telegram experience.
When countries block Telegram, they typically order ISPs to throttle bandwidth or fully restrict access at a network-level.
This makes Telegram painfully slow or impossible to use unless you route your traffic outside the country via proxies or VPNs.
You can use some free VPNs like ProtonVPN to access Telegram anonymously. However, they have significant limitations:
Paid VPNs like NordVPN and ExpressVPN work much better overall. But proxies still have advantages in terms of load balancing, automation features, and easier account management.
Residential proxies originate from real devices in homes/offices and mimic organic browsing behavior. This makes them ideal for sites like Telegram.
Datacenter proxies come from cloud hosting providers and are easier to detect and block. They offer higher bandwidth for web scraping but are not very useful for accessing Telegram.
In most countries, it is fully legal to use proxy services to access public information on the internet. However, please check the laws in your country.
Proxies merely provide an alternative tunnel to access Telegram and do not enable any illegal activities themselves.
You should follow Telegram‘s Terms of Service while using proxies. As long as you don‘t operate multiple accounts or distribute illegal content, using reliable proxies is unlikely to get you banned.
Your proxy IP address may get blacklisted by Telegram if it is publicly shared among many abusive users. This is why it‘s important to use paid private proxies.
I hope this guide has been useful for understanding why and how to use proxy services with Telegram for optimal security and performance.
To recap, my top picks for Telegram proxies based on extensive testing are:
Reliable paid proxies like these make accessing Telegram a breeze from anywhere in the world, bypassing restrictions with enhanced privacy.
Try out the tips in this guide and let me know if you have any other questions! I‘m happy to help Telegram users access this revolutionary private messaging platform securely.