BBB, also known as the Better Business Bureau, is a non-profit organization that advances marketplace trust. On its website, they have a lot of information and a rating system for various companies and businesses that meet BBB standards. BBB has accredited over 400,000 businesses in the United States alone.
If you want to gather data about various businesses in the United States, then extracting information from BBB is an ideal solution as it contains company specific information like their business name, services, address, phone numbers, and many more. If you want information from just one or two businesses then simply viewing that data will do but if you want information from hundreds to even thousands of companies, then you will need to utilize a web scraping tool.
BBB, and other websites, have strict restrictions against the use of bots on their site and they would immediately ban any account caught using one. You need a BBB proxy to prevent getting recognized by the detection systems in place. A BBB proxy will trick the website into thinking that your requests come from multiple users and location and not just from a single IP address.
Let’s set up a BBB proxy server.
For Windows:
To set up proxies in Windows, simply search for “Proxy Settings” in your windows search bar and open the search result.
You are then given two options to choose from: Automatic proxy setup or Manual proxy setup. If you want windows to automatically detect your proxy settings, choose the first option. Choose the second option if you want to utilize a specific ip address and port number.
If you chose the first option, then:
- Turn on Automatically detect Settings
- Turn on Use setup script
- Enter the script address
- Click Save
If you chose the second option, then:
- Turn on Use a proxy server
- Input both server address and port number
- If you have any addresses you would like to visit without a proxy, enter them here
- Turn on Don’t use the proxy server for local addresses check box if you want to access a local server without a proxy
- Click Save
Image Alt Text: Windows Automatic Proxy Setup
For Mac:
To start configuring your proxy settings in MacOS, simply:
Step 1. Click on the Apple Icon.
Step 2. On the drop down menu, click on “System Preferences”.
Step 3. Click on “Network”
Step 4. Click on “Advanced”
Note: Make sure to connect to your wi-fi first.
Step 5. Click on “Proxies”
This should then redirect you to MacOS proxy settings. MacOS is more straightforward compared to windows. You only have one option which is to manually configure your proxy server.
Here are the steps to follow:
- Select which proxy IP protocol you want to configure. This depends on which protocols your proxy service provider offers.
- Turn on Secure Web Proxy
- Input the Proxy Server Address and Port Number
- Click OK to save the configurations
Note: You may be prompted for your Mac user password to save your settings.
Image Alt Text: Configuring MacOS Proxy Settings
Congratulations! You have now finished configuring a Medium proxy server.
