> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.2extract.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Residential Proxies: Specifics & Limitations

> Understand the unique characteristics and best practices for using Residential Proxies.

While Residential Proxies are incredibly powerful, it's important to understand their specific characteristics to get the best results.

### IP Pool Characteristics

* **Source:** Our Residential pool consists of millions of real IP addresses from desktop and laptop devices connected to genuine Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Comcast, Verizon, and Deutsche Telekom.
* **Rotation:** The pool is dynamic. IPs can go online and offline as users connect and disconnect their devices. Our system automatically filters out offline IPs to ensure a high success rate.

### Session Stability

* **Sticky Sessions:** Residential proxies offer **high session stability**. A sticky session created with the `-session` parameter will typically remain stable for its entire duration (default 10 minutes, or up to 24 hours with `-time`).
* **Best Practice:** For critical, multi-step tasks, always build retry logic into your scraper. While rare, an IP can go offline unexpectedly.

### Recommended Use Cases

* **High-Anonymity Tasks:** Perfect for any target that employs sophisticated anti-bot measures.
* **Geo-Targeted Content:** Ideal for scraping content that changes based on the user's country, state, or city.
* **NOT Recommended for:**
  * Tasks requiring extremely low latency (e.g., high-frequency trading). For this, Datacenter proxies are a better fit.
  * Sending emails or activities that could be flagged as spam. This is a violation of our Terms of Service.