New beta feature lets customers set a Windows, macOS, Linux, Android or iOS fingerprint per request or at export, closing a detection gap that browser-level tools cannot reach. 

United Kingdom, October 21, 2026 -- Byteful, the Manchester-based proxy provider with an ethically sourced residential proxy network, has launched TCP/IP Fingerprint Emulation. The beta feature lets datacenter and ISP proxy users choose which operating system their connection appears to come from. Customers can emulate the TCP/IP fingerprint of Windows, macOS, Linux, Android or iOS, and set it per request or once at export. It is live now for every datacenter and ISP customer.

Byteful TCP/IP Fingerprint Emulation for datacenter and ISP proxies

Detection has moved down the stack

Anti-bot systems have tightened one layer at a time. IP bans pushed businesses towards proxies. Browser fingerprinting pushed them towards anti-detect browsers. Now the largest anti-bot providers inspect TCP/IP fingerprints: how a connection behaves at the transport layer, before a single byte of HTTP is sent.

That is a problem for anyone using proxies. Proxy servers typically run Linux, and parts of the TCP handshake give it away. If a browser identifies as Windows while the connection underneath behaves like Linux, the request describes a device that does not exist. That mismatch alone can get traffic flagged.

A rebuilt TCP stack

To close the gap, Byteful built a user-space TCP stack. Instead of relying on the Linux kernel's default behaviour, its proxies can emulate the TCP stack of other operating systems. The fingerprint becomes a setting the customer controls, not a side effect of the server.

"A proxy should look like the device making the request at every layer, not only the layers that are easy to change," said Timur Gok, Founder and Managing Director of Byteful. "Until now, our infrastructure decided the TCP layer. We wanted that to be the customer's choice."

What is available today

• Five operating systems: Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS. Customers pick the one their client actually runs, and the TCP handshake matches it.
• Datacenter and ISP proxies: available on both static proxy types, including Byteful's static residential (ISP) proxies. Rotating residential and mobile proxies are not part of this release.
• Per-request control: add the operating system as a parameter in the proxy username, for example USER_os_windows. Each request can carry a different fingerprint, so one proxy can serve several setups.
• Set once at export: choose a fingerprint when exporting a proxy list from the dashboard, and every proxy in the file carries it with no extra configuration.

Byteful TCP/IP Fingerprint Control

The feature works alongside Byteful's existing OS Targeting, which selects proxies by the operating system they run on. Used together, the two keep every layer of a request pointing at the same device. Technical details are in Byteful's TCP/IP Fingerprint Emulation announcement.

Part of a wider proxy network

Byteful offers datacenter, static residential (ISP), rotating residential and mobile proxies across 195+ countries, with a residential pool of more than 35 million IPs. Residential proxies route traffic through IP addresses that internet service providers assign to real household devices, which makes them harder for websites to flag than datacenter IPs. Byteful's guide to residentialproxies explains how they work and when to choose them over other proxy types.

The company sources its residential IPs through consent-based SDK partnerships, where everyday users are paid to share bandwidth, and enforces an Acceptable Use Policy across its network.

TCP/IP Fingerprint Emulation is in beta. Customers can report issues through Byteful support or the Byter AI Agent in the dashboard.

About Byteful

Byteful is a UK-based web data infrastructure platform that provides ethically sourced residential, mobile, static residential (ISP) and datacenter proxies alongside API-first tools for web scraping, data collection, and AI-driven automation.

Processing tens of billions of requests per month for thousands of customers, Byteful powers browser-based AI agents, automation systems, and data workflows. It is a member of the Internet Watch Foundation and the Ethical Web Data Collection Initiative.

Learn more at https://byteful.com.

Contact Info:
Name: Harsha Vardhan N
Email: Send Email
Organization: Byteful
Website: https://byteful.com

Release ID: 89206695

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