On July 2, 2026, the FBI seized NetNut’s domains and the residential proxy network went offline. So now, anyone who relied on NetNut needs a clean, ethically sourced NetNut alternative, and the wrong choice simply swaps one liability for another.
What Happened to NetNut?
On July 2, 2026, NetNut’s homepage was replaced with a seizure notice from the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation, and hundreds of domains behind the NetNut proxy service went dark within hours.
What makes this different from an ordinary provider going quiet is the reason behind it. As reported by Krebs on Security and BleepingComputer, investigators tied NetNut’s residential pool to the so-called Popa botnet: an estimated two million consumer devices, mostly Android TV boxes and streaming sticks, allegedly turned into exit nodes without their owners’ knowledge. Those devices were the “residential IPs” that customers had been paying to use.
The scale of the abuse is what drew regulators in. Google reported that a single week in June 2026 saw 316 separate threat-actor clusters running traffic through suspected NetNut nodes.
The company behind NetNut, Alarum Technologies (Nasdaq: ALAR), confirmed the seizure on July 2, said it would fully cooperate with law enforcement, and stated that it had temporarily paused traffic through the affected network as a precaution while the investigation is ongoing. One detail catches a lot of people off guard: NetNut was widely resold and white-labeled. If you bought “residential proxies” from a smaller vendor, you may well have been routing through NetNut without ever seeing the name on an invoice.
Is NetNut Shut Down for Good? What Current Users Should Do
Is it gone for good? Nobody can say yet. Alarum hasn’t announced a liquidation, just a pause the traffic trough the affected network. The company says it is working to restore normal operations, so a scaled-back return isn’t off the table, but there’s no published timeline.Today, though, the situation is straightforward: the domains are seized, the gateway won’t respond, and there is no published timeline for recovery.
For anything running in production, waiting it out is the costly choice. Every hour of downtime means failed requests and holes in your data. There is also a quieter risk that is easy to overlook. Anything still pointed at NetNut, or at a reseller built on top of it, is now sending traffic through infrastructure that sits under an active federal investigation.
A sensible plan for the first 48 hours looks like this:
- Back up your configs, credentials, and target lists while the dashboard is still reachable.
- Stop any jobs that depend on NetNut so they aren’t failing silently and burning through budget.
- Shortlist replacements based on how they source their IPs and how openly they explain it, rather than on the number on the pricing page.
What to Look for in a NetNut Alternative
The takedown drives home an uncomfortable point: two residential pools can look identical in a dashboard while being sourced in completely different ways, and that gap is what brought NetNut down. Four things are worth checking before you commit.
Ethical, consent-based IP sourcing
This is the factor that matters most. Ask any candidate how device owners actually opt in, whether through a paid SDK, a rewarded app, or a clearly worded consent screen. A vague answer, or a rep who steers the conversation elsewhere, tells you what you need to know. Get this wrong and your traffic ends up riding on the same kind of hijacked devices that just cost NetNut its domains.
Clean IPs, not a big pool number
A pool advertised in the millions looks impressive and tells you very little. What actually determines whether your requests get through is IP hygiene: abuse scores on IPQualityScore or Scamalytics, the reputation of the subnet and ASN, and how often those ranges already trip Cloudflare, DataDome, or Akamai. A modest pool of clean addresses will outperform a huge pool of burned ones on every target that counts.
Transparency and compliance
Plain terms of service, genuine KYC, and a provider willing to explain its sourcing on the record all lower the odds of history repeating itself. Compliance feels like a formality before your provider’s domains are seized.
Support and a painless swap
When you are migrating under pressure, two things make the difference: support that answers quickly, and an endpoint that drops into your existing setup without a rewrite. The same host:port:user:pass credentials, sticky sessions, and a rotating gateway mean you reconfigure rather than rebuild. If a switch forces you to re-engineer your integration, you should know it before you sign up.
Match Your NetNut Use Case to the Right Proxy
There is no single drop-in replacement for NetNut proxies. The right choice depends on the request your workflow actually makes, so match the proxy type to the job.
| Use case | What you need | PrivateProxy solution | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Web scraping / data collection | Large rotating residential pool, high success rate | Rotating residential proxies | Budget roughly 50 to 100 GB per 10,000 pages on heavy targets like Amazon or Instagram |
| Account management / multi-accounting | Stable identity, sticky sessions | Static residential / ISP proxies | Sticky sessions of 10 to 30 minutes; one consistent IP per account |
| Ad verification / SERP and AI rank tracking | City-level geo-targeting, clean IPs | Rotating residential proxies | Targeting down to city and ASN, so non-US results aren’t guesswork |
| High-volume, non-sensitive targets | Speed and low cost | Datacenter proxies | Fastest and cheapest where the target doesn’t fingerprint aggressively |
Why PrivateProxy Is a Reliable NetNut Alternative
- Ethically sourced IPs. Every residential address comes from a real device owner who chose to opt in, can withdraw that consent, and is paid for the bandwidth they share. Supply runs through vetted sourcing partners and direct agreements with established ISPs and datacenter providers, never a botnet. The pool is audited regularly, so flagged or non-consenting IPs are removed before they become your problem.
- A vetted customer base. PrivateProxy screens new accounts against email and signup patterns, IP and geographic signals, duplicate-account detection, and usage behavior, with stricter KYC when something looks off, and it refuses brute-forcing, malware, unauthorized access, and spam outright. Fewer bad actors on the network means cleaner IPs and higher success rates for everyone on it.
- The operational levers that matter. Clean IPs with low abuse scores, sticky sessions that hold for 10 to 30 minutes, city-level targeting, and a rotating gateway your current tooling can point to, available across rotating residential, static residential and ISP, and datacenter proxies.
Our honest advice is not to take any of this on trust, ours included. Run a small job, measure the success rate against your real targets, and scale from there.
How to Migrate from NetNut to PrivateProxy
Migrating is a change of configuration, not a rebuild. For most stacks it comes down to four steps:
- Create a PrivateProxy account and start a trial.
- Choose the proxy type that matches your previous NetNut setup, using the table above as a guide.
- Update the gateway host, port, and credentials in your scraper, tool, or browser. The host:port:user:pass format carries straight over.
- Run a small test job, confirm the success rate and geo accuracy, then scale up.
Conclusion
The NetNut takedown is less a story about one provider than a lesson about proxy infrastructure in general. Where your IPs come from, and who else shares the network, is an operational risk rather than fine print in a contract. When you weigh a NetNut alternative, judge it on sourcing, IP hygiene, customer vetting, and whether support actually answers, and treat pool size and sticker price as secondary. If you need residential, ISP, or datacenter proxies you can rely on, PrivateProxy is a strong place to land. Start with a small test and let your own success rate settle the question.
Frequently Asked Questions
Please read our Documentation if you have questions that are not listed below.
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What happened to NetNut?
On July 2, 2026, the FBI seized hundreds of NetNut domains as part of an investigation into the Popa botnet. The service went offline, and its homepage now displays a government seizure notice.
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Is it safe to keep using NetNut right now?
No. The domains are seized and the network is under active federal investigation. Move your critical jobs to a transparently sourced provider now, not later.
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Can I migrate my NetNut setup without downtime?
In most cases, yes. Match the proxy type, update the gateway and credentials, and test on a small job before scaling. The host:port:user:pass format carries over, so for most stacks the switch takes minutes.
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Is NetNut shut down permanently?
Not officially. Alarum Technologies, the company behind NetNut, announced temporarily pausing traffic through the affected network while the investigation runs, calling it the most responsible step, and that service availability will be significantly reduced in the meantime.
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What is the best NetNut alternative in 2026?
That depends on your workflow, but the criteria are the same for everyone: IP sourcing, IP hygiene, and support, rather than headline pool size. PrivateProxy covers rotating residential, ISP, and datacenter proxies, which suits most of the setups people are moving off NetNut.
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The difference between the mobile proxy vs residential proxy lies in the IP source and exclusivity. Mobile proxies route traffic through SIM devices on cellular networks. They use IPv4 addresses shared by hundreds of subscribers via CGNAT, giving them high anti-bot trust on app-tier platforms. Residential proxies are assigned by ISPs and use IPs mapped 1:1 to a household, with precise geo-targeting and longer sessions.