You can also manually snipe auctions. I used to do that when I was buying thing regularly on ebay, back in the "old" days (the 90s in this case). Even on dialup.

With cable/DSL it's a lot easier. With dialup you have to account for the extra delays. I would basically hit refresh while watching my watch and then look at the time remaining once the page showed up. With a little practice you could predict exactly when to hit the button and have a few seconds left at the end of an auction. Then I would place a bid using that timing and the bid would go in during the last few seconds. Because of the delays in dialup I had to account for about 30 seconds extra. But I still managed to get one bid in during the last 2 seconds of an auction using dialup back then.

You do have to bid high enough to beat any other snipers, but it does prevent others from seeing your bid and raising it. They have to be just as serious and want it more than you. A lot of people like sniping because it doesn't give the other bidders time to think about your bid and decide if they really want to raise it some more.