Using proxies with Puppeteer and headless Chrome

Launch with a proxy and authenticate#

import puppeteer from "puppeteer";

const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
  headless: true,
  args: ["--proxy-server=http://res.proxshift.com:9000", "--no-first-run"],
});
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.authenticate({ username: "USER-cc-us-sid-run1-ttl-30m", password: "PASS" });

await page.goto("https://api.ipify.org", { waitUntil: "domcontentloaded", timeout: 45000 });
console.log(await page.evaluate(() => document.body.innerText));
await browser.close();

Call page.authenticate before the first navigation on every page you open; Chrome asks for proxy credentials per page. The username carries the country and the session id, so the whole browser stays on one household for the lifetime you set.

One proxy per browser#

Chrome applies --proxy-server to the whole browser instance. For several countries or sessions run several browsers (cheap in headless mode), or use puppeteer.launch in a pool where each worker owns a session id. Libraries that promise per-page proxies insert a local forwarder; simpler to keep one browser per session.

Block images, fonts and media#

await page.setRequestInterception(true);
page.on("request", (req) => {
  const t = req.resourceType();
  if (["image", "media", "font", "stylesheet"].includes(t)) return req.abort();
  req.continue();
});

Consistency#

• Set Accept-Language and the time zone to the exit's country: page.setExtraHTTPHeaders({\"Accept-Language\": \"de-DE,de;q=0.9\"}) and page.emulateTimezone(\"Europe/Berlin\").
• Disable WebRTC leaks with --force-webrtc-ip-handling-policy=disable_non_proxied_udp in the launch args.
• Keep one browser per account; reuse its user data directory if the account should look like a returning device.

Errors you will meet#

Questions people ask#