Selenium WebDriver Proxy Setup (Chrome) + Authentication

Selenium needs clean profiles and correct proxy flags. This guide shows a working setup pattern and common gotchas for proxy authentication.

Install Selenium:

pip install selenium

Chrome proxy flag (basic)

from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options

opts = Options()
opts.add_argument("--proxy-server=http://HOST:PORT")

driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=opts)
driver.get("https://api.ipify.org")
print(driver.page_source)
driver.quit()

Authenticated proxies

Chrome does not support user/pass in proxy URL via flag alone. Use an extension approach for auth.

Recommended: generate a small Chrome extension that sets proxy + handles auth.
(We can generate this extension per your proxy format.)

• If IP doesn’t change: ensure proxy-server is set and Chrome is not using system proxy
• If auth fails: use extension-based auth (best practice for Chrome)
• If site blocks: use realistic viewport, user-agent, and slower actions