Proxies in Python: requests, httpx and Playwright

This article shows how to use a proxy with a username and password in requests, httpx and Playwright for Python, how to control when the IP changes, and how to read the errors. The details in the examples are placeholders: use your own from the Dashboard. To find the exit IP, the examples ask api64.ipify.org, a service that returns the address a request came from.

The proxy string as a URL

The Dashboard issues a host:port:login:password string, while Python libraries expect a URL: http://login:password@host:8080 for HTTP or socks5h://login:password@host:1080 for SOCKS5. The function below converts one into the other and encodes the login and password if they contain @, : or /:

from urllib.parse import quote

def proxy_url(line, scheme="http"):
    host, port, login, password = line.strip().split(":", 3)
    return f"{scheme}://{quote(login, safe='')}:{quote(password, safe='')}@{host}:{port}"

print(proxy_url("proxy.example.invalid:8080:login-country-us:password"))
print(proxy_url("proxy.example.invalid:1080:login-country-us:password", "socks5h"))

split(":", 3) splits the string into at most four parts, so a colon in the password does no harm. The logins in the examples are shortened: a string from the Dashboard also carries a filter parameter such as -filter-medium, so copy it whole. The parts of the login are explained in proxy string format.

requests: HTTP and SOCKS5

You need the package: pip install requests.

import requests

PROXY = "http://login-country-us:password@proxy.example.invalid:8080"
PROXIES = {"http": PROXY, "https": PROXY}

r = requests.get("https://api64.ipify.org?format=json", proxies=PROXIES, timeout=(10, 30))
r.raise_for_status()
print(r.json()["ip"])

What matters in this code:

• Both keys. The dict key is the site’s scheme, and the value is the proxy address. If you set only "http", requests to https:// sites go out directly, bypassing the proxy.
• The value starts with http://, even for the "https" key: requests opens a plain connection to the proxy and a CONNECT tunnel through it. https:// in the proxy address would mean a TLS connection to the proxy itself, which is a different kind of proxy.
• The timeout. timeout=(10, 30) gives 10 seconds to connect and 30 to wait for the response. Without a timeout, requests can wait for a response forever.

For SOCKS5, install the PySocks package with pip install "requests[socks]" and change the address:

PROXY = "socks5h://login-country-us:password@proxy.example.invalid:1080"

With socks5h:// the proxy resolves the site’s name; with socks5:// your device does, and the site’s address may be chosen for your location rather than the exit location; see HTTP vs SOCKS5. Without PySocks, requests stops with Missing dependencies for SOCKS support.

Sessions and changing the IP

With rotation (a login without -sid-), every new connection gets a new IP. requests.Session keeps the connection open and sends the following requests through it, while requests.get without a session opens a new one each time. Compare:

import requests

PROXY = "http://login-country-us:password@proxy.example.invalid:8080"
PROXIES = {"http": PROXY, "https": PROXY}
URL = "https://api64.ipify.org?format=json"

with requests.Session() as session:
    print([session.get(URL, proxies=PROXIES, timeout=(10, 30)).json()["ip"] for _ in range(3)])

print([requests.get(URL, proxies=PROXIES, timeout=(10, 30)).json()["ip"] for _ in range(3)])

The first line of output shows three identical addresses: all the requests went through one connection. In the second, the addresses change: each request has its own connection. If the server closes the session’s connection, the session opens a new one, and with rotation the address changes too.

If the address must hold between requests, for example after signing in to an account or across the steps of a form, take a sticky session string with -sid-: with it, all six requests in the example leave from one address while the session lasts. When to use which mode is covered in sticky session vs rotation.

httpx

You need the package: pip install httpx. httpx takes the proxy as the proxy argument; the old proxies argument was removed in version 0.28, and a client created with it fails.

import httpx

PROXY = "http://login-country-us:password@proxy.example.invalid:8080"

with httpx.Client(proxy=PROXY, timeout=30) as client:
    r = client.get("https://api64.ipify.org?format=json")
    r.raise_for_status()
    print(r.json()["ip"])

The async client takes the same argument:

import asyncio
import httpx

PROXY = "http://login-country-us:password@proxy.example.invalid:8080"

async def main():
    async with httpx.AsyncClient(proxy=PROXY, timeout=30) as client:
        r = await client.get("https://api64.ipify.org?format=json")
        r.raise_for_status()
        print(r.json()["ip"])

asyncio.run(main())

An httpx client also keeps connections open, so with rotation the requests of one client may leave from one address. SOCKS5 in httpx needs the extra httpx[socks] package, and without it the client stops with an ImportError; in this article, SOCKS5 is shown with requests.

Playwright: a proxy with a username and password

You need the package and the browser: pip install playwright and playwright install chromium.

from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright

PROXY = {
    "server": "http://proxy.example.invalid:8080",
    "username": "login-country-us-sid-k7m2q9x4ab",
    "password": "password",
}

with sync_playwright() as p:
    browser = p.chromium.launch(proxy=PROXY)
    try:
        page = browser.new_page()
        page.goto("https://api64.ipify.org?format=json", timeout=60000)
        print(page.inner_text("body"))
    finally:
        browser.close()

• The fields. The username and password go in separate username and password fields, and server holds only the scheme, host and port.
• A sticky session. A browser opens several connections even for one page, and with rotation they could leave from different addresses. That is why the example uses a string with -sid-.

If different tasks need different addresses, set the proxy per context: each context has its own cookies and its own proxy. In the example below, one context exits in the US and the other in Germany:

from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright

LOGINS = ["login-country-us-sid-k7m2q9x4ab", "login-country-de-sid-p3w8n1c5zd"]

with sync_playwright() as p:
    browser = p.chromium.launch()
    try:
        for login in LOGINS:
            context = browser.new_context(proxy={
                "server": "http://proxy.example.invalid:8080",
                "username": login,
                "password": "password",
            })
            page = context.new_page()
            page.goto("https://api64.ipify.org?format=json", timeout=60000)
            print(login, page.inner_text("body"))
            context.close()
    finally:
        browser.close()

Why not SOCKS5

Chromium through Playwright does not work with SOCKS5 that requires a username and password. A launch with "server": "socks5://proxy.example.invalid:1080" and the username and password fields stops with Browser does not support socks5 proxy authentication. If you put the credentials inside the socks5:// address instead, the launch succeeds, but the browser does not send them: it offers the proxy only a connection without a login, a proxy that requires one refuses it, and page.goto fails with net::ERR_SOCKS_CONNECTION_FAILED. So use HTTP in Playwright, which is port 8080. We have not tested Firefox or WebKit.

Errors and what they mean

The error number in Connection refused depends on the system: [Errno 61] on macOS, [Errno 111] on Linux.

If Playwright runs into a timeout, test the same string in requests or curl, where a wrong username or password shows up as a 407. curl’s errors are covered in curl with a proxy.

A proxy does not change a site’s rules. Follow its terms and robots.txt, limit how often you send requests, and do not answer a refusal by changing the IP: see the web scraping proxy guide.

How the examples were run

The examples were run on November 5, 2026 on macOS in Python 3.11 with requests 2.33.1, PySocks 1.7.1, httpx 0.28.1 and Playwright 1.58.0 for Python, through local test HTTP and SOCKS5 proxies with a username and password and a local site, not through the Proxeta gateway. We repeated both Playwright SOCKS5 checks in Playwright 1.62.1 for Node.js with Chromium 151. For the test, the browser was allowed to trust the local site’s certificate. That checks the syntax and how the libraries behave, but not exit IPs or the real network.