FoxyProxy Setup Guide: HTTP, SOCKS5, and the Rule Engine

FoxyProxy moves the proxy out of the browser settings and into one icon. You add your proxies once, then switch between them, or let rules decide which site goes through which one. The switching is the easy half. The rules are where setups fail, and they are the reason most guides leave you with a proxy that routes nothing.

This is the FoxyProxy companion to our general Chrome proxy setup guide. Everything dated below was read or measured on September 16 or October 22, 2026.

What you need before you start

• The extension, from the official listing. Standard holds the pattern engine, Basic does not.
• A proxy as a type, an address, a port, and a login if it needs one.
• Your browser decided. The steps look alike, and the limits underneath do not match.
• Something to test with. Entries from our free proxy list work, but read the check below first.

Step 1: install the real listing

The extension works with any proxy you bring. FoxyProxy also sells its own proxy and VPN service, which this guide does not cover. On October 22, 2026, the Firefox listing carried version 9.8, updated on September 14, 2026, with 222,095 daily users, and the Chrome Web Store listing carried version 9.7 with 600,000 users. It asks to control browser proxy settings, to access your tabs, and to read and change your download history.

The original Proxy SwitchyOmega still lists 11,897 daily users on Firefox, although its last update dates from January 28, 2018. Our SwitchyOmega guide covers its maintained fork.

Those permissions are what the job needs. A switcher has to see every address you open to decide how to route it. That also makes the name a target. In December 2024 attackers put data stealing code into a set of Chrome extensions after a phishing attack on a store account (BleepingComputer). The table Sekoia published for that campaign lists Proxy SwitchyOmega (V3), a rival switcher, with its own attacker domain (Sekoia).

So check the developer before you click Add. Install from the FoxyProxy listing itself, and skip copies that borrow the name.

Step 2: add the proxy

Click the icon and choose Options, open the Proxies tab and press Add. FoxyProxy 9 names its fields this way in its own source code:

• Title: your own label, such as Scraper 1. The badge on the toolbar icon shows it while that proxy is active.
• Type: HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS4 or SOCKS5. The list also holds QUIC, PAC and DIRECT.
• Hostname: the address your provider issued.
• Port: the number that belongs to that address, in its own field.
• Username and Password: only for a proxy that asks for them.

Use the type your provider issued. HTTP and HTTPS entries are built for web traffic. A SOCKS5 proxy carries any TCP connection and resolves names at the proxy. Picking the wrong type is the most common reason a working proxy returns an error.

Step 3: switch it on

Click the icon again. The menu lists every proxy you saved, next to two modes:

• One proxy: pick it, and every tab goes through that entry.
• Proxy by Patterns: your patterns decide, site by site. The option shows up once a proxy has at least one pattern.
• Disable: back to a direct connection.

The badge on the icon tells you which one is live: the proxy's title in its color, a no-entry sign for Disable, and an empty badge for Proxy by Patterns.

Step 4: patterns, the part that decides everything

A pattern says which URLs a proxy should take. Each one is an Include or an Exclude, and an Exclude wins when both match the same address. FoxyProxy 9 tests the whole address, scheme and path included, and ignores upper and lower case. It offers three pattern types, and they behave differently:

• Wildcard: an asterisk stands for any run of characters and a question mark for one. FoxyProxy drops an asterisk at either end and adds no anchors, so the pattern can match anywhere in the address.
• Match: the browser's own match pattern, written as scheme, host and path. It has to fit the whole address, and *://*.example.com/* covers example.com and every subdomain.
• Reg Exp: a regular expression, used exactly as you write it, with no anchors added.

Those rules decide everything, so we ran them. We did not install the extension. We wrote the three conversions from FoxyProxy's own source code on October 22, 2026, and tested the same addresses against each.

Read the first row again. A pattern that loose also routes a lookalike domain through your proxy. Because a Wildcard can match anywhere, it also caught a Google search for example.com in our test. The second row is the shape most guides hand out, and as a Wildcard it drops the bare domain. Typed as a Match pattern, the same text does what people mean by "this site". So does the regular expression in the last row.

The vendor's own example works the same way. As a Wildcard, *.yahoo.com/* matches www.yahoo.com/news, mail.yahoo.com/inbox/123.html and the mail.yahoo.com home page. It misses the bare yahoo.com, which has no label in front.

Two more rules are worth knowing. The Global Exclude list in the options keeps the hosts on it off every proxy, for example local addresses. If two proxies claim the same site, the one higher in the list takes it. Remove the overlap rather than trusting the order.

Using FoxyProxy with residential proxies

FoxyProxy is a common way to put a residential proxy into a browser for one task, such as checking a listing from another country or working an account from its home market. Four details decide whether it works and what it costs.

• Use the HTTP entry in Chrome. Residential gateways ask for a username and a password, and Chrome supports no login on SOCKS5, so the HTTP or HTTPS entry is the one that works there. Firefox accepts both.
• Give each session its own entry. A residential line usually carries its location and its session. Generate one line per country or sticky session, and save each as its own FoxyProxy entry with a clear title, so moving an account to another session is a deliberate click.
• Let patterns save traffic. Residential traffic is billed per GB. Route only the sites you need through the residential entry and leave the rest of your browsing direct, which keeps video and updates off the meter.
• Keep accounts on a sticky session. Many sites tie a login to its address. Use a sticky session for accounts, and a rotating one for one-off page checks; sticky vs rotating sessions explains the trade.

Which host and port does HProxy use in FoxyProxy?

Our dashboard generator writes each residential line as a host, a port, a username and a password, the four fields FoxyProxy asks for. The hostname and the port depend on the pool and the session:

Set Type to match the port, and put the login from your dashboard into Username and Password. This guide writes it as YOUR-LOGIN and YOUR-PASSWORD. The country, the city and the session ride inside that login, which is why each generated line gets its own entry. In Chrome, that means the HTTP port. Premium can also allowlist up to 150 of your own IP addresses. From an allowlisted address, a SOCKS5 entry works in Chrome with no login, though it then rotates through any country, since the targeting lives in the login.

Residential Lite targets countries and costs $0.50/GB for one GB, falling to $0.44/GB at 2,000 GB+. Premium costs $1.49/GB for one GB. It adds state, city, ASN and device targeting, with sticky sessions from 3 minutes to 24 hours.

What the browser will not do

Three limits sit below the extension, and no setting inside it moves them.

A SOCKS5 proxy with a login cannot work in Chrome. The Chromium documentation states that no authentication methods are supported for SOCKSv5 in Chrome, although the protocol has them. Put such an entry in a terminal tool, or use HTTP, HTTPS, or a proxy that authenticates by address.

The login box belongs to the browser. The Chrome extension API for proxies carries modes and servers and says nothing about credentials. The vendor walkthrough for Chrome says plainly that Chrome asks for the user name and password when it connects.

Firefox and Chrome are not the same product here. Mozilla states that the Chrome API of the same name is completely different from the Firefox one. On Firefox the extension can answer request by request. On Chrome it sets a configuration. Steps from one browser do not carry over to the other.

Check that it worked

The icon changing color proves nothing. Open our free proxy checker and confirm that the address, the country and the network belong to the proxy.

We measured the same path on September 16, 2026, through the browser proxy setting the extension writes to. Five entries from our free list went through Chrome. The SOCKS5 entry carried the request and exited in France in 537 milliseconds. Two of the four HTTP entries failed at once, one waited 25 seconds and gave up, and one worked from the Netherlands in 135 milliseconds.

Three of five entries dead is an ordinary result for a public list. When every page has to load rather than most of them, use a paid proxy that stays up.

When it does not work

• ERR_PROXY_CONNECTION_FAILED. Nothing answered at that address and port. Our guide to this error in Chrome walks through the causes.
• ERR_TUNNEL_CONNECTION_FAILED. The proxy answered and then refused to open the connection.
• The login box keeps returning. The stored credentials are wrong, or the entry is SOCKS5 with a login in Chrome.
• Patterns set, nothing routed. The toolbar is on all URLs or off, so the rules never run.
• Browser settings will not change. While a proxy is active, the extension owns that setting.

Turning it off again

Switch the toolbar to off, and the browser goes direct again. Remove entries you no longer use, because a forgotten pattern keeps sending one site somewhere you stopped watching. If you are still deciding what to buy, our answers on proxy types and billing are the short version.