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

You have a couple of proxies and you keep flipping between them: one for scraping, one for a client's staging environment, and a normal connection for everything else. Doing that through Chrome's built-in settings means opening a menu, editing the same fields, and breaking your flow every single time. FoxyProxy moves all of it into one icon in your toolbar, plus a set of rules that decide which sites go through which proxy and which stay direct. This is the FoxyProxy specific companion to our general Chrome proxy setup guide. Here you will install the extension, add an HTTP or SOCKS5 proxy, switch it from the toolbar, and build the URL patterns that most walkthroughs skip.

How do you set up FoxyProxy?

Install the FoxyProxy extension from the Chrome Web Store or Firefox Add-ons, open its Options page, and click Add. Pick your proxy type (HTTP or SOCKS5), enter the host, port, and any username and password, then Save. Switch it on from the toolbar icon, either for every site or by URL pattern.

Install the genuine FoxyProxy first

FoxyProxy ships as a browser extension, not a proxy service, so it does not come with any proxies of its own. You bring those. Install it from the Chrome Web Store if you run Chrome, Edge, or another Chromium browser, or from Firefox Add-ons if you run Firefox.

Two versions exist. FoxyProxy Standard is the full tool with the URL pattern engine and room for as many proxies as you want. FoxyProxy Basic is a lighter switcher without patterns. Pick Standard, since the routing rules later in this guide need it.

One thing to check before you click Add: any proxy switcher routes all of your browser traffic, which means it can see every site you open. That is how it works, not a flaw, but it is also why lookalike copies are dangerous. Confirm the developer is FoxyProxy (getfoxyproxy.org) and that you are on the listing with millions of users, not a clone riding on the name.

Add an HTTP or SOCKS5 proxy in FoxyProxy

Click the fox icon in your toolbar and choose Options. On the options page, click Add (older builds label this Add New Proxy). You get a form with these fields:

• Title: a label for your own reference, like Residential US or Scraper 1. Optional, but worth filling in once you run more than one proxy.
• Proxy Type: choose HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5, or SOCKS4 from the dropdown. Some older builds show a SOCKS checkbox instead of a dropdown.
• Host or IP address: the proxy hostname or IP your provider gave you, for example gate.example-proxies.com or 203.0.113.10.
• Port: the port number that pairs with that host.
• Username and Password: fill these in if your proxy needs authentication. Leave them blank for IP authenticated proxies.

Click Save. The proxy now sits in your list, ready to switch on.

HTTP or SOCKS5? Use whichever type your provider issued. HTTP and HTTPS proxies are built for web traffic and cover normal browsing. SOCKS5 carries any TCP connection and, in the browser, sends your DNS lookups through the proxy instead of your local resolver, which stops your real location leaking through DNS (more on that in our SOCKS5 explainer). If your provider lists both against the same host and port, SOCKS5 is the safer default. Picking the wrong type is the most common reason a proxy that should work returns a connection error.

No proxy to test with yet? Grab one from our free proxy list, and drop its IP, port, and type into the fields above.

Switch proxies from the toolbar

Click the fox icon and you will see your proxies plus a few modes:

• Use proxy [name] for all URLs: everything in the browser goes through that one proxy. This is the quickest way to route a whole session.
• Use enabled proxies by patterns and order: FoxyProxy checks each site you visit against your URL patterns and only proxies the ones that match. Older versions word this as Use proxies based on their pre-defined patterns and priorities. This mode is what makes the extension worth using, and it is covered next.
• Turn Off (or Disable FoxyProxy): drops back to a direct connection with no proxy at all.

The icon changes to reflect the active mode, so you can tell at a glance whether you are proxied or direct.

FoxyProxy URL patterns: the part most guides skip

Routing every request through a proxy is fine for a quick task, but it is slow and wasteful when you only need the proxy for one or two sites. Patterns fix that. A pattern is a rule that says which URLs a given proxy should handle, so you can send example.com through your proxy while your email, banking, and everything else stay on your normal connection.

Open a proxy from your list and find its Patterns section (older builds call this the URL Patterns tab). Add a pattern and set three things: the pattern text, whether it is a wildcard or a regular expression, and whether it is a whitelist (include) or blacklist (exclude) rule.

Wildcard patterns are the easy option and cover most needs. An asterisk matches any run of characters and a question mark matches a single character:

• *.example.com/* routes every page on example.com and its subdomains.
• *google.com* matches anything with google.com in the URL.
• * matches everything, which is the default catch all.

Regex patterns give you exact control when wildcards are too blunt. FoxyProxy uses JavaScript regular expressions, and one detail trips people up: do not wrap the expression in forward slashes. Write ^https?://([a-z0-9-]+\.)*example\.com/.*$, not /^https?...$/.

Whitelist versus blacklist: a whitelist pattern sends matching URLs through the proxy, and a blacklist pattern keeps matching URLs off it. If a URL matches both a whitelist and a blacklist rule on the same proxy, the blacklist wins and the URL loads direct. A common setup is one whitelist entry for the sites you want proxied, with pattern mode selected from the toolbar so everything else stays on your normal connection.

Order matters too. The pattern mode is called "patterns and order" for a reason: FoxyProxy reads your proxies in the order they appear and uses the first one whose pattern matches. If two proxies both claim the same site, move the more specific one higher so it takes precedence.

Common gotchas

A few things catch people out beyond picking the wrong proxy type:

• Credentials and the login popup: if Chrome keeps showing its own username and password box, FoxyProxy either has no stored credentials for that proxy or the wrong ones. Open the proxy entry, retype the Username and Password exactly as your provider listed them, and save. The native prompt stops once the stored values match.
• Patterns set but nothing routing: patterns only apply in pattern mode. If you left the toolbar on all URLs or Off, your rules are ignored. Switch to the patterns mode described above.
• Only install the real extension: this bears repeating, because a proxy switcher can read every address you visit. Stick to the official FoxyProxy listing and skip anything that borrows the name.
• FoxyProxy overrides the system proxy: while a proxy is active, the extension controls Chrome's proxy settings, so changes you make in Chrome's own network settings will not take effect. Turn FoxyProxy off to hand control back.

If a proxy still refuses to connect after all of this, the fault is usually on the proxy side rather than the extension. Our guide to fixing ERR_PROXY_CONNECTION_FAILED in Chrome walks through the causes.

Test that it actually works

Never trust a proxy just because the icon changed color. After you switch it on, open our proxy checker and confirm the IP and location it reports belong to the proxy, not your home connection. If the checker still shows your real IP, the proxy is not carrying your traffic: recheck the type, the host and port, and that you are in the right toolbar mode.

Once the checker shows the proxy's IP, you are set. Add more proxies to the list, give each a clear title, and let patterns route each site to the right one.