How to use proxies with Selenium in Python

• An active CleanProxies plan: static ISP proxies for fixed US IPs, or rotating residential / mobile proxies for pools. The trial works too.
• Your credential line from the dashboard's proxy manager: host (or IP), port, username and password.
• Python 3.9+ and pip install selenium (Selenium Manager fetches the driver).
• Chrome, Chromium or Chrome for Testing.

New to proxies? For the overview, read Proxies with Python Requests, Playwright and Puppeteer. This guide goes deeper on Selenium only.

Most tools want the same details as a URL: http://USERNAME:PASSWORD@HOST:PORT for HTTP(S) or socks5://USERNAME:PASSWORD@HOST:PORT for SOCKS5. The examples on this page use those placeholders; copy the host, port, username and password from your CleanProxies dashboard. To convert a whole list at once, paste it into the proxy list formatter.

1. 1

   Choose an auth method

   IP whitelisting is simplest for ISP proxies on a fixed server; the extension works with username and password on any product.
2. 2

   Set the proxy

   Add --proxy-server=http://HOST:PORT (whitelisting) or load the extension, which sets the proxy itself.
3. 3

   Start the driver

   Create webdriver.Chrome(options=options).
4. 4

   Check the exit IP

   Open https://api.ipify.org and print driver.find_element("tag name", "body").text.

In the CleanProxies dashboard, authorize the public IP of the machine that runs Selenium for your ISP proxies. The line becomes IP:PORT, and Chrome connects without a login prompt. SOCKS5 works here too, because no authentication is involved.

from selenium import webdriver

options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.add_argument("--proxy-server=http://IP:PORT")  # or socks5://IP:PORT

driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options)
driver.get("https://api.ipify.org")
print("Exit IP:", driver.find_element("tag name", "body").text)
driver.quit()

A tiny extension sets the proxy with chrome.proxy and answers the proxy's 407 challenge with webRequest.onAuthRequired. Save these two files in a folder such as proxy_auth/.

{
  "manifest_version": 3,
  "name": "CleanProxies auth",
  "version": "1.0",
  "permissions": ["proxy", "webRequest", "webRequestAuthProvider"],
  "host_permissions": ["<all_urls>"],
  "background": { "service_worker": "background.js" }
}

chrome.proxy.settings.set({
  value: {
    mode: "fixed_servers",
    rules: {
      singleProxy: { scheme: "http", host: "HOST", port: PORT },
      bypassList: ["localhost", "127.0.0.1"],
    },
  },
  scope: "regular",
});

chrome.webRequest.onAuthRequired.addListener(
  (details, callback) => {
    if (!details.isProxy) return callback({});
    callback({ authCredentials: { username: "USERNAME", password: "PASSWORD" } });
  },
  { urls: ["<all_urls>"] },
  ["asyncBlocking"],
);

import os
from selenium import webdriver

options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.add_argument(f"--load-extension={os.path.abspath('proxy_auth')}")

driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options)
driver.get("https://api.ipify.org")
print(driver.find_element("tag name", "body").text)

Branded Google Chrome 137 and later ignore --load-extension; it still works in Chromium and Chrome for Testing. On branded Chrome, recent Selenium releases can install the folder at runtime instead: set options.enable_webextensions = True and call driver.webextension.install(path="proxy_auth") before the first navigation.

• Selenium's WebDriver BiDi API adds driver.network.add_auth_handler("USERNAME", "PASSWORD") after you set options.enable_bidi = True. It answers HTTP authentication challenges; combine it with --proxy-server=http://HOST:PORT and test it with your Chrome version before relying on it for proxy logins.
• selenium-wire (seleniumwire_options={"proxy": {...}}) is archived and unmaintained since January 2024, with its last release in 2022. It may still run in old projects, but don't build anything new on it.
• Firefox has the same limitation: proxy preferences take host and port, not credentials. The extension approach (as a Firefox add-on) or IP whitelisting apply there too.

Each example prints the exit IP. If you see your own IP, the proxy wasn't applied: on branded Chrome 137+, check that the extension was actually installed.

Open What is my IP? through the proxy to see the address and headers a website receives, or paste up to ten lines into the free proxy checker to test connectivity, latency and exit IP before you start.

Still stuck? Our 24/7 support team answers fast: contact us with the error and the line you used (leave the password out).