HTTP vs SOCKS5 Proxies: Which Port to Use

HTTP: the one almost everything supports

An HTTP proxy understands web requests. For https sites it opens a tunnel and passes the encrypted traffic through untouched, so it carries both http and https. Nearly every tool can use one, and nearly every tool can send a username and password to it.

HTTP

curl -x http://USERNAME:PASSWORD@resi.piratproxies.com:8080 https://api.ipify.org

SOCKS5: any kind of connection

A SOCKS5 proxy passes along any connection without looking inside it. It is the choice for programs that are not web clients, such as messaging apps, and for proxy managers that capture all of a device's traffic.

SOCKS5

curl -x socks5h://USERNAME:PASSWORD@resi.piratproxies.com:1080 https://api.ipify.org

The catch with browsers

Chrome, and every tool that drives Chrome, cannot log in to a SOCKS5 proxy. Puppeteer, Playwright with Chromium, and Selenium with Chrome all share this limit. With those, use the HTTP port. Antidetect browsers and proxy managers add the SOCKS5 login themselves, so both ports work there.

Which port to use

• Scraping libraries and browsers: HTTP.
• Antidetect browsers: either. Use HTTP unless you have a reason not to.
• Telegram, Proxifier, Shadowrocket and similar apps: SOCKS5.
• If one fails, try the other before anything else. A wrong pairing of type and port is the most common mistake.

About DNS

With SOCKS5 there is a choice of who looks up the site's name: your computer or the proxy. Let the proxy do it. In curl that is socks5h instead of socks5; in other tools it is called remote DNS or proxy DNS.

Questions