PiratProxies

Automation and testing

How to use a proxy with Insomnia

Insomnia is a desktop client for REST and GraphQL APIs. Its preferences take one proxy address for http and one for https.

Which proxy to use

Any plan with the country you need.

What to enter

A PiratProxies plan gives you four things: a host, a port, a username and a password. These are the values for Residential; the username and password are on your plan page.

Hostresi.piratproxies.com
HTTP port8080
SOCKS5 port1080
UsernameUSERNAME
Passwordfrom your plan page

As one address:

http://USERNAME:PASSWORD@resi.piratproxies.com:8080

The country and the session are chosen in the username, not in a separate setting. The generator on your plan page writes the username for you, and Targeting and sessions explains each part.

Steps

  1. Open Preferences and find the proxy settings.
  2. Enable the proxy and put http://USERNAME:PASSWORD@resi.piratproxies.com:8080 in both the HTTP and HTTPS proxy fields.
  3. Send a request to https://api.ipify.org to check the address.

Menu names can differ a little between versions of Insomnia. The four values to enter are always the same.

Rotating or sticky

If Insomnia is acting as one visitor through several steps, use a sticky session so the IP address stays the same throughout. If each run is independent, leave the session out and every run starts from a new address.

A sticky username looks like this:

USERNAME-country-us-time-600-session-a1b2c3d4

If it does not work

  • Both fields take the same address. The https field decides which proxy is used for https sites; it does not mean the proxy itself is https.
  • A 407 error means the username or password was not accepted. Copy both again from your plan page, and check that nothing added a space or cut the username short.
  • If the IP address is in the wrong country, look at the username: the country code is part of it. More fixes.

Questions

Which PiratProxies proxy should I use with Insomnia?

Any plan with the country you need.

Insomnia is a product of its own makers. PiratProxies is not affiliated with it; the name is used here only to say what this guide is about. Use it within the rules of the sites you work with and our acceptable use policy.