Datacenter proxies with Playwright

Playwright takes the proxy as a launch option. This page uses Python and the datacenter tier: a US datacenter IP that changes for every new connection.

What you need

• Your proxy API key, from the Proxies page in the portal.
• pip install playwright, then playwright install chromium.

export PB_PROXY_KEY="YOUR_KEY"

Launch a browser through the proxy

import os
from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright

with sync_playwright() as p:
    browser = p.chromium.launch(
        proxy={
            "server": "http://proxy.privatebyte.com:3128",
            "username": os.environ["PB_PROXY_KEY"],
            "password": "datacenter",
        }
    )
    page = browser.new_page()
    page.goto("https://api.ipify.org")
    print(page.inner_text("body"))  # a US datacenter address
    browser.close()

Playwright sends the credentials for you, so there is no extra authentication step.

Get a new IP

A browser keeps its connections open. Every page in the same context leaves from the same address. Open a new context to get a new one:

for _ in range(3):
    context = browser.new_context()
    page = context.new_page()
    page.goto("https://api.ipify.org")
    print(page.inner_text("body"))
    context.close()

One page, several navigations: same IP. A new context for each visit: a new IP each time. Use the first when a site should see one steady visitor, and the second when each visit should look separate.

Know the limits

• The datacenter tier is US only and has no sessions. A site that checks the reputation of an address may block it. If you see 403 or a challenge page, use a residential tier such as standard.
• A new IP does not clear cookies or storage. A new context does, which is part of why it works well here.

Errors

What you see	What it means
ERR_TUNNEL_CONNECTION_FAILED with a 407	The API key is wrong or missing.
ERR_TUNNEL_CONNECTION_FAILED with a 400	The password asked for something this tier does not do: a country other than US, a session or a TTL.
A page returns 403	The site is refusing datacenter addresses.
A 400 that names an unknown tier	The tier word is a close misspelling of a real tier, such as datacentre. Fix the spelling. A password that is not close to any tier, such as x, uses your account's default tier.

Related

• Datacenter proxies with Puppeteer
• Proxy connection format and tiers
• Datacenter proxies