Web scraping without proxies exposes your real IP address to the target sites. This can quickly lead to IP blocks, captchas and scraping failures. Proxies are essential to scale web scraping successfully while avoiding detection.
WebHarvy is a popular Windows web scraper that works great with residential proxies. This comprehensive guide covers integrating top proxy brands like BrightData, Smartproxy, Proxy Seller and Soax into WebHarvy.
Risks of Scraping Without Proxies
Scraping sites directly can cause numerous problems:
- IP Blocks – Sites easily detect and block your real IP if you scrape excessively. This leads to scraping failures.
- Captchas – After a few requests, sites will present CAPTCHA challenges to detect bots. Proxies help avoid captchas.
- Rate Limiting – Many sites limit anonymous traffic to a certain requests per minute. Proxies provide additional IP addresses to scale past rate limits.
- Poor Results – Direct scraping fails to mimic human browsing patterns. Sites may serve bot-deterrent content.
Residential proxies simulate real users browsing from home connections. Using proxies with WebHarvy is a must for successful large-scale scraping.
This guide covers integrating leading proxy providers like BrightData, Smartproxy, Proxy Seller and Soax into WebHarvy on Windows. With the correct setup, you can leverage proxies to scrape sites undetected.
Prerequisites
Before starting, make sure you have:
- WebHarvy installed on Windows
- A proxy account with BrightData, Smartproxy, Proxy Seller or Soax
- Understanding of WebHarvy basics like creating a scraping job
Configuring Proxies in WebHarvy
Enabling and configuring proxies in WebHarvy is simple:
Open WebHarvy and go to Settings > Proxy Settings
Check the “Enable network connection via Proxy Server” option
Select the proxy protocol – HTTP, SOCKS4, SOCKS5
Enter your proxy provider credentials:
- Address: Hostname of the proxy server
- Port: Port number of the proxy
- Username: Your proxy username
- Password: Your proxy password
Click the “+” icon to add the proxy credentials
Click “Apply” to save the proxy configuration
Test connectivity by inspecting network requests in the browser. Ensure all traffic routes through your proxies.
Setting up Different Proxy Providers
WebHarvy works well with all major proxy brands. Here are examples for the top providers:
BrightData
Address: proxy.brightdata.com
Port: 8080
Username: bdf93j2k3
Password: px329dkPC
Protocol: HTTP
Smartproxy
Address: us.smartproxy.com
Port: 10000
Username: sp93j2k3
Password: px329dkPC
Protocol: SOCKS5
Proxy Seller
Address: proxy-seller.com
Port: 30001
Username: ps93j2k3
Password: px329dkPC
Protocol: SOCKS4
Soax
Address: soax.com
Port: 2080
Username: soax93j2k3
Password: px329dkPC
Protocol: HTTP
You can add multiple proxies to WebHarvy's configuration for additional IP rotation.
Advanced Proxy Techniques
Rotating Proxies
To maximize IP usage, rotate your proxies with each request:
// Load proxy list
const proxies = ['proxy1', 'proxy2', 'proxy3']
// Rotate proxy randomly
const proxy = proxies[Math.floor(Math.random() * proxies.length)]
// New request uses different proxy
request(url, {proxy})Integrate a proxy API to dynamically generate the proxies list.
Debugging Proxies
Inspect browser network logs and WebHarvy logs to troubleshoot proxies:
[DEBUG] Proxy 103.234.244.234:30678 error: Connection refused [INFO] Rotating proxy for retry...
Check for connection issues, authentication failures, timeouts, bans etc.
Custom Proxy Chains
Chain multiple proxies together for added anonymity:
proxyChain = ['proxy1', 'proxy2', 'proxy3']
WebHarvy will route each request through the chained proxies.
Troubleshooting Common Proxy Issues
| Problem | Solution |
|---|---|
| Authentication error | Double check username and password credentials |
| Connection refused | Verify proxy hostname and port |
| SOCKS protocol error | Try switching to HTTP or SOCKS5 proxies |
| Captchas | Reduce scraping frequency and improve proxy rotation |
| Bans | Contact your provider for new IP allocation |
| High latency | Reduce distance between proxy servers and your target sites |
Be sure to closely monitor your proxies for any usage spikes, blocks or errors. Quickly rotate IPs and avoid potential bans.
Scraping Sites Anonymously
Once configured, proxies allow you to scrape sites with WebHarvy undetected:
- Set up proxies as shown above
- Start new WebHarvy scraping job
- Navigate to target site
- Highlight and select elements to extract
- Name data fields appropriately
- Stop selecting and click “Start Scraping”
- Export extracted data as CSV, Excel etc.
WebHarvy will route all traffic through your proxies, avoiding blocks and captchas. Monitor utilization to optimize performance.
Conclusion
This guide covered integrating top residential proxy providers with WebHarvy scraper on Windows. With the correct credentials and setup, you can leverage thousands of IPs to scrape data undetected at scale. Proxies are crucial for successful large-scale web scraping.
