ProtocolsBeginner
HTTP Proxy
An intermediary server that forwards web (HTTP/HTTPS) requests on your behalf, able to read, cache, and filter traffic at the application layer.
Full Definition
An HTTP proxy is a proxy server that specifically speaks the HTTP protocol. It can read, log, cache, and modify HTTP traffic since it operates at the application layer. For HTTPS connections, an HTTP proxy typically uses the CONNECT method to create an encrypted tunnel to the destination, so it can no longer read the content (only the destination hostname). HTTP proxies are easy to configure in most browsers and HTTP libraries, and support authentication via proxy headers. They are the most common proxy type used in scraping libraries like Python's requests or httpx.
