Proxy List: What It Is, Common Formats and Where to Get One

“Proxy list” means two different things. Some people look for a ready-made public list of free addresses. Others want a file with their own paid proxies to load into an antidetect browser, a scraper or a script. Let us cover both.

What a proxy list is

It is a plain text file. Each line is one connection: server address, port and, if required, a username and password. The app reads the file and spreads the lines across threads, profiles or accounts.

Public lists

Sites with free proxy lists collect open servers from across the internet. Thousands of people use those addresses at once, so most of them do not respond or are already blocked. More importantly, you do not know who owns the server, and the owner can see your unencrypted traffic. The risks are covered in the article on free proxies.

Line formats

• user:pass@host:port — accepted by most antidetect browsers and libraries;
• host:port:user:pass — common in scrapers and automation tools;
• protocol://user:pass@host:port — the full line for scripts and the command line.

How to build your own list

1. create a plan of the type you need in the dashboard;
2. in the generator pick the country, a city if needed, the protocol (HTTP or SOCKS5) and the IP mode;
3. set the number of lines and the format;
4. copy the list or download it as a file — TXT, CSV or JSON.

A step-by-step walkthrough with screenshots is in the help article Proxy generator.

Rotating or sticky addresses in a list

In rotation mode every line points to the same port and the address changes on each request — one line is enough for data collection. In sticky mode each line has its own port and keeps its address for 1 to 120 minutes: ten lines are ten different addresses for ten profiles.

How to test a list

Paste a few lines into the proxy checker: it shows whether the address responds and which country the site sees. If a line fails, the cause is most likely the format or the protocol.

Why a paid list is more reliable

How to convert a list from one format to another

Sometimes you already have the strings, but the program expects a different field order. There is no need to rewrite hundreds of lines by hand: paste them into the format converter and choose the layout you need. It understands all the common variants and sends nothing anywhere - the conversion happens right in your browser.

The easiest way is to avoid conversion in advance: in the dashboard generator, pick the format your program accepts from the start.

A list without a login and password

Some programs cannot pass a login and password. For them there is access by IP: add up to 5 of your own addresses to the IP whitelist in the plan settings, and from those addresses the proxy works without authorization. Then "host:port" strings are enough for the list - the generator has a separate format for this.

You can find your address for the whitelist on the My IP page. If your internet provider changes your address, access by IP will keep dropping - in that case a login and password are more reliable.

The addresses in your list are available only with your username and password, and traffic is billed per GB with no expiry. Prokso has residential, mobile and datacenter proxies in one dashboard, and a list for any task takes a minute to build.