Are looking for an easy way to switch between proxies in your browser? This video is part of
our series called “Proxy setup”, so if want to find the best way to configure your proxies,
watch the whole playlist linked in the description.
In this video, we’ll talk about Proxy SwitchyOmega – what it is, how it works, and how to configure
proxies with it. Feel free to skip around using timestamps added in the description.
First of all, let me introduce
to you what SwitchyOmega is.
SwitchyOmega is a free browser extension that works as a proxy management tool.
It’s not hard to set up a proxy server in your browser. However, if you’ve tried it, you know
that it takes quite a few clicks to get the job done. If you haven’t, take a look at this tutorial
we made on our channel. Now, just think about what it would be like going back and forth between these
settings to set up several different proxies, one after another. Sounds a bit tedious, doesn't it?
To save us from the drudgery, we have proxy management tools like SwitchyOmega.
With this extension, you’ll be using a convenient UI that allows setting up
and disabling proxies in just a few clicks.
SwitchyOmega works both on Google Chrome & Firefox. However, the Google Chrome
extension is better maintained than the experimental version for Firefox.
A great feature of SwitchyOmega on Chrome is that it lets you use a proxy server without affecting
the global settings on the operating system level. Furthermore, you can set up separate
proxy profiles for different URLs and have them run automatically each time you visit the website.
So keep in mind that if you choose to set up your proxies manually, like we show in this tutorial,
they'll affect not only your web browser but all connections leaving your computer.
No matter how convenient & free of
charge Switchyomega is, sometimes it’s not enough.
If you expect that SwitchyOmega will help you access geo-restricted content or provide anonymity
and privacy by itself – this won't happen. That is, unless you power it with proxies. If you don't
know where to get them, don’t worry, we got you covered. Visit our website using the link in the
description & you’ll find the best proxy lists. Every year we conduct a comprehensive market
research & test IPs from the major proxy providers. So, our recommendations are based on actual data.
Ok, if you’ve decided to give SwitchyOmega a try, here’s a tutorial for configuring a proxy server
with it on Chrome. The setup process for Firefox is very similar, so feel free to follow along.
First, download the extension & press “Add extension”
Then, find the SwitchyOmega icon in the extension bar at the top right corner.
Click on it and choose options.
Navigate to the PROFILES tab and click on New profile.
Here you’ll be asked to enter a Profile name and choose its type.
For most purposes, you’ll probably be using either Proxy Profile or Switch Profile. The
first one will allow you to tunnel traffic through proxy servers. The second one will
let you automatically switch between proxies based on various conditions you create.
Let’s create a proxy profile. From the drop-down box under
Protocol pick whichever protocol you'll be using. The most common option is HTTPS.
Then enter your Server's IP address or DNS hostname and Port.
That’s it! You’ve created a profile that should appear on the left.
If you have your Proxy Profile ready,
now you can create a Switch Profile.
To do that, click the New Profile button in the left bar.
Now, name your profile to distinguish it from others and choose the Switch Profile type.
To configure this profile, you first have to understand how condition types work.
If you are already familiar with them, just skip to this timestamp.
Host Wildcard
This condition will allow you to match SwitchyOmega with all URLs in a domain.
A wildcard is a symbol used to replace or represent one or more characters.
The symbols you'll be using in this extension are asterisk * and question mark ?.
The asterisk * is used to match zero or more characters.
It can work in several ways. For example, if you type in the
following *.proxyway.com it will match both www.proxyway.com and proxyway.com.
If you want to only match subdomains, use two asterisks: **.proxyway.com
The question mark ? matches exactly one character. For example,
the following configuration: *.proxyway.???* has these possible
matches: www.proxyway.com, proxyway.com, www.proxyway.net, and proxyway.net.
URL Wildcard It also matches
URLs of the request by a wildcard, however, it does not match subdomains.
For example: *://*.proxyway.com/* matches http://www.proxyway.com/
but does not match http://proxyway.com/.
Keep in mind that since the Chrome 52 version was released, it's impossible to
match URLs for https:// . For more information we added a link in the description box below.
URL Regex
This condition allows you to match URLs by a regular expression.
They may be hard to construct for beginners, so we advise using wildcards instead.
If you need to temporarily disable a condition, pick (Disabled).
Uhhh, am I the only one who thinks all those conditions are a bit confusing?
Comment if you feel the same.
Now that you know how conditions work,
you can choose the one you need in the drop-down field under Condition Type.
Enter its information in the Condition Details field.
Next, pick the proxy profile you’d like to use with the condition. If you choose Direct,
no proxies will be applied to it.
Click Apply Changes when you're done.
When you finish setting up your profile,
don't forget to turn it on and see if the proxies are working.
Click on the extension icon: here you'll see both your proxy auto-switch profiles. Select
the one you'd like to activate. Now, check whether your IP address has changed. You can
do it by either typing 'What’s my IP' to Google, or using any website that provides this function.
Interested in alternatives to SwitchyOmega? Give this playlist a try. See you in the next video!