HTTP vs SOCKS5 Residential Proxies: Which One Should You Use?

Client
  -> TCP to proxy
  -> HTTP CONNECT target:443
  -> TLS session with target through the tunnel
  -> HTTPS request/response

Client
  -> TCP to SOCKS5 proxy
  -> SOCKS5 negotiation
  -> optional authentication
  -> connect request to target
  -> application traffic

curl -sS \
  -x "http://p1.bytesflows.com:8001" \
  -U "your-sub-user-loc-us:your-password" \
  -o /dev/null \
  -w "http status=%{http_code} total=%{time_total}s bytes=%{size_download}\n" \
  --max-time 12 \
  "https://httpbin.org/ip"

curl -sS \
  --socks5-hostname "p1.bytesflows.com:1080" \
  -U "your-sub-user-loc-us:your-password" \
  -o /dev/null \
  -w "socks5 status=%{http_code} total=%{time_total}s bytes=%{size_download}\n" \
  --max-time 12 \
  "https://httpbin.org/ip"

import httpx

proxy = "http://your-sub-user-loc-us:your-password@p1.bytesflows.com:8001"

with httpx.Client(proxy=proxy, timeout=12.0) as client:
    response = client.get("https://httpbin.org/ip")
    print(response.status_code, response.text[:200])

import httpx

proxy = "socks5://your-sub-user-loc-us:your-password@p1.bytesflows.com:1080"

with httpx.Client(proxy=proxy, timeout=12.0) as client:
    response = client.get("https://httpbin.org/ip")
    print(response.status_code, response.text[:200])

import { chromium } from "playwright";

const browser = await chromium.launch({
  headless: true,
  proxy: {
    server: "http://p1.bytesflows.com:8001",
    username: "your-sub-user-loc-us",
    password: process.env.BF_PROXY_PASS ?? "your-password",
  },
});

const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto("https://httpbin.org/ip", {
  waitUntil: "domcontentloaded",
  timeout: 30_000,
});
console.log(await page.textContent("body"));

await browser.close();