Proxy List
A collection of proxy IP addresses and ports, usually with credentials, formatted for import into scraping or automation tools.
A proxy list is simply a set of proxies written out line by line for use in tools. Each line identifies one proxy in a standard format - commonly host:port, host:port:username:password, or username:password@host:port. You paste or import the list into a scraper, bot, or proxy manager, which then rotates through the entries.
Formats are not fully standardized, which causes friction. The two most common orderings are ip:port:user:pass and user:pass@ip:port, and tools differ in which they expect. Getting the order wrong is a frequent cause of authentication failures, so it is worth confirming the format your tool wants.
Static proxy lists made sense when providers sold individual IPs. You would receive a file of, say, 100 IPs and load them into your tool. The downside is maintenance: dead or banned entries must be pruned manually, and the list is only as fresh as your last update.
Modern rotating providers largely replace static lists with a single gateway endpoint that fronts the whole pool - you configure one address and the provider rotates behind it, so there is no list to maintain. Proxy lists remain common for dedicated/ISP proxies and for tools that expect explicit per-line entries. To validate a list, run each entry through a proxy checker and drop the dead ones.
What a proxy list actually contains
A proxy list is a set of addresses with the details needed to connect: host, port, and where authentication is by credentials, a username and password. The convention that most tools accept is ip:port:username:password, with one entry per line, and the second common form is a full URL such as http://user:pass@ip:port.
Lists come in two flavours that behave very differently. A list of static addresses gives you the same exits every time, which suits account work where each identity needs a stable address. A gateway entry is a single line that hides a pool behind it, where each connection can exit somewhere else.
Free public lists are a category of their own. The addresses are usually misconfigured servers or compromised machines, they die within hours, and a meaningful share of them log traffic or inject content. For anything involving credentials, they are not a cheap option, they are a security incident waiting for a schedule.
In practice the format matters more than it should, because antidetect browsers and scraping tools each expect their own arrangement of the same four fields. Most import failures are a mismatch between colon-separated and URL-style entries rather than anything wrong with the proxies.
Getting your list out of the dashboard
Static addresses export as a list. Residential is a gateway, so it exports as one line you vary with suffixes:
Two shapes of the same thing
# Static addresses, one line per proxy
198.51.100.20:50100:login:password
198.51.100.21:50100:login:password
198.51.100.22:50100:login:password
# Residential gateway, one line, targeting in the login
proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000:login_c_US_s_1_ttl_15m:password
proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000:login_c_US_s_2_ttl_15m:password
proxy.sotaproxy.com:10000:login_c_GB_s_3_ttl_15m:password- For antidetect fleets, generate one residential line per profile with a different session id. The host and port repeat, the login does not.
- The API returns the same data as JSON at GET /proxies, which is easier to feed into a script than a copied text file.
- Keep lists out of shared drives and chat. Every line contains a working credential, and rotating them after a leak means reissuing the whole fleet.
- When importing into a tool, check the first proxy manually before importing four hundred. Format mismatches fail silently in several popular browsers.
Where proxy lists go wrong
Treating a gateway line as many proxies
One residential line is a door to a pool, not a single exit. Ten identical lines in a tool do not give you ten addresses unless the session ids differ.
Assuming a list is dedicated
A list you bought cheaply may be sold to several customers at once. Dedicated means the address is yours alone, and the difference shows up as bans you did not earn.
Copying a list between tools without reformatting
ip:port:user:pass and http://user:pass@ip:port carry the same information and are not interchangeable in most import dialogs.
Using free lists for anything with a login
An unknown operator sits between you and the site and can read anything not protected by TLS, and can serve you a modified page even when it is.
See this in practice
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