Proxies

A proxy is what gives a profile its own address. Bound per profile and tested before use, it is half of keeping accounts apart: the fingerprint is the other half.

Adding a proxy

Open Proxies in the sidebar and click New proxy.

Field	Notes
`Label`	How it appears when you pick it on a profile. Naming it after the location or the provider plan is more useful than the host.
`Type`	`http`, `https` or `socks5`.
`Host`	Hostname or IP from your provider.
`Port`	1–65535.
`Username` / `Password`	Optional. See authenticated proxies: they are handled differently to unauthenticated ones.

Proxies are stored per account and sync between machines along with your profiles.

Bulk import

Providers hand out lists in several shapes, so paste the list as-is: one proxy per line, in any of these forms:

Format	Example
`scheme://host:port`	`socks5://gate.example.net:1080`
`scheme://user:pass@host:port`	`http://alice:secret@gate.example.net:8080`
`user:pass@host:port`	`alice:secret@gate.example.net:8080`
`host:port`	`gate.example.net:8080`
`host:port:user:pass`	`gate.example.net:8080:alice:secret`

A scheme in the line wins over the default type you picked. Lines that cannot be parsed are skipped rather than imported wrong, so a stray header row or blank line in a pasted list is harmless.

Testing

Test does not just open a socket. It launches a throwaway headless browser routed through the proxy and requests an IP-info endpoint, so it exercises the exact path a real profile launch uses: a proxy that only fails under a real browser gets caught here rather than mid-session.

A passing test records:

the exit IP: the address sites will actually see
country, region and city
the timezone of that location
latency, so you can spot a proxy that works but is unusably slow

Test after adding, and again if a provider rotates your allocation: it is the quickest way to see where a proxy actually comes out and whether it is fast enough to work with.

You no longer have to remember. The first time a profile launches behind a proxy that has never been tested, Parallel measures its location then and stores it, so the profile's clock matches its exit IP whether or not anyone pressed Test. Before this, pasting twenty-five proxies and binding them to twenty-five profiles left every one of those profiles running on a timezone that had nothing to do with its IP: an address in São Paulo with a clock from somewhere else, which is the cheapest contradiction there is for a site to check. Testing is now for your benefit, not a step the fingerprint depends on.

Assigning to a profile

Pick the proxy in the profile editor's Proxy field. One proxy per profile is the rule worth keeping: sharing one address across profiles rebuilds the link between the accounts you separated, and rotating a profile's address every session looks like an account that teleports.

To assign the same proxy to many profiles at once, select them in the list and use the bulk action rather than editing each one: that is where mistakes happen.

Authenticated proxies

Chromium cannot authenticate a SOCKS5 proxy at all, and its HTTP proxy-auth flow is fragile. So any proxy with a username gets a local relay: an unauthenticated proxy listening on 127.0.0.1 that forwards to your authenticated upstream, with the browser pointed at the local end.

This is automatic and needs no setup. Two consequences worth knowing: the relay lives only as long as the profile is running, and your credentials never reach the browser process.

Timezone & WebRTC

This is the part that quietly prevents the most common mistake in multi-account work. When a profile launches with a tested proxy:

the profile's timezone is set from the proxy's location, so a German exit node does not report a New York clock
the WebRTC public address is bound to the proxy's exit IP, so WebRTC cannot hand out an address that contradicts the one the site already sees

Both come from the geography recorded when you tested the proxy, which is why testing matters beyond a pass/fail. An untested proxy still routes traffic, but the profile falls back to its own timezone, and that mismatch is exactly what correlates accounts. Browser fingerprinting covers why these signals are checked against each other.

You can still override the timezone by hand in the profile's fingerprint settings if you have a reason to.

Choosing a proxy

Type	Best for	Trade-off
Residential	Consumer platforms that weigh IP reputation heavily	Costs more, speed varies by peer
ISP / static residential	Long-lived accounts wanting one stable address	Smaller pools, higher price
Mobile	Mobile-first platforms	Most expensive; carrier addresses are shared
Datacenter	Bulk work where IP reputation matters less	Easy to identify as datacenter

Unlimited proxies on every plan, including the free tier: the profile count is what a licence raises, never the number of proxies.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause
Test fails immediately	Wrong host, port or type. Providers often give an HTTP and a SOCKS5 port for the same endpoint: the ports are not interchangeable.
Test fails only with credentials	Username or password wrong, or the provider requires your current IP to be allow-listed in their dashboard.
Works, but very slow	Check the latency in the test result. Residential proxies vary a lot between peers; retest to get a different one.
Exit country is not what you bought	Some providers encode the target country in the username or the port. Check their documentation for the exact syntax.
Site still sees your real location	Check the fingerprint test through that profile: it shows the exit IP and the timezone the page actually sees, side by side. A mismatch between them is the thing sites check first.
A profile will not open: "set to use a proxy that no longer exists"	The proxy it was bound to has been deleted. Parallel refuses rather than opening it on your real IP, because a profile that has only ever been seen behind a proxy suddenly arriving from your home connection is the one thing worth stopping. Bind another proxy, or set the profile to direct if that is what you meant.
Deleting a proxy asks about profiles	It tells you how many profiles use it, because deleting it leaves them on a direct connection until you give them another one. Proxies have no trash, so that confirmation is the only chance to change your mind.