ScraperAPI is a web scraping tool that handles the proxies, browsers, and CAPTCHAS so the user doesn’t have to. It is simple to use and users can easily scrape any HTML content from any website of their choice. ScraperAPI is a premium service but users can try it for free to see if they like it.
As ScraperAPI is an automation tool, websites will ban any account and blacklist IP addresses of users that are detected using the web scraper. To avoid this from happening, ScraperAPI uses proxies to hide your IP address from any website you want to scrape.
This is possible because a ScraperAPI proxy will handle all of your web requests for you so any website you visit will only be able to see the IP address of the proxy server and not your own. Through continuously rotating proxies, ScraperAPI would have a different IP address each time it sends a request which deceives websites into thinking that those requests come from multiple users and not just from a single location.
Let’s set up a ScrapingDog proxy server.
How To Use Proxies With ScraperAPI
The username for the proxy is "scraperapi" and the password is your API key.
If you want to use different private proxies, then:
For Windows:
To set up proxies in Windows, simply search for “Proxy Settings” in your windows search bar and open the search result.
You are then given two options to choose from: Automatic proxy setup or Manual proxy setup. If you want windows to automatically detect your proxy settings, choose the first option. Choose the second option if you want to utilize a specific ip address and port number.
If you chose the first option, then:
- Turn on Automatically detect Settings
- Turn on Use setup script
- Enter the script address
- Click Save
If you chose the second option, then:
- Turn on Use a proxy server
- Input both server address and port number
- If you have any addresses you would like to visit without a proxy, enter them here
- Turn on Don’t use the proxy server for local addresses check box if you want to access a local server without a proxy
- Click Save
Image Alt Text: Windows Automatic Proxy Setup
For Mac:
To start configuring your proxy settings in MacOS, simply:
Step 1. Click on the Apple Icon.
Step 2. On the drop down menu, click on “System Preferences”.
Step 3. Click on “Network”
Step 4. Click on “Advanced”
Note: Make sure to connect to your wi-fi first.
Step 5. Click on “Proxies”
This should then redirect you to MacOS proxy settings. MacOS is more straightforward compared to windows. You only have one option which is to manually configure your proxy server.
Here are the steps to follow:
- Select which proxy IP protocol you want to configure. This depends on which protocols your proxy service provider offers.
- Turn on Secure Web Proxy
- Input the Proxy Server Address and Port Number
- Click OK to save the configurations
Note: You may be prompted for your Mac user password to save your settings.
Image Alt Text: Configuring MacOS Proxy Settings
Congratulations! You have now finished configuring a ScraperAPI proxy server.
