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Configuring Applications To Use WinPX

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Marius Greuel edited this page Sep 24, 2026 · 1 revision

After you have successfully setup WinPX, you want to setup your applications to use the local WinPX proxy server.

Many applications have built-in proxy support for Windows, so they will just work out of the box. For instance, all current web browsers automatically use the Windows system proxy settings and support all required proxy features. Also, many modern applications, such as those built on .NET, inherit the built-in proxy support of .NET.

Other applications or programming languages have partial proxy support, for instance, they allow you to specify a proxy server that is used when the applications make HTTP requests. However, they often lack support for features used in enterprise networks, such as proxy auto-config (PAC) or modern authentication methods such as Negotiate (SPNEGO). For instance, Python is one of the languages that have poor proxy support in Windows: Applications written in Python typically require manual configuration and a local proxy server setup such as WinPX.

Setting the environment variables http_proxy and https_proxy

To configure applications that cannot use the Windows system proxy settings, you can set the http_proxy and https_proxy environment variables to point to the local WinPX proxy server. For example, if your WinPX proxy server is running on the loopback interface 127.0.0.1 and listening on port 3128, you would set the environment variables to the URL http://127.0.0.1:3128.

Note: You need to restart any applications for the environment variable changes to take effect.

Configure WinPX to set the environment variables

The easiest way to set the environment variables is to configure WinPX to set them automatically when it starts. This ensures that all applications launched after WinPX will have the correct proxy settings:

  • Double-click the WinPX icon in the system tray to open the WinPX Options dialog.
  • On the General tab, check the option Set http_proxy/https_proxy environment variables to use WinPX proxy.
  • Click OK to save the changes and close the dialog.

On Windows using the Command Prompt

set http_proxy=http://127.0.0.1:3128
set https_proxy=http://127.0.0.1:3128

On Windows using PowerShell

$env:http_proxy="http://127.0.0.1:3128"
$env:https_proxy="http://127.0.0.1:3128"

On Linux

export http_proxy=http://127.0.0.1:3128
export https_proxy=http://127.0.0.1:3128

Configuring Applications manually

If you want to configure applications manually to use the WinPX proxy server, or you choose to not set the environment variables, you need to specify the proxy settings within the application's configuration. The exact steps vary depending on the application. Typically, there is a configuration file or a settings dialog where you can enter the proxy server address 127.0.0.1 and port 3128 for both HTTP and HTTPS traffic, or the proxy URL http://127.0.0.1:3128.

Ask your friendly AI assistant for guidance on configuring specific applications to use the WinPX proxy server.

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