Google Chrome Socks Proxy Workaround

September 22, 2008 · Posted in Web Browsers 

If you would like to use Google Chrome at work, but are unable because you have a SOCKS proxy, you’re not alone.  It is a known issue that Chrome does not work with socks.  Initially I couldn’t even install Chrome because of my firewall at work.  I did install it on my laptop when I got home the day it came out.  However, when I came back to work the next day I was disappointed to learn that it didn’t work behind a SOCKS proxy.

Yesterday it dawned on me that I could use Privoxy instead of SOCKS!  I already had a machine running Privoxy, so it was just a matter of configuring IE/Chrome to use it.  If don’t yet have Privoxy, here is the Google Chrome SOCKS proxy workaround you’ve been looking for:

  1. Download Privoxy
  2. Modify the configuration file to have Privoxy forward requests to the SOCKS proxy
  3. Configure Internet Explorer to use Privoxy (default would be localhost:8118 for http and secure)
  4. That’s it!  You should now be able to use Google Chrome through your socks proxy.

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Comments

  • Nice, I'll have to try it
  • Spike
    Hmm, I currently enable an SSH tunnel session with one of my offsite boxes. And then use Firefox to route through localhost:1080.

    Yesterday I installed Privoxy for Chrome and tried it, and it immediately showed my SSH box's IP during surfing. I tried it today, and it doesn't work. So, I did the main configuration file (I hadn't earlier) and added:

    forward / localhost:1080
    forward :443 .

    And now I get this on chrome when I go to whatismyip.com:
    Empty server or forwarder response.
    The connection has been closed but Privoxy didn't receive any data.

    I'm stumped.
  • All I have in my config is:
    forward-socks4a / 127.0.0.1:1080 .

    and it works like a charm. Try changing your lines to that and see if it
    does the trick.
  • Spike
    Looks like it's working!
    Thanks!
  • Is that not a bit much work for chrome its still beta...
  • Actually, Google dropped the beta designation from
    Chrome<http://geeklad.com/google-chrome-20>a couple of months ago.
    However, if you ask me I'd say yeah, it's still
    more like a beta browser. If the browser is still having to make use of
    Internet Explorer components and does not have a standalone engine for
    handling proxies, I'd still call it a beta.
    I suspect that once the Mac OS X and Linux versions come along, it should
    finally be handling proxy support within the app, and this workaround will
    no longer be needed. It does take some work, but if you are intent on using
    Chrome behind a socks firewall, it is probably one of the few viable
    solutions out there.
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