Flareproxy: a transparent http proxy between changedetection and FlareSolverr

Encountering Cloudflare’s anti-bot challenges or other DDoS protection mechanisms can be a major obstacle for web scraping and automation projects. FlareProxy is a transparent HTTP proxy designed to work hand-in-hand with FlareSolverr to bypass these protections seamlessly. If you regularly face Captcha pages, JavaScript challenges, or other roadblocks, FlareProxy can help keep your data pipelines running smoothly.

Why I made FlareProxy?

The main reason is that I've been a Changedetection user for a while, and I needed a way to overcome Cloudflare captcha challenges since there is no native way to do that.

What Is FlareProxy?

FlareProxy is a proxy server that sits between your client (e.g., a web scraper, browser, or test framework) and FlareSolverr. It intercepts your HTTP requests and forwards them to FlareSolverr, which handles the complex Cloudflare or DDoS-GUARD challenges in the background. Once the challenge is solved, the content you need is returned to your client, without manual intervention.

How It Works

1. Client Sends a Request: Your browser, scraper, or test script sends an HTTP request to FlareProxy instead of going directly to the target site.
2. Forward to FlareSolverr: FlareProxy passes the request to FlareSolverr, which is specifically built to handle the JavaScript and CAPTCHA challenges used by Cloudflare and other protective services.
3. Receive Solved Response: After FlareSolverr solves the challenge, the target site’s content is sent back through FlareProxy and returned to your client. From your perspective, it’s just like accessing a normal proxy.

Getting Started

Below is a quick-start guide using Docker:

1. Clone or Download
   Get the FlareProxy source code or simply pull the Docker image from a registry if available.
2. Build the Image (Optional)
   If you prefer to build the Docker image yourself, navigate to the project folder and run:

docker build -t flareproxy .

3. When you have your FlareSolverr instance running (e.g., at http://localhost:8191), you can launch FlareProxy with:

docker run \
  -e FLARESOLVERR_URL=http://localhost:8191/v1 \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  flareproxy

4. Configure Your Client
5. In your web scraper, browser, or test framework, set the HTTP proxy to http://<your-server-ip>:8080.
6. Even when you need to access HTTPS URLs, keep the proxy protocol as http; FlareProxy will handle the secure connection automatically.

Use Cases

1. Web Scraping
   Collect data from websites protected by Cloudflare without constant interruptions from anti-bot or DDoS pages.
2. Automated Testing
   Test end-to-end user flows on sites using Cloudflare’s challenge pages, ensuring your scripts can handle real-world conditions.
3. Data Analysis
   Continuously gather public data for research, market analysis, or monitoring, bypassing the usual Captcha and JavaScript-based blocking.
4. API Access
   Some APIs may be behind protective layers; FlareProxy allows you to maintain programmatic access without custom-coded challenge solvers.

Tips and Considerations

• Security: FlareProxy and FlareSolverr handle potentially sensitive traffic. Ensure they run in trusted environments or behind proper firewalls.
• Stability: While it automates many steps, Cloudflare might update its challenges. Keep FlareSolverr and FlareProxy up to date to stay compatible.
• Ethical Use: Respect site terms of service and robots.txt directives. Use these tools responsibly.

FlareProxy offers a streamlined way to overcome Cloudflare and DDoS-GUARD challenges by integrating directly with FlareSolverr. Its transparent design, ease of deployment, and straightforward configuration make it a strong contender for anyone needing consistent access to protected sites—especially in automated or high-volume contexts. If you want to spend less time battling Captchas and more time focusing on your actual data or tests, FlareProxy is worth a closer look.

To explore the source code and learn more, visit the FlareProxy GitHub repository.