FireX Proxy

FireX Proxy is a Chrome and Firefox proxy switcher for HTTP and SOCKS endpoints. It keeps a local proxy list, can refresh that list from plain-text sources, applies browser-native bypass rules, and can filter dead proxies with the native firex-native companion app. Learn more about FireX Native.

FireX Proxy has been around for more than ten years and, at one point, reached millions of users. The original hosted infrastructure behind FireX Proxy is no longer running. The project has moved to a serverless, independent model. The extension does not depend on FireX Proxy servers, does not require an account and works with local data plus user-configured proxy sources.

What it does:

• add HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS4, and SOCKS5 proxies manually
• sync proxies from one or more remote text files
• keep the repository proxy source fresh with a scheduled GitHub Actions updater
• determine which proxies are working and measure latency with the optional Rust firex-native companion app
• keep native bypass rules for hosts that should not use the proxy
• build for Chrome/Chromium and Firefox from the same codebase

Proxy Source Format

The default source file is proxies.txt.

Each proxy is one line:

protocol://host:port # optional display name

Supported protocols:

http
https
socks4
socks5

Blank lines and lines starting with # are ignored.

Example:

http://198.51.100.10:8080 # Demo HTTP
socks5://198.51.100.13:1080 # Demo SOCKS5

Development

Install dependencies:

npm install

Run the extension in development mode:

make dev

Run Firefox development mode:

make dev-firefox

Build production bundles:

make build-chrome
make build-firefox

Generated extensions are written to dist/.

Updating proxies.txt

The proxy source file can be regenerated locally:

make update-proxies

For a quick preview without writing the file:

npm run update:proxies -- --dry-run --limit 20

The updater fetches public protocol-specific proxy feeds, normalizes them into FireX Proxy's source format, removes duplicates, and filters obvious non-routable/private addresses.

GitHub Actions runs the updater every six hours, at minute 17 UTC, and commits proxies.txt when the generated file changes.

FireX Native

Public proxy lists age quickly. A list can contain thousands of endpoints, but many of them are already dead, blocked, overloaded, or too slow by the time the browser sees them. The browser extension itself cannot do a thorough check through every proxy: extension APIs are limited, and browser network requests are not a good place to run thousands of concurrent proxy probes.

FireX Proxy handles that with an optional Rust companion app called firex-native. It runs on the user's computer, tests candidate proxies directly, measures response time, stops when it finds enough working proxies, and reports progress back to the extension UI.

When FireX Native is not installed, the extension still works as a normal proxy switcher. It can add proxies, sync sources, connect, disconnect, and apply bypass rules. FireX Native is recommended because most public proxies do not stay usable for long.

Installation instructions are in the firex-native installation guide.

FireX Native release metadata lives in native-manifest.json. latestVersion tells the extension that an update is available. minimumVersion is the oldest native app version the current extension should still trust; raise it when compatibility actually changes.

To sync the manifest from the Rust crate version:

make native-manifest

To release a new native app version:

make native-release VERSION=0.1.2

That command updates the Rust crate version, refreshes Cargo.lock, syncs native-manifest.json, commits those version files, creates a native-v0.1.2 tag, and pushes the branch and tag. Branch pushes only run the lightweight manifest sync job. The native tag starts the installer builds and publishes the FireX Native release assets.