do all browsers without http-proxy

Support
1

Hi Pat,
in wptdriver.ini chrome.exe is started with parameter --no-proxy-server. You said wpt isn’t made to measure through http-proxies. Are IE and FF started without http-proxy, too? Doesn’t that, at least for IE, depend on Windows-Internet-settings of the agent?
Regards, Nils

2

I’m not sure if the code is still there but in the IE case it used to change the windows settings and disable proxying (only for the background user that was running the testing). While it does WORK to measure through a proxy, I really don’t recommend it. The main reason is that browsers behave completely differently:

  • They no longer do DNS lookups for domains, that is done at the proxy
  • They open 6 parallel connections to the proxy and send all of the requests over those (not per domain)

It’s reasonably OK to use it for trending performance and looking for variations but the behavior will look nothing like a normal user not coming in through a proxy.

3

But if end user also goes through the proxy WPT is capable to provide reliable results for such case, isn’t it?

4

Sorry, yes. I keep thinking public Internet but if you are interested in testing proxy behavior then WPT is capable of doing that.