SwitchyOmega proxy setup: profiles, auto-switch rules and passwords

Proxy SwitchyOmega, “Omega” to most of its users, is the extension people reach for when they want some tabs through a proxy and the rest direct. It is also the one whose tutorials mostly stopped working, because the original was abandoned and Chrome switched it off. This SwitchyOmega setup guide covers which version to install today, then a password-protected proxy, rules that send only chosen sites through it, and the fixes for every error people ask us about.

Proxy SwitchyOmega in 2026: which version still works

Short answer, as of September 2026: on Chrome, install ZeroOmega, the maintained fork. The original Proxy SwitchyOmega no longer runs in current Chrome, and its authors are not updating it.

What happened, with dates:

• The original extension was built on Manifest V2, Chrome’s old extension format. Its last release on GitHub is 2.5.20, from August 2018.
• Chrome started disabling Manifest V2 extensions in October 2024. From Chrome 138, in July 2025, users can no longer turn them back on. By August 31, 2026, Google had removed the remaining Manifest V2 extensions from the Chrome Web Store. Google’s Manifest V2 deprecation timeline has each step.
• In January 2025 the original repository was marked as no longer maintained. Its maintainer wrote that the Manifest V3 rewrite was a bigger change than they had time to make or review, and asked users to discuss forks in the issue thread instead.
• ZeroOmega is that fork: the same code base, moved to Manifest V3. Once installed, Chrome shows it as Proxy SwitchyOmega 3 (ZeroOmega). Its latest release, 3.5.2, came out on September 9, 2026, and it is listed in the Chrome Web Store, Edge Add-ons and Firefox Add-ons.

The screens, profile types and rules are the ones SwitchyOmega had, so older guides and habits carry over. The steps below use ZeroOmega’s wording.

How to install ZeroOmega (Proxy SwitchyOmega 3)

1. Go to the project’s GitHub page, github.com/zero-peak/ZeroOmega, and use the store link in its README for your browser. A popular extension name is easy to copy, so let the project point you at its own listing rather than trusting a search result.
2. Click Add to Chrome and accept the permissions. A proxy extension needs to control the proxy settings and see which sites you open; that is the job.
3. Click the puzzle-piece icon in the toolbar and pin ZeroOmega, so its circle icon stays visible. You will use it constantly.
4. Click the icon and choose Options. This is where all the setup happens.

Before you start, have four things from your dashboard to hand: the proxy IP, the port, the username and the password. The extension does not come with any proxy servers, as its own setup tour says.

Create a proxy profile in SwitchyOmega

A Proxy Profile is one proxy server, saved under a name. Make one per proxy you own.

1. In the left sidebar, under Profiles, click New profile…
2. Name it after the proxy, for example monkey-isp, choose Proxy Profile, and click Create.
3. In the Proxy servers table, on the (default) row, set Protocol to HTTP, Server to the IP from your dashboard, and Port to its port.
4. Leave the Bypass List alone. It keeps local addresses such as localhost off the proxy.
5. Click Apply changes at the bottom of the sidebar. Nothing you change takes effect until you do, which is the cause of a surprising number of “it does nothing” reports.

Which protocol? Pick HTTP, even though the sites you visit are https://. HTTP here describes how the browser talks to the proxy; your HTTPS traffic still goes through an encrypted tunnel the proxy cannot read. The HTTPS option means encrypting the hop to the proxy itself, which fails against a proxy that does not expect it, and SOCKS5 cannot carry a password in Chrome at all. The SOCKS5 vs HTTP proxy guide explains why.

Adding a proxy username and password in SwitchyOmega

1. Click the lock button at the right end of the server row. The Proxy Authentication dialog opens.
2. Enter the Username and Password from your dashboard. Paste carefully: a trailing space is a wrong password.
3. Save the dialog, then click Apply changes again.

Now the extension answers the proxy’s password challenge for you, and Chrome’s own sign-in box should not appear.

Set the protocol to SOCKS5 and click the lock, and ZeroOmega warns that your browser does not support SOCKS5 proxy authentication. It is right, and it is not a bug in the extension: Chrome has no SOCKS5 authentication for any extension to use. Use HTTP, or see the Chrome and Firefox proxy guide for the IP allowlist route.

One more thing about that password: the extension stores it, and the dialog has a Show password button. Anyone who can use your browser profile can read it.

Auto switch: only some sites through the proxy

This is the feature that makes SwitchyOmega worth installing. A Switch Profile checks each request against your rules and picks a profile for it. Say you want example.com through the proxy and everything else direct:

1. Click New profile…, name it auto, choose Switch Profile, and click Create.
2. Under Switch rules, click Add condition. Set Condition Type to Host wildcard, Condition Details to *.example.com, and the profile on that row to monkey-isp.
3. Add a second rule for httpbin.org with the same profile, so you have a page to check the exit IP with.
4. On the last row, Default, pick [Direct]. That is what everything unmatched does.
5. Click Apply changes.

Two details from the extension’s own help. In a Host wildcard, *.example.com matches www.example.com and example.com itself; to match subdomains only, write **.example.com. And use host conditions rather than URL wildcards for https:// sites: Chrome stopped giving extensions the full URL of HTTPS requests in Chrome 52, so a rule that matches on a path will quietly never fire.

Rules are also how you keep a bill small. On a proxy billed by the gigabyte, only the sites you list use it; your video calls and software updates do not. There is a Rule list rules row for importing a list someone else maintains, but for a proxy you pay for, a short list you wrote yourself is the one you can predict. If you would rather keep the rules as a file, the PAC file generator writes them as a PAC script, which a PAC Profile loads on Chrome.

Switching profiles and checking your exit IP

Click the toolbar icon and you get a menu of profiles:

• [Direct]: no proxy at all.
• [System Proxy]: hand control back to Chrome’s default, which is your operating system’s proxy settings.
• monkey-isp: everything through that proxy.
• auto: your rules decide, per request.

A Switch Profile does nothing until you select it here, a step the extension’s own tour reminds you of. With auto selected, the icon shows which profile the current tab actually ended up on, and hovering over it shows the details. The menu also has Add condition, which adds a rule for the site you are on without a trip to the options page.

To check it works, open this with auto selected:

https://httpbin.org/ip

The origin it prints should be your proxy’s IP. Switch to [Direct], reload, and it should be your own. If both show your own address, the rule is not matching or the change was never applied.

SwitchyOmega not working? Fixes for the usual problems

The password prompt keeps coming back

That is Chrome’s own sign-in box, and it means the proxy answered 407: it rejected the credentials, or got none. Check, in order: the username and password on the profile the tab is actually using (credentials live on each profile’s server row, not globally); stray spaces; that Apply changes was clicked; and that the protocol is HTTP, not SOCKS5. The 407 Proxy Authentication Required page has the rest.

ERR_PROXY_CONNECTION_FAILED

Chrome could not reach the proxy at all, so this is never the site’s fault. Usually the IP or port is mistyped, the protocol is set to something the proxy is not expecting, your network blocks the port, or the order behind that IP has ended. Test the same details outside the browser with curl -x http://USER:PASS@IP:PORT https://httpbin.org/ip; if curl fails too, the connection refused guide is the next stop.

“The proxy settings are controlled by other app(s) or extension(s)”

Only one extension can control Chrome’s proxy at a time. A VPN extension or another proxy switcher will fight ZeroOmega over it, and if two copies of ZeroOmega are enabled, it tells you to disable one. Disable the others in chrome://extensions. If Chrome’s Settings → System says proxy settings come from your administrator, a policy wins and no extension can change that.

[System Proxy] is not “the proxy”

A common mix-up. [System Proxy] means “do whatever the operating system says”, which may be no proxy, or an old one you set up months ago in Windows or macOS settings. To use your proxy, pick its profile or your Switch Profile. To use none, pick [Direct].

The page loads, but half of it is broken

Sites pull images, scripts and logins from other domains, and your rules may send those direct while the page itself goes through the proxy. The popup shows a count of failed resources and lists their domains; add rules for the ones that belong to the site. The same split can also reveal your real IP to the site, as can WebRTC, which the guide to proxies in Chrome and Firefox shows how to close.

Which proxy to put in SwitchyOmega, and what about Firefox

A browser session wants an address that stays put, or logins break on the next click, so a static ISP proxy is the usual choice. Plain rotating residential gives a new exit per connection, which you cannot predict from one page load to the next, so use a sticky session if you want residential in a browser. The Chrome and Firefox proxy guide compares the options with prices.

On Firefox you have two choices. ZeroOmega has a Firefox build, with one limit its own options page states: PAC profiles do not work there. The long-standing alternative is FoxyProxy, which does the same job of per-site proxy patterns. Firefox has one advantage over Chrome here: its extension API can pass a SOCKS5 username and password, so SOCKS5 with a password is possible through an extension that offers the fields. The original SwitchyOmega also still runs in Firefox, which kept Manifest V2, but its last GitHub release is from 2018.

Stuck on something this page does not cover? Post the error and your profile setup, password removed, in Discord.