Bright Data Hello World
Overview
Scrape a real webpage through Bright Data's Web Unlocker proxy. Web Unlocker handles CAPTCHAs, fingerprinting, and retries automatically — you send a normal HTTP request through the proxy endpoint at brd.superproxy.io:33335.
Prerequisites
- Completed
brightdata-install-authsetup - Web Unlocker zone active in Bright Data control panel
brd-ca.crtSSL certificate downloaded
Instructions
Step 1: Scrape via Web Unlocker Proxy (Node.js)
// hello-brightdata.ts
import axios from 'axios';
import https from 'https';
import 'dotenv/config';
const { BRIGHTDATA_CUSTOMER_ID, BRIGHTDATA_ZONE, BRIGHTDATA_ZONE_PASSWORD } = process.env;
const proxy = {
host: 'brd.superproxy.io',
port: 33335,
auth: {
username: `brd-customer-${BRIGHTDATA_CUSTOMER_ID}-zone-${BRIGHTDATA_ZONE}`,
password: BRIGHTDATA_ZONE_PASSWORD!,
},
};
async function scrape(url: string) {
const response = await axios.get(url, {
proxy,
httpsAgent: new https.Agent({ rejectUnauthorized: false }),
timeout: 60000,
});
console.log(`Status: ${response.status}`);
console.log(`Content length: ${response.data.length} chars`);
console.log(response.data.substring(0, 500));
return response.data;
}
scrape('https://example.com').catch(console.error);
Step 2: Scrape via REST API
// hello-brightdata-api.ts
import 'dotenv/config';
async function scrapeViaAPI(url: string) {
const response = await fetch('https://api.brightdata.com/request', {
method: 'POST',
headers: {
'Authorization': `Bearer ${process.env.BRIGHTDATA_API_TOKEN}`,
'Content-Type': 'application/json',
},
body: JSON.stringify({
zone: process.env.BRIGHTDATA_ZONE,
url,
format: 'raw',
}),
});
const html = await response.text();
console.log(`Status: ${response.status}, Length: ${html.length}`);
return html;
}
scrapeViaAPI('https://example.com').catch(console.error);
Step 3: Python Version
# hello_brightdata.py
import os, requests
from dotenv import load_dotenv
load_dotenv()
proxy_url = (
f"http://brd-customer-{os.environ['BRIGHTDATA_CUSTOMER_ID']}"
f"-zone-{os.environ['BRIGHTDATA_ZONE']}"
f":{os.environ['BRIGHTDATA_ZONE_PASSWORD']}"
f"@brd.superproxy.io:33335"
)
response = requests.get(
'https://example.com',
proxies={'http': proxy_url, 'https': proxy_url},
verify='./brd-ca.crt',
timeout=60,
)
print(f"Status: {response.status_code}, Length: {len(response.text)}")
Geo-Targeting
Add country or city targeting to the proxy username:
// Country-level
const username = `brd-customer-${ID}-zone-${ZONE}-country-us`;
// City-level
const username2 = `brd-customer-${ID}-zone-${ZONE}-country-us-city-newyork`;
Output
- Successful HTTP response through Bright Data proxy
- HTML content of the target page
- Rotated IP address per request
Error Handling
| Error | Cause | Solution |
|-------|-------|----------|
| 407 Proxy Auth Required | Bad credentials | Check brd-customer-{ID}-zone-{ZONE} format |
| 502 Bad Gateway | Target site blocked | Web Unlocker retries; increase timeout |
| ETIMEDOUT | CAPTCHA solving delay | Set timeout to 60-120s |
| Empty response | Zone inactive | Verify zone in control panel |
Resources
Next Steps
Proceed to brightdata-local-dev-loop for development workflow setup.