Comparing Prices by Country With Two Proxies Side by Side

Travel sites, software shops and streaming services often show different prices to different countries. They usually decide from your IP address, which is why a newcomer’s browser alone doesn’t show it. You need the visit to come from somewhere else.

Unweb gives each stranger a location: a proxy you have. Put strangers through proxies in different countries, type one address, and they load the same page from different places at the same time.

This example uses a made-up travel site, Wanderfare, and two stand-in proxies on the same machine. They mark each request as coming from Germany or France, where a real site would tell from the IP address.

One address typed once, three strangers, three countries’ prices.

How to Do It

Click Direct in a stranger’s strip and type a proxy, such as socks5://de.proxy.example:1080, or host:port for an HTTP proxy. A new stranger opens in its place, and everything it loads goes through that proxy, including the names it looks up. Do the same in the next stranger with another country, and leave one direct to compare with home.

Then type the address in the bar. All of them go there, each through its own proxy. Compare takes a screenshot of all three for your records.

Worth Knowing

Unweb doesn’t come with proxies; use ones you run or rent. The proxy sees everything that stranger does, so pick one you trust. On a Mac, check that the proxy is up first: macOS sends a stranger direct when its proxy can’t be reached, the one place this doesn’t hold yet. On Windows and Linux a stranger with a dead proxy loads nothing.

Save the window as a setup and the same three strangers are one click away next time.

The travel page and the two stand-in proxies are in examples/case-studies in Unweb’s repository.