NiFi Forward Proxy

To connect to the Internet through a proxy server, you must authenticate with your username and password. This can be done by logging in automatically, by using a Windows agent, and by using a Web agent. With automatic login, as well as when using the Web-agent, you need to manually configure the address of the proxy server in your browser. The Windows agent does not require any special settings, because it sets up everything you need for work by itself.

The choice between using regular expressions and a library like PHP Simple HTML DOM Parser for scraping depends on several factors. Here are some considerations to help you decide:

1. HTML Parsing Complexity:

   • Regular Expressions: Regular expressions are not well-suited for parsing complex HTML structures. HTML is a nested and hierarchical language, and using regular expressions to handle all possible variations can lead to errors and difficulty maintaining the code.
   • PHP Simple HTML DOM Parser: This library is specifically designed for parsing HTML documents. It provides a convenient API for navigating and manipulating HTML elements, making it easier to work with complex HTML structures.

2. Maintainability:

   • Regular Expressions: Regular expressions can become difficult to read and maintain, especially as the complexity of HTML parsing requirements increases. They might not be the best choice for long-term maintainability.
   • PHP Simple HTML DOM Parser: Offers a more readable and maintainable way to interact with HTML. The library abstracts away many complexities and provides a familiar syntax for accessing and manipulating HTML elements.

3. Error Handling:

   • Regular Expressions: Debugging and error handling can be more challenging with regular expressions, especially when dealing with unexpected variations in HTML.
   • PHP Simple HTML DOM Parser: Provides better error handling and more descriptive error messages, making it easier to identify and address issues during the scraping process.

4. Performance:

   • Regular Expressions: In simple cases, regular expressions might have acceptable performance. However, for complex HTML structures, they can be less efficient compared to specialized HTML parsing libraries.
   • PHP Simple HTML DOM Parser: Designed for performance when working with HTML, and it is likely to provide better performance for HTML parsing tasks compared to regular expressions.

5. Learning Curve:

   • Regular Expressions: Learning and mastering regular expressions can take time, especially for beginners.
   • PHP Simple HTML DOM Parser: Offers a simpler and more intuitive interface, making it easier for developers to get started without a steep learning curve.

In summary, while regular expressions might be suitable for simple HTML parsing tasks, using a dedicated HTML parsing library like PHP Simple HTML DOM Parser is generally a more robust and maintainable approach, especially for complex HTML structures. It provides a higher level of abstraction, making it easier to work with HTML documents in a reliable and efficient manner.

In Selenium with Python, you can add cookies to your browser session using the add_cookie method of the WebDriver's options or add_cookie method of the WebDriver instance. If you have cookies saved in a file, you can read the file and then add the cookies to your Selenium session. Here's an example:

from selenium import webdriver
import pickle

# Create a new instance of the browser (e.g., Chrome)
driver = webdriver.Chrome()

# Read cookies from a file (replace 'cookies.pkl' with your actual file name)
with open('cookies.pkl', 'rb') as cookies_file:
    cookies = pickle.load(cookies_file)

# Add each cookie to the browser session
for cookie in cookies:
    driver.add_cookie(cookie)

# Now the browser should have the added cookies

# Example: Navigate to a website after setting cookies
driver.get('https://example.com')

# Continue with your script...

# Close the browser when done
driver.quit()

In this example:

1. The Selenium WebDriver (Chrome in this case) is created.
2. Cookies are read from a file using the pickle module. Make sure your cookies file is in the correct format (a list of dictionaries).
3. Each cookie is added to the browser session using the add_cookie method.
4. The script navigates to a website (https://example.com) after setting the cookies. Adjust this part according to your specific use case.
5. The browser is closed using driver.quit() when the script is done.

Make sure to replace 'cookies.pkl' with the actual path to your cookies file.

Note: The format of the cookies file is crucial. It should be a list of dictionaries, and each dictionary should contain at least the keys 'name', 'value', 'domain', and 'path'. If the cookies were obtained using get_cookies() in a previous Selenium session, you can directly save the result using pickle.dump(cookies, file).

Here's a simple example of how to save cookies:

from selenium import webdriver
import pickle

driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.get('https://example.com')

# Get cookies
cookies = driver.get_cookies()

# Save cookies to a file
with open('cookies.pkl', 'wb') as cookies_file:
    pickle.dump(cookies, cookies_file)

driver.quit()

Then, you can use the first script to load and set these cookies in a new Selenium session.

Select the "Proxy" tab in the "Network" window, then click on Win+C and find the "Settings" item. In the window that opens, stop at "Change computer settings" and go to "Network". Select the "Proxy" line here and disable the proxy functionality.

Shared proxies should be understood as IPs and port numbers available to everyone. That is, many users can use them simultaneously. The most unreliable and slowest option.