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-auth setup
• Web Unlocker zone active in Bright Data control panel
• brd-ca.crt SSL 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

Examples

Use a provider-approved test target or a domain you control, constrain the request to the minimum path and geography needed, and retain only the status and request identifier in shared logs. Verify that collection is permitted by applicable law, the target's terms, and the organization's policy before moving beyond a synthetic demonstration.

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

• Web Unlocker Docs
• Web Unlocker API
• Geo-Targeting

Next Steps

Proceed to brightdata-local-dev-loop for development workflow setup.