Airbnb, which means Air bed and breakfast, is an online marketplace where owners can rent their places to travelers for a short period of time. Airbnb doesn’t actually have any property and only acts as the middleman between the owner and the renter. Travelers can find and rent private rooms that are good for multiple people or even rent the entire property.
Airbnb has become the popular alternative to hotels and its increasing popularity has led to more listings and thus, more choices for its users. In fact, there are more than 6 million listings currently available on Airbnb. That’s a lot of valuable property listing data that people can use for various purposes so if you want to extract all that data, then you need to use a scraper tool.
A scraper tool will help you automate scraping and do it faster than a human possibly can. It’s fast and efficient but the use of a scraper tool is banned by most websites including Airbnb. If you want to use a scraper tool without being banned then you need to utilize an Airbnb proxy.
An Airbnb proxy will handle all of your data traffic for you which hides your IP address from any website you visit or application you use and they can only see the IP address of the proxy server. Through continuously rotating these IPs and using the best Airbnb proxies, which are residential proxies, your scraper bot would have a different IP address each time it sends a request and effectively deceives any website into thinking that your bot’s requests are from genuine users.
Let’s set up an Airbnb proxy server.
Note: Make sure that the web browser you’re using for Airbnb is set to automatically copy your computer’s proxy settings. Google Chrome automatically does this, so it’s recommended to use it.
For Windows:
To set up proxies in Windows, simply search for “Proxy Settings” in your windows search bar and open the search result.
You are then given two options to choose from: Automatic proxy setup or Manual proxy setup. If you want windows to automatically detect your proxy settings, choose the first option. Choose the second option if you want to utilize a specific ip address and port number.
If you chose the first option, then:
- Turn on Automatically detect Settings
- Turn on Use setup script
- Enter the script address
- Click Save
If you chose the second option, then:
- Turn on Use a proxy server
- Input both server address and port number
- If you have any addresses you would like to visit without a proxy, enter them here
- Turn on Don’t use the proxy server for local addresses check box if you want to access a local server without a proxy
- Click Save
For Mac.
To start configuring your proxy settings in MacOS, simply:
Step 1. Click on the Apple Icon.
Step 2. On the drop down menu, click on “System Preferences”.
Step 3. Click on “Network”
Step 4. Click on “Advanced”
Note: Make sure to connect to your wi-fi first.
Step 5. Click on “Proxies”
This should then redirect you to MacOS proxy settings. MacOS is more straightforward compared to windows. You only have one option which is to manually configure your proxy server.
Here are the steps to follow:
- Select which proxy IP protocol you want to configure. This depends on which protocols your proxy service provider offers.
- Turn on Secure Web Proxy
- Input the Proxy Server Address and Port Number
- Click OK to save the configurations
Note: You may be prompted for your Mac user password to save your settings.
Image Alt Text: Configuring MacOS Proxy Settings
For Mobile:
To set up an Airbnb proxy server for your mobile device, simply change your phone’s proxy settings. The Airbnb mobile app will automatically copy your phone’s proxy settings whenever you use it. This is applicable for both Android and iOS. Here’s a thorough guide for Android and another one for iPhone.
Congratulations! You have now finished configuring your Airbnb proxy server. Note that the first time you visit it, there will be a pop up asking for your login credentials.
