Highlights
A bot check that comes back with HTTP 200 isn't the page you asked for, and from this week you don't pay for it. The proxy port left beta and now answers to your plan the way the API does, with reports of its own in the Dashboard. And a Chrome extension arrived in beta, for sending your browser through a proxy user and turning any request a page makes into an API call.
What's New
Check pages get a name, and no bill
Some sites answer a scraper with a healthy-looking 200 whose body is a bot check. Unless your own validate rule caught it, that counted as a success. Now Single, Browser and Proxy Finder recognise those pages: the request lands in application_error, which isn't billed, and an X-FourA-Check-Page header names the check. The body reaches you unchanged.
import requests
r = requests.post(
"https://api.foura.ai/api/single",
headers={"X-API-Key": "pk_live_..."},
json={"url": "https://example.com/data"},
)
check = r.headers.get("X-FourA-Check-Page")
if check:
print("bot check, not billed:", check)
Three more check pages joined the list: Amazon's "Continue shopping" robot check, Reddit's "Prove your humanity" page and the Google Search page that only asks the browser to turn on JavaScript. When a Proxy Finder rotation fails on Reddit, its attemptReport now says Reddit's check stopped it, kept apart from pages your own validate rule rejected, so you know which one to change.
Auto keeps climbing its ladder instead of handing one of these back as your page. It also stopped reading ordinary words as a challenge: "just a moment" or "access denied" now count only in a page's title or on a page the size of a real interstitial. Auto is still the path finder, though. Once it has found a route, replay the session it returns on /api/single or /api/browser and point your volume there.
The proxy port is out of beta
Since September 15, tunnels and traffic through the proxy port count against your plan, same as the API. Three numbers apply: tunnels open at once, tunnel openings a minute, and the standard traffic for your billing period. They're counted for the account, so a second proxy user doesn't buy a second allowance. Hit one and the port answers 429, with an X-Foura-Error header saying which. Usage & Limits shows where you stand on each.
The paid network is now called premium: -network-premium and -fallback-premium. Connection strings and saved defaults that say residential keep working.
An organization can own a proxy user now, so a company's downloader doesn't stop the day one person leaves. Members read and rename it, owners and admins rotate or re-target it, and only the owner moves it out.
Overview, Metrics and Activity open on a Product switch: API or Proxy. On Proxy you see your tunnels in the same outcome classes as your API requests, how many are open right now, setup time and traffic, broken down by proxy user, target, exit country or client IP. The proxy port docs cover every username option and response code, and foura.ai/proxy is its new product page.
A Chrome extension, in beta
The FourA extension does two jobs. Its popup sends your browser through one of your proxy users: pick the network and country, flip the switch, and a status line shows the address sites see. You decide what goes through (everything except a list, or only a list). Its FourA tab in DevTools lists a page's requests the way Network does and turns any of them into a curl, Python, Node or MCP call, or opens it in the Playground with your API key.
It's a beta and it isn't in the Chrome Web Store yet: download it under Tools in the Dashboard and install it in developer mode. Bot checks and full rendering stay with the API. And a call copied with its cookies replays a signed-in session, so treat it like a password.
Premium traffic, and the MCP server
Premium traffic is now counted on the network, per attempt. A request the standard pool answers before any premium exit is tried still costs no premium traffic. But once a premium exit has been tried, the bytes it carried count toward your premium allowance even if that attempt didn't bring back the page. Your plan's traffic ceiling counts standard bytes only.
FourA MCP 0.7.0 gives agents the same step up: foura_proxy accepts exitClass: premium and moves to a premium exit only when the standard pool can't deliver. A failed rotation returns an attemptReport, and a refusal by your own plan keeps its plan_limit_* code instead of looking like the target said no. Version 0.7.1 rewrote all four tool descriptions so an agent can pick the right tool without trying each one.
Billing and the Dashboard
- Scheduled a downgrade or a switch of billing interval? The Billing page says which plan you move to and when, and a Keep button calls it off.
- When your bank wants a renewal confirmed, Billing shows it, and Confirm payment finishes it on your saved card.
- Any member of an organization can run its keys in the Playground, listed under My Keys and then one group per organization.
- The Usage panel on Metrics says how many domains or client IPs your period holds, with totals across all of them, and pages through the whole set.
Under the Hood
Single's solver for SiteGround's challenge runs about five times faster, so pages behind it come back sooner with unblocker: true, at the same cost. Dashboard pages appear with their fonts and filters already in place, so nothing shifts after the first frame. And the main site's menu now groups Products, Tools and Resources, with new pages for the API and the proxy port, under a header that fits every screen in all 13 languages.
Status codes tell you less than they seem to. The question worth asking was never "did it return 200?" but "did it return the page?", and the response now answers that one for you.