How to Redirect Steam (or Similar) to Use another Proxy Without Admin

TutorialsGamingProxyPosted October 30, 2024 3 days ago7 min read

Sometimes you may wonder how you can redirect Steam's connection to use a Proxy of your own, but you already have a system wide proxy set in your system settings and you happen to not have administrator previledges to change that setting. Well today I decided to write a guide on how to do this very specific thing. So let's begin!

What you need

  • Proxifier(Paid software; I recommened paying for it)
  • V2ray
  • SOCKS5 Proxy of your choice(or V2Ray)

How it works

diagram of what im about to talk about

Steam itself offers no official proxy support, in fact it's likely against its Terms of Service as it would enable people buying games in regions they shouldn't be in.
However, the client itself still(or the chromium based Steam Web Helper at least) still will attempt to make a connection to whatever proxy you have set in your system settings(for Windows).
If you for some reason don't have any permission to change it you can still bypass it with this method.
The above setup does the following:

  1. Use Proxifier to hook onto Steam and force Steam's connections to go through a proxy. We will point it to v2ray for step 2.
  2. Steam's traffic will now go through your proxy, but the actual connection still heads for whatever is specified in your system settings. We use v2ray to rewrite this so that the actual connection also points to the correct place.
  3. The traffic should now go through.

Step 1 - Proxifier

  1. At the top, in Profile -> Proxy Servers, add a new server with address localhost and port 1082(use whatever you want), using SOCKS Version 5 protocol. You don't need authentication. The connection won't work at this point, so don't bother checking it.
  2. In Profile -> Proxification Rules, add a new rule. Only fill in steam.exe; in Applications. For the action point it to the server we just added.

    Do not proxy steam web helper! From my usage it seems like Proxifier will crash anything chromium based, including steam web helper. You likely have another device on which you can buy games & subscribe to workshops anyway.

  3. Now launch steam. You should see its connection attempts pop up in proxifier and show up as failed(normal). You will see a log entry, something like this:
[xx.xx xx:xx:xx] steam.exe (42069) *64 - badproxy.skybord.xyz(192.168.1.1):6969 matching New rule :  using proxy localhost:1082 SOCKS5
                                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^              ^^^^

Note down the address indicated by arrows, AKA the one before the IP address in brackets and the one after your process name. Also note down the port indicated by the other arrows, which is after the IP address in brackets.

Step 2 - V2ray

  1. Grab a fresh copy of V2Fly version of V2ray.

  2. Hope that yours come with an example config file, or you will have to read this tutorial AND their docs.

  3. In your inbounds, add a SOCKS5 proxy. This is where Proxifier redirects Steam to.

      "inbounds": [
        { /* ... */ },
    +   {
    +     "port": 1082,
    +     "listen": "127.0.0.1",
    +     "tag": "socks-inbound",
    +     "protocol": "socks",
    +     "settings": {
    +       "auth": "noauth",
    +       "udp": true,
    +       "ip": "127.0.0.1"
    +     },
    +     "sniffing": {
    +       "enabled": true,
    +       "destOverride": [
    +         "http",
    +         "tls"
    +       ]
    +     }
    +   }
      ],
    

    (I don't know if having sniffing or not will stop it from working.)

  4. In your outbounds, add a redirect. This is where your connection eventually goes to.

      "outbounds": [
        { /* ... */ },
    +   {
    +     "protocol": "freedom",
    +     "settings": {
    +       "redirect": "[!] SET THIS TO YOUR ACTUAL PROXY ADDRESS [!]"
    +     },
    +     "tag": "rewrite"
    +   }
      ],
    
  5. Now in your routing make it so that connections going to your original proxy goes to the new one. Replace the domain and the port with stuff you have from before.

      "routing": [
        { /* ... */ },
    +   {
    +     "type": "field",
    +     "domain": [
    +       "badproxy.skybord.xyz"
    +     ],
    +     "port": "6969",
    +     "network": "tcp",
    +     "outboundTag": "rewrite"
    +   },
      ],
    
    

That should be it! Boot up V2ray and then Steam and you should be able to go online on Steam.