Sometimes you can’t/don’t want to use the VPN for your whole traffic so a browser extension would be great. We don’t have one yet so here’s a workaround I’m using.
First you need to get Shadowsocks because that’s what Outline uses. The instructions below are for Windows but it should be similar on other platforms.
When you first start Shadowsocks it opens Edit Servers window - close it. Copy your access key for Outline (ss://...), right click on the Shadowsocks tray icon, Servers, “Import URL from Clipboard…” and confirm. “Edit Servers” window should open - note down the “Proxy Port” at the bottom of it and click OK.
Right click on the Shadowsocks tray icon again, under “System Proxy” you have 3 options:
PAC - for advanced users, not going to explain it here.
Global - changes global system proxy. That means any application (including your browser) that uses system proxy settings will use Outline connection. This is the easiest setting but I wanted more control.
Disable - with this option you can set yourself which program uses the proxy (if the program has proxy settings - all browsers do).
If you select Disable go to your browser proxy settings and set it to:
type: SOCKS5
address: localhost
port: “Proxy Port” you noted down before
With those settings your browser should connect through the proxy for all websites. If you want even more control instead of using proxy settings in your browser use some browser extension instead. For Firefox there’s FoxyProxy, for Chrome there’s Proxy SwitchyOmega. I’m not going into details but both of them can use the proxy for selected websites only. Both have different profiles that you can quickly change by clicking on the extension icon too.