HTTPfy

305 Use Proxy

Deprecated: the resource must be accessed through the proxy given in Location.

305 at a glance

Code
305
Name
Use Proxy
Class
3xx Redirection
Status
Registered, obsolete or deprecated
Defined in
RFC 9110, Section 15.4.6
Cacheable by default
No by default. Caches store it only when the response carries explicit freshness (Cache-Control max-age, s-maxage or Expires).

What 305 means

305 Use Proxy told the client to repeat the request via a proxy. Because it let a server redirect a client's traffic through an arbitrary proxy, it was deprecated (RFC 7231 and RFC 9110) and modern browsers ignore it. Configure proxies with PAC files or system settings instead.

What typically causes a 305

  • Practically never sent today; legacy proxy setups from the 1990s.

Fix it on the server

  • Do not use it. To steer clients to a proxy, use a PAC/WPAD file.

Fix it as a client or visitor

  • Browsers will not follow it, and you should not either, as it is a security risk.

Headers that go with 305

HeaderRole
LocationURL of the proxy (historically).

Example response

HTTP/1.1 305 Use Proxy
Location: http://proxy.example.com:3128/

Opens the HTTP headers tool with your URL filled in; it shows the status line and headers of every redirect hop.

Checking a whole domain's redirects? The HTTP status checker follows http, https, www and non-www variants and shows every hop.