Sharp edgestested 2026-05-24 · public-tough-v1 · proxy: none

Camoufox

The highest ceiling we measured — if you pay the babysitting tax.

Camoufox is a Firefox-based anti-detect browser. It's the one tool we tested in three configurations, and the spread between them is the real finding.

Stock headless (0.4.11): 4 of 21 — Target, Rightmove, Reddit, Wikipedia. That already includes Reddit, which every headless Chromium variant failed. Headed on a real display, same version: 3 of 21, no stealth gain, plus new flakiness (Target itself timed out with a transport error). Simply showing a window bought nothing.

Tuned (cloverlabs-camoufox 0.6.0: headed, persistent browser profile, geoip, adaptive settle, humanized interaction): 11 of 21 machine-verified — and a manual review of the saved screenshots says 14 of 21 rendered real, usable content. AliExpress, Indeed, and Reddit all displayed genuine results before the adapter's 80-second timeout killed the attempt. The tuned profile uniquely passed Walmart, eBay, Booking, Airbnb, Trustpilot, CoinMarketCap, and YouTube — sites nothing else on the bench touched.

The cost side of the ledger is just as real: attempts ran 14–80 seconds, six targets died on transport timeouts, and the hard walls held — Zillow's press-and-hold verification, Realtor's block page, Yelp and Craigslist's refusals. This is a tool you operate, not a tool you call.

Test conditions

21 real public sites (public-tough-v1), 2026-05-24, no proxy, single residential IP, Linux. Deterministic validators: expected status code plus required and forbidden content markers. Pass rates measure the tool and the network position together. Without a proxy, results reflect how each site's protections treat one plain residential connection as much as the tool itself.

What worked

  • +Tuned profile: 11/21 machine-passed, 14/21 visually usable — more than double anything else we tested without paid infrastructure.
  • +Unique passes on Walmart, eBay, Booking, Airbnb, Trustpilot, CoinMarketCap, and YouTube.
  • +Even stock headless passed Reddit, which defeated every Chromium-based tool.

What failed

  • Operational drag: 14–80 s per page, six transport-timeout deaths in the tuned run, persistent-profile state to manage.
  • Headed mode alone (no tuning) was worse than headless — 3/21 with new flakiness.
  • Hard interaction walls still win: Zillow press-and-hold, Realtor, Yelp, Craigslist.
  • Three of the tuned 'failures' actually rendered usable content before the 80 s adapter timeout — measurement itself gets hard at this depth.

When to use it

High-value hard targets where a 50–65% unproxied success rate justifies slow, stateful, supervised browser sessions. Not for high-volume pipelines; pair with proxies to go further.

The strongest unpaid anti-detect result we've measured, bought with real operational pain.

Run evidence

Every attempt below is backed by saved artifacts: request/response metadata, body content, and (for browsers) screenshots. Raw JSON and artifacts live in the runner data directory.

Run · camoufox-common-sites-v1-20260524

4/21 passedversion 0.4.11proxy: none2026-05-24

adapter: camoufox.sync_api.Camoufox.goto

TargetResultDetailLatency
amazon.comamazon_search_laptopfailexpected 200, got 5034.1 s
walmart.comwalmart_search_laptopfailblock marker: “Blocked”12.2 s
ebay.comebay_search_laptopfailexpected 200, got 4034.2 s
aliexpress.comaliexpress_search_laptopfailblock marker: “captcha”5.9 s
target.comtarget_search_laptoppassstatus 2009.2 s
booking.combooking_search_parisfailexpected 200, got 2026.6 s
airbnb.comairbnb_search_parisfailblock marker: “captcha”9.2 s
tripadvisor.comtripadvisor_restaurants_parisfailexpected 200, got 4034.6 s
expedia.comexpedia_hotels_parisfailexpected 200, got 4296.0 s
zillow.comzillow_homes_for_salefailexpected 200, got 4037.0 s
realtor.comrealtor_new_yorkfailexpected 200, got 4297.1 s
rightmove.co.ukrightmove_londonpassstatus 2005.4 s
indeed.comindeed_python_remotefailtransport error / timeout30.0 s
yelp.comyelp_sf_restaurantsfailexpected 200, got 4035.0 s
trustpilot.comtrustpilot_amazonfailexpected 200, got 4037.0 s
newyork.craigslist.orgcraigslist_nyc_bikefailexpected 200, got 4037.1 s
finance.yahoo.comyahoo_finance_aaplfailredirected to consent.yahoo.com6.8 s
coinmarketcap.comcoinmarketcap_homefailblock marker: “captcha”6.5 s
reddit.comreddit_webscrapingpassstatus 2005.0 s
youtube.comyoutube_search_scrapingfailblock marker: “captcha”6.1 s
en.wikipedia.orgwikipedia_web_scrapingpassstatus 2004.7 s

Run · camoufox-headed-common-sites-v1-20260524

3/21 passedversion 0.4.11proxy: none2026-05-24

adapter: camoufox.sync_api.Camoufox(headless=False).goto(DISPLAY=:0)

TargetResultDetailLatency
amazon.comamazon_search_laptopfailexpected 200, got 5034.8 s
walmart.comwalmart_search_laptopfailblock marker: “Blocked”12.1 s
ebay.comebay_search_laptopfailexpected 200, got 4035.2 s
aliexpress.comaliexpress_search_laptopfailblock marker: “captcha”6.6 s
target.comtarget_search_laptopfailtransport error / timeout18.8 s
booking.combooking_search_parisfailexpected 200, got 2028.1 s
airbnb.comairbnb_search_parisfailblock marker: “captcha”6.4 s
tripadvisor.comtripadvisor_restaurants_parisfailexpected 200, got 4037.3 s
expedia.comexpedia_hotels_parisfailexpected 200, got 4296.1 s
zillow.comzillow_homes_for_salefailexpected 200, got 4037.2 s
realtor.comrealtor_new_yorkfailexpected 200, got 4296.2 s
rightmove.co.ukrightmove_londonpassstatus 2005.8 s
indeed.comindeed_python_remotefailblock marker: “captcha”5.9 s
yelp.comyelp_sf_restaurantsfailexpected 200, got 4036.2 s
trustpilot.comtrustpilot_amazonfailexpected 200, got 4037.3 s
newyork.craigslist.orgcraigslist_nyc_bikefailexpected 200, got 4035.8 s
finance.yahoo.comyahoo_finance_aaplfailredirected to consent.yahoo.com6.0 s
coinmarketcap.comcoinmarketcap_homefailblock marker: “captcha”13.6 s
reddit.comreddit_webscrapingpassstatus 2007.1 s
youtube.comyoutube_search_scrapingfailblock marker: “captcha”7.6 s
en.wikipedia.orgwikipedia_web_scrapingpassstatus 2005.9 s

Run · camoufox-tuned-docs-full-fixed-20260525

11/21 passedversion 0.6.0proxy: none2026-05-25

adapter: cloverlabs-camoufox[geoip] headed persistent profile + adaptive settle + humanize

TargetResultDetailLatency
amazon.comamazon_search_laptopfailtransport error / timeout80.1 s
walmart.comwalmart_search_laptoppassstatus 20017.0 s
ebay.comebay_search_laptoppassstatus 20014.6 s
aliexpress.comaliexpress_search_laptopfailtransport error / timeout80.1 s
target.comtarget_search_laptoppassstatus 20015.6 s
booking.combooking_search_parispassstatus 20018.6 s
airbnb.comairbnb_search_parispassstatus 20015.2 s
tripadvisor.comtripadvisor_restaurants_parisfailtransport error / timeout80.1 s
expedia.comexpedia_hotels_parisfailtransport error / timeout80.1 s
zillow.comzillow_homes_for_salefailexpected 200, got 40365.9 s
realtor.comrealtor_new_yorkfailblock marker: “Your request could not be processed”14.2 s
rightmove.co.ukrightmove_londonpassstatus 20015.2 s
indeed.comindeed_python_remotefailtransport error / timeout80.1 s
yelp.comyelp_sf_restaurantsfailexpected 200, got 40365.7 s
trustpilot.comtrustpilot_amazonpassstatus 40314.6 s
newyork.craigslist.orgcraigslist_nyc_bikefailblock marker: “blocked”53.9 s
finance.yahoo.comyahoo_finance_aaplpassstatus 20018.2 s
coinmarketcap.comcoinmarketcap_homepassstatus 20023.6 s
reddit.comreddit_webscrapingfailtransport error / timeout80.1 s
youtube.comyoutube_search_scrapingpassstatus 20015.8 s
en.wikipedia.orgwikipedia_web_scrapingpassstatus 20011.0 s