Global Network Proxy Configuration

So, there’s a problem that has been bugging me for some time now. Currently, the Proxy Settings configuration page of system settings only apply to a limited set of apps. In fact, neither Plasma nor any of the Kirigami apps actually use this configuration. Despite the warning, Chrome and Chromium based apps do support the settings set there while the Neon’s default browser Firefox doesn’t.

And for most of the Kirigami apps, the settings page of the apps don’t solve the problem, because the app needs to load before it allows to enter settings and they don’t load without an internet connection.

Would it be possible to create a way for KDE’s own apps to use the configuration set in System Settings? Ofc. an actual cross-DE standard would be great, but since we don’t have that, I think at least having KDE apps work as expected would be nice.

Applications can either directly read the KDE settings or use libproxy, which does it for them.

Qt can use libproxy, but the build option for it is currently disabled by default because of some no longer relevant issue. https://codereview.qt-project.org/c/qt/qtbase/+/494754 re-enables it, and some distros already have it enabled. With that KDE applications using Qt’s network classes follow the proxy settings automatically.

KDE applications using KIO for network access follow the proxy settings automatically in KF5. In KF6 KIO uses Qt’s network classes internally, so nothing changes for Plasma users but it will start to use other platform’s proxy settings.

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As Jack_White wrote, proxy setting are not working right for long time ago (years). In 2021, finally I reported this issues related to http/s proxy authentication.
With or without using PAC files, when trying to download plasmoids, new themes or other “downloadable” packages from Plasma settings menus, it simply failed, cause maybe Plasma try to access to proxy without authentication (and it’s required).