# Plurk Proxies: 118 Words Without a Browser

> Plurk measured through residential proxies from Taiwan, Japan and the US: a public profile returns 118 words over plain HTTP; the browser adds only 78 words.

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# Plurk Proxies: 118 Words Without a Browser

Social proxiesSep 29, 2026·8 min read·By [Aldo Morese](https://quanticdata.io/about/), founder of QuanticData

What a public Plurk profile returns by fetch mode and exit country, measured through residential proxies on 28 September 2026: 118 words over plain HTTP from Taiwan in 32,781 bytes, 103 words from Japan, 196 words rendered from Taiwan for 765,843 bytes, 137 rendered from Japan, and 68 bytes from the API endpoint without an OAuth signature

On this page [The profile header is server-rendered; the timeline is not](/blog/plurk-proxies/#the-profile-header-is-server-rendered-the-timeline-is-not) [A single plurk page is full HTML at 17,858 bytes](/blog/plurk-proxies/#a-single-plurk-page-is-full-html-at-17-858-bytes) [The API refuses unsigned requests, even for public data](/blog/plurk-proxies/#the-api-refuses-unsigned-requests-even-for-public-data) [The Japanese exit gets a different interface, and 15 fewer words](/blog/plurk-proxies/#the-japanese-exit-gets-a-different-interface-and-15-fewer-wo) [What it costs, counting a gigabyte as one billion bytes](/blog/plurk-proxies/#what-it-costs-counting-a-gigabyte-as-one-billion-bytes) [What Plurk's own files permit, in one line each](/blog/plurk-proxies/#what-plurk-s-own-files-permit-in-one-line-each) [The setting that works on Plurk](/blog/plurk-proxies/#the-setting-that-works-on-plurk)

A public Plurk profile hands a plain HTTP client 118 words in 32,781 bytes from a Taiwanese residential exit: the display name, the description, the friend, fan and karma counters and the profile chrome, all in the HTML. Rendering the same URL in a browser returns 196 words for 765,843 bytes and 6.8 seconds, 78 more words for 23 times the traffic. A single plurk page is server-rendered at 17,858 bytes and 119 words. The API returns 68 bytes and an error to any request without an OAuth signature, public profiles included. On Plurk the setting is plain HTTP for profiles and posts, a Taiwanese exit, and an app key for timelines.

Plurk is a Taiwanese microblog that has run since 2008, and nobody in the proxy trade writes about it: the Taiwanese search results for this keyword are the platform's own pages, a thesis on user behaviour and a mirror of the API documentation. That is exactly why it is worth measuring. Here is what a proxied client gets, from the home market and from two others.

## The profile header is server-rendered; the timeline is not

We audited *www.plurk.com/plurk*, the platform's system account, through residential exits in three countries, once without JavaScript and once rendered.

| Exit country | Plain HTTP | Rendered in a browser |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Taiwan | 118 words, title *Plurk [plurk] - Plurk*, description, *robots: INDEX,FOLLOW* | 196 words, 765,843 bytes, 6.8 s |
| Japan | 103 words, same title and description | 137 words |
| United States | 118 words, same as Taiwan | 196 words, same as Taiwan |

Over plain HTTP the page contains the profile: nickname, display name, the description, the counters (friends, fans, karma, plurks, responses), the avatar and two headings, plus one HTML table, all inside 32,781 bytes. What it does not contain is the timeline. The plurks themselves are loaded by script after the page, which is why the rendered pass adds 78 words: a handful of recent posts and their response counts.

That makes the render a poor trade on this target. The browser moves 765,843 bytes and takes 6.8 seconds to add 78 words; the plain fetch moves 32,781 bytes in 1.6 seconds and already answers "who is this account and how big is it". For the timeline itself there are two better routes, below, and neither is a browser.

## A single plurk page is full HTML at 17,858 bytes

Every plurk has a permalink under */p/*. We fetched one over plain HTTP from Taiwan: HTTP 200, 17,858 bytes, 119 extractable words, with the plurk's text in the title tag, the author's nickname, and the response count in the meta description (*Plurk by <user> - 1 response(s)*). The post text, the author and the count are in the HTML before any script runs.

So the honest instruction for monitoring known posts is: read the permalink over plain HTTP, 17,858 bytes each, and parse the title and description. For discovering posts you need either the rendered profile, which gave us a handful, or the API, which is where the platform wants you.

## The API refuses unsigned requests, even for public data

Plurk API 2.0 is built on OAuth 1.0a. The documentation lists */APP/Profile/getPublicProfile* as the method that "fetches public information such as a user's public plurks and basic information" and says it supports two-legged OAuth, meaning a request signed with an application's consumer key and secret, with no user token. We called it without a signature from a Taiwanese exit and received HTTP 400 in 68 bytes: *40003: we only support HMAC-SHA1 as signature method*.

Read that as the rule it is: public timelines are available programmatically, but only to a registered application signing its requests. An app key is issued at */PlurkApp/create* to a Plurk account. Proxies do not change this. What proxies change is the pacing of page reads, which carry no key, and the exit country, which changes the page.

## The Japanese exit gets a different interface, and 15 fewer words

The Japanese rows above are the geographic finding. Same URL, same minute: 103 words plain and 137 rendered from Japan, against 118 and 196 from Taiwan and the United States. The title and description did not change. What changed is the interface language around the profile, which Plurk selects from the client's location, and the way word counting treats it: a Japanese label is one token where an English one is two or three.

The practical consequence is the one we documented on [Facebook](https://quanticdata.io/blog/facebook-proxies/) and on [TikTok](https://quanticdata.io/blog/tiktok-proxies/): a parser keyed on English labels breaks silently from a Japanese exit, and a word-count assertion tuned on Taiwan fails on Japan for the same content. Pin the exit for the duration of a job. Taiwan is the platform's home market and its counts matched the United States exactly, so it is the exit to pin.

## What it costs, counting a gigabyte as one billion bytes

| How you fetch it | On-wire bytes | What you get | Per GB | Cost at $0.80/GB |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Profile, plain HTTP, Taiwanese exit | 32,781 | 118 words: name, description, counters | ~30,500 profiles | $0.000026 |
| Profile, rendered, Taiwanese exit | 765,843 | 196 words: the same plus a few recent plurks, 6.8 s | ~1,306 profiles | $0.00061 |
| One plurk permalink, plain HTTP | 17,858 | Post text, author, response count | ~56,000 posts | $0.000014 |
| API getPublicProfile, unsigned | 68 | An error until you sign with an app key | n/a | n/a |

Refresh 50,000 profiles a day for a month over plain HTTP: about 49 GB, about $39 at the residential Basic rate. Rendered, the same job moves about 1,149 GB and costs about $919 for 78 extra words per profile. Reading 100,000 plurk permalinks costs about $1.43. The cheapest route on Plurk is also the most stable one, because the server-rendered HTML is what the platform has served to search engines since 2008.

If you would rather not run the fetch layer, our [web scraping API](https://quanticdata.io/web-scraping-api/) returns the profile or the permalink as Markdown for $0.0002 per page with no browser, pinned to Taiwan. On Plurk do not pay for the $0.001 rendered mode; the measurement above is the proof.

## What Plurk's own files permit, in one line each

The *robots.txt* is 304 bytes and starts with *Allow: /*, then disallows eleven paths for every user agent: friend invitations, notifications, settings, cliques, affiliate and admin pages, two redeem paths, */Users/*, */API/* and */IM/*. Profiles, plurk permalinks, the portal and search are not excluded, and the file is cached for 31 days. No AI crawler is named.

The Terms of Service, section 4, say the rest in three lines: do not access the services by any means other than the interfaces publicly provided and authorized by Plurk, adhere to robots.txt, and do not disrupt the service by overloading, flooding, spamming or crafting scripts. That is the plain line: reading public profile and plurk pages at a human pace, within robots.txt, is what the published interface provides; a timeline at volume is what the signed API provides; anything that floods the site is out. Accounts are personal, and nothing here helps with running several.

What this is properly for: monitoring a known list of public accounts and posts, checking how your own profile renders from Taiwan and from Japan, social listening on public plurks through the API with an app key, and research under the Taiwanese Personal Data Protection Act, which the terms cite and which applies to public posts as much as to private ones.

## The setting that works on Plurk

- **Network:** [residential](https://quanticdata.io/residential-proxies/), Basic at $0.80/GB. Residential exits in Taiwan, Japan and the United States read the profile over plain HTTP on the first request; nothing in nine passes needed more than a household address.

- **Fetch mode:** *engine: tls*, plain HTTP. 118 words and the counters in 32,781 bytes; the render adds 78 words for 765,843 bytes and 6.8 seconds. Permalinks under */p/* are full HTML at 17,858 bytes.

- **Country to pin:** Taiwan, the home market. From Japan the same page returns 103 words plain and 137 rendered instead of 118 and 196, because the interface follows the exit.

- **For timelines:** the API 2.0 with an app key, two-legged OAuth 1.0a signed with HMAC-SHA1; unsigned requests get a 68-byte error.

- **When the proxy is not enough:** the [web scraping API](https://quanticdata.io/web-scraping-api/) at $0.0002 per page returns profiles and permalinks as Markdown, pinned to Taiwan; for cross-platform listening alongside Plurk, the [Reddit collector](https://quanticdata.io/collectors/reddit-scraper-api/) returns public posts as rows with no fetch layer on your side.

- **Free tier:** every account gets $2 of free API usage per month, which covers 10,000 profile or permalink pages at the plain-HTTP rate.

### Sources & further reading

- [plurk.com/robots.txt (fetched 28 September 2026, 304 bytes)](https://www.plurk.com/robots.txt)

- [Plurk API 2.0 documentation, OAuth flow and getPublicProfile](https://www.plurk.com/API)

- [Plurk Terms of Service, section 4, Service and Account](https://www.plurk.com/terms)

- [Plurk official account (the profile measured)](https://www.plurk.com/plurk)

## FAQ

Quick answers on plurk proxies.

[Something else? Ask us →](mailto:hello@quanticdata.io)

### Do I need to render Plurk in a browser?

Not for profiles or posts. On 28 September 2026 a public profile returned 118 words over plain HTTP from a Taiwanese residential exit, with the name, description and counters in the HTML, and rendering returned 196 words for 765,843 bytes and 6.8 seconds. A plurk permalink is full HTML at 17,858 bytes. Only the timeline loads by script, and the API is the route for that.

### Can I read Plurk public timelines without an API key?

Not through the API. The getPublicProfile method returned HTTP 400 in 68 bytes to an unsigned request, with the message that only HMAC-SHA1 signatures are supported. Plurk API 2.0 uses OAuth 1.0a; public methods accept two-legged requests signed with an app's consumer key and secret, issued to a Plurk account at /PlurkApp/create.

### Does the exit country change what Plurk returns?

The interface, not the profile. From Japan the same page returned 103 words plain and 137 rendered; from Taiwan and the United States, 118 and 196. Title and description were identical. Plurk localises the chrome by client location, so pin one exit, Taiwan, for the duration of a job.

### What does Plurk robots.txt allow?

Everything except eleven paths. The 304-byte file starts with Allow: / and disallows friend invitations, notifications, settings, cliques, affiliate, admin, two redeem paths, /Users/, /API/ and /IM/ for every user agent. Profiles, permalinks, the portal and search are not excluded, and the file is cached for 31 days.

### How much does it cost to read Plurk profiles through a proxy?

About $0.000026 per profile at $0.80/GB, counting a gigabyte as one billion bytes, because the plain page is 32,781 bytes. Rendered it is $0.00061 for 78 more words. A permalink is 17,858 bytes, about $0.000014. Fifty thousand profiles a day for a month over plain HTTP is about 49 GB, about $39.

### Is scraping Plurk allowed by its terms?

Only through the interfaces Plurk publicly provides, within robots.txt, and without flooding. Section 4 of the Terms of Service says so in three lines. Public profile and permalink pages at a human pace and the signed API for timelines are those interfaces; overloading the site or crafting scripts to do so is prohibited.

## Read Plurk profiles for three thousandths of a cent

Residential exits from $0.80/GB pinned to Taiwan return the profile header and counters over plain HTTP on the first request, and every account gets $2 of free API usage per month. Skip the browser: 78 more words, 23 times the bytes.

[Start free — $2/month included](https://quanticdata.io/signup/)[Explore Residential Proxies from $0.80/GB](https://quanticdata.io/residential-proxies/)

## Related reading

[Social proxies Triller Proxies: 0 Words, Domain for Sale Triller measured through residential exits in the United States, Germany and Brazil on 28 September 2026. The profile URL returns 114 bytes and 0 words over plain HTTP, a script that redirects to a listing where the domain is for sale; rendered, the sale notice arrives in the exit country's language, 92 words in English or Portuguese and 161 in German. The app's online services stopped in 2026. There are no Triller profiles to read through a proxy, and this page says so with the numbers, then shows where the archived pages are: the Wayback Machine collector returns 10 snapshots in 7.3 seconds. Read →](https://quanticdata.io/blog/triller-proxies/) [Social proxies Truth Social Proxies: 1,440 Bytes, No Login Truth Social measured through residential exits in the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom on 28 September 2026. The public profile page hands a plain HTTP client 7 words from every exit, and a browser hydrates it only from the US: 400 words for 937,369 bytes. The Mastodon-compatible API needs no account and returned the identical 1,440-byte JSON from all three countries, with a documented ceiling of 300 requests per five-minute window. On Truth Social the setting is the API, plain HTTP, any exit. Read →](https://quanticdata.io/blog/truth-social-proxies/) [Social proxies Vero Proxies: 2,393 Words From 3 Countries One public Vero profile measured through residential exits in the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom on 28 September 2026. Over plain HTTP it returns 2,393 words in 265,121 bytes from all three countries, identical; rendered, 2,421 words for 331,650 bytes. Every response carries a meta robots tag of noindex, noimageindex, noarchive. There is no public API and no oEmbed endpoint. On Vero the setting is plain HTTP through any residential exit, and the honest line is that the platform publishes profiles to the open web while asking that they not be indexed or archived. Read →](https://quanticdata.io/blog/vero-proxies/)

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