httpmorph 0.1.2

A Python HTTP client focused on mimicking browser fingerprints.

httpmorph

A Python HTTP client focused on mimicking browser fingerprints.

⚠️ Work in Progress - This library is in early development. Features and API may change.

What is httpmorph?

httpmorph is a drop-in replacement for Python's requests library that uses a custom C implementation with BoringSSL instead of Python's standard HTTP stack. The primary goal is mimicking real browser TLS/HTTP fingerprints, not performance.

If you need raw speed, use httpx or aiohttp. If you need your Python script to look like Chrome, Firefox, or Safari from a fingerprinting perspective, use httpmorph.

Why httpmorph?

Many websites use TLS/HTTP fingerprinting to detect automated clients. Python's requests library has a distinctive fingerprint:

• Uses OpenSSL with Python's default configuration
• Specific cipher suite ordering that doesn't match browsers
• Missing browser-specific TLS extensions (like GREASE)
• Different HTTP/2 settings than real browsers

httpmorph addresses this by using BoringSSL (same as Chrome) and implementing exact TLS/HTTP parameters from real browsers.

Installation

pip install httpmorph

Requirements:

• Python 3.8+
• Supported platforms: Linux, macOS, Windows

Quick Start

import httpmorph

# Simple GET request (uses Chrome fingerprint by default)
response = httpmorph.get('https://httpbin.org/get')
print(response.text)

# Create a session with a specific browser profile
session = httpmorph.Session(browser='firefox')
response = session.get('https://httpbin.org/headers')
print(response.json())

# Session automatically handles cookies
response = session.post('https://httpbin.org/post', json={'key': 'value'})

API Compatibility

httpmorph provides a requests-compatible API:

# Module-level convenience functions
httpmorph.get(url, **kwargs)
httpmorph.post(url, data=None, json=None, **kwargs)
httpmorph.put(url, data=None, **kwargs)
httpmorph.delete(url, **kwargs)
httpmorph.head(url, **kwargs)
httpmorph.patch(url, data=None, **kwargs)
httpmorph.options(url, **kwargs)

# Session object
session = httpmorph.Session(browser='chrome')
session.get(url)
session.post(url, json={...})

# Response object
response.status_code
response.headers
response.text
response.content  # bytes
response.json()
response.raise_for_status()
response.elapsed  # timedelta

Browser Profiles

Available browser profiles:

• chrome - Chrome 131 (default)
• firefox - Firefox 122
• safari - Safari 17
• edge - Edge 122

Each profile includes:

• Accurate User-Agent header
• TLS cipher suites in correct order
• TLS extensions (including GREASE for Chrome/Edge)
• Elliptic curves
• Signature algorithms
• HTTP/2 SETTINGS frame parameters
• JA3 fingerprint characteristics

# Use a specific browser profile
session = httpmorph.Session(browser='firefox')
response = session.get('https://example.com')

# View TLS information
print(f"TLS Version: {response.tls_version}")
print(f"Cipher: {response.tls_cipher}")
print(f"JA3: {response.ja3_fingerprint}")

Response Timing

Responses include detailed timing information:

response = httpmorph.get('https://example.com')

# Timing in microseconds
print(f"Connect: {response.connect_time_us / 1000:.2f}ms")
print(f"TLS handshake: {response.tls_time_us / 1000:.2f}ms")
print(f"First byte: {response.first_byte_time_us / 1000:.2f}ms")
print(f"Total: {response.total_time_us / 1000:.2f}ms")

# requests-compatible
print(f"Elapsed: {response.elapsed.total_seconds():.3f}s")

Common Use Cases

Custom Headers

headers = {'Authorization': 'Bearer token123'}
response = httpmorph.get('https://api.example.com', headers=headers)

File Uploads

files = {'file': ('report.pdf', open('report.pdf', 'rb'))}
response = httpmorph.post('https://httpbin.org/post', files=files)

Timeout Control

# Single timeout value (seconds)
response = httpmorph.get('https://example.com', timeout=5)

# Tuple: (connect_timeout, read_timeout)
response = httpmorph.get('https://example.com', timeout=(3, 10))

Authentication

# Basic authentication
response = httpmorph.get(
    'https://api.example.com',
    auth=('username', 'password')
)

Sessions with Cookies

session = httpmorph.Session()

# Cookies persist across requests
session.get('https://example.com/login')
session.post('https://example.com/form', data={'key': 'value'})

# Access cookies
print(session.cookies)

Proxy Support

# HTTP proxy
response = httpmorph.get(
    'https://example.com',
    proxy='http://proxy.example.com:8080'
)

# Proxy with authentication
response = httpmorph.get(
    'https://example.com',
    proxy='http://proxy.example.com:8080',
    proxy_auth=('username', 'password')
)

# requests-compatible dict format
proxies = {
    'http': 'http://proxy.example.com:8080',
    'https': 'http://proxy.example.com:8080'
}
response = httpmorph.get('https://example.com', proxies=proxies)

Error Handling

try:
    response = httpmorph.get('https://example.com', timeout=5)
    response.raise_for_status()
except httpmorph.Timeout:
    print("Request timed out")
except httpmorph.ConnectionError:
    print("Failed to connect")
except httpmorph.HTTPError as e:
    print(f"HTTP error: {e.response.status_code}")

Current Limitations

This library is a work in progress. Known limitations:

• No SSL verification configuration
• No connection pooling
• No streaming requests/responses
• Limited cookie handling (basic support)
• No custom auth handlers
• HTTP/2 support is partial

These may be addressed in future releases.

Building from Source

# 1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/arman-bd/httpmorph
cd httpmorph

# 2. Build vendor dependencies (BoringSSL, nghttp2)
#    This takes 5-10 minutes on first build
bash scripts/setup_vendors.sh

# 3. Install in development mode
pip install -e ".[dev]"

# 4. Run tests
pytest tests/ -v

Platform-Specific Prerequisites

macOS:

brew install cmake ninja go

Linux (Ubuntu/Debian):

sudo apt-get install cmake ninja-build golang pkg-config autoconf automake libtool

Windows:

choco install cmake golang -y
# Also requires Visual Studio 2019+ with C++ tools

Architecture

httpmorph has three layers:

1. C Core (src/core/) - Socket handling, TLS with BoringSSL, HTTP parsing
2. Cython Bindings (src/bindings/) - Python interface to C code
3. Python Wrapper (src/httpmorph/) - requests-compatible API

Browser TLS profiles are defined in src/tls/browser_profiles.c.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

Contributing

This project is in early development. Contributions welcome, but please note the API is still evolving.

Disclaimer

This tool is for legitimate testing and development purposes only. Users are responsible for complying with website terms of service and applicable laws.