My routine now starts with an IP check before I test any actual website. I learned that after misreading a connection problem as a regional-content issue. To make sure I was checking the right things, I used the troubleshooting steps from https://www.simplynode.io/post/how-to-set-up-and-use-a-proxy-in-firefox and confirmed the visible IP first, then opened a location-sensitive page in a fresh tab. If the IP changes but the page still looks wrong, I clear the relevant cookies or try a clean profile before touching the proxy settings again. That simple order saves a lot of time. Most of my mistakes have been wrong ports, authentication details, or an old browser session carrying cached regional information.
The public IP is the fastest first check because it tells you whether traffic is leaving through the expected server. After that, I would test one site whose regional behavior you already know. If both checks look right, the basic proxy setup is probably fine. When only the content looks wrong, I would investigate cookies, DNS, browser profile, or account settings before assuming the proxy connection itself has failed.
I once spent ten minutes troubleshooting a website before realizing Firefox was not using the proxy at all. Since then, I always test the connection first instead of judging it by whether a page loads. Checking the public IP seems like the obvious step, but I’m curious what else people verify. What is the quickest reliable way to confirm that Firefox is really sending traffic through the proxy?