I need to connect to a specific proxy server to access my university library services. I find it convenient to keep Safari for direct connections to the Internet, and another browser configured for access to the library via the proxy.
Firefox allows manual proxy configuration, but doesn't handle PDF downloads correctly from all journal suppliers' sites. Chrome handles the PDF downloads correctly, but there is no obvious way to specify a proxy in its preferences.
Extrapolating from a published hint for Windows, I found that launching Chrome from the command line while passing it --proxy-server=host#:port# works. There is nothing I could find in Chrome's help pages, or on the web, that addresses this issue, so it may be useful. In Terminal, the final command looks like this:
open -a /Applications/Google Chrome.app --args --proxy-server=host#:port#Replace host# and port# with the host and port numbers that you need to use.
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20100213001826236