A PAC File Can Explicitly Tell Clients to Go Direct

Returning DIRECT is a successful routing instruction. It is different from serving no PAC file or letting automatic discovery fail.

A network can distribute a valid PAC file even when it wants no forwarding proxy:

function FindProxyForURL(url, host) {
    return "DIRECT";
}

This is a successful instruction to connect directly. It is not a malformed script, and it does not name a server called DIRECT.

That distinction can be useful when deliberately changing an organization's automatically distributed routing policy. A client that obtained and evaluated this script has a result; a client that received a 404 or could not discover the file has encountered a different condition.

Do not assume serving this file immediately removes every old route. A browser may retain an earlier script, have a managed setting with higher priority, or continue an existing connection. Confirm the effective configuration and retrieval.

The script also does not disable proxies configured independently inside other applications. It controls the clients that actually use this PAC configuration.

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