diff --git a/docs/docs/integrations/document_loaders/async_html.ipynb b/docs/docs/integrations/document_loaders/async_html.ipynb
index 95bb82efaac..3de66e3e8b3 100644
--- a/docs/docs/integrations/document_loaders/async_html.ipynb
+++ b/docs/docs/integrations/document_loaders/async_html.ipynb
@@ -37,6 +37,10 @@
    "source": [
     "urls = [\"https://www.espn.com\", \"https://lilianweng.github.io/posts/2023-06-23-agent/\"]\n",
     "loader = AsyncHtmlLoader(urls)\n",
+    "# If you need to use the proxy to make web requests, for example using http_proxy/https_proxy environmental variables,\n",
+    "# please set trust_env=True explicitly here as follows:\n",
+    "# loader = AsyncHtmlLoader(urls, trust_env=True)\n",
+    "# Otherwise, loader.load() may stuck becuase aiohttp session does not recognize the proxy by default\n",
     "docs = loader.load()"
    ]
   },
diff --git a/libs/community/langchain_community/document_loaders/async_html.py b/libs/community/langchain_community/document_loaders/async_html.py
index 832ef114446..5bb9d897512 100644
--- a/libs/community/langchain_community/document_loaders/async_html.py
+++ b/libs/community/langchain_community/document_loaders/async_html.py
@@ -64,6 +64,7 @@ class AsyncHtmlLoader(BaseLoader):
         ignore_load_errors: bool = False,
         *,
         preserve_order: bool = True,
+        trust_env: bool = False,
     ):
         """Initialize with a webpage path."""
 
@@ -104,6 +105,8 @@ class AsyncHtmlLoader(BaseLoader):
         self.ignore_load_errors = ignore_load_errors
         self.preserve_order = preserve_order
 
+        self.trust_env = trust_env
+
     def _fetch_valid_connection_docs(self, url: str) -> Any:
         if self.ignore_load_errors:
             try:
@@ -126,7 +129,7 @@ class AsyncHtmlLoader(BaseLoader):
     async def _fetch(
         self, url: str, retries: int = 3, cooldown: int = 2, backoff: float = 1.5
     ) -> str:
-        async with aiohttp.ClientSession() as session:
+        async with aiohttp.ClientSession(trust_env=self.trust_env) as session:
             for i in range(retries):
                 try:
                     async with session.get(
diff --git a/libs/community/langchain_community/retrievers/web_research.py b/libs/community/langchain_community/retrievers/web_research.py
index 9003f51740a..2541d21c4e8 100644
--- a/libs/community/langchain_community/retrievers/web_research.py
+++ b/libs/community/langchain_community/retrievers/web_research.py
@@ -75,6 +75,11 @@ class WebResearchRetriever(BaseRetriever):
     url_database: List[str] = Field(
         default_factory=list, description="List of processed URLs"
     )
+    trust_env: bool = Field(
+        False,
+        description="Whether to use the http_proxy/https_proxy env variables or "
+        "check .netrc for proxy configuration",
+    )
 
     @classmethod
     def from_llm(
@@ -87,6 +92,7 @@ class WebResearchRetriever(BaseRetriever):
         text_splitter: RecursiveCharacterTextSplitter = RecursiveCharacterTextSplitter(
             chunk_size=1500, chunk_overlap=150
         ),
+        trust_env: bool = False,
     ) -> "WebResearchRetriever":
         """Initialize from llm using default template.
 
@@ -97,6 +103,8 @@ class WebResearchRetriever(BaseRetriever):
             prompt: prompt to generating search questions
             num_search_results: Number of pages per Google search
             text_splitter: Text splitter for splitting web pages into chunks
+            trust_env: Whether to use the http_proxy/https_proxy env variables
+                or check .netrc for proxy configuration
 
         Returns:
             WebResearchRetriever
@@ -124,6 +132,7 @@ class WebResearchRetriever(BaseRetriever):
             search=search,
             num_search_results=num_search_results,
             text_splitter=text_splitter,
+            trust_env=trust_env,
         )
 
     def clean_search_query(self, query: str) -> str:
@@ -191,7 +200,9 @@ class WebResearchRetriever(BaseRetriever):
         logger.info(f"New URLs to load: {new_urls}")
         # Load, split, and add new urls to vectorstore
         if new_urls:
-            loader = AsyncHtmlLoader(new_urls, ignore_load_errors=True)
+            loader = AsyncHtmlLoader(
+                new_urls, ignore_load_errors=True, trust_env=self.trust_env
+            )
             html2text = Html2TextTransformer()
             logger.info("Indexing new urls...")
             docs = loader.load()