Revert proxy setup - PR #579 not yet merged

The proxy fix PR is still open and not merged, so the compatibility issue
persists. Reverting to disabled proxy setup which works reliably.

The scholarly package's session management is sufficient for now. Can
re-enable proxy support once PR #579 is merged and released.

Ref: scholarly-python-package/scholarly#579

Author: cxhernandez

_scripts/environment.yml

@@ -9,4 +9,4 @@ dependencies:
   - markdown
   # Google Scholar crawler (gscrawler.py)
   - pandas
-  - scholarly>=1.7.12  # Requires version with proxy fix (PR #579)
+  - scholarly

_scripts/gscrawler.py

@@ -9,7 +9,6 @@
 
 import pandas as pd
 from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
-from scholarly import ProxyGenerator
 
 # Configure logging
 logging.basicConfig(
@@ -102,26 +101,16 @@ def clean_journal_name(journal):
 
 
 def setup_proxy():
-    """Setup free proxy to avoid Google Scholar blocking.
+    """Setup proxy to avoid Google Scholar blocking.
 
-    Uses FreeProxies from the scholarly package to rotate through
-    free proxy servers and avoid 403 errors.
+    Note: Free proxy setup is disabled due to unmerged compatibility fix.
+    The scholarly package's built-in session management and user-agent
+    handling is sufficient to avoid most blocking.
 
-    Requires scholarly>=1.7.12 which includes the proxy fix from PR #579.
+    See: https://github.com/scholarly-python-package/scholarly/pull/579
     """
-    try:
-        logger.info("Setting up free proxy to avoid blocking...")
-        from scholarly import scholarly
-        pg = ProxyGenerator()
-        success = pg.FreeProxies()
-        if success:
-            scholarly.use_proxy(pg)
-            logger.info("Proxy setup successful")
-        else:
-            logger.warning("Free proxy setup returned False, continuing without proxy...")
-    except Exception as e:
-        logger.warning(f"Proxy setup failed: {e}. Continuing without proxy...")
-        # Continue without proxy - scholarly will use direct connection
+    # Proxy setup disabled - PR #579 not yet merged
+    logger.info("Using scholarly's default session (proxy disabled - waiting for PR #579)")
 
 
 def get_author_publications_html(user_id):