I have a number of machines, all of which have Visual Studio installed, where something (presumably visual studio) is overriding the proxy settings: setting up localhost and
This happens because you've enabled "ASP.NET Client Proxy for IntelliTrace and Test Impact" in the Test Settings.
To disable - VS2010: Open the menu Test
> Edit Test Settings
> (select the current active test settings), select Data and Diagnostics
and disable the mentioned setting.
To disable - VS2013: Double click on the enabled* .testsettings
-file in the solutions explorer, select Data and Diagnostics
and disable the mentioned setting.
*) You'll find which one is enabled (if any) under TEST
> Test settings