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Privoxy (Web Proxy)

Available since: version 0.1

A web proxy acts as a filter for incoming and outgoing web traffic. Thus, you can instruct any computer in your network to pass internet traffic through the proxy to remove unwanted ads and tracking mechanisms.

Privoxy is a software for security, privacy, and accurate control over the web. It provides a much more powerful web proxy (and anonymity on the web) than what your browser can offer. Privoxy "is a proxy that is primarily focused on privacy enhancement, ad and junk elimination and freeing the user from restrictions placed on his activities" (source: Privoxy FAQ).

Screencast

Watch the screencast on how to setup and use Privoxy in FreedomBox.

Setting up

1. In FreedomBox, install Web Proxy (Privoxy)

   

2. Adapt your browser proxy settings to your FreedomBox hostname (or IP address) with port 8118. Please note that Privoxy can only proxy HTTP and HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols.

   

3. Go to page http://config.privoxy.org/ or http://p.p. If Privoxy is installed properly, you will be able to configure it in detail; if not you will see an error message.

4. If you are using a laptop that occasionally has to connect through other routers than yours with the FreedomBox and Privoxy, you may want to install a proxy switch add-on that allows you to easily turn the proxy on or off.

Advanced Users

The default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the configuration, that can be dealt with as the need arises.

1. Plan first:

   • While using Privoxy, you can see its configuration details and documentation at http://config.privoxy.org/ or http://p.p.

   • The Quickstart is a good starting point to read on how to define own blocking and filtering rules.

   • Read carefully the manual, especially this security warning:

     • Access to the editor can not be controlled separately by "ACLs" or HTTP authentication, so that everybody who can access Privoxy can modify its configuration for all users. This option is not recommended for environments with untrusted users. Note that malicious client side code (e.g Java) is also capable of using the actions editor and you shouldn't enable this options unless you understand the consequences and are sure your browser is configured correctly.

2. Only when you are ready, perform the changes:

   1. To enable changing these configurations, you first have to change the value of enable-edit-actions in /etc/privoxy/config to 1.

   2. Now you find an EDIT button on the configuration screen in http://config.privoxy.org/.

External links

• Upstream project: https://www.privoxy.org

• Upstream documentation: https://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/index.html

Back to Features introduction or manual pages.

CategoryFreedomBox