Privoxy is an open source, multiplatform and free web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for protecting privacy on Linux-based operating systems. The software is very flexible and can be customized to suit individual tastes and needs.
It allows users to modify web page content, manage cookies, control access, and remove ads, banners, pop-ups and other annoying Internet junk. Privoxy works on both standalone systems and multi-user environments.
Based on Internet Junkbuster
Privoxy is based on Internet Junkbuster, and features integrated browser based configuration and control utility, browser-based tracing of filter and rule affects, remote toggling, web page content filtering, and much more.
Looking under the hood, we can notice that is has been written entirely in the C programming language. It can be used on any distribution of GNU/Linux, as well as on other UNIX-like operating systems, including FreeBSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows.
Getting started with Privoxy
To install and use the Privoxy software on your GNU/Linux operating system, you should first download the latest version of the project from its official website (see the homepage link below) or via Softpedia (use the download button above).
Save the archive on a location of your choice, preferably in your Home folder, and use an archive manager tool to extract it. Open a terminal emulator app and go to the location of the extracted archive files (e.g. cd /home/softpedia/privoxy-3.0.22-stable).
Run the ‘autoheader && autoconf && ./configure’ command to configure the project for your CPU architecture and operating systems. Then, run the ‘make install’ command as root, or the ‘sudo make install’ command if you’re a privileged user, to install it system wide.
Finally, run the ‘privoxy –help’ command in the Terminal app to view its usage message and what options are available. The software has been successfully tested on 32-bit and 64-bit computer platforms.
