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PRIVOXY(8) PRIVOXY(8) NAME privoxy - Privacy Enhancing Proxy SYNOPSIS privoxy [--chroot ] [--config-test ] [--help ] [--no-daemon ] [--pidfile pidfile ] [--pre-chroot-nslookup hostname ] [--user user[.group] ] [--ver- sion ] [configfile ] OPTIONS Privoxy may be invoked with the following command line options: --chroot Before changing to the user ID given in the --user option, chroot to that user's home directory, i.e. make the kernel pretend to the Privoxy process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit the impact of possible vulnerabilities in Privoxy to the files contained in that hierarchy. --config-test Exit after loading the configuration files before binding to the listen address. The exit code signals whether or not the configura- tion files have been successfully loaded. If the exit code is 1, at least one of the configuration files is invalid, if it is 0, all the configuration files have been success- fully loaded (but may still contain errors that can currently only be detected at run time). This option doesn't affect the log setting, combination with "--no- daemon" is recommended if a configured log file shouldn't be used. --help Print brief usage info and exit. --no-daemon Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group leader, don't detach from controlling tty, and do all logging there. --pidfile pidfile On startup, write the process ID to pidfile. Delete the pidfile on exit. Failure to create or delete the pidfile is non-fatal. If no --pidfile option is given, no PID file will be used. --pre-chroot-nslookup hostname Initialize the resolver library using hostname before chroot'ing. On some systems this reduces the number of files that must be copied into the chroot tree. --user user[.group] After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of user and the GID of group, or, if the optional group was not given, the default group of user. Exit if the privileges are not sufficient to do so. --version Print version info and exit. If the configfile is not specified on the command line, Privoxy will look for a file named config in the current directory. If no configfile is found, Privoxy will fail to start. DESCRIPTION Privoxy is a non-caching web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for enhancing privacy, modifying web page data and HTTP headers, controlling access, and removing ads and other obnoxious Internet junk. Privoxy has a flexible configuration and can be customized to suit individual needs and tastes. It has application for both stand-alone systems and multi-user networks. Privoxy is Free Software and licensed under the GNU GPLv2 or later. Privoxy is an associated project of Software in the Public Interest (SPI). Helping hands and donations are welcome: * https://www.privoxy.org/participate * https://www.privoxy.org/donate INSTALLATION AND USAGE Browsers can either be individually configured to use Privoxy as a HTTP proxy (recommended), or Privoxy can be combined with a packet filter to build an intercepting proxy (see config). The default setting is for lo- calhost, on port 8118 (configurable in the main config file). To set the HTTP proxy in Firefox, go through: Tools; Options; General; Connection Set- tings; Manual Proxy Configuration. For Internet Explorer, go through: Tools; Internet Properties; Connections; LAN Settings. The Secure (SSL) Proxy should also be set to the same values, otherwise https: URLs will not be proxied. Note: Privoxy can only proxy HTTP and HTTPS traffic. Do not try it with FTP or other protocols. HTTPS presents some limitations, and not all features will work with HTTPS connections. For other browsers, check the documentation. CONFIGURATION Privoxy can be configured with the various configuration files. The default configuration files are: config, default.filter, default.action and de- fault.action. user.action should be used for locally defined exceptions to the default rules in match-all.action and default.action, and user.filter for locally defined filters. These are well commented. On Unix and Unix- like systems, these are located in /etc/privoxy/ by default. Privoxy uses the concept of actions in order to manipulate the data stream between the browser and remote sites. There are various actions available with specific functions for such things as blocking web sites, managing cookies, etc. These actions can be invoked individually or combined, and used against individual URLs, or groups of URLs that can be defined using wildcards and regular expressions. The result is that the user has greatly enhanced control and freedom. The actions list (ad blocks, etc) can also be configured with your web browser at http://config.privoxy.org/ (assuming the configuration allows it). Privoxy's configuration parameters can also be viewed at the same page. In addition, Privoxy can be toggled on/off. This is an internal page, and does not require Internet access. See the User Manual for a detailed explanation of installation, general us- age, all configuration options, new features and notes on upgrading. FILES /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config /etc/privoxy/match-all.action /etc/privoxy/default.action /etc/privoxy/user.action /etc/privoxy/default.filter /etc/privoxy/user.filter /etc/privoxy/trust /etc/privoxy/templates/* /var/log/privoxy/logfile Various other files should be included, but may vary depending on platform and build configuration. Additional documentation should be included in the local documentation directory. SIGNALS Privoxy terminates on the SIGINT and SIGTERM signals. Log rotation scripts may cause a re-opening of the logfile by sending a SIGHUP to Privoxy. Note that unlike other daemons, Privoxy does not need to be made aware of con- fig file changes by SIGHUP -- it will detect them automatically. Signals other than the ones listed above aren't explicitly handled and result in the default action defined by the operating system. NOTES Please see the User Manual on how to contact the developers, for feature requests, reporting problems, and other questions. SEE ALSO Other references and sites of interest to Privoxy users: https://www.privoxy.org/, the Privoxy Home page. https://www.privoxy.org/faq/, the Privoxy FAQ. https://www.privoxy.org/developer-manual/, the Privoxy developer manual. https://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/, the Project Page for Privoxy on SourceForge. http://config.privoxy.org/, the web-based user interface. Privoxy must be running for this to work. Shortcut: http://p.p/ https://sourceforge.net/p/ijbswa/actionsfile-feedback/, to submit ``misses'' and other configuration related suggestions to the developers. DEVELOPMENT TEAM Fabian Keil, lead developer David Schmidt Lee Rian Roland Rosenfeld Ian Silvester COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE COPYRIGHT Copyright (C) 2001-2026 by Privoxy Developers <privoxy-de- vel@lists.privoxy.org> Some source code is based on code Copyright (C) 1997 by Anonymous Coders and Junkbusters, Inc. LICENSE Privoxy is free software; you can redistribute and/or modify its source code under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the license, or (at your op- tion) any later version. The same is true for Privoxy binaries unless they are linked with a mbed TLS or OpenSSL version that is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license or against a wolfSSL version that is licensed under the GPL 3 in which case you can redistribute and/or modify the Privoxy binaries under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Founda- tion, either version 3 of the license, or (at your option) any later ver- sion. Privoxy is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the license for details. Privoxy 4.2.0 02 June 2026 PRIVOXY(8)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | OPTIONS | DESCRIPTION | INSTALLATION AND USAGE | CONFIGURATION | FILES | SIGNALS | NOTES | SEE ALSO | DEVELOPMENT TEAM | COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
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