Help with Privoxy

[gregh2000]

Hi all,

I am looking for some help with getting privoxy running on my n800. I followed the install steps from http://www.internettablettalk.com/wiki/index.php/Networking:Installing_and_running_PRIVOXY and I can't quite figure out how to make it run. I try running the command /usr/sbin/privoxy --no-daemon --user user /etc/privoxy/config and it kicks back saying privoxy not found. If I go to the directory and do a ls it shows that privoxy is there. Can anyone help me get this going?

Thanks

[gregh2000]

All right I got privoxy working now. The only problem I have now is the site I need it for runs over https and it doesn't seem to be changing the user-agent string. It correctly is changing it for regular http traffic. Anyone have any ideas?

[fpp]

Are you sure that https is also going through Privoxy locally (ie you have both protocols declared as proxied in your connection parameters) ?

[TA-t3]

About running privoxy: Don't run it like /usr/sbin/privoxy <whatever>, unless you're debugging your configuration file. The right way is /etc/init.d/privoxy start (and stop to stop it), but this is done automatically at boot time as well as at install time. Check with ps -ef|grep privoxy if it's running or not. And netstat -ant should show it listening on port 8118.

[gregh2000]

I have both http and https running through privoxy, I am about to try starting it like you said and see if it works.

[gregh2000]

If I try to start privoxy using the start command from the init.d folder it just says
starting filtering proxy server:
then returns to the command prompt but if i try to go to a site it is not running.
the grep command returns:
1829 user 368 R grep privoxy
am I doing something wrong? I edited the privoxy file in the init.d folder to change the owner to user. It runs when I use the long command for debug mode but won't run with the init.d folder command. Any ideas?

[TA-t3]

If it runs from the command line then it should run from /etc/init.d/privoxy start
But you must be root to run the init.d command. Are you? From the 'grep' command it looks like you're user, not root. (If you reboot the N800 it'll run all the /etc/init.d/ commands automatically.)

[jhford]

All right I got privoxy working now. The only problem I have now is the site I need it for runs over https and it doesn't seem to be changing the user-agent string. It correctly is changing it for regular http traffic. Anyone have any ideas?
Could you please write a brief tutorial on how to get Privoxy working?
Thanks

[gerbick]

Hate to bump such an old thread; however I can recreate all of the above without incident... install, have it run, make sure it has access to the right locations, et al. But the problem is that the browser doesn't pick it up at all... and I'm running on the Nokia 770.

Any clues? I've googled and searched this site up and down, and that's the last part where I'm stuck.

[iball]

Once privoxy is installed via the Application Manager then it's set to automagically run and will be run everytime the tablet is rebooted.
You have to set the proxy settings in the connection manager for each network connection manually to get it to point to 127.0.0.1, port 8118.

[gerbick]

oh heck... now I've done it.

uninstalled, located the ~/etc/privoxy location removed all of the templates, rmdir the location... now I can't install...

chown: /etc/privoxy/user.action: No such file or directory
chown: /etc/privoxy/trust: No such file or directory
dpkg: error processing privoxy (--configure): subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
privoxy
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
ugh. my tinkering might have caused a dilemma now.

[iball]

Reboot and try again?
Also do an "apt-get update" from the command line as root with the application manager closed.

[gerbick]

Already have rebooted, tried again... as well as apt-get update before posting about my problem with privoxy. Until I uninstalled without incident.

Oh well, I'm going to reflash it all tomorrow anyway... my install was getting a bit heavy with things I'd removed, et al.

Thanks for the help.

[gigabites]

I don't understand all the problems? I had more problems configuring the app than installing it (especially since in the instructions it says to block an item using the "edit link under actions files... I see no "edit" only "view".)

I found it so much easier using midnight commander to edit the action file than using the internal web page or using vi.

I wish it was as easy to configure or actually use as ad-blocker and I didn't have to set the proxy for every friggin connection.

oh well.

[TA-t3]

Just to clarify and summarize:
- To run privoxy, just install it. You don't have to do anything extra to start it, and it will be started automatically if you reboot.
- To _use_ privoxy you will have to select a connection which you actually have configured. Disconnect if active, then go into control panel, connections, connections, select account, edit, next, next, next, advanced, tick 'use proxy', in HTTP-proxy set 127.0.0.1, in Port number set 8118. Optionally do the same for HTTPS. Scroll down and optionally enter some hostnames for which you want to bypass the proxy, e.g. my.own.domain.com,my.company.domain.com, enter OK

(the above is for wi-fi, the sequence of 'next, next' etc. looks a bit different for BT DUN accounts. I have privoxy set permanently for my phone, and two similar, but separate accounts for my own network where one is with privoxy and the other withouth (same ESSID but given different account names)).

If you want to use privoxy with some random hotspot you will have to add it to the configured connections and go through the above.

Finally, I use privoxy with the default setup, I haven't found a need to edit the config files. But you may at some stage want to add some extra site to block, or allow some blocked site, if so you will have to edit the config files. Better look up privoxy.org and read the online documentation at that stage.

[zerojay]

I've been a longtime Privoxy user on my PC. How well does it run on the N800? I guess what I'm asking is how much does it slow browsing down?

[TA-t3]

I thought for a moment that privoxy slows it down a little, and probably it will sometimes, but I'm not certain anymore that it's actually noticable. In other words, it works well. For some sites it definitely speeds up the experience simply because the pages are filled with rubbish that privoxy won't download.

[sporky]

thanks fot the tutorial...worked great

Just to clarify and summarize:
- To run privoxy, just install it. You don't have to do anything extra to start it, and it will be started automatically if you reboot.
- To _use_ privoxy you will have to select a connection which you actually have configured. Disconnect if active, then go into control panel, connections, connections, select account, edit, next, next, next, advanced, tick 'use proxy', in HTTP-proxy set 127.0.0.1, in Port number set 8118. Optionally do the same for HTTPS. Scroll down and optionally enter some hostnames for which you want to bypass the proxy, e.g. my.own.domain.com,my.company.domain.com, enter OK

(the above is for wi-fi, the sequence of 'next, next' etc. looks a bit different for BT DUN accounts. I have privoxy set permanently for my phone, and two similar, but separate accounts for my own network where one is with privoxy and the other withouth (same ESSID but given different account names)).

If you want to use privoxy with some random hotspot you will have to add it to the configured connections and go through the above.

Finally, I use privoxy with the default setup, I haven't found a need to edit the config files. But you may at some stage want to add some extra site to block, or allow some blocked site, if so you will have to edit the config files. Better look up privoxy.org and read the online documentation at that stage.

[ysss]

I've found a german site with a binary and instruction that works at:
http://www.n800wiki.de/pmwiki.php?n=Main.Privoxy

Can someone please clarify which binary works on the N800 and where to get it?
The instructions from wiki (first post on this thread) specifically mentions that it's already outdated with no pointer to a more current source
TIA..