Privoxy (Privacy Enhancing Proxy) 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 supports both stand-alone systems and multi-user networks.
Privoxy uses the concept of actions in order to manipulate the data stream between the browser and remote sites.
Key Features
- Ad blocking.
- Cookie management.
- Supports “Connection: keep-alive”. Outgoing connections can be kept alive independently from the client.
- Supports IPv6.
- Tagging which allows to change the behaviour based on client and server headers.
- Run as an “intercepting” proxy.
- Sophisticated actions and filters for manipulating both server and client headers.
- Can be chained with other proxies.
- Integrated browser-based configuration and control utility. Browser-based tracing of rule and filter effects. Remote toggling.
- Web page filtering (text replacements, removes banners based on size, invisible “web-bugs” and HTML annoyances, etc).
- Modularized configuration that allows for standard settings and user settings to reside in separate files, so that installing updated actions files won’t overwrite individual user settings.
- Support for Perl Compatible Regular Expressions in the configuration files, and a more sophisticated and flexible configuration syntax.
- GIF de-animation.
- Bypass many click-tracking scripts (avoids script redirection).
- User-customizable HTML templates for most proxy-generated pages (e.g. “blocked” page).
- Auto-detection and re-reading of config file changes.
- Most features are controllable on a per-site or per-location basis.
Website: www.privoxy.org
Support: User Manual
Developer: Fabian Keil (lead developer), David Schmidt, and many other contributors
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
Privoxy is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Content Control Software | |
|---|---|
| E2guardian | Web content filter works in proxy, transparent or icap server modes |
| Privoxy | Privacy Enhancing Proxy |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
| Web Delivery Tools | |
|---|---|
| Vinyl HTTP Cache | Web accelerator written with performance and flexibility in mind |
| Squid | High-performance proxy caching server and web cache daemon |
| Tinyproxy | Lightweight web proxy daemon |
| Privoxy | Non-caching Web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities |
| Polipo | Caching HTTP proxy which has modest resource needs |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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