2. Installation

Privoxy is available both in convenient pre-compiled packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code. For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our Privoxy Project Page.

Note: If you have a previous Junkbuster or Privoxy installation on your system, you will need to remove it. On some platforms, this may be done for you as part of their installation procedure. (See below for your platform). In any case be sure to backup your old configuration if it is valuable to you. See the note to upgraders section below.

2.1. Binary Packages

How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:

2.1.1. Red Hat, SuSE RPMs and Conectiva

RPMs can be installed with rpm -Uvh privoxy-2.9.15-1.rpm, and will use /etc/privoxy for the location of configuration files.

Note that on Red Hat, Privoxy will not be automatically started on system boot. You will need to enable that using chkconfig, ntsysv, or similar methods. Note that SuSE will automatically start Privoxy in the boot process.

If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM: rpm --rebuild privoxy-2.9.15-1.src.rpm;. This will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.

Also note that if you have a Junkbuster RPM installed on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict. Otherwise, RPM will try to remove Junkbuster automatically, before installing Privoxy.

2.1.3. Windows

Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through the installation process. You will find the configuration files in the same directory as you installed Privoxy in. We do not use the registry of Windows.

2.1.4. Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX

Create a new directory, cd to it, then unzip and untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where things go. FIXME.

2.1.5. OS/2

First, make sure that no previous installations of Junkbuster and / or Privoxy are left on your system. You can do this by

Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the Privoxy executable will be placed in your startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.

The directory you choose to install Privoxy into will contain all of the configuration files.

2.1.6. Max OSX

Unzip the downloaded package (you can either double-click on the file in the finder, or on the desktop if you downloaded it there). Then, double-click on the package installer icon and follow the installation process. Privoxy will be installed in the subdirectory /Applications/Privoxy.app. Privoxy will set itself up to start automatically on system bring-up via /System/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy.

2.1.7. AmigaOS

Copy and then unpack the lha archive to a suitable location. All necessary files will be installed into Privoxy directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just remove this directory.

Start Privoxy (with RUN <>NIL:) in your startnet script (AmiTCP), in s:user-startup (RoadShow), as startup program in your startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx). Privoxy will automatically quit when you quit your TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that Privoxy is still running).

2.2. Building from Source

The most convenient way to obtain the Privoxy sources is to download the source tarball from our project page.

If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute version directly from the CVS repository or simply download the nightly CVS tarball.

To build Privoxy from source, autoconf, GNU make (gmake), and, of course, a C compiler like gcc are required.

When building from a source tarball (either release version or nightly CVS tarball), first unpack the source:

 tar xzvf privoxy-2.9.15-beta-src* [.tgz or .tar.gz]
 cd privoxy-2.9.15-beta

For retrieving the current CVS sources, you'll need CVS installed. Note that sources from CVS are development quality, and may not be stable, or well tested. To download CVS source:

  cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ijbswa login
  cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/ijbswa co current
  cd current

This will create a directory named current/, which will contain the source tree.

Then, in either case, to build from unpacked tarball or CVS source:

 autoheader
 autoconf
 ./configure      # (--help to see options)
 make             # (the make from gnu, gmake for *BSD) 
 su 
 make -n install  # (to see where all the files will go)
 make install     # (to really install)

If you have gnu make, you can have the first four steps automatically done for you by just typing:

  make

in the freshly downloaded or unpacked source directory.

For more detailed instructions on how to build Redhat and SuSE RPMs, Windows self-extracting installers, building on platforms with special requirements etc, please consult the developer manual.