[Freedombox-discuss] freedombox-privoxy

[James Vasile]

One thing many people seem to agree the FreedomBox should do is web
filtering for privacy and ad-removal.  Toward that end, I've put a first
draft version of privoxy up on git.

     git clone https://github.com/jvasile/freedombox-privoxy
     make deb
     sudo apt-get purge privoxy # yes, this is necessary the first time
     sudo dpkg -i Debian/*.deb
     sudo privoxy restart

If you want to see what I changed, look in
Debian/freedombox-privacy*/debian/patches/9*.dpatch after doing the make
deb.  I'll get some binary packages up for x86 and Dream Plug soon.

This package differs from the standard Debian privoxy package in a few
key ways.

First (and most importantly) it doesn't just listen on localhost.  The
plan is eventually to control access to it via iptables, so by default
it listens to the world.  Be careful with that if your FreedomBox is
reachable via public net.

Second, I imported the https-everywhere ruleset as a privoxy action file
and modified the privoxy binary to handle it.

Third, I imported the easyprivacy ruleset from Ad-Block Plus as a
privoxy action file.  Easyprivacy is not included in ABP and most users
are unaware that they can add it in.  To me, that makes it a good
candidate for inclusion here.

Fourth, I *started* to pull in the easylist ruleset from ABP.  It is
impossible to fully duplicate easylist with a proxy because the proxy
lacks information the browser uses to make more nuanced decisions about
what to block.  Scripted import of easylist might be buggy, and this
needs more investigation.

If you are a privoxy user, please do give this package a test run and
report any problems to:

     https://github.com/jvasile/freedombox-privoxy/issues

If all goes well, this will go into the FreedomMaker image quite soon
and then to a Debian mirror near you.  I'll be offering these changes to
the privoxy project too, although it's a lot of regexes so they might be
hesitant to take it all.

Once privoxy is there, it might become part of the infrastructure for
providing some browsing proxy services to your FreedomBox friends,
especially those stuck behind corporate or national firewalls.

Thanks!