(Newbie:) Why use privoxy?

[Roger Dingledine]

On Fri, May 12, 2006 at 12:55:15AM +0100, Arrakistor wrote:
> Firefox  can do remote DNS resolution, which is done through the SOCKS
> proxy.  This  does  NOT leak DNS requests, and they are passed through
> tor.
> 
> Just  surf  to "about:config" and find remote dns, and make sure it is
> set  to  true.  Then  set  up  your  machine to use a SOCKS proxy with
> localhost as the IP and whatever port you set in the torrc.

Note that this case only applies to Firefox 1.5 and after. Those
with earlier versions are still out of luck.

Also, Privoxy provides some other nice privacy-related features, such
as ad blocking, dealing with cookies, and so on. It's not perfect,
but it is much better than nothing. So if you take Privoxy out of the
loop, you should replace all its features with various Firefox plugins
(noscript, something for cookies, adblock and friends, etc).

It is an open question whether there exists a set of compatible Firefox
plugins that can entirely replace Privoxy's functionality. Somebody
should sit down and work out all the details.

Any takers? :)

--Roger