HELP!!! Privoxy severed my ppp0 connection!

[elludium_q-36]

I discovered the joys of package FireStarter, a good firewall GUI/front-end with REALTIME info.
It seemed to unclog my VERY SLOW, unreliable 14.4K iDEN wireless connection and stop some system resource hogs.

Unfortunately I thought to go to the next level with privoxy, which seemed to be able to replace some of the bloatware functions of firefox. I had read of it in other threads and it seemed pretty straight-foward, easy and I think a post suggested it had a GUI or at least that it was menu driven.

Maybe not so much.

As soon as I installed privoxy, I was severed from my connection via KPPP / ppp0 It seems privoxy can run from the command line but I would have to be able to read online help/documentation to implement the package.

I did a "complete removal" with Synaptic Package Manager but it was to no avail.

Firestarter showed MORE persistent and intrusive connections after installing/removing privoxy and I could see much activity on KPPP's graph, although none of the activity was initiated by me.

Anyone have a good answer, files to edit, etc.?

I KNOW searching is compelled and I DID do a quick search but I have limited time at the public library. Also, I am distracted by the kids listening to music videos on Youtube and having an "after school party". The "big kids" do the same thing during school hours.

I'm sure some "helpful" joker will just say to do a fresh install but I don't have a spare HDD to backup all my data/files and some packages need to be online, even to install... My 14.4K iDEN connection is marginal at best. While I do have AptOnCD but there would go the settings/configurations and data, along with anything needed to be fetched online.

This is on an 8.04 box.

Thanks in advance.
"Elludium_Q-36"

[DoYouKubuntu]

First, I want to address this:

I'm sure some "helpful" joker will just say to do a fresh install

I am NOT being snarky, okay?, but this is not a windoze forum. The odds of anyone [who knows what they're doing with Linux] recommending a reinstall for an issue like yours are slim to none. We [Linux users] don't do reinstalls to fix problems. We FIX problems.

With that said, I'm sorry that I don't have any personal experience with privoxy, so I probably can't help much. But I would suggest that, in Synaptic, you go to its entry and view the 'installed files' tab. Just make sure there really ISN'T anything left over, despite having done the 'complete removal' thing. If you DO find any files listed there, you can PROBABLY delete them [manually, at a prompt] without hurting anything, but just to be sure you might want to post the names, including their paths, of any files found there so we can check them out.

You can also run ps -eaf at a prompt and check its output for anything that looks related to privoxy, which may or may not be named that way. So scour the output and see if anything looks likely. If so, report your findings here.

[GreyGeek]

You can also use netstat to see what is connected to your box:

jerry@jerry-Aspire-7739:~$ sudo netstat -lp
[sudo] password for jerry: 
Active Internet connections (only servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address           Foreign Address         State       PID/Program name
tcp        0      0 localhost:domain        *:*                     LISTEN      1909/dnsmasq    
tcp        0      0 localhost:ipp           *:*                     LISTEN      1036/cupsd      
tcp        0      0 localhost:postgresql    *:*                     LISTEN      1168/postgres   
tcp        0      0 *:17500                 *:*                     LISTEN      2240/dropbox    
tcp6       0      0 ip6-localhost:ipp       [::]:*                  LISTEN      1036/cupsd      
udp        0      0 localhost:domain        *:*                                 1909/dnsmasq    
udp        0      0 *:bootpc                *:*                                 1889/dhclient   
udp        0      0 *:17500                 *:*                                 2240/dropbox    
udp        0      0 *:mdns                  *:*                                 1040/avahi-daemon: 
udp        0      0 *:48434                 *:*                                 1040/avahi-daemon: 
udp6       0      0 [::]:34902              [::]:*                              1040/avahi-daemon: 
udp6       0      0 [::]:mdns               [::]:*                              1040/avahi-daemon:

"man netstat" will give more info.