[Privoxy-devel] macOS test failures

[Ian Silvester]

On Thu, 18 Jun 2026, at 02:58, Fabian Keil via Privoxy-devel wrote:
> "Ian Silvester" <iansilvester at fastmail.fm> wrote on 2026-06-17 at 09:35:55:
>
>> On Tue, 16 Jun 2026, at 11:47, Fabian Keil via Privoxy-devel wrote:
>> > Ian Silvester via Privoxy-devel <privoxy-devel at lists.privoxy.org> wrote 
>> > on 2026-06-15 at 14:36:51:
>
>> >> In doing so however I've realised I've made a mistake in using
>> >> Homebrew to install openssl. It puts libraries in a non-standard
>> >> location (beneath /opt/homebrew/) which I would then have to use
>> >> in the Privoxy installation, potentially competing with the end
>> >> user's own Homebrew setup.
>> >> 
>> >> I will need to go around the loop again with 'vanilla' openssl
>> >> to get the libraries to install under /usr/local/lib. I expect
>> >> to complete this by the end of next weekend.
>> >
>> > Do you intend to put the OpenSSL libraries in a privoxy-specific
>> > sub directory or is this not necessary to prevent conflicts with
>> > other packages that could contain OpenSSL libraries?
>> 
>> I intend to put them in /usr/local/lib, which is where the PCRE2 and Zstd
>> libraries live by default. It's conceivable that other software might
>> install one or more of these libraries here already, so I am relying on
>> the library vendors for their forward/backward ABI compatibility. 
>
> What happens if other software already installed libraries to the
> same place as your Privoxy package, a user installs the Privoxy package
> and then removes it again, for example to install an update?
>
> Will this break the previously installed packages or is there some
> dependency tracking that prevents libraries that are still needed
> from being removed?

There's no dependency tracking built into macOS that would prevent a user-installed application from deleting it's libraries if it wanted to, though I don't know whether such tracking exists if you stay within the 'walled garden' of the App Store.

There is also however no built-in means to fully uninstall all files belonging to a given Application. Apple tells you to simply 'drag the application icon from Applications to the Trash', pretending that that will always contain the entire application fileset, which is almost never the case.

As such, I provide an uninstaller with the macOS Privoxy package which deliberately does _not_ uninstall any of the third party libraries, precisely because of the risk you outline. Yes this leaves behind cruft if indeed Privoxy is the only application that's using PCRE2, ZSTD or the SSL libraries, but better that than break some other software that was relying on them.

Ian

>
> Fabian
>
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