1 <!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V3.1//EN" [
2 <!entity % dummy "IGNORE">
3 <!entity supported SYSTEM "supported.sgml">
4 <!entity newfeatures SYSTEM "newfeatures.sgml">
5 <!entity p-intro SYSTEM "privoxy.sgml">
6 <!entity seealso SYSTEM "seealso.sgml">
7 <!entity buildsource SYSTEM "buildsource.sgml">
8 <!entity contacting SYSTEM "contacting.sgml">
9 <!entity history SYSTEM "history.sgml">
10 <!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
11 <!entity license SYSTEM "license.sgml">
12 <!entity p-authors SYSTEM "p-authors.sgml">
13 <!entity config SYSTEM "p-config.sgml">
14 <!entity p-version "3.0.18">
15 <!entity p-status "UNRELEASED">
16 <!entity % p-authors-formal "INCLUDE"> <!-- include additional text, etc -->
17 <!entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE">
18 <!entity % p-stable "IGNORE">
19 <!entity % p-text "IGNORE"> <!-- define we are not a text only doc -->
20 <!entity % p-doc "INCLUDE"> <!-- and we are a formal doc -->
21 <!entity % p-readme "IGNORE">
22 <!entity % user-man "IGNORE">
23 <!entity % config-file "IGNORE">
24 <!entity % p-supp-userman "IGNORE"> <!-- Omit some from supported.sgml -->
25 <!entity my-copy "©"> <!-- kludge for docbook2man -->
26 <!entity % draft "IGNORE"> <!-- WIP stuff -->
27 <!entity % seealso-extra "INCLUDE"> <!-- extra stuff from seealso.sgml -->
28 <!entity my-app "<application>Privoxy</application>">
31 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
34 This file belongs into
35 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
37 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.136 2011/10/14 16:53:10 fabiankeil Exp $
39 Copyright (C) 2001-2011 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org/
42 ========================================================================
43 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
44 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
45 ========================================================================
52 <title>Privoxy &p-version; User Manual</title>
56 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
57 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
58 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001-2011 by
59 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
63 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.136 2011/10/14 16:53:10 fabiankeil Exp $</pubdate>
67 Note: the following should generate a separate page, and a live link to it,
68 all nicely done. But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave
69 commented unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the
70 copyright/license declarations will be in their own sgml.
83 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
84 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
85 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
91 The <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> gives users information on how to
92 install, configure and use <ulink
93 url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy</ulink>.
96 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
98 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
101 You can find the latest version of the <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> at <ulink
102 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
103 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> on how to
104 contact the developers.
108 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
114 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
115 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
117 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
118 <application>Privoxy</application>, v.&p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
119 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
120 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
121 configuration files. Development of a new version is currently nearing
122 completion, and includes significant changes and enhancements over
126 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
129 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
130 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
131 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
136 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
137 <sect2 id="features"><title>Features</title>
139 In addition to the core
140 features of ad blocking and
141 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookie</ulink> management,
142 <application>Privoxy</application> provides many supplemental
143 features<![%p-not-stable;[, some of them currently under development]]>,
144 that give the end-user more control, more privacy and more freedom:
146 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
148 <!-- end boilerplate -->
153 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
156 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
157 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
160 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
161 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
162 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
163 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project
169 On some platforms, the installer may remove previously installed versions, if
170 found. (See below for your platform). In any case <emphasis>be sure to backup
171 your old configuration if it is valuable to you.</emphasis> See the <link
172 linkend="upgradersnote">note to upgraders</link> section below.
175 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
176 <sect2 id="installation-packages"><title>Binary Packages</title>
178 How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
181 <!-- XXX: The installation sections should be sorted -->
183 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
184 <sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Red Hat and Fedora RPMs</title>
187 RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm</literal>,
188 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location
189 of configuration files.
193 Note that on Red Hat, <application>Privoxy</application> will
194 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be automatically started on system boot. You will
195 need to enable that using <command>chkconfig</command>,
196 <command>ntsysv</command>, or similar methods.
200 If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM:
201 <literal>rpm --rebuild privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm</literal>. This
202 will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.
206 Also note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
207 on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
208 Otherwise, RPM will try to remove <application>Junkbuster</application>
209 automatically if found, before installing <application>Privoxy</application>.
213 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
214 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian and Ubuntu</title>
216 DEBs can be installed with <literal>apt-get install privoxy</literal>,
217 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location of
222 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
223 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
226 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
227 the installation process. You will find the configuration files
228 in the same directory as you installed <application>Privoxy</application> in.
231 Version 3.0.5 beta introduced full <application>Windows</application> service
232 functionality. On Windows only, the <application>Privoxy</application>
233 program has two new command line arguments to install and uninstall
234 <application>Privoxy</application> as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>.
238 <term>Arguments:</term>
241 <replaceable class="parameter">--install</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
244 <replaceable class="parameter">--uninstall</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
250 After invoking <application>Privoxy</application> with
251 <command>--install</command>, you will need to bring up the
252 <application>Windows</application> service console to assign the user you
253 want <application>Privoxy</application> to run under, and whether or not you
254 want it to run whenever the system starts. You can start the
255 <application>Windows</application> services console with the following
256 command: <command>services.msc</command>. If you do not take the manual step
257 of modifying <application>Privoxy's</application> service settings, it will
258 not start. Note too that you will need to give Privoxy a user account that
259 actually exists, or it will not be permitted to
260 write to its log and configuration files.
265 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
266 <sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris <!--, NetBSD, HP-UX--></title>
269 Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
270 untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
271 things go. <!-- FIXME, more info needed? -->
275 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
276 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
279 First, make sure that no previous installations of
280 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
281 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
282 system. Check that no <application>Junkbuster</application>
283 or <application>Privoxy</application> objects are in
289 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
290 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
291 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
292 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
296 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
297 into will contain all of the configuration files.
301 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
302 <sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Mac OS X</title>
304 Unzip the downloaded file (you can either double-click on the zip file
305 icon from the Finder, or from the desktop if you downloaded it there).
306 Then, double-click on the package installer icon and follow the
307 installation process.
310 The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful
311 installation (in addition to every time your computer starts up). To
312 prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your
313 computer starts up, remove or rename the folder named
314 <literal>/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal>.
317 To manually start or stop the privoxy service, use the Privoxy Utility
318 for Mac OS X. This application controls the privoxy service (e.g.
319 starting and stopping the service as well as uninstalling the software).
323 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
324 <sect3 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
326 Copy and then unpack the <filename>lha</filename> archive to a suitable location.
327 All necessary files will be installed into <application>Privoxy</application>
328 directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just
329 remove this directory.
333 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
334 <sect3 id="installation-tbz"><title>FreeBSD</title>
337 Privoxy is part of FreeBSD's Ports Collection, you can build and install
338 it with <literal>cd /usr/ports/www/privoxy; make install clean</literal>.
341 If you don't use the ports, you can fetch and install
342 the package with <literal>pkg_add -r privoxy</literal>.
345 The port skeleton and the package can also be downloaded from the
346 <ulink url="https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">File Release
347 Page</ulink>, but there's no reason to use them unless you're interested in the
348 beta releases which are only available there.
352 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
353 <sect3 id="installattion-gentoo"><title>Gentoo</title>
355 Gentoo source packages (Ebuilds) for <application>Privoxy</application> are
356 contained in the Gentoo Portage Tree (they are not on the download page,
357 but there is a Gentoo section, where you can see when a new
358 <application>Privoxy</application> Version is added to the Portage Tree).
361 Before installing <application>Privoxy</application> under Gentoo just do
362 first <literal>emerge --sync</literal> to get the latest changes from the
363 Portage tree. With <literal>emerge privoxy</literal> you install the latest
367 Configuration files are in <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename>, the
368 documentation is in <filename>/usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;</filename>
369 and the Log directory is in <filename>/var/log/privoxy</filename>.
375 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
376 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
379 The most convenient way to obtain the <application>Privoxy</application> sources
380 is to download the source tarball from our
381 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&package_id=10571">project download
386 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
387 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
388 version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
389 CVS repository</ulink>.
391 deprecated...out of business.
392 or simply download <ulink
393 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.bz2">the nightly CVS
398 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
400 <!-- end boilerplate -->
403 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
404 <sect2 id="installation-keepupdated"><title>Keeping your Installation Up-to-Date</title>
406 As user feedback comes in and development continues, we will make updated versions
407 of both the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link> (as a <ulink
408 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&release_id=103670">separate
409 package</ulink>) and the software itself (including the actions file) available for
414 If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
415 <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
416 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce/">subscribe
417 to our announce mailing list</ulink>, ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
421 In order not to lose your personal changes and adjustments when updating
422 to the latest <literal>default.action</literal> file we <emphasis>strongly
423 recommend</emphasis> that you use <literal>user.action</literal> and
424 <literal>user.filter</literal> for your local
425 customizations of <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
426 linkend="actions-file">Chapter on actions files</link> for details.
434 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
436 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
437 <sect1 id="whatsnew">
438 <title>What's New in this Release</title>
440 <application>Privoxy 3.0.18</application> is a stable release.
441 The changes since 3.0.17 stable are:
452 Fix a logic bug that could cause Privoxy to reuse a tainted
454 It could happen for server sockets that got tainted by a
455 server-header-tagger-induced block, in which case Privoxy
456 doesn't necessarily read the whole server response.
457 If keep-alive was enabled and the request following the
458 blocked one was to the same host and using the same
459 forwarding settings, Privoxy would send it on the tainted
461 While the server would simply treat it as a pipelined request,
462 Privoxy would later on fail to properly parse the server's
463 response as it would try to parse the unread data from the
464 first response as server headers for the second one.
465 Regression introduced in 3.0.17.
470 When implying keep-alive in client_connection(), remember that the client didn't
471 Fixes a regression introduced in 3.0.13 that would cause
472 Privoxy to wait for additional client requests after
473 receiving a HTTP/1.1 request with "Connection: close" set
474 and connection sharing enabled.
475 With clients like curl which terminates the client connection
476 after detecting that the whole body has been received it doesn't
477 really matter, but with clients like FreeBSD's fetch the client
478 connection would be kept open until it timed out.
483 Fix a subtle race condition between prepare_csp_for_next_request() and sweep()
484 A thread preparing itself for the next client request
485 could briefly appear to be inactive.
486 If all other threads were already using more recent files,
487 the thread could get its files swept away under its feet.
488 I've only seen it while stress testing in valgrind while
489 touching action files in a loop. It's unlikely to have
490 caused any actual problems in the real world.
498 General improvements:
502 Privoxy can (re)compress buffered content before delivering
503 it to the client. Disabled by default as most users wouldn't
509 The +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} action checks URL
511 If there are other parameters behind the redirect URL,
512 this makes it unnecessary to cut them of by additionally
513 using a +redirect{} pcrs command.
514 Initial patch submitted by Jamie Zawinski in #3429848.
519 Properly deal with FEATURE_TOGGLE being disabled
524 Adjust url_code_map[] so spaces are replaced with %20 instead of '+'
525 While '+' can be used by client's submitting form data, this is not
526 actually what Privoxy is using the lookups for. This is more of a
527 cosmetic issue and doesn't fix any actual problems I'm aware of.
532 When compiled without FEATURE_FAST_REDIRECTS, do not silently
533 ignore +fast-redirect{} directives
538 Added a workaround for GNU libc's strptime() reporting negative
539 year values when the parsed year is only specified with two digits.
540 On affected systems cookies with such a date would not be turned
541 into session cookies by the +session-cookies-only action.
542 Reported by Vaeinoe in #3403560
547 When loading action sections, verify that the referenced filters exist
548 Currently missing filters only result in an error message,
549 but eventually the severity will be upgraded to fatal.
554 Allow to bind to multiple separate addresses.
555 Patch set submitted by Petr Pisar in #3354485.
560 Set socket_error to errno if connecting fails in rfc2553_connect_to()
561 Previously rejected direct connections could be incorrectly reported as DNS issues.
566 Fixed bind failures with certain GNU libc versions if no non-loopback
567 IP address has been configured on the system. This is mainly an issue
568 if the system is using DHCP and Privoxy is started before the network
569 is completely configured.
570 Reported by Raphael Marichez in #3349356.
571 Additional insight from Petr Pisar.
576 Disable filters if SDCH compression is used unless filtering is forced.
577 If SDCH was combined with a supported compression algorithm,
578 we'd previously try to decompress it, when successful apply
579 the enabled filters and ditch the Content-Encoding header
580 even though the SDCH compression wasn't removed.
581 Reported by zebul666 in #3225863.
586 Privoxy log messages now use the ISO 8601 date format %Y-%m-%d.
587 It's only slightly longer than the old format, but contains
588 the full date including the year and allows sorting by date
589 (when grepping in multiple log files) without hassle.
594 Make a copy of the --user value and only mess with that when splitting user and group.
595 On some operating systems modifying the value directly
596 is reflected in the output of ps and friends and can
598 Reported by zepard in #3292710.
603 If forwarded-connect-retries is set, only retry if the we are actually
604 forwarding the request. Previously direct connections would be retried
610 Fixed a small memory leak when retrying connection
615 Remove an incorrect assertion in compile_dynamic_pcrs_job_list()
616 It could be triggered by a pcrs job with an invalid pcre
617 pattern (for example one that contains a lone quantifier).
625 Action file improvements:
629 Moved the site-specific block pattern section below the one for the
630 generic patterns so for requests that are matched in both, the block
631 reason for the domain is shown which is usually more useful than showing
632 the one for the generic pattern.
637 Add a (disabled) section to block various Facebook tracking URLs
638 Reported by Dan Stahlke in #3421764.
643 Add a (disabled) section to rewrite and redirect click-tracking URLs used on news.google.com
644 Reported by Dan Stahlke in #3421755.
649 Unblock linuxcounter.net/
650 Reported by Dan Stahlke in #3422612.
655 Block 'www91.intel.com/' which is used by Omniture.
656 Reported by Adam Piggott in #3167370.
661 Disable the handle-as-empty-doc-returns-ok option and mark it as deprecated.
662 Reminded by tceverling in #2790091.
667 Add ".ivwbox.de/" to the "Cross-site user tracking" section.
668 Reported by Nettozahler in #3172525.
673 Unblock and fast-redirect ".awin1.com/.*=http://"
674 Reported by Adam Piggott in #3170921.
679 Block "b.collective-media.net/".
684 Widen the Debian popcon exception to "qa.debian.org/popcon".
685 Seen in Debian's 05_default_action.dpatch by Roland Rosenfeld.
690 Block ".gemius.pl/" which only seems to be used for user tracking.
691 Reported by johnd16 in #3002731. Additional input from Lee and movax.
696 Disable banners-by-size filters for '.thinkgeek.com/'
697 The filter only seems to catch pictures of the inventory.
702 Block requests for 'go.idmnet.bbelements.com/please/showit/'
703 Reported by kacperdominik in #3372959.
708 Unblock adainitiative.org/
713 Add a fast-redirects exception for '.googleusercontent.com/.*=cache'
718 Add a fast-redirects exception for webcache.googleusercontent.com/
723 Remove -prevent-compression from the fragile alias
724 It's no longer used anywhere by default and isn't
725 known to break stuff anyway.
730 Unblock http://adassier.wordpress.com/ and http://adassier.files.wordpress.com/
738 Filter file improvements:
742 Let the yahoo filter hide '.ads'
747 Let the msn filter hide overlay ads for Facebook 'likes' in search results.
752 Let the msn filter hide elements with the id 's_notf_div'.
753 They only seem to be used to advertise site 'enhancements'.
758 Let the js-events filter additionally disarm setInterval()
759 Suggested by dg1727 in #3423775.
767 Documentation improvements:
771 Clarify the effect of compiling Privoxy with zlib support
772 Suggested by dg1727 in #3423782.
777 Point out that the SourceForge messaging system works
778 like a blackhole and should thus not be used
783 Mention some of the problems one can experience when not
784 explicitly configuring an IP addresses as listen address.
789 Explicitly mention that hostnames can be used instead of
790 IP addresses for the listen-address, that only the first
791 address returned will be used and what happens if the
793 Requested by Calestyo in #3302213.
801 Log message improvements:
805 If only the server connection is kept alive, do not pretent to wait for a new client request.
810 Remove a superfluos log message in forget_connection()
815 In chat(), properly report missing server responses as such instead of calling them empty
820 In forwarded_connect(), fix a log message nobody should ever see
825 Fix a log message in socks5_connect(), a failed write operation was logged as failed read operation
830 Let load_one_actions_file() properly complain about a missing '{' at the beginning of the file
831 Simply stating that a line is invalid isn't particularly helpful.
836 Do not claim to listen on a socket until we actually do.
837 Patch submitted by Petr Pisar #3354485
842 Prevent a duplicated LOG_LEVEL_CLF message when sending out the "no-server-data" response
847 Also log the client socket when dropping a connection.
852 Include the destination host in the
853 'Request ... marked for blocking. limit-connect{...} doesn't allow CONNECT ...' message
854 Patch submitted by Saperski in #3296250.
859 Prevent a duplicated log message if none of the resolved IP
860 addresses were reachable
865 In connect_to(), do not pretend to retry if forwarded-connect-retries is zero or unset.
870 When a specified user or group can't be found, put the name in single-quotes when logging it.
875 In rfc2553_connect_to(), explain getnameinfo() errors differently.
880 Remove a useless log message in chat()
885 When retrying to connect, also log the maximum number of connection attempts
890 Rephrase a log message in compile_dynamic_pcrs_job_list()
891 Divide the error code and its meaning with a colon.
892 Call the pcrs job dynamic and not the filter. Filters may
893 contain dynamic and non-dynamic pcrs jobs at the same time.
894 Only mention the name of the filter or tagger, but don't
895 claim it's a filter when it could be a tagger.
900 In a fatal error message in load_one_actions_file(), cover both URL and TAG patterns
905 In pcrs_strerror(), properly report unknown positive error code values as unknown.
906 Previously they were handled like 0 (no error).
911 In compile_dynamic_pcrs_job_list(), also log the actual error code as
912 pcrs_strerror() doesn't handle all errors reported by pcre
917 Don't bother trying to continue chatting if the client didn't ask for it.
918 Reduces log noise a bit.
923 Make two fatal error message in load_one_actions_file() more descriptive
928 In cgi_send_user_manual(), log when rejecting a file name due to '/' or '..'
933 In load_file(), log a message if opening a file failed
934 The CGI error message alone isn't too helpful.
939 In connection_destination_matches(), improve two log messages to
940 help understand why the destinations don't match
945 Rephrase a log message in serve(). Client request arrival
946 should be differentiated from closed client connections now.
951 In serve(), log if a client connection isn't reused due to a
952 configuration file change.
957 Let mark_server_socket_tainted() always mark the server socket tainted,
958 just don't talk about it in cases where it has no effect.
959 It doesn't change Privoxy's behaviour, but makes understanding
968 Miscellaneous Privoxy improvements:
972 In get_last_url(), do not bother trying to decode URLs that do
973 not contain at least one '%' sign. It reduces the log noise and
974 a number of unnecessary memory allocations.
979 If the --user argument user[.group] contains a dot,
980 always bail out if no group has been specified.
981 Previously the intended, but undocumented (and apparently
982 untested), behaviour was to try interpreting the whole
983 argument as user name, but the detection was flawed and
984 checked for '0' isntead of '\0', thus merely preventing
985 group names beginning with a zero.
990 Simplify the signal setup in main()
995 Streamline socks5_connect() slightly
1000 In case of SOCKS5 failures, dump the socks response
1005 In socks5_connect(), require a complete socks response from the server
1006 Previously we didn't care how much data the server response
1007 contained as long as the first two bytes contained the expected
1009 While at it, shrink the buffer size so we can't read more
1010 than a whole socks response. This is required to support
1011 Tor's optimistic data extension.
1016 In chat(), do not bother to generate a client request in case of direct CONNECT requests
1021 Reduce server_last_modified()'s stack size
1026 Shorten get_http_time() by using strftime()
1031 Constify the known_http_methods pointers in unknown_method()
1036 Constify the time_formats pointers in parse_header_time()
1041 Constify the formerly_valid_actions pointers in action_used_to_be_valid()
1046 In html_code_map[], use a numeric character reference instead of '
1047 which wasn't standardized before XHTML 1.0
1052 Introduce a MAN_PAGE variable that defaults to privoxy.1.
1053 The Debian package uses section 8 for the man page and this should simplify the patch.
1058 Deduplicate the INADDR_NONE definition for Solaris by moving it to jbsockets.h
1063 In block_url(), ditch the obsolete workaround for ancient Netscape versions
1064 that supposedly couldn't properly deal with status code 403.
1069 Remove a useless NULL pointer check in load_trustfile()
1074 Remove two useless NULL pointer checks in load_one_re_filterfile().
1079 Change url_code_map[] from an array of pointers to an array of arrays
1080 It removes an unnecessary layer of indirection and on
1081 64bit system reduces the size of the binary a bit.
1087 Fixes taken from Debian's 29_typos.dpatch by Roland Rosenfeld.
1092 Add a dok-tidy GNUMakefile target to clean up the messy HTML
1093 generated by the other dok targets.
1098 GNUisms in the GNUMakefile have been removed.
1103 Change the HTTP version in static responses to 1.1
1108 Synced config.sub and config.guess with upstream
1109 2011-11-11/386c7218162c145f5f9e1ff7f558a3fbb66c37c5.
1114 Add a dedicated function to parse the values of toggles
1115 Reduces duplicated code in load_config() and provides
1116 better error handling. Invalid or missing toggle values
1117 are now a fatal error instead of being silently ignored.
1122 Terminate HTML lines in static error messages with \n instead of \r\n.
1127 Simplify cgi_error_unknown() a bit.
1132 In LogPutString(), don't bother looking at pszText when not actually logging anything
1137 Change ssplit()'s fourth parameter from int to size_t.
1138 Fixes a clang complaint.
1143 Add a warning that the statistics currently can't be trusted.
1144 Mention Privoxy-Log-Parser's --statistics option as
1145 an alternative for the time being.
1150 In rfc2553_connect_to(), start setting cgi->error_message on error
1155 Change the expected status code returned for http://p.p/die depending
1156 on whether or not FEATURE_GRACEFUL_TERMINATION is available.
1161 In cgi_die(), mark the client connection for closing.
1162 If the client will fetch the style sheet through another connection
1163 it gets the main thread out of the accept() state and should thus
1164 trigger the actual shutdown.
1169 Add a proper CGI message for cgi_die().
1174 Fix an invalid free when compiled with FEATURE_GRACEFUL_TERMINATION
1175 and shut down through http://config.privoxy.org/die
1180 Don't enforce a logical line length limit in read_config_line()
1185 Slightly refactor server_last_modified() to remove useless gmtime*() calls
1190 In get_content_type(), also recognize '.jpeg' as JPEG extension
1195 Add '.png' to the list of recognized file extenstions in get_content_type()
1200 In block_url(), consistently use the block reason "Request blocked by Privoxy"
1201 In two places the reason was "Request for blocked URL" which
1202 hides the fact that the request got blocked by Privoxy and
1203 isn't necessarly correct as the block may be due to tags.
1208 In get_actions(), fix the "temporary" backwards compatibility hack
1209 to accept block actions without reason.
1210 It also covered other actions that should be rejected as invalid.
1211 Reported by Billy Crook.
1216 In listen_loop(), reload the configuration files after accepting
1217 a new connection instead of before.
1218 Previously the first connection that arrived after a configuration
1219 change would still be handled with the old configuration.
1224 In chat()'s receive-data loop, skip a client socket check if
1225 the socket will be written to right away anyway. This can
1226 increase the transfer speed for unfiltered content on fast
1227 network connections.
1232 The socket timeout is used for SOCKS negotiation as well.
1237 Don't keep the client connection alive if any configuration file
1238 changed since the time the connection came in.
1239 This is closer to Privoxy's behaviour before keep-alive support
1240 for client connection has been added and also less confusing in
1246 Treat all Content-Type header values containing the pattern
1247 'script' as a sign of text. Reported by pribog in #3134970.
1259 Added a --disable-ipv6-support switch for platforms where support
1260 is detected but doesn't actually work.
1265 Do not check for the existence of strerror() and memmove() twice
1270 Remove a useless test for setpgrp(2). Privoxy doesn't
1271 need it and it can cause problems when cross-compiling
1276 Rename the --disable-acl-files switch to --disable-acl-support
1277 Since about 2001, ACL directives are specified in the standard config file.
1282 Update the URL of the 'Removing outdated PCRE version after the
1283 next stable release' posting.
1284 The old URL stopped working after one of SF's recent layout pessimizations.
1285 Reported by Han Liu.
1293 Privoxy-Regression-Test:
1297 Added --shuffle-tests option to increase the chances of detection race conditions
1302 Added a --local-test-file option that allows to use Privoxy-Regression-Test without Privoxy
1307 Added tests for missing socks4 and socks4a forwarders
1312 The --privoxy-address option now works with IPv6 addresses
1313 containing brackets, too
1318 Perform limited sanity checks for parameters that are supposed
1319 to have numerical values.
1324 Added a --sleep-time option to specify a number of seconds to
1325 sleep between tests, defaults to 0.
1330 Disable the range-requests tagger for tests that break if it's enabled
1335 Log messages use the ISO 8601 date format %Y-%m-%d.
1340 Fix spelling in two error messages.
1345 In the --help output, include a list of supported tests and their default levels.
1357 Perform limited sanity checks for parameters that are supposed
1358 to have numerical values.
1363 Implement a --unbreak-lines-only option to try to revert MUA breakage.
1368 Accept and highlight: Added header: Content-Encoding: deflate
1373 Accept and highlight: Compressed content from 29258 to 8630 bytes.
1378 Accept and highlight: Client request arrived in time on socket 21.
1383 Highlight: Didn't receive data in time: a.fsdn.com:443
1388 Accept log messages with ISO 8601 time stamps, too
1400 Bump generated Firefox version to 9.0
1405 Only randomize the release date if the new --randomize-release-date option is enabled.
1406 Firefox versions after 4 use a fixed date string without meaning.
1416 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1418 <sect2 id="upgradersnote">
1419 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
1422 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading from earlier
1423 versions of <application>Privoxy</application>:
1431 The recommended way to upgrade &my-app; is to backup your old
1432 configuration files, install the new ones, verify that &my-app;
1433 is working correctly and finally merge back your changes using
1434 <application>diff</application> and maybe <application>patch</application>.
1437 There are a number of new features in each &my-app; release and
1438 most of them have to be explicitly enabled in the configuration
1439 files. Old configuration files obviously don't do that and due
1440 to syntax changes using old configuration files with a new
1441 &my-app; isn't always possible anyway.
1446 Note that some installers remove earlier versions completely,
1447 including configuration files, therefore you should really save
1448 any important configuration files!
1453 On the other hand, other installers don't overwrite existing configuration
1454 files, thinking you will want to do that yourself.
1459 <filename>standard.action</filename> has been merged into
1460 the <filename>default.action</filename> file.
1465 In the default configuration only fatal errors are logged now.
1466 You can change that in the <link linkend="DEBUG">debug section</link>
1467 of the configuration file. You may also want to enable more verbose
1468 logging until you verified that the new &my-app; version is working
1475 Three other config file settings are now off by default:
1476 <link linkend="enable-remote-toggle">enable-remote-toggle</link>,
1477 <link linkend="enable-remote-http-toggle">enable-remote-http-toggle</link>,
1478 and <link linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link>.
1479 If you use or want these, you will need to explicitly enable them, and
1480 be aware of the security issues involved.
1487 What constitutes a <quote>default</quote> configuration has changed,
1488 and you may want to review which actions are <quote>on</quote> by
1489 default. This is primarily a matter of emphasis, but some features
1490 you may have been used to, may now be <quote>off</quote> by default.
1491 There are also a number of new actions and filters you may want to
1492 consider, most of which are not fully incorporated into the default
1493 settings as yet (see above).
1500 The default actions setting is now <literal>Cautious</literal>. Previous
1501 releases had a default setting of <literal>Medium</literal>. Experienced
1502 users may want to adjust this, as it is fairly conservative by &my-app;
1503 standards and past practices. See <ulink
1504 url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default">
1505 http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default</ulink>. New users
1506 should try the default settings for a while before turning up the volume.
1512 The default setting has filtering turned <emphasis>off</emphasis>, which
1513 subsequently means that compression is <emphasis>on</emphasis>. Remember
1514 that filtering does not work on compressed pages, so if you use, or want to
1515 use, filtering, you will need to force compression off. Example:
1519 { +<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{google} +<link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link> }
1523 Or if you use a number of filters, or filter many sites, you may just want
1524 to turn off compression for all sites in
1525 <filename>default.action</filename> (or
1526 <filename>user.action</filename>).
1533 Also, <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> is
1534 off by default now. If you've liked this feature in the past, you may want
1535 to turn it back on in <filename>user.action</filename> now.
1542 Some installers may not automatically start
1543 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
1554 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1555 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using Privoxy</title>
1561 Install <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
1562 linkend="installation">Installation Section</link> below for platform specific
1569 Advanced users and those who want to offer <application>Privoxy</application>
1570 service to more than just their local machine should check the <link
1571 linkend="config">main config file</link>, especially the <link
1572 linkend="access-control">security-relevant</link> options. These are
1579 Start <application>Privoxy</application>, if the installation program has
1580 not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
1581 <link linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link>.
1587 Set your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application> as HTTP and
1588 HTTPS (SSL) <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>
1589 by setting the proxy configuration for address of
1590 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> and port <literal>8118</literal>.
1591 <emphasis>DO NOT</emphasis> activate proxying for <literal>FTP</literal> or
1592 any protocols besides HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) unless you intend to prevent your
1593 browser from using these protocols.
1599 Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
1600 If using <application>Privoxy</application> to manage
1601 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
1602 you should remove any currently stored cookies too.
1608 A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
1609 most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
1610 configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
1611 to no initial configuration is required in most cases, you may want
1613 <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">web-based action editor</ulink> though.
1614 Be sure to read the warnings first.
1617 See the <link linkend="configuration">Configuration section</link> for more
1618 configuration options, and how to customize your installation.
1619 You might also want to look at the <link
1620 linkend="quickstart-ad-blocking">next section</link> for a quick
1621 introduction to how <application>Privoxy</application> blocks ads and
1628 If you experience ads that slip through, innocent images that are
1629 blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
1630 <application>Privoxy's</application> behavior, take a look at the <link
1631 linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>. As a quick start, you might
1632 find the <link linkend="act-examples">richly commented examples</link>
1633 helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the <ulink
1634 url="http://config.privoxy.org">web-based user interface</ulink>. The
1635 Appendix <quote><link linkend="actionsanat">Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an
1636 Action</link></quote> has hints on how to understand and debug actions that
1637 <quote>misbehave</quote>.
1642 Did anyone test these lately?
1646 For easy access to &my-app;'s most important controls, drag the provided
1647 <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklets</link> into your browser's
1655 Please see the section <link linkend="contact">Contacting the
1656 Developers</link> on how to report bugs, problems with websites or to get
1663 Now enjoy surfing with enhanced control, comfort and privacy!
1671 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1673 <sect2 id="quickstart-ad-blocking">
1674 <title>Quickstart to Ad Blocking</title>
1676 NOTE: This section is deliberately redundant for those that don't
1677 want to read the whole thing (which is getting lengthy).
1680 Ad blocking is but one of <application>Privoxy's</application>
1681 array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
1682 user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody.
1685 This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
1686 you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive
1687 information provided below, though this is highly recommended.
1690 First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
1691 more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
1692 things that were not intended. And the more likely that some things
1693 may not work as intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
1694 extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
1695 <quote>problem</quote> sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
1696 configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
1697 not an easy way to eliminate <emphasis>all</emphasis> ads. Either take
1698 the easy way and settle for <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads blocked with the
1699 default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing
1700 habits and preferences.
1703 Secondly, a brief explanation of <application>Privoxy's </application>
1704 <quote>actions</quote>. <quote>Actions</quote> in this context, are
1705 the directives we use to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to perform
1706 some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell
1707 <application>Privoxy</application> to take some <quote>action</quote>. Each
1708 action has a unique name and function. While there are many potential
1709 <application>actions</application> in <application>Privoxy's</application>
1710 arsenal, only a few are used for ad blocking. <link
1711 linkend="actions">Actions</link>, and <link linkend="actions-file">action
1712 configuration files</link>, are explained in depth below.
1715 Actions are specified in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
1716 followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
1717 can actually be URL type <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> that use
1718 wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs. The
1719 actions, together with the URL patterns are called a section.
1722 When you connect to a website, the full URL will either match one or more
1723 of the sections as defined in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
1724 or not. If so, then <application>Privoxy</application> will perform the
1725 respective actions. If not, then nothing special happens. Furthermore, web
1726 pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your web browser will
1727 use to load additional components of the page, as it parses the
1728 original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just an URL
1729 embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server,
1730 or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many
1731 such embedded URLs. &my-app; can deal with each URL individually, so, for
1732 instance, the main page text is not touched, but images from such-and-such
1737 The most important actions for basic ad blocking are: <literal><link
1738 linkend="block">block</link></literal>, <literal><link
1739 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
1741 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal>,and
1742 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>:
1750 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> - this is perhaps
1751 the single most used action, and is particularly important for ad blocking.
1752 This action stops any contact between your browser and any URL patterns
1753 that match this action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads,
1754 but also anything that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply
1755 stops any communication with the remote server and sends
1756 <application>Privoxy</application>'s own built-in BLOCKED page instead to
1757 let you now what has happened (with some exceptions, see below).
1763 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> -
1764 tells <application>Privoxy</application> to treat this URL as an image.
1765 <application>Privoxy</application>'s default configuration already does this
1766 for all common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this
1767 is not so easy to determine. So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly
1768 important for ad blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of
1769 some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the
1770 <application>Privoxy</application> BLOCKED page (which would only result in
1771 a <quote>broken image</quote> icon). There are some limitations to this
1772 though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an image substitution for
1773 an entire HTML page in most situations.
1779 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> -
1780 sends an empty document instead of <application>Privoxy's</application>
1781 normal BLOCKED HTML page. This is useful for file types that are neither
1782 HTML nor images, such as blocking JavaScript files.
1789 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> - tells
1790 <application>Privoxy</application> what to display in place of an ad image that
1791 has hit a block rule. For this to come into play, the URL must match a
1792 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action somewhere in the
1793 configuration, <emphasis>and</emphasis>, it must also match an
1794 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action.
1797 The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are:
1801 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad
1802 replacement is obvious. This is the default.
1807 <emphasis>blank</emphasis> - A very small empty GIF image is displayed.
1808 This is the so-called <quote>invisible</quote> configuration option.
1813 <emphasis>http://<URL></emphasis> - A redirect to any image anywhere
1814 of the user's choosing (advanced usage).
1823 Advanced users will eventually want to explore &my-app;
1824 <literal><link linkend="filter">filters</link></literal> as well. Filters
1825 are very different from <literal><link
1826 linkend="block">blocks</link></literal>.
1827 A <quote>block</quote> blocks a site, page, or unwanted contented. Filters
1828 are a way of filtering or modifying what is actually on the page. An example
1829 filter usage: a text replacement of <quote>no-no</quote> for
1830 <quote>nasty-word</quote>. That is a very simple example. This process can be
1831 used for ad blocking, but it is more in the realm of advanced usage and has
1832 some pitfalls to be wary off.
1836 The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
1837 the special <application>Privoxy</application> editor at <ulink
1838 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1839 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>). This
1840 is an internal page, and does not require Internet access.
1844 Note that as of <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta the
1845 action editor is disabled by default. Check the
1846 <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions
1847 section in the configuration file</ulink> to learn why and in which
1848 cases it's safe to enable again.
1852 If you decided to enable the action editor, select the appropriate
1853 <quote>actions</quote> file, and click
1854 <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>. It is best to put personal or
1855 local preferences in <filename>user.action</filename> since this is not
1856 meant to be overwritten during upgrades, and will over-ride the settings in
1857 other files. Here you can insert new <quote>actions</quote>, and URLs for ad
1858 blocking or other purposes, and make other adjustments to the configuration.
1859 <application>Privoxy</application> will detect these changes automatically.
1863 A quick and simple step by step example:
1871 Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
1872 <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote> from the
1880 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1885 Find <filename>user.action</filename> in the top section, and click
1886 on <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>:
1889 <!-- image of editor and actions files selections -->
1891 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Actions Files in Use</title>
1894 <imagedata fileref="files-in-use.jpg" format="jpg">
1897 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ]</phrase>
1906 You should have a section with only
1907 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> listed under
1908 <quote>Actions:</quote>.
1909 If not, click a <quote><guibutton>Insert new section below</guibutton></quote>
1910 button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the
1911 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button right under the word <quote>Actions:</quote>.
1912 This will bring up a list of all actions. Find
1913 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> near the top, and click
1914 in the <quote>Enabled</quote> column, then <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote>
1915 just below the list.
1920 Now, in the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> actions section,
1921 click the <quote><guibutton>Add</guibutton></quote> button, and paste the URL the
1922 browser got from <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote>.
1923 Remove the <literal>http://</literal> at the beginning of the URL. Then, click
1924 <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote> (or
1925 <quote><guibutton>OK</guibutton></quote> if in a pop-up window).
1930 Now go back to the original page, and press <keycap>SHIFT-Reload</keycap>
1931 (or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now.
1939 This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
1940 wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same
1941 site. For a more extensive explanation of <quote>patterns</quote>, and
1942 the entire actions concept, see <link linkend="actions-file">the Actions
1947 For advanced users who want to hand edit their config files, you might want
1948 to now go to the <link linkend="act-examples">Actions Files Tutorial</link>.
1949 The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor.
1952 There are also various
1953 <link linkend="filter">filters</link> that can be used for ad blocking
1954 (filters are a special subset of actions). These
1955 fall into the <quote>advanced</quote> usage category, and are explained in
1956 depth in later sections.
1963 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1966 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1967 <sect1 id="startup">
1968 <title>Starting Privoxy</title>
1970 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
1971 will want to configure your browser(s) to use
1972 <application>Privoxy</application> as a HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)
1973 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>. The default is
1974 127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions
1975 used port 8000). This is the one configuration step <emphasis>that must be done
1979 Please note that <application>Privoxy</application> can only proxy HTTP and
1980 HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols.
1983 <!-- image of Mozilla Proxy configuration -->
1985 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
1986 Mozilla/Netscape HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) Settings</title>
1989 <imagedata fileref="proxy_setup.jpg" format="jpg">
1992 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
2000 With <application>Firefox</application>, this is typically set under:
2004 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Network</guibutton> -><guibutton>Connection</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Settings</guibutton>
2009 Or optionally on some platforms:
2013 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>General</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connection Settings</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Manual Proxy Configuration</guibutton>
2019 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
2020 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under:
2025 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
2026 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
2027 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Proxies</guibutton> -> <guibutton>HTTP Proxy</guibutton>
2032 For <application>Internet Explorer v.5-7</application>:
2036 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Internet Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connections</guibutton> -> <guibutton>LAN Settings</guibutton>
2040 Then, check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info
2041 (Address: 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include HTTPS (SSL), if you want HTTPS
2042 proxy support too (sometimes labeled <quote>Secure</quote>). Make sure any
2043 checkboxes like <quote>Use the same proxy server for all protocols</quote> is
2044 <emphasis>UNCHECKED</emphasis>. You want only HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)!
2047 <!-- image of IE Proxy configuration -->
2049 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
2050 Internet Explorer HTTP and HTTPS (Secure) Settings</title>
2053 <imagedata fileref="proxy2.jpg" format="jpg">
2056 <phrase>[ Screenshot of IE Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
2064 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
2065 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. Remove
2066 any <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
2067 if you want <application>Privoxy</application> to manage that. You are now
2068 ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
2069 <application>Privoxy</application>!
2073 <application>Privoxy</application> itself is typically started by specifying the
2074 main configuration file to be used on the command line. If no configuration
2075 file is specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application>
2076 will look for a file named <filename>config</filename> in the current
2077 directory. Except on Win32 where it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>.
2080 <sect2 id="start-redhat">
2081 <title>Red Hat and Fedora</title>
2083 A default Red Hat installation may not start &my-app; upon boot. It will use
2084 the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
2089 # /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
2097 # service privoxy start
2102 <sect2 id="start-debian">
2103 <title>Debian</title>
2105 We use a script. Note that Debian typically starts &my-app; upon booting per
2106 default. It will use the file
2107 <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
2112 # /etc/init.d/privoxy start
2117 <sect2 id="start-windows">
2118 <title>Windows</title>
2120 Click on the &my-app; Icon to start <application>Privoxy</application>. If no configuration file is
2121 specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application> will look
2122 for a file named <filename>config.txt</filename>. Note that Windows will
2123 automatically start &my-app; when the system starts if you chose that option
2127 <application>Privoxy</application> can run with full Windows service functionality.
2128 On Windows only, the &my-app; program has two new command line arguments
2129 to install and uninstall &my-app; as a service. See the
2130 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Windows Installation
2131 instructions</link> for details.
2135 <sect2 id="start-unices">
2136 <title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others</title>
2138 Example Unix startup command:
2142 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
2147 <sect2 id="start-os2">
2150 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
2151 start automatically when the system restarts. You can start it manually by
2152 double-clicking on the <application>Privoxy</application> icon in the
2153 <application>Privoxy</application> folder.
2157 <sect2 id="start-macosx">
2158 <title>Mac OS X</title>
2160 After downloading the privoxy software, unzip the downloaded file by
2161 double-clicking on the zip file icon. Then, double-click on the
2162 installer package icon and follow the installation process.
2165 The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful
2166 installation. In addition, the privoxy service will automatically
2167 start every time your computer starts up.
2170 To prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your
2171 computer starts up, remove or rename the folder named
2172 /Library/StartupItems/Privoxy.
2175 A simple application named Privoxy Utility has been created which
2176 enables administrators to easily start and stop the privoxy service.
2179 In addition, the Privoxy Utility presents a simple way for
2180 administrators to edit the various privoxy config files. A method
2181 to uninstall the software is also available.
2184 An administrator username and password must be supplied in order for
2185 the Privoxy Utility to perform any of the tasks.
2190 <sect2 id="start-amigaos">
2191 <title>AmigaOS</title>
2193 Start <application>Privoxy</application> (with RUN <>NIL:) in your
2194 <filename>startnet</filename> script (AmiTCP), in
2195 <filename>s:user-startup</filename> (RoadShow), as startup program in your
2196 startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
2197 <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically quit when you quit your
2198 TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that
2199 <application>Privoxy</application> is still running).
2203 <sect2 id="start-gentoo">
2204 <title>Gentoo</title>
2206 A script is again used. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config
2207 </filename> as its main configuration file.
2211 /etc/init.d/privoxy start
2215 Note that <application>Privoxy</application> is not automatically started at
2216 boot time by default. You can change this with the <literal>rc-update</literal>
2221 rc-update add privoxy default
2229 See the section <link linkend="cmdoptions">Command line options</link> for
2233 must find a better place for this paragraph
2236 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
2237 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
2238 <ulink url="actions-file.html"><quote>actions</quote></ulink> files. These are
2239 where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking, and other
2240 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several
2241 such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
2245 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites for which you may prefer
2246 persistent cookies, and add these to your actions configuration as needed. By
2247 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
2248 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), unless you add them to the
2249 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
2250 to edit <filename>user.action</filename> (or through the web based interface)
2251 and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser, it would make
2252 more sense to let <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which
2253 case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
2257 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
2258 sites is the popup-killing (through <ulink
2259 url="actions-file.html#FILTER-POPUPS"><quote>+filter{popups}</quote></ulink>),
2260 because your favorite shopping, banking, or leisure site may need
2261 popups (explained below).
2265 <application>Privoxy</application> does not support all of the optional HTTP/1.1
2266 features yet. In the unlikely event that you experience inexplicable problems
2267 with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
2268 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
2269 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
2270 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
2271 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote> config option in
2272 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
2273 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
2277 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
2278 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
2279 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
2280 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote>
2281 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
2282 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
2283 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
2284 and then follow the link to <quote>View & Change the Current Configuration</quote>.
2285 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
2289 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
2290 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
2291 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
2292 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
2293 to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
2294 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
2295 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
2299 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
2300 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
2301 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
2302 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
2303 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
2304 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
2309 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <link
2310 linkend="actions-file">read more about the actions concept</link>
2311 or even dive deep into the <link linkend="actionsanat">Appendix
2316 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
2317 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
2318 section <link linkend="contact"><quote>Contacting the
2319 Developers</quote></link> below.
2324 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2325 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
2326 <title>Command Line Options</title>
2328 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
2329 command-line options:
2337 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
2340 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
2345 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
2348 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
2353 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
2356 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
2357 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
2362 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
2365 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
2366 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
2367 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
2368 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
2373 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
2376 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
2377 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
2378 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
2383 <emphasis>--chroot</emphasis>
2386 Before changing to the user ID given in the <emphasis>--user</emphasis> option,
2387 chroot to that user's home directory, i.e. make the kernel pretend to the &my-app;
2388 process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit
2389 the impact of possible vulnerabilities in &my-app; to the files contained in that hierarchy.
2395 <emphasis>--pre-chroot-nslookup hostname</emphasis>
2398 Specifies a hostname to look up before doing a chroot. On some systems, initializing the
2399 resolver library involves reading config files from /etc and/or loading additional shared
2400 libraries from /lib. On these systems, doing a hostname lookup before the chroot reduces
2401 the number of files that must be copied into the chroot tree.
2404 For fastest startup speed, a good value is a hostname that is not in /etc/hosts but that
2405 your local name server (listed in /etc/resolv.conf) can resolve without recursion
2406 (that is, without having to ask any other name servers). The hostname need not exist,
2407 but if it doesn't, an error message (which can be ignored) will be output.
2413 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
2416 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
2417 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
2418 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
2419 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
2420 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
2421 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
2429 On <application>MS Windows</application> only there are two additional
2430 command-line options to allow <application>Privoxy</application> to install and
2431 run as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>. See the
2432 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Window Installation section</link>
2440 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2443 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2444 <sect1 id="configuration"><title>Privoxy Configuration</title>
2446 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
2447 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
2448 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
2449 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
2453 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2456 <title>Controlling Privoxy with Your Web Browser</title>
2458 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
2459 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
2460 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
2461 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
2462 You will see the following section:
2466 <!-- Needs to be put in a table and colorized -->
2469 <bridgehead renderas="sect2"> Privoxy Menu</bridgehead>
2473 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View & change the current configuration</ulink>
2476 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">View the source code version numbers</ulink>
2479 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">View the request headers.</ulink>
2482 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">Look up which actions apply to a URL and why</ulink>
2485 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">Toggle Privoxy on or off</ulink>
2488 ▪ <ulink
2489 url="http://www.privoxy.org/&p-version;/user-manual/">Documentation</ulink>
2497 This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the
2498 <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, which is where the ad, banner,
2499 cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
2500 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
2501 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
2502 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
2506 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
2507 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
2508 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
2509 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
2510 to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e.
2511 <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There
2512 is even a toggle <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklet</link> offered, so
2513 that you can toggle <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from
2518 Note that several of the features described above are disabled by default
2519 in <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta and later.
2521 <ulink url="config.html">configuration file</ulink> to learn why
2522 and in which cases it's safe to enable them again.
2527 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2532 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2534 <sect2 id="confoverview">
2535 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
2537 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
2538 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
2539 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
2540 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
2541 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
2542 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
2546 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
2547 some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
2548 principle configuration files are:
2556 The <link linkend="config">main configuration file</link> is named <filename>config</filename>
2557 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
2558 on Windows. This is a required file.
2564 <filename>match-all.action</filename> is used to define which <quote>actions</quote>
2565 relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups, content modification, cookie handling
2566 etc should be applied by default. It should be the first actions file loaded.
2569 <filename>default.action</filename> defines many exceptions (both positive and negative)
2570 from the default set of actions that's configured in <filename>match-all.action</filename>.
2571 It should be the second actions file loaded and shouldn't be edited by the user.
2574 Multiple actions files may be defined in <filename>config</filename>. These
2575 are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
2576 preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
2577 <filename>match-all.action</filename> (which you will most probably want
2578 to define sooner or later) are best applied in <filename>user.action</filename>,
2579 where you can preserve them across upgrades. The file isn't installed by all
2580 installers, but you can easily create it yourself with a text editor.
2583 There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
2585 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
2587 url="http://p.p/show-status">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>) for the
2588 various actions files.
2594 <quote>Filter files</quote> (the <link linkend="filter-file">filter
2595 file</link>) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
2596 viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
2597 lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
2598 whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
2599 <filename>default.filter</filename> includes various filters made
2600 available for use by the developers. Some are much more intrusive than
2601 others, and all should be used with caution. You may define additional
2602 filter files in <filename>config</filename> as you can with
2603 actions files. We suggest <filename>user.filter</filename> for any
2604 locally defined filters or customizations.
2612 The syntax of the configuration and filter files may change between different
2613 Privoxy versions, unfortunately some enhancements cost backwards compatibility.
2614 <!-- Add link to documentation-->
2618 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
2619 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
2620 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
2621 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
2622 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
2623 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
2624 out" that line. Blank lines are ignored.
2628 The actions files and filter files
2629 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
2630 maximum flexibility.
2634 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
2635 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
2636 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
2637 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
2638 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
2639 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
2640 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
2645 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
2646 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
2647 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
2648 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
2654 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2657 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
2659 <!-- **************************************************** -->
2660 <!-- Include config.sgml here -->
2661 <!-- This is where the entire config file is detailed. -->
2663 <!-- end include -->
2666 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2670 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
2672 <sect1 id="actions-file"><title>Actions Files</title>
2676 XXX: similar descriptions are in the Configuration Files sections.
2677 We should only describe them at one place.
2680 The actions files are used to define what <emphasis>actions</emphasis>
2681 <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which URLs, and thus determines
2682 how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
2683 transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof).
2684 There are a number of such actions, with a wide range of functionality.
2685 Each action does something a little different.
2686 These actions give us a veritable arsenal of tools with which to exert
2687 our control, preferences and independence. Actions can be combined so that
2688 their effects are aggregated when applied against a given set of URLs.
2692 are three action files included with <application>Privoxy</application> with
2699 <filename>match-all.action</filename> - is used to define which
2700 <quote>actions</quote> relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups,
2701 content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default.
2702 It should be the first actions file loaded
2707 <filename>default.action</filename> - defines many exceptions (both
2708 positive and negative) from the default set of actions that's configured
2709 in <filename>match-all.action</filename>. It is a set of rules that should
2710 work reasonably well as-is for most users. This file is only supposed to
2711 be edited by the developers. It should be the second actions file loaded.
2716 <filename>user.action</filename> - is intended to be for local site
2717 preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank
2718 has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
2719 thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded.
2724 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Cautious</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Medium</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Advanced</guibutton>
2727 These have increasing levels of aggressiveness <emphasis>and have no
2728 influence on your browsing unless you select them explicitly in the
2729 editor</emphasis>. A default installation should be pre-set to
2730 <literal>Cautious</literal>. New users should try this for a while before
2731 adjusting the settings to more aggressive levels. The more aggressive
2732 the settings, then the more likelihood there is of problems such as sites
2733 not working as they should.
2736 The <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button allows you to turn each
2737 action on/off individually for fine-tuning. The <guibutton>Cautious</guibutton>
2738 button changes the actions list to low/safe settings which will activate
2739 ad blocking and a minimal set of &my-app;'s features, and subsequently
2740 there will be less of a chance for accidental problems. The
2741 <guibutton>Medium</guibutton> button sets the list to a medium level of
2742 other features and a low level set of privacy features. The
2743 <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> button sets the list to a high level of
2744 ad blocking and medium level of privacy. See the chart below. The latter
2745 three buttons over-ride any changes via with the
2746 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button. More fine-tuning can be done in the
2747 lower sections of this internal page.
2750 While the actions file editor allows to enable these settings in all
2751 actions files, they are only supposed to be enabled in the first one
2752 to make sure you don't unintentionally overrule earlier rules.
2755 The default profiles, and their associated actions, as pre-defined in
2756 <filename>default.action</filename> are:
2759 <table frame=all><title>Default Configurations</title>
2760 <tgroup cols=4 align=left colsep=1 rowsep=1>
2761 <colspec colname=c1>
2762 <colspec colname=c2>
2763 <colspec colname=c3>
2764 <colspec colname=c4>
2767 <entry>Feature</entry>
2768 <entry>Cautious</entry>
2769 <entry>Medium</entry>
2770 <entry>Advanced</entry>
2775 <!-- <entry>f1</entry> -->
2776 <!-- <entry>f2</entry> -->
2777 <!-- <entry>f3</entry> -->
2778 <!-- <entry>f4</entry> -->
2784 <entry>Ad-blocking Aggressiveness</entry>
2785 <entry>medium</entry>
2791 <entry>Ad-filtering by size</entry>
2798 <entry>Ad-filtering by link</entry>
2804 <entry>Pop-up killing</entry>
2805 <entry>blocks only</entry>
2806 <entry>blocks only</entry>
2807 <entry>blocks only</entry>
2811 <entry>Privacy Features</entry>
2813 <entry>medium</entry>
2814 <entry>medium/high</entry>
2818 <entry>Cookie handling</entry>
2820 <entry>session-only</entry>
2825 <entry>Referer forging</entry>
2832 <entry>GIF de-animation</entry>
2839 <entry>Fast redirects</entry>
2846 <entry>HTML taming</entry>
2853 <entry>JavaScript taming</entry>
2860 <entry>Web-bug killing</entry>
2867 <entry>Image tag reordering</entry>
2883 The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
2884 file, and are processed in the order they are defined (e.g.
2885 <filename>default.action</filename> is typically processed before
2886 <filename>user.action</filename>). The content of these can all be viewed and
2888 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
2889 The over-riding principle when applying actions, is that the last action that
2890 matches a given URL wins. The broadest, most general rules go first
2891 (defined in <filename>default.action</filename>),
2892 followed by any exceptions (typically also in
2893 <filename>default.action</filename>), which are then followed lastly by any
2894 local preferences (typically in <emphasis>user</emphasis><filename>.action</filename>).
2895 Generally, <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word.
2899 An actions file typically has multiple sections. If you want to use
2900 <quote>aliases</quote> in an actions file, you have to place the (optional)
2901 <link linkend="aliases">alias section</link> at the top of that file.
2902 Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all
2903 sites and pages (be <emphasis>very careful</emphasis> with using such a
2904 universal set in <filename>user.action</filename> or any other actions file after
2905 <filename>default.action</filename>, because it will override the result
2906 from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
2907 exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
2908 <filename>user.action</filename> as an appendix to <filename>default.action</filename>,
2909 with the advantage that it is a separate file, which makes preserving your
2910 personal settings across <application>Privoxy</application> upgrades easier.
2914 Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
2915 just some obnoxious URL whose content you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
2916 or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
2917 written to disk), content can be modified, some JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking
2918 fooled, and much more. See below for a <link linkend="actions">complete list
2922 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2924 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
2926 Note that some <link linkend="actions">actions</link>, like cookie suppression
2927 or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these
2928 techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and
2929 certainly a matter of personal taste. And, things can always change, requiring
2930 refinements in the configuration. In general, it can be said that the more
2931 <quote>aggressive</quote> your default settings (in the top section of the
2932 actions file) are, the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you
2933 will have to make later. If, for example, you want to crunch all cookies per
2934 default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you
2935 regularly use and that require cookies for actually useful purposes, like maybe
2936 your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
2940 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
2941 distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
2942 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
2943 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :).
2947 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2949 <title>How to Edit</title>
2951 The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by
2952 using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from <ulink
2953 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
2954 Note: the config file option <link
2955 linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link> must be enabled for
2956 this to work. The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single
2957 feature on a per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults
2958 like <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> or
2959 <quote>Advanced</quote>. Warning: the <quote>Advanced</quote> setting is more
2960 aggressive, and will be more likely to cause problems for some sites.
2961 Experienced users only!
2965 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
2966 the actions files with your favorite text editor. Look at
2967 <filename>default.action</filename> which is richly commented with many
2973 <sect2 id="actions-apply">
2974 <title>How Actions are Applied to Requests</title>
2976 Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections,
2977 like the <quote><link linkend="aliases">alias</link></quote> sections which will
2978 be discussed later. For now let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a
2979 heading line (often split up to multiple lines for readability) which consist
2980 of a list of actions, separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces.
2981 Below that, there is a list of URL and tag patterns, each on a separate line.
2985 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
2986 compared to all URL patterns in each <quote>action file</quote>.
2987 Every time it matches, the list of applicable actions for the request is
2988 incrementally updated, using the heading of the section in which the
2989 pattern is located. The same is done again for tags and tag patterns later on.
2993 If multiple applying sections set the same action differently,
2994 the last match wins. If not, the effects are aggregated.
2995 E.g. a URL might match a regular section with a heading line of <literal>{
2996 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link> }</literal>,
2997 then later another one with just <literal>{
2998 +<link linkend="block">block</link> }</literal>, resulting
2999 in <emphasis>both</emphasis> actions to apply. And there may well be
3000 cases where you will want to combine actions together. Such a section then
3006 { +<literal>handle-as-image</literal> +<literal>block{Banner ads.}</literal> }
3007 # Block these as if they were images. Send no block page.
3009 media.example.com/.*banners
3010 .example.com/images/ads/</screen>
3014 You can trace this process for URL patterns and any given URL by visiting <ulink
3015 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
3019 Examples and more detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
3020 Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</link> section.
3024 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3025 <sect2 id="af-patterns">
3026 <title>Patterns</title>
3028 As mentioned, <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>patterns</quote>
3029 to determine what <emphasis>actions</emphasis> might apply to which sites and
3030 pages your browser attempts to access. These <quote>patterns</quote> use wild
3031 card type <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> matching to achieve a high degree of
3032 flexibility. This allows one expression to be expanded and potentially match
3033 against many similar patterns.
3037 Generally, an URL pattern has the form
3038 <literal><domain><port>/<path></literal>, where the
3039 <literal><domain></literal>, the <literal><port></literal>
3040 and the <literal><path></literal> are optional. (This is why the special
3041 <literal>/</literal> pattern matches all URLs). Note that the protocol
3042 portion of the URL pattern (e.g. <literal>http://</literal>) should
3043 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be included in the pattern. This is assumed already!
3046 The pattern matching syntax is different for the domain and path parts of
3047 the URL. The domain part uses a simple globbing type matching technique,
3048 while the path part uses more flexible
3049 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
3050 Expressions</quote></ulink> (POSIX 1003.2).
3053 The port part of a pattern is a decimal port number preceded by a colon
3054 (<literal>:</literal>). If the domain part contains a numerical IPv6 address,
3055 it has to be put into angle brackets
3056 (<literal><</literal>, <literal>></literal>).
3061 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
3064 is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
3065 regardless of which document on that server is requested. So ALL pages in
3066 this domain would be covered by the scope of this action. Note that a
3067 simple <literal>example.com</literal> is different and would NOT match.
3072 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
3075 means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
3081 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
3084 matches all the documents on <literal>www.example.com</literal>
3085 whose name starts with <literal>/index.html</literal>.
3090 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html$</literal></term>
3093 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
3094 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
3099 <term><literal>/index.html$</literal></term>
3102 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
3103 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server anywhere.
3108 <term><literal>/</literal></term>
3111 Matches any URL because there's no requirement for either the
3112 domain or the path to match anything.
3117 <term><literal>:8000/</literal></term>
3120 Matches any URL pointing to TCP port 8000.
3125 <term><literal><2001:db8::1>/</literal></term>
3128 Matches any URL with the host address <literal>2001:db8::1</literal>.
3129 (Note that the real URL uses plain brackets, not angle brackets.)
3134 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
3137 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
3138 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>. So its
3146 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3147 <sect3><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
3150 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
3151 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
3157 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
3160 matches any domain with first-level domain <literal>com</literal>
3161 and second-level domain <literal>example</literal>.
3162 For example <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
3163 <literal>example.com</literal> and <literal>foo.bar.baz.example.com</literal>.
3164 Note that it wouldn't match if the second-level domain was <literal>another-example</literal>.
3169 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
3172 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
3173 <literal>www.</literal> (It also matches the domain
3174 <literal>www</literal> but most of the time that doesn't matter.)
3179 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
3182 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>.
3183 And, by the way, also included would be any files or documents that exist
3184 within that domain since no path limitations are specified. (Correctly
3185 speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as
3186 a domain.) This might be <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
3187 <literal>news.example.de</literal>, or
3188 <literal>www.example.net/cgi/testing.pl</literal> for instance. All these
3196 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
3197 themselves. These work similarly to shell globbing type wild-cards:
3198 <quote>*</quote> represents zero or more arbitrary characters (this is
3200 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
3201 Expression</quote></ulink> based syntax of <quote>.*</quote>),
3202 <quote>?</quote> represents any single character (this is equivalent to the
3203 regular expression syntax of a simple <quote>.</quote>), and you can define
3204 <quote>character classes</quote> in square brackets which is similar to
3205 the same regular expression technique. All of this can be freely mixed:
3210 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
3213 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
3214 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
3219 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
3222 matches all of the above, and then some.
3227 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
3230 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
3231 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
3236 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
3239 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
3240 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
3241 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
3242 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
3249 While flexible, this is not the sophistication of full regular expression based syntax.
3254 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3257 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3258 <sect3><title>The Path Pattern</title>
3261 <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>modern</quote> POSIX 1003.2
3262 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
3263 Expressions</quote></ulink> for matching the path portion (after the slash),
3264 and is thus more flexible.
3268 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
3269 expressions, you also might want to have a look at your operating system's documentation
3270 on regular expressions (try <literal>man re_format</literal>).
3274 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
3275 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote> (regular expression speak
3276 for the beginning of a line).
3280 Please also note that matching in the path is <emphasis>CASE INSENSITIVE</emphasis>
3281 by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
3282 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch: <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match
3283 only documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
3284 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
3289 <term><literal>.example.com/.*</literal></term>
3292 Is equivalent to just <quote>.example.com</quote>, since any documents
3293 within that domain are matched with or without the <quote>.*</quote>
3294 regular expression. This is redundant
3299 <term><literal>.example.com/.*/index.html$</literal></term>
3302 Will match any page in the domain of <quote>example.com</quote> that is
3303 named <quote>index.html</quote>, and that is part of some path. For
3304 example, it matches <quote>www.example.com/testing/index.html</quote> but
3305 NOT <quote>www.example.com/index.html</quote> because the regular
3306 expression called for at least two <quote>/'s</quote>, thus the path
3307 requirement. It also would match
3308 <quote>www.example.com/testing/index_html</quote>, because of the
3309 special meta-character <quote>.</quote>.
3314 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)?index\.html$</literal></term>
3317 This regular expression is conditional so it will match any page
3318 named <quote>index.html</quote> regardless of path which in this case can
3319 have one or more <quote>/'s</quote>. And this one must contain exactly
3320 <quote>.html</quote> (but does not have to end with that!).
3325 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)</literal></term>
3328 This regular expression will match any path of <quote>example.com</quote>
3329 that contains any of the words <quote>ads</quote>, <quote>banner</quote>,
3330 <quote>banners</quote> (because of the <quote>?</quote>) or <quote>junk</quote>.
3331 The path does not have to end in these words, just contain them.
3336 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)/.*\.(jpe?g|gif|png)$</literal></term>
3339 This is very much the same as above, except now it must end in either
3340 <quote>.jpg</quote>, <quote>.jpeg</quote>, <quote>.gif</quote> or <quote>.png</quote>. So this
3341 one is limited to common image formats.
3348 There are many, many good examples to be found in <filename>default.action</filename>,
3349 and more tutorials below in <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>.
3354 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3357 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3358 <sect3 id="tag-pattern"><title>The Tag Pattern</title>
3361 Tag patterns are used to change the applying actions based on the
3362 request's tags. Tags can be created with either the
3363 <link linkend="CLIENT-HEADER-TAGGER">client-header-tagger</link>
3364 or the <link linkend="SERVER-HEADER-TAGGER">server-header-tagger</link> action.
3368 Tag patterns have to start with <quote>TAG:</quote>, so &my-app;
3369 can tell them apart from URL patterns. Everything after the colon
3370 including white space, is interpreted as a regular expression with
3371 path pattern syntax, except that tag patterns aren't left-anchored
3372 automatically (&my-app; doesn't silently add a <quote>^</quote>,
3373 you have to do it yourself if you need it).
3377 To match all requests that are tagged with <quote>foo</quote>
3378 your pattern line should be <quote>TAG:^foo$</quote>,
3379 <quote>TAG:foo</quote> would work as well, but it would also
3380 match requests whose tags contain <quote>foo</quote> somewhere.
3381 <quote>TAG: foo</quote> wouldn't work as it requires white space.
3385 Sections can contain URL and tag patterns at the same time,
3386 but tag patterns are checked after the URL patterns and thus
3387 always overrule them, even if they are located before the URL patterns.
3391 Once a new tag is added, Privoxy checks right away if it's matched by one
3392 of the tag patterns and updates the action settings accordingly. As a result
3393 tags can be used to activate other tagger actions, as long as these other
3394 taggers look for headers that haven't already be parsed.
3398 For example you could tag client requests which use the
3399 <literal>POST</literal> method,
3400 then use this tag to activate another tagger that adds a tag if cookies
3401 are sent, and then use a block action based on the cookie tag. This allows
3402 the outcome of one action, to be input into a subsequent action. However if
3403 you'd reverse the position of the described taggers, and activated the
3404 method tagger based on the cookie tagger, no method tags would be created.
3405 The method tagger would look for the request line, but at the time
3406 the cookie tag is created, the request line has already been parsed.
3410 While this is a limitation you should be aware of, this kind of
3411 indirection is seldom needed anyway and even the example doesn't
3412 make too much sense.
3419 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3422 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3424 <sect2 id="actions">
3425 <title>Actions</title>
3427 All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
3428 somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
3429 <quote>+</quote>, and turned off if preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. So a
3430 <literal>+action</literal> means <quote>do that action</quote>, e.g.
3431 <literal>+block</literal> means <quote>please block URLs that match the
3432 following patterns</quote>, and <literal>-block</literal> means <quote>don't
3433 block URLs that match the following patterns, even if <literal>+block</literal>
3434 previously applied.</quote>
3439 Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
3440 separated by whitespace, like in
3441 <literal>{+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}}</literal>,
3442 followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
3443 Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
3444 of the actions file.
3448 Actions fall into three categories:
3455 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>enabled</quote> or
3456 <quote>disabled</quote>. Syntax:
3460 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # enable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>
3461 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable></screen>
3464 Example: <literal>+handle-as-image</literal>
3471 Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
3476 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and set parameter to <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>,
3477 # overwriting parameter from previous match if necessary
3478 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action. The parameter can be omitted</screen>
3481 Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action,
3482 the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
3485 Example: <literal>+hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070602 Firefox/2.0.0.4}</literal>
3491 Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions,
3492 but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the
3493 same URL, but with different parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> the parameters
3494 from <emphasis>all</emphasis> matches are remembered. This is used for actions
3495 that can be executed for the same request repeatedly, like adding multiple
3496 headers, or filtering through multiple filters. Syntax:
3500 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and add <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> to the list of parameters
3501 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # remove the parameter <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> from the list of parameters
3502 # If it was the last one left, disable the action.
3503 <replaceable class="parameter">-name</replaceable> # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list</screen>
3506 Examples: <literal>+add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text}</literal> and
3507 <literal>+filter{html-annoyances}</literal>
3515 If nothing is specified in any actions file, no <quote>actions</quote> are
3516 taken. So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
3517 normal, non-blocking, non-filtering proxy. You must specifically enable the
3518 privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions
3519 files will give a good starting point).
3523 Later defined action sections always over-ride earlier ones of the same type.
3524 So exceptions to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
3525 in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files such
3526 as <filename>user.action</filename>). For multi-valued actions, the actions
3527 are applied in the order they are specified. Actions files are processed in
3528 the order they are defined in <filename>config</filename> (the default
3529 installation has three actions files). It also quite possible for any given
3530 URL to match more than one <quote>pattern</quote> (because of wildcards and
3531 regular expressions), and thus to trigger more than one set of actions! Last
3535 <!-- start actions listing -->
3537 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> actions are:
3541 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
3542 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
3543 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
3545 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
3548 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3550 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="add-header">
3551 <title>add-header</title>
3555 <term>Typical use:</term>
3557 <para>Confuse log analysis, custom applications</para>
3562 <term>Effect:</term>
3565 Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
3572 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3574 <para>Multi-value.</para>
3579 <term>Parameter:</term>
3582 Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
3583 It is recommended that you use the <quote><literal>X-</literal></quote> prefix
3593 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
3594 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
3595 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
3599 Headers added by this action are not modified by other actions.
3605 <term>Example usage:</term>
3608 <screen>+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}</screen>
3616 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3617 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="block">
3618 <title>block</title>
3622 <term>Typical use:</term>
3624 <para>Block ads or other unwanted content</para>
3629 <term>Effect:</term>
3632 Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the
3633 requests are trapped by &my-app; and the requested URL is never retrieved,
3634 but is answered locally with a substitute page or image, as determined by
3636 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
3638 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>, and
3640 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> actions.
3648 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3650 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3655 <term>Parameter:</term>
3657 <para>A block reason that should be given to the user.</para>
3665 <application>Privoxy</application> sends a special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page
3666 for requests to blocked pages. This page contains the block reason given as
3667 parameter, a link to find out why the block action applies, and a click-through
3668 to the blocked content (the latter only if the force feature is available and
3672 A very important exception occurs if <emphasis>both</emphasis>
3673 <literal>block</literal> and <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
3674 apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If
3675 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
3676 (see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter,
3677 if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent.
3680 It is important to understand this process, in order
3681 to understand how <application>Privoxy</application> deals with
3682 ads and other unwanted content. Blocking is a core feature, and one
3683 upon which various other features depend.
3686 The <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
3687 action can perform a very similar task, by <quote>blocking</quote>
3688 banner images and other content through rewriting the relevant URLs in the
3689 document's HTML source, so they don't get requested in the first place.
3690 Note that this is a totally different technique, and it's easy to confuse the two.
3696 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3699 <screen>{+block{No nasty stuff for you.}}
3700 # Block and replace with "blocked" page
3701 .nasty-stuff.example.com
3703 {+block{Doubleclick banners.} +handle-as-image}
3704 # Block and replace with image
3708 {+block{Layered ads.} +handle-as-empty-document}
3709 # Block and then ignore
3710 adserver.example.net/.*\.js$</screen>
3720 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3721 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="change-x-forwarded-for">
3722 <title>change-x-forwarded-for</title>
3726 <term>Typical use:</term>
3728 <para>Improve privacy by not forwarding the source of the request in the HTTP headers.</para>
3733 <term>Effect:</term>
3736 Deletes the <quote>X-Forwarded-For:</quote> HTTP header from the client request,
3744 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3746 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3751 <term>Parameter:</term>
3755 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header.</para>
3759 <quote>add</quote> to create the header (or append
3760 the client's IP address to an already existing one).
3771 It is safe and recommended to use <literal>block</literal>.
3774 Forwarding the source address of the request may make
3775 sense in some multi-user setups but is also a privacy risk.
3780 <term>Example usage:</term>
3783 <screen>+change-x-forwarded-for{block}</screen>
3790 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3791 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-filter">
3792 <title>client-header-filter</title>
3796 <term>Typical use:</term>
3799 Rewrite or remove single client headers.
3805 <term>Effect:</term>
3808 All client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
3809 the specified regular expression based substitutions.
3816 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3818 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3823 <term>Parameter:</term>
3826 The name of a client-header filter, as defined in one of the
3827 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
3836 Client-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
3837 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
3838 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
3839 You can do that by using tags though.
3842 Client-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
3843 and use their output as input.
3846 If the request URL gets changed, &my-app; will detect that and use the new
3847 one. This can be used to rewrite the request destination behind the client's
3848 back, for example to specify a Tor exit relay for certain requests.
3851 Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
3852 to learn which client-header filters are available by default, and how to
3860 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3864 # Hide Tor exit notation in Host and Referer Headers
3865 {+client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}}
3876 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3877 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-tagger">
3878 <title>client-header-tagger</title>
3882 <term>Typical use:</term>
3885 Block requests based on their headers.
3891 <term>Effect:</term>
3894 Client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
3895 the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
3903 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3905 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3910 <term>Parameter:</term>
3913 The name of a client-header tagger, as defined in one of the
3914 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
3923 Client-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
3924 and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
3928 Client-header taggers are the first actions that are executed
3929 and their tags can be used to control every other action.
3935 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3939 # Tag every request with the User-Agent header
3940 {+client-header-tagger{user-agent}}
3943 # Tagging itself doesn't change the action
3944 # settings, sections with TAG patterns do:
3946 # If it's a download agent, use a different forwarding proxy,
3947 # show the real User-Agent and make sure resume works.
3948 {+forward-override{forward-socks5 10.0.0.2:2222 .} \
3949 -hide-if-modified-since \
3950 -overwrite-last-modified \
3955 TAG:^User-Agent: NetBSD-ftp/
3956 TAG:^User-Agent: Novell ZYPP Installer
3957 TAG:^User-Agent: RPM APT-HTTP/
3958 TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/
3959 TAG:^User-Agent: Ubuntu APT-HTTP/
3960 TAG:^User-Agent: MPlayer/
3970 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3971 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="content-type-overwrite">
3972 <title>content-type-overwrite</title>
3976 <term>Typical use:</term>
3978 <para>Stop useless download menus from popping up, or change the browser's rendering mode</para>
3983 <term>Effect:</term>
3986 Replaces the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header.
3993 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3995 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4000 <term>Parameter:</term>
4012 The <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header is used by the
4013 browser to decide what to do with the document. The value of this
4014 header can cause the browser to open a download menu instead of
4015 displaying the document by itself, even if the document's format is
4016 supported by the browser.
4019 The declared content type can also affect which rendering mode
4020 the browser chooses. If XHTML is delivered as <quote>text/html</quote>,
4021 many browsers treat it as yet another broken HTML document.
4022 If it is send as <quote>application/xml</quote>, browsers with
4023 XHTML support will only display it, if the syntax is correct.
4026 If you see a web site that proudly uses XHTML buttons, but sets
4027 <quote>Content-Type: text/html</quote>, you can use &my-app;
4028 to overwrite it with <quote>application/xml</quote> and validate
4029 the web master's claim inside your XHTML-supporting browser.
4030 If the syntax is incorrect, the browser will complain loudly.
4033 You can also go the opposite direction: if your browser prints
4034 error messages instead of rendering a document falsely declared
4035 as XHTML, you can overwrite the content type with
4036 <quote>text/html</quote> and have it rendered as broken HTML document.
4039 By default <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal> only replaces
4040 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> headers that look like some kind of text.
4041 If you want to overwrite it unconditionally, you have to combine it with
4042 <literal><link linkend="force-text-mode">force-text-mode</link></literal>.
4043 This limitation exists for a reason, think twice before circumventing it.
4046 Most of the time it's easier to replace this action with a custom
4047 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
4048 It allows you to activate it for every document of a certain site and it will still
4049 only replace the content types you aimed at.
4052 Of course you can apply <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal>
4053 to a whole site and then make URL based exceptions, but it's a lot
4054 more work to get the same precision.
4060 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
4063 <screen># Check if www.example.net/ really uses valid XHTML
4064 { +content-type-overwrite{application/xml} }
4067 # but leave the content type unmodified if the URL looks like a style sheet
4068 {-content-type-overwrite}
4069 www.example.net/.*\.css$
4070 www.example.net/.*style
4079 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4080 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-client-header">
4084 <title>crunch-client-header</title>
4088 <term>Typical use:</term>
4090 <para>Remove a client header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
4095 <term>Effect:</term>
4098 Deletes every header sent by the client that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
4105 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4107 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4112 <term>Parameter:</term>
4124 This action allows you to block client headers for which no dedicated
4125 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists.
4126 <application>Privoxy</application> will remove every client header that
4127 contains the string you supplied as parameter.
4130 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
4131 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
4132 they contain the same string.
4135 <literal>crunch-client-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
4136 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
4137 parts of them, you should use a
4138 <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header filter</link></literal>.
4142 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
4149 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4152 <screen># Block the non-existent "Privacy-Violation:" client header
4153 { +crunch-client-header{Privacy-Violation:} }
4163 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4164 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-if-none-match">
4165 <title>crunch-if-none-match</title>
4171 <term>Typical use:</term>
4173 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
4178 <term>Effect:</term>
4181 Deletes the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header.
4188 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4190 <para>Boolean.</para>
4195 <term>Parameter:</term>
4207 Removing the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header
4208 is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
4209 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote> which
4210 would cause the browser to use a cached copy of the page.
4213 It is also useful to make sure the header isn't used as a cookie
4214 replacement (unlikely but possible).
4217 Blocking the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> header shouldn't cause any
4218 caching problems, as long as the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> header
4219 isn't blocked or missing as well.
4222 It is recommended to use this action together with
4223 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hide-if-modified-since</link></literal>
4225 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>.
4231 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4234 <screen># Let the browser revalidate cached documents but don't
4235 # allow the server to use the revalidation headers for user tracking.
4236 {+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
4237 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
4238 +crunch-if-none-match}
4247 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4248 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-incoming-cookies">
4249 <title>crunch-incoming-cookies</title>
4253 <term>Typical use:</term>
4256 Prevent the web server from setting HTTP cookies on your system
4262 <term>Effect:</term>
4265 Deletes any <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from server replies.
4272 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4274 <para>Boolean.</para>
4279 <term>Parameter:</term>
4291 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
4292 <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
4293 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>.
4294 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
4297 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
4298 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
4299 since it would prevent the session cookies from being set. See also
4300 <literal><link linkend="filter-content-cookies">filter-content-cookies</link></literal>.
4306 <term>Example usage:</term>
4309 <screen>+crunch-incoming-cookies</screen>
4317 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4318 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-server-header">
4319 <title>crunch-server-header</title>
4325 <term>Typical use:</term>
4327 <para>Remove a server header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
4332 <term>Effect:</term>
4335 Deletes every header sent by the server that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
4342 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4344 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4349 <term>Parameter:</term>
4361 This action allows you to block server headers for which no dedicated
4362 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists. <application>Privoxy</application>
4363 will remove every server header that contains the string you supplied as parameter.
4366 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
4367 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
4368 they contain the same string.
4371 <literal>crunch-server-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
4372 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
4373 parts of them, you should use a custom
4374 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
4378 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
4385 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4388 <screen># Crunch server headers that try to prevent caching
4389 { +crunch-server-header{no-cache} }
4398 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4399 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-outgoing-cookies">
4400 <title>crunch-outgoing-cookies</title>
4404 <term>Typical use:</term>
4407 Prevent the web server from reading any HTTP cookies from your system
4413 <term>Effect:</term>
4416 Deletes any <quote>Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from client requests.
4423 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4425 <para>Boolean.</para>
4430 <term>Parameter:</term>
4442 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
4443 <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
4444 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>.
4445 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
4448 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
4449 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
4450 since it would prevent the session cookies from being read.
4456 <term>Example usage:</term>
4459 <screen>+crunch-outgoing-cookies</screen>
4468 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4469 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="deanimate-gifs">
4470 <title>deanimate-gifs</title>
4474 <term>Typical use:</term>
4476 <para>Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.</para>
4481 <term>Effect:</term>
4484 De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image.
4491 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
4493 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4498 <term>Parameter:</term>
4501 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
4510 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
4511 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
4512 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
4513 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
4514 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
4515 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
4518 You can safely use this action with patterns that will also match non-GIF
4519 objects, because no attempt will be made at anything that doesn't look like
4526 <term>Example usage:</term>
4529 <screen>+deanimate-gifs{last}</screen>
4536 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4537 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="downgrade-http-version">
4538 <title>downgrade-http-version</title>
4542 <term>Typical use:</term>
4544 <para>Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1</para>
4549 <term>Effect:</term>
4552 Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0.
4559 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
4561 <para>Boolean.</para>
4566 <term>Parameter:</term>
4578 This is a left-over from the time when <application>Privoxy</application>
4579 didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
4580 unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server
4581 out there. Not all HTTP/1.1 features and requirements are supported yet,
4582 so there is a chance you might need this action.
4588 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4591 <screen>{+downgrade-http-version}
4592 problem-host.example.com</screen>
4600 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4601 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="fast-redirects">
4602 <title>fast-redirects</title>
4606 <term>Typical use:</term>
4608 <para>Fool some click-tracking scripts and speed up indirect links.</para>
4613 <term>Effect:</term>
4616 Detects redirection URLs and redirects the browser without contacting
4617 the redirection server first.
4624 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
4626 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4631 <term>Parameter:</term>
4636 <quote>simple-check</quote> to just search for the string <quote>http://</quote>
4637 to detect redirection URLs.
4642 <quote>check-decoded-url</quote> to decode URLs (if necessary) before searching
4643 for redirection URLs.
4654 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
4655 will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a
4656 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
4657 resulting from this scheme typically look like:
4658 <quote>http://www.example.org/click-tracker.cgi?target=http%3a//www.example.net/</quote>.
4661 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
4662 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
4663 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go
4664 to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your
4665 browser asks the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds
4669 This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement.
4670 If it is enabled by default, you will have to create some exceptions to
4671 this action. It can lead to failures in several ways:
4674 Not every URLs with other URLs as parameters is evil.
4675 Some sites offer a real service that requires this information to work.
4676 For example a validation service needs to know, which document to validate.
4677 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> assumes that every URL parameter that
4678 looks like another URL is a redirection target, and will always redirect to
4679 the last one. Most of the time the assumption is correct, but if it isn't,
4680 the user gets redirected anyway.
4683 Another failure occurs if the URL contains other parameters after the URL parameter.
4685 <quote>http://www.example.org/?redirect=http%3a//www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
4686 contains the redirection URL <quote>http://www.example.net/</quote>,
4687 followed by another parameter. <literal>fast-redirects</literal> doesn't know that
4688 and will cause a redirect to <quote>http://www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
4689 Depending on the target server configuration, the parameter will be silently ignored
4690 or lead to a <quote>page not found</quote> error. You can prevent this problem by
4691 first using the <literal><link linkend="redirect">redirect</link></literal> action
4692 to remove the last part of the URL, but it requires a little effort.
4695 To detect a redirection URL, <literal>fast-redirects</literal> only
4696 looks for the string <quote>http://</quote>, either in plain text
4697 (invalid but often used) or encoded as <quote>http%3a//</quote>.
4698 Some sites use their own URL encoding scheme, encrypt the address
4699 of the target server or replace it with a database id. In theses cases
4700 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> is fooled and the request reaches the
4701 redirection server where it probably gets logged.
4707 <term>Example usage:</term>
4711 { +fast-redirects{simple-check} }
4714 { +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} }
4715 another.example.com/testing</screen>
4724 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4725 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter">
4726 <title>filter</title>
4730 <term>Typical use:</term>
4732 <para>Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size),
4733 do fun text replacements, add personalized effects, etc.</para>
4738 <term>Effect:</term>
4741 All instances of text-based type, most notably HTML and JavaScript, to which
4742 this action applies, can be filtered on-the-fly through the specified regular
4743 expression based substitutions. (Note: as of version 3.0.3 plain text documents
4744 are exempted from filtering, because web servers often use the
4745 <literal>text/plain</literal> MIME type for all files whose type they don't know.)
4752 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
4754 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4759 <term>Parameter:</term>
4762 The name of a content filter, as defined in the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>.
4763 Filters can be defined in one or more files as defined by the
4764 <literal><link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal>
4765 option in the <link linkend="config">config file</link>.
4766 <filename>default.filter</filename> is the collection of filters
4767 supplied by the developers. Locally defined filters should go
4768 in their own file, such as <filename>user.filter</filename>.
4771 When used in its negative form,
4772 and without parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> filtering is completely disabled.
4781 For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available
4782 in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the examples below for
4786 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
4787 slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
4788 passed the filters. (The total time until the page is completely rendered
4789 doesn't change much, but it may be perceived as slower since the page is
4790 not incrementally displayed.)
4791 This effect will be more noticeable on slower connections.
4794 <quote>Rolling your own</quote>
4795 filters requires a knowledge of
4796 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
4797 Expressions</quote></ulink> and
4798 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html"><quote>HTML</quote></ulink>.
4799 This is very powerful feature, and potentially very intrusive.
4800 Filters should be used with caution, and where an equivalent
4801 <quote>action</quote> is not available.
4804 The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the
4805 <literal><link linkend="buffer-limit">buffer-limit</link></literal>
4806 option in the main <link linkend="config">config file</link>. The
4807 default is 4096 KB (4 Megs). Once this limit is exceeded, the buffered
4808 data, and all pending data, is passed through unfiltered.
4811 Inappropriate MIME types, such as zipped files, are not filtered at all.
4812 (Again, only text-based types except plain text). Encrypted SSL data
4813 (from HTTPS servers) cannot be filtered either, since this would violate
4814 the integrity of the secure transaction. In some situations it might
4815 be necessary to protect certain text, like source code, from filtering
4816 by defining appropriate <literal>-filter</literal> exceptions.
4819 Compressed content can't be filtered either, but if &my-app;
4820 is compiled with zlib support and a supported compression algorithm
4821 is used (gzip or deflate), &my-app; can first decompress the content
4825 If you use a &my-app; version without zlib support, but want filtering to work on
4826 as much documents as possible, even those that would normally be sent compressed,
4827 you must use the <literal><link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link></literal>
4828 action in conjunction with <literal>filter</literal>.
4831 Content filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
4832 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
4833 action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism
4834 works quite differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners
4835 based on their size (see below), since many of these seem to be somewhat
4839 <link linkend="contact">Feedback</link> with suggestions for new or
4840 improved filters is particularly welcome!
4843 The below list has only the names and a one-line description of each
4844 predefined filter. There are <link linkend="predefined-filters">more
4845 verbose explanations</link> of what these filters do in the <link
4846 linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>.
4852 <term>Example usage (with filters from the distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file).
4853 See <link linkend="PREDEFINED-FILTERS">the Predefined Filters section</link> for
4854 more explanation on each:</term>
4857 <anchor id="filter-js-annoyances">
4858 <screen>+filter{js-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse.</screen>
4861 <anchor id="filter-js-events">
4862 <screen>+filter{js-events} # Kill all JS event bindings and timers (Radically destructive! Only for extra nasty sites).</screen>
4865 <anchor id="filter-html-annoyances">
4866 <screen>+filter{html-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse.</screen>
4869 <anchor id="filter-content-cookies">
4870 <screen>+filter{content-cookies} # Kill cookies that come in the HTML or JS content.</screen>
4873 <anchor id="filter-refresh-tags">
4874 <screen>+filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups).</screen>
4877 <anchor id="filter-unsolicited-popups">
4878 <screen>+filter{unsolicited-popups} # Disable only unsolicited pop-up windows. Useful if your browser lacks this ability.</screen>
4881 <anchor id="filter-all-popups">
4882 <screen>+filter{all-popups} # Kill all popups in JavaScript and HTML. Useful if your browser lacks this ability.</screen>
4885 <anchor id="filter-img-reorder">
4886 <screen>+filter{img-reorder} # Reorder attributes in <img> tags to make the banners-by-* filters more effective.</screen>
4889 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-size">
4890 <screen>+filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners by size.</screen>
4893 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-link">
4894 <screen>+filter{banners-by-link} # Kill banners by their links to known clicktrackers.</screen>
4897 <anchor id="filter-webbugs">
4898 <screen>+filter{webbugs} # Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking).</screen>
4901 <anchor id="filter-tiny-textforms">
4902 <screen>+filter{tiny-textforms} # Extend those tiny textareas up to 40x80 and kill the hard wrap.</screen>
4905 <anchor id="filter-jumping-windows">
4906 <screen>+filter{jumping-windows} # Prevent windows from resizing and moving themselves.</screen>
4909 <anchor id="filter-frameset-borders">
4910 <screen>+filter{frameset-borders} # Give frames a border and make them resizable.</screen>
4913 <anchor id="filter-demoronizer">
4914 <screen>+filter{demoronizer} # Fix MS's non-standard use of standard charsets.</screen>
4917 <anchor id="filter-shockwave-flash">
4918 <screen>+filter{shockwave-flash} # Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects.</screen>
4921 <anchor id="filter-quicktime-kioskmode">
4922 <screen>+filter{quicktime-kioskmode} # Make Quicktime movies saveable.</screen>
4925 <anchor id="filter-fun">
4926 <screen>+filter{fun} # Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!</screen>
4929 <anchor id="filter-crude-parental">
4930 <screen>+filter{crude-parental} # Crude parental filtering. Note that this filter doesn't work reliably.</screen>
4933 <anchor id="filter-ie-exploits">
4934 <screen>+filter{ie-exploits} # Disable some known Internet Explorer bug exploits.</screen>
4937 <anchor id="filter-site-specifics">
4938 <screen>+filter{site-specifics} # Cure for site-specific problems. Don't apply generally!</screen>
4941 <anchor id="filter-no-ping">
4942 <screen>+filter{no-ping} # Removes non-standard ping attributes in <a> and <area> tags.</screen>
4945 <anchor id="filter-google">
4946 <screen>+filter{google} # CSS-based block for Google text ads. Also removes a width limitation and the toolbar advertisement.</screen>
4949 <anchor id="filter-yahoo">
4950 <screen>+filter{yahoo} # CSS-based block for Yahoo text ads. Also removes a width limitation.</screen>
4953 <anchor id="filter-msn">
4954 <screen>+filter{msn} # CSS-based block for MSN text ads. Also removes tracking URLs and a width limitation.</screen>
4957 <anchor id="filter-blogspot">
4958 <screen>+filter{blogspot} # Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this.</screen>
4966 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4967 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="force-text-mode">
4968 <title>force-text-mode</title>
4974 <term>Typical use:</term>
4976 <para>Force <application>Privoxy</application> to treat a document as if it was in some kind of <emphasis>text</emphasis> format. </para>
4981 <term>Effect:</term>
4984 Declares a document as text, even if the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> isn't detected as such.
4991 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4993 <para>Boolean.</para>
4998 <term>Parameter:</term>
5010 As explained <literal><link linkend="filter">above</link></literal>,
5011 <application>Privoxy</application> tries to only filter files that are
5012 in some kind of text format. The same restrictions apply to
5013 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite</link></literal>.
5014 <literal>force-text-mode</literal> declares a document as text,
5015 without looking at the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> first.
5019 Think twice before activating this action. Filtering binary data
5020 with regular expressions can cause file damage.
5027 <term>Example usage:</term>
5040 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5041 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="forward-override">
5042 <title>forward-override</title>
5048 <term>Typical use:</term>
5050 <para>Change the forwarding settings based on User-Agent or request origin</para>
5055 <term>Effect:</term>
5058 Overrules the forward directives in the configuration file.
5065 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5067 <para>Multi-value.</para>
5072 <term>Parameter:</term>
5076 <para><quote>forward .</quote> to use a direct connection without any additional proxies.</para>
5080 <quote>forward 127.0.0.1:8123</quote> to use the HTTP proxy listening at 127.0.0.1 port 8123.
5085 <quote>forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 .</quote> to use the socks4a proxy listening at
5086 127.0.0.1 port 9050. Replace <quote>forward-socks4a</quote> with <quote>forward-socks4</quote>
5087 to use a socks4 connection (with local DNS resolution) instead, use <quote>forward-socks5</quote>
5088 for socks5 connections (with remote DNS resolution).
5093 <quote>forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 proxy.example.org:8000</quote> to use the socks4a proxy
5094 listening at 127.0.0.1 port 9050 to reach the HTTP proxy listening at proxy.example.org port 8000.
5095 Replace <quote>forward-socks4a</quote> with <quote>forward-socks4</quote> to use a socks4 connection
5096 (with local DNS resolution) instead, use <quote>forward-socks5</quote>
5097 for socks5 connections (with remote DNS resolution).
5108 This action takes parameters similar to the
5109 <link linkend="forwarding">forward</link> directives in the configuration
5110 file, but without the URL pattern. It can be used as replacement, but normally it's only
5111 used in cases where matching based on the request URL isn't sufficient.
5115 Please read the description for the <link linkend="forwarding">forward</link> directives before
5116 using this action. Forwarding to the wrong people will reduce your privacy and increase the
5117 chances of man-in-the-middle attacks.
5120 If the ports are missing or invalid, default values will be used. This might change
5121 in the future and you shouldn't rely on it. Otherwise incorrect syntax causes Privoxy
5125 Use the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">show-url-info CGI page</ulink>
5126 to verify that your forward settings do what you thought the do.
5133 <term>Example usage:</term>
5137 # Always use direct connections for requests previously tagged as
5138 # <quote>User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2.0</quote> and make sure
5139 # resuming downloads continues to work.
5140 # This way you can continue to use Tor for your normal browsing,
5141 # without overloading the Tor network with your FreeBSD ports updates
5142 # or downloads of bigger files like ISOs.
5143 # Note that HTTP headers are easy to fake and therefore their
5144 # values are as (un)trustworthy as your clients and users.
5145 {+forward-override{forward .} \
5146 -hide-if-modified-since \
5147 -overwrite-last-modified \
5149 TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2\.0$
5158 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5159 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-empty-document">
5160 <title>handle-as-empty-document</title>
5166 <term>Typical use:</term>
5168 <para>Mark URLs that should be replaced by empty documents <emphasis>if they get blocked</emphasis></para>
5173 <term>Effect:</term>
5176 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs.
5177 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
5178 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote>
5179 page, or an empty document will be sent to the client as a substitute for the blocked content.
5180 The <emphasis>empty</emphasis> document isn't literally empty, but actually contains a single space.
5187 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5189 <para>Boolean.</para>
5194 <term>Parameter:</term>
5206 Some browsers complain about syntax errors if JavaScript documents
5207 are blocked with <application>Privoxy's</application>
5208 default HTML page; this option can be used to silence them.
5209 And of course this action can also be used to eliminate the &my-app;
5210 BLOCKED message in frames.
5213 The content type for the empty document can be specified with
5214 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite{}</link></literal>,
5215 but usually this isn't necessary.
5221 <term>Example usage:</term>
5224 <screen># Block all documents on example.org that end with ".js",
5225 # but send an empty document instead of the usual HTML message.
5226 {+block{Blocked JavaScript} +handle-as-empty-document}
5236 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5237 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-image">
5238 <title>handle-as-image</title>
5242 <term>Typical use:</term>
5244 <para>Mark URLs as belonging to images (so they'll be replaced by images <emphasis>if they do get blocked</emphasis>, rather than HTML pages)</para>
5249 <term>Effect:</term>
5252 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs as images.
5253 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
5254 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>blocked</quote>
5255 page, or a replacement image (as determined by the <literal><link
5256 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> action) will be sent to the
5257 client as a substitute for the blocked content.
5264 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5266 <para>Boolean.</para>
5271 <term>Parameter:</term>
5283 The below generic example section is actually part of <filename>default.action</filename>.
5284 It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should
5288 Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with
5289 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>, to block sources of banners, whose URLs don't
5290 reflect the file type, like in the second example section.
5293 Note that you cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, (in-line) ad
5294 frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they won't display properly.
5295 Forcing <literal>handle-as-image</literal> in this situation will not replace the
5296 ad frame with an image, but lead to error messages.
5302 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
5305 <screen># Generic image extensions:
5308 /.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)$
5310 # These don't look like images, but they're banners and should be
5311 # blocked as images:
5313 {+block{Nasty banners.} +handle-as-image}
5314 nasty-banner-server.example.com/junk.cgi\?output=trash
5323 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5324 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-accept-language">
5325 <title>hide-accept-language</title>
5331 <term>Typical use:</term>
5333 <para>Pretend to use different language settings.</para>
5338 <term>Effect:</term>
5341 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> HTTP header in client requests.
5348 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5350 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5355 <term>Parameter:</term>
5358 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
5367 Faking the browser's language settings can be useful to make a
5368 foreign User-Agent set with
5369 <literal><link linkend="hide-user-agent">hide-user-agent</link></literal>
5373 However some sites with content in different languages check the
5374 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> to decide which one to take by default.
5375 Sometimes it isn't possible to later switch to another language without
5376 changing the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header first.
5379 Therefore it's a good idea to either only change the
5380 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header to languages you understand,
5381 or to languages that aren't wide spread.
5384 Before setting the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header
5385 to a rare language, you should consider that it helps to
5386 make your requests unique and thus easier to trace.
5387 If you don't plan to change this header frequently,
5388 you should stick to a common language.
5394 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5397 <screen># Pretend to use Canadian language settings.
5398 {+hide-accept-language{en-ca} \
5399 +hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; OpenBSD i386; en-CA; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060628 Firefox/1.5.0.4} \
5409 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5410 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-content-disposition">
5411 <title>hide-content-disposition</title>
5417 <term>Typical use:</term>
5419 <para>Prevent download menus for content you prefer to view inside the browser.</para>
5424 <term>Effect:</term>
5427 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header set by some servers.
5434 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5436 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5441 <term>Parameter:</term>
5444 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
5453 Some servers set the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header for
5454 documents they assume you want to save locally before viewing them.
5455 The <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header contains the file name
5456 the browser is supposed to use by default.
5459 In most browsers that understand this header, it makes it impossible to
5460 <emphasis>just view</emphasis> the document, without downloading it first,
5461 even if it's just a simple text file or an image.
5464 Removing the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header helps
5465 to prevent this annoyance, but some browsers additionally check the
5466 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> header, before they decide if they can
5467 display a document without saving it first. In these cases, you have
5468 to change this header as well, before the browser stops displaying
5472 It is also possible to change the server's file name suggestion
5473 to another one, but in most cases it isn't worth the time to set
5477 This action will probably be removed in the future,
5478 use server-header filters instead.
5484 <term>Example usage:</term>
5487 <screen># Disarm the download link in Sourceforge's patch tracker
5489 +content-type-overwrite{text/plain}\
5490 +hide-content-disposition{block} }
5491 .sourceforge.net/tracker/download\.php</screen>
5499 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5500 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-if-modified-since">
5501 <title>hide-if-modified-since</title>
5507 <term>Typical use:</term>
5509 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
5514 <term>Effect:</term>
5517 Deletes the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> HTTP client header or modifies its value.
5524 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5526 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5531 <term>Parameter:</term>
5534 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or a user defined value that specifies a range of hours.
5543 Removing this header is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
5544 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the
5545 browser to use a cached copy of the page.
5548 Instead of removing the header, <literal>hide-if-modified-since</literal> can
5549 also add or subtract a random amount of time to/from the header's value.
5550 You specify a range of minutes where the random factor should be chosen from and
5551 <application>Privoxy</application> does the rest. A negative value means
5552 subtracting, a positive value adding.
5555 Randomizing the value of the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> makes
5556 it less likely that the server can use the time as a cookie replacement,
5557 but you will run into caching problems if the random range is too high.
5560 It is a good idea to only use a small negative value and let
5561 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>
5562 handle the greater changes.
5565 It is also recommended to use this action together with
5566 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>,
5567 otherwise it's more or less pointless.
5573 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5576 <screen># Let the browser revalidate but make tracking based on the time less likely.
5577 {+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
5578 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
5579 +crunch-if-none-match}
5588 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5589 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-from-header">
5590 <title>hide-from-header</title>
5594 <term>Typical use:</term>
5596 <para>Keep your (old and ill) browser from telling web servers your email address</para>
5601 <term>Effect:</term>
5604 Deletes any existing <quote>From:</quote> HTTP header, or replaces it with the
5612 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5614 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5619 <term>Parameter:</term>
5622 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
5631 The keyword <quote>block</quote> will completely remove the header
5632 (not to be confused with the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
5636 Alternately, you can specify any value you prefer to be sent to the web
5637 server. If you do, it is a matter of fairness not to use any address that
5638 is actually used by a real person.
5641 This action is rarely needed, as modern web browsers don't send
5642 <quote>From:</quote> headers anymore.
5648 <term>Example usage:</term>
5651 <screen>+hide-from-header{block}</screen> or
5652 <screen>+hide-from-header{spam-me-senseless@sittingduck.example.com}</screen>
5660 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5661 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-referrer">
5662 <title>hide-referrer</title>
5663 <anchor id="hide-referer">
5666 <term>Typical use:</term>
5668 <para>Conceal which link you followed to get to a particular site</para>
5673 <term>Effect:</term>
5676 Deletes the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) HTTP header from the client request,
5677 or replaces it with a forged one.
5684 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5686 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5691 <term>Parameter:</term>
5695 <para><quote>conditional-block</quote> to delete the header completely if the host has changed.</para>
5698 <para><quote>conditional-forge</quote> to forge the header if the host has changed.</para>
5701 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header unconditionally.</para>
5704 <para><quote>forge</quote> to pretend to be coming from the homepage of the server we are talking to.</para>
5707 <para>Any other string to set a user defined referrer.</para>
5717 <literal>conditional-block</literal> is the only parameter,
5718 that isn't easily detected in the server's log file. If it blocks the
5719 referrer, the request will look like the visitor used a bookmark or
5720 typed in the address directly.
5723 Leaving the referrer unmodified for requests on the same host
5724 allows the server owner to see the visitor's <quote>click path</quote>,
5725 but in most cases she could also get that information by comparing
5726 other parts of the log file: for example the User-Agent if it isn't
5727 a very common one, or the user's IP address if it doesn't change between
5731 Always blocking the referrer, or using a custom one, can lead to
5732 failures on servers that check the referrer before they answer any
5733 requests, in an attempt to prevent their content from being
5734 embedded or linked to elsewhere.
5737 Both <literal>conditional-block</literal> and <literal>forge</literal>
5738 will work with referrer checks, as long as content and valid referring page
5739 are on the same host. Most of the time that's the case.
5742 <literal>hide-referer</literal> is an alternate spelling of
5743 <literal>hide-referrer</literal> and the two can be can be freely
5744 substituted with each other. (<quote>referrer</quote> is the
5745 correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
5746 requires it to be spelled as <quote>referer</quote>.)
5752 <term>Example usage:</term>
5755 <screen>+hide-referrer{forge}</screen> or
5756 <screen>+hide-referrer{http://www.yahoo.com/}</screen>
5764 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5765 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-user-agent">
5766 <title>hide-user-agent</title>
5770 <term>Typical use:</term>
5772 <para>Try to conceal your type of browser and client operating system</para>
5777 <term>Effect:</term>
5780 Replaces the value of the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> HTTP header
5781 in client requests with the specified value.
5788 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5790 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5795 <term>Parameter:</term>
5798 Any user-defined string.
5808 This can lead to problems on web sites that depend on looking at this header in
5809 order to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the
5810 way, is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the right thing to do: good web sites
5811 work browser-independently).
5815 Using this action in multi-user setups or wherever different types of
5816 browsers will access the same <application>Privoxy</application> is
5817 <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>. In single-user, single-browser
5818 setups, you might use it to delete your OS version information from
5819 the headers, because it is an invitation to exploit known bugs for your
5820 OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
5821 sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
5822 reason in some cases).
5825 More information on known user-agent strings can be found at
5826 <ulink url="http://www.user-agents.org/">http://www.user-agents.org/</ulink>
5828 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent</ulink>.
5834 <term>Example usage:</term>
5837 <screen>+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}</screen>
5845 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5846 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="limit-connect">
5847 <title>limit-connect</title>
5851 <term>Typical use:</term>
5853 <para>Prevent abuse of <application>Privoxy</application> as a TCP proxy relay or disable SSL for untrusted sites</para>
5858 <term>Effect:</term>
5861 Specifies to which ports HTTP CONNECT requests are allowable.
5868 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5870 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5875 <term>Parameter:</term>
5878 A comma-separated list of ports or port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum
5879 defaulting to 0 and the maximum to 65K).
5888 By default, i.e. if no <literal>limit-connect</literal> action applies,
5889 <application>Privoxy</application> allows HTTP CONNECT requests to all
5890 ports. Use <literal>limit-connect</literal> if fine-grained control
5891 is desired for some or all destinations.
5894 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
5895 (<quote>https://</quote> URLs) through proxies. It works very simply:
5896 the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then
5897 short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote server.
5898 This means CONNECT-enabled proxies can be used as TCP relays very easily.
5901 <application>Privoxy</application> relays HTTPS traffic without seeing
5902 the decoded content. Websites can leverage this limitation to circumvent &my-app;'s
5903 filters. By specifying an invalid port range you can disable HTTPS entirely.
5909 <term>Example usages:</term>
5911 <!-- I had trouble getting the spacing to look right in my browser -->
5912 <!-- I probably have the wrong font setup, bollocks. -->
5913 <!-- Apparently the emphasis tag uses a proportional font no matter what -->
5915 <screen>+limit-connect{443} # Port 443 is OK.
5916 +limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
5917 +limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Ports less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
5918 +limit-connect{-} # All ports are OK
5919 +limit-connect{,} # No HTTPS/SSL traffic is allowed</screen>
5926 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5927 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="prevent-compression">
5928 <title>prevent-compression</title>
5932 <term>Typical use:</term>
5935 Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be
5936 passed through <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>s.
5942 <term>Effect:</term>
5945 Removes the Accept-Encoding header which can be used to ask for compressed transfer.
5952 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5954 <para>Boolean.</para>
5959 <term>Parameter:</term>
5971 More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which
5972 is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But the <literal><link
5973 linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> and
5974 <literal><link linkend="deanimate-gifs">deanimate-gifs</link></literal>
5975 actions need access to the uncompressed data.
5978 When compiled with zlib support (available since &my-app; 3.0.7), content that should be
5979 filtered is decompressed on-the-fly and you don't have to worry about this action.
5980 If you are using an older &my-app; version, or one that hasn't been compiled with zlib
5981 support, this action can be used to convince the server to send the content uncompressed.
5984 Most text-based instances compress very well, the size is seldom decreased by less than 50%,
5985 for markup-heavy instances like news feeds saving more than 90% of the original size isn't
5989 Not using compression will therefore slow down the transfer, and you should only
5990 enable this action if you really need it. As of &my-app; 3.0.7 it's disabled in all
5991 predefined action settings.
5994 Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed
5995 documents correctly. Broken PHP applications tend to send an empty document body,
5996 some IIS versions only send the beginning of the content. If you enable
5997 <literal>prevent-compression</literal> per default, you might want to add
5998 exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
6004 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
6008 # Selectively turn off compression, and enable a filter
6010 { +filter{tiny-textforms} +prevent-compression }
6011 # Match only these sites
6016 # Or instead, we could set a universal default:
6018 { +prevent-compression }
6021 # Then maybe make exceptions for broken sites:
6023 { -prevent-compression }
6024 .compusa.com/</screen>
6033 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6034 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="overwrite-last-modified">
6035 <title>overwrite-last-modified</title>
6041 <term>Typical use:</term>
6043 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
6048 <term>Effect:</term>
6051 Deletes the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> HTTP server header or modifies its value.
6058 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
6060 <para>Parameterized.</para>
6065 <term>Parameter:</term>
6068 One of the keywords: <quote>block</quote>, <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote>
6069 and <quote>randomize</quote>
6078 Removing the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header is useful for filter
6079 testing, where you want to force a real reload instead of getting status
6080 code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the browser to reuse the old
6081 version of the page.
6084 The <quote>randomize</quote> option overwrites the value of the
6085 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with a randomly chosen time
6086 between the original value and the current time. In theory the server
6087 could send each document with a different <quote>Last-Modified:</quote>
6088 header to track visits without using cookies. <quote>Randomize</quote>
6089 makes it impossible and the browser can still revalidate cached documents.
6092 <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote> overwrites the value of the
6093 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with the current time. You could use
6094 this option together with
6095 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hide-if-modified-since</link></literal>
6096 to further customize your random range.
6099 The preferred parameter here is <quote>randomize</quote>. It is safe
6100 to use, as long as the time settings are more or less correct.
6101 If the server sets the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header to the time
6102 of the request, the random range becomes zero and the value stays the same.
6103 Therefore you should later randomize it a second time with
6104 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hided-if-modified-since</link></literal>,
6108 It is also recommended to use this action together with
6109 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>.
6115 <term>Example usage:</term>
6118 <screen># Let the browser revalidate without being tracked across sessions
6119 { +hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
6120 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
6121 +crunch-if-none-match}
6130 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6131 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="redirect">
6132 <title>redirect</title>
6138 <term>Typical use:</term>
6141 Redirect requests to other sites.
6147 <term>Effect:</term>
6150 Convinces the browser that the requested document has been moved
6151 to another location and the browser should get it from there.
6158 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
6160 <para>Parameterized</para>
6165 <term>Parameter:</term>
6168 An absolute URL or a single pcrs command.
6177 Requests to which this action applies are answered with a
6178 HTTP redirect to URLs of your choosing. The new URL is
6179 either provided as parameter, or derived by applying a
6180 single pcrs command to the original URL.
6183 This action will be ignored if you use it together with
6184 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>.
6185 It can be combined with
6186 <literal><link linkend="fast-redirects">fast-redirects{check-decoded-url}</link></literal>
6187 to redirect to a decoded version of a rewritten URL.
6190 Use this action carefully, make sure not to create redirection loops
6191 and be aware that using your own redirects might make it
6192 possible to fingerprint your requests.
6195 In case of problems with your redirects, or simply to watch
6196 them working, enable <link linkend="DEBUG">debug 128</link>.
6202 <term>Example usages:</term>
6205 <screen># Replace example.com's style sheet with another one
6206 { +redirect{http://localhost/css-replacements/example.com.css} }
6207 example.com/stylesheet\.css
6209 # Create a short, easy to remember nickname for a favorite site
6210 # (relies on the browser accept and forward invalid URLs to &my-app;)
6211 { +redirect{http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/actions-file.html} }
6214 # Always use the expanded view for Undeadly.org articles
6215 # (Note the $ at the end of the URL pattern to make sure
6216 # the request for the rewritten URL isn't redirected as well)
6217 {+redirect{s@$@&mode=expanded@}}
6218 undeadly.org/cgi\?action=article&sid=\d*$
6220 # Redirect Google search requests to MSN
6221 {+redirect{s@^http://[^/]*/search\?q=([^&]*).*@http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=$1@}}
6224 # Redirect MSN search requests to Yahoo
6225 {+redirect{s@^http://[^/]*/results\.aspx\?q=([^&]*).*@http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=$1@}}
6226 search.msn.com//results\.aspx\?q=
6228 # Redirect remote requests for this manual
6229 # to the local version delivered by Privoxy
6230 {+redirect{s@^http://www@http://config@}}
6231 www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</screen>
6240 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6241 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="server-header-filter">
6242 <title>server-header-filter</title>
6246 <term>Typical use:</term>
6249 Rewrite or remove single server headers.
6255 <term>Effect:</term>
6258 All server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly
6259 through the specified regular expression based substitutions.
6266 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
6268 <para>Parameterized.</para>
6273 <term>Parameter:</term>
6276 The name of a server-header filter, as defined in one of the
6277 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
6286 Server-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
6287 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
6288 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
6289 You can do that by using tags though.
6292 Server-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
6293 and use their output as input.
6296 Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
6297 to learn which server-header filters are available by default, and how to
6304 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
6308 {+server-header-filter{html-to-xml}}
6309 example.org/xml-instance-that-is-delivered-as-html
6311 {+server-header-filter{xml-to-html}}
6312 example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
6322 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6323 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="server-header-tagger">
6324 <title>server-header-tagger</title>
6328 <term>Typical use:</term>
6331 Enable or disable filters based on the Content-Type header.
6337 <term>Effect:</term>
6340 Server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
6341 the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
6349 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
6351 <para>Parameterized.</para>
6356 <term>Parameter:</term>
6359 The name of a server-header tagger, as defined in one of the
6360 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
6369 Server-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
6370 and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
6374 Server-header taggers are executed before all other header actions
6375 that modify server headers. Their tags can be used to control
6376 all of the other server-header actions, the content filters
6377 and the crunch actions (<link linkend="redirect">redirect</link>
6378 and <link linkend="block">block</link>).
6381 Obviously crunching based on tags created by server-header taggers
6382 doesn't prevent the request from showing up in the server's log file.
6389 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
6393 # Tag every request with the content type declared by the server
6394 {+server-header-tagger{content-type}}
6405 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6406 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="session-cookies-only">
6407 <title>session-cookies-only</title>
6411 <term>Typical use:</term>
6414 Allow only temporary <quote>session</quote> cookies (for the current
6415 browser session <emphasis>only</emphasis>).
6421 <term>Effect:</term>
6424 Deletes the <quote>expires</quote> field from <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote>
6425 server headers. Most browsers will not store such cookies permanently and
6426 forget them in between sessions.
6433 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
6435 <para>Boolean.</para>
6440 <term>Parameter:</term>
6452 This is less strict than <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> /
6453 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal> and allows you to browse
6454 websites that insist or rely on setting cookies, without compromising your privacy too badly.
6457 Most browsers will not permanently store cookies that have been processed by
6458 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal> and will forget about them between sessions.
6459 This makes profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
6460 that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
6461 sites, and is the recommended setting.
6464 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>
6465 together with <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> or
6466 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>. If you do, cookies
6467 will be plainly killed.
6470 Note that it is up to the browser how it handles such cookies without an <quote>expires</quote>
6471 field. If you use an exotic browser, you might want to try it out to be sure.
6474 This setting also has no effect on cookies that may have been stored
6475 previously by the browser before starting <application>Privoxy</application>.
6476 These would have to be removed manually.
6479 <application>Privoxy</application> also uses
6480 the <link linkend="filter-content-cookies">content-cookies filter</link>
6481 to block some types of cookies. Content cookies are not effected by
6482 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>.
6488 <term>Example usage:</term>
6491 <screen>+session-cookies-only</screen>
6499 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6500 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="set-image-blocker">
6501 <title>set-image-blocker</title>
6505 <term>Typical use:</term>
6507 <para>Choose the replacement for blocked images</para>
6512 <term>Effect:</term>
6515 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. If <emphasis>both</emphasis>
6516 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><link
6517 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> <emphasis>also</emphasis>
6518 apply, i.e. if the request is to be blocked as an image,
6519 <emphasis>then</emphasis> the parameter of this action decides what will be
6520 sent as a replacement.
6527 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
6529 <para>Parameterized.</para>
6534 <term>Parameter:</term>
6539 <quote>pattern</quote> to send a built-in checkerboard pattern image. The image is visually
6540 decent, scales very well, and makes it obvious where banners were busted.
6545 <quote>blank</quote> to send a built-in transparent image. This makes banners disappear
6546 completely, but makes it hard to detect where <application>Privoxy</application> has blocked
6547 images on a given page and complicates troubleshooting if <application>Privoxy</application>
6548 has blocked innocent images, like navigation icons.
6553 <quote><replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable></quote> to
6554 send a redirect to <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>. You can redirect
6555 to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem via <quote>file:///</quote> URL.
6556 (But note that not all browsers support redirecting to a local file system).
6559 A good application of redirects is to use special <application>Privoxy</application>-built-in
6560 URLs, which send the built-in images, as <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>.
6561 This has the same visual effect as specifying <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote> in
6562 the first place, but enables your browser to cache the replacement image, instead of requesting
6563 it over and over again.
6574 The URLs for the built-in images are <quote>http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=<replaceable
6575 class="parameter">type</replaceable></quote>, where <replaceable class="parameter">type</replaceable> is
6576 either <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote>.
6579 There is a third (advanced) type, called <quote>auto</quote>. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> to be
6580 used in <literal>set-image-blocker</literal>, but meant for use from <link linkend="filter-file">filters</link>.
6581 Auto will select the type of image that would have applied to the referring page, had it been an image.
6587 <term>Example usage:</term>
6593 <screen>+set-image-blocker{pattern}</screen>
6596 Redirect to the BSD daemon:
6599 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://www.freebsd.org/gifs/dae_up3.gif}</screen>
6602 Redirect to the built-in pattern for better caching:
6605 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=pattern}</screen>
6613 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6615 <title>Summary</title>
6617 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
6618 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
6619 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
6620 content, and other criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard
6621 and fast rules for all sites. See the <link
6622 linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link> for a brief example on troubleshooting
6628 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6629 <sect2 id="aliases">
6630 <title>Aliases</title>
6632 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
6633 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other actions.
6634 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in actions.
6635 Currently, an alias name can contain any character except space, tab,
6637 <quote>{</quote> and <quote>}</quote>, but we <emphasis>strongly
6638 recommend</emphasis> that you only use <quote>a</quote> to <quote>z</quote>,
6639 <quote>0</quote> to <quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and <quote>-</quote>.
6640 Alias names are not case sensitive, and are not required to start with a
6641 <quote>+</quote> or <quote>-</quote> sign, since they are merely textually
6645 Aliases can be used throughout the actions file, but they <emphasis>must be
6646 defined in a special section at the top of the file!</emphasis>
6647 And there can only be one such section per actions file. Each actions file may
6648 have its own alias section, and the aliases defined in it are only visible
6652 There are two main reasons to use aliases: One is to save typing for frequently
6653 used combinations of actions, the other one is a gain in flexibility: If you
6654 decide once how you want to handle shops by defining an alias called
6655 <quote>shop</quote>, you can later change your policy on shops in
6656 <emphasis>one</emphasis> place, and your changes will take effect everywhere
6657 in the actions file where the <quote>shop</quote> alias is used. Calling aliases
6658 by their purpose also makes your actions files more readable.
6661 Currently, there is one big drawback to using aliases, though:
6662 <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in web-based action file
6663 editor honors aliases when reading the actions files, but it expands
6664 them before writing. So the effects of your aliases are of course preserved,
6665 but the aliases themselves are lost when you edit sections that use aliases
6670 Now let's define some aliases...
6675 # Useful custom aliases we can use later.
6677 # Note the (required!) section header line and that this section
6678 # must be at the top of the actions file!
6682 # These aliases just save typing later:
6683 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
6685 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6686 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6687 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked image.} +handle-as-image
6688 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
6690 # These aliases define combinations of actions
6691 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
6693 fragile = -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer</link> -<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link>
6695 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link>
6697 # Short names for other aliases, for really lazy people ;-)
6699 c0 = +crunch-all-cookies
6700 c1 = -crunch-all-cookies</screen>
6704 ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
6705 actions file and define exceptions to the default actions (as specified further
6706 up for the <quote>/</quote> pattern):
6711 # These sites are either very complex or very keen on
6712 # user data and require minimal interference to work:
6715 .office.microsoft.com
6716 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
6717 # Gmail is really mail.google.com, not gmail.com
6721 # Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data)
6725 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
6728 # These shops require pop-ups:
6730 {-filter{all-popups} -filter{unsolicited-popups}}
6732 .overclockers.co.uk</screen>
6736 Aliases like <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> are typically used for
6737 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require more than one action to be disabled
6738 in order to function properly.
6744 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6745 <sect2 id="act-examples">
6746 <title>Actions Files Tutorial</title>
6748 The above chapters have shown <link linkend="actions-file">which actions files
6749 there are and how they are organized</link>, how actions are <link
6750 linkend="actions">specified</link> and <link linkend="actions-apply">applied
6751 to URLs</link>, how <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> work, and how to
6752 define and use <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link>. Now, let's look at an
6753 example <filename>match-all.action</filename>, <filename>default.action</filename>
6754 and <filename>user.action</filename> file and see how all these pieces come together:
6758 <title>match-all.action</title>
6760 Remember <emphasis>all actions are disabled when matching starts</emphasis>,
6761 so we have to explicitly enable the ones we want.
6765 While the <filename>match-all.action</filename> file only contains a
6766 single section, it is probably the most important one. It has only one
6767 pattern, <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, but this pattern
6768 <link linkend="af-patterns">matches all URLs</link>. Therefore, the set of
6769 actions used in this <quote>default</quote> section <emphasis>will
6770 be applied to all requests as a start</emphasis>. It can be partly or
6771 wholly overridden by other actions files like <filename>default.action</filename>
6772 and <filename>user.action</filename>, but it will still be largely responsible
6773 for your overall browsing experience.
6777 Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is
6778 no need to disable any actions here. (Remember: a <quote>+</quote>
6779 preceding the action name enables the action, a <quote>-</quote> disables!).
6780 Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into
6781 multiple lines with line continuation.
6787 +<link linkend="CHANGE-X-FORWARDED-FOR">change-x-forwarded-for{block}</link> \
6788 +<link linkend="HIDE-FROM-HEADER">hide-from-header{block}</link> \
6789 +<link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER">set-image-blocker{pattern}</link> \
6796 The default behavior is now set.
6801 <title>default.action</title>
6804 If you aren't a developer, there's no need for you to edit the
6805 <filename>default.action</filename> file. It is maintained by
6806 the &my-app; developers and if you disagree with some of the
6807 sections, you should overrule them in your <filename>user.action</filename>.
6811 Understanding the <filename>default.action</filename> file can
6812 help you with your <filename>user.action</filename>, though.
6816 The first section in this file is a special section for internal use
6817 that prevents older &my-app; versions from reading the file:
6822 ##########################################################################
6823 # Settings -- Don't change! For internal Privoxy use ONLY.
6824 ##########################################################################
6826 for-privoxy-version=3.0.11</screen>
6830 After that comes the (optional) alias section. We'll use the example
6831 section from the above <link linkend="aliases">chapter on aliases</link>,
6832 that also explains why and how aliases are used:
6837 ##########################################################################
6839 ##########################################################################
6842 # These aliases just save typing later:
6843 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
6845 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6846 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6847 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked image.} +handle-as-image
6848 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
6850 # These aliases define combinations of actions
6851 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
6853 fragile = -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer</link>
6854 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link></screen>
6858 The first of our specialized sections is concerned with <quote>fragile</quote>
6859 sites, i.e. sites that require minimum interference, because they are either
6860 very complex or very keen on tracking you (and have mechanisms in place that
6861 make them unusable for people who avoid being tracked). We will simply use
6862 our pre-defined <literal>fragile</literal> alias instead of stating the list
6863 of actions explicitly:
6868 ##########################################################################
6869 # Exceptions for sites that'll break under the default action set:
6870 ##########################################################################
6872 # "Fragile" Use a minimum set of actions for these sites (see alias above):
6875 .office.microsoft.com # surprise, surprise!
6876 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
6877 mail.google.com</screen>
6881 Shopping sites are not as fragile, but they typically
6882 require cookies to log in, and pop-up windows for shopping
6883 carts or item details. Again, we'll use a pre-defined alias:
6892 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
6894 .scan.co.uk</screen>
6898 The <literal><link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link></literal>
6899 action, which may have been enabled in <filename>match-all.action</filename>,
6900 breaks some sites. So disable it for popular sites where we know it misbehaves:
6905 { -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> }
6909 .altavista.com/.*(like|url|link):http
6910 .altavista.com/trans.*urltext=http
6911 .nytimes.com</screen>
6915 It is important that <application>Privoxy</application> knows which
6916 URLs belong to images, so that <emphasis>if</emphasis> they are to
6917 be blocked, a substitute image can be sent, rather than an HTML page.
6918 Contacting the remote site to find out is not an option, since it
6919 would destroy the loading time advantage of banner blocking, and it
6920 would feed the advertisers information about you. We can mark any
6921 URL as an image with the <literal><link
6922 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action,
6923 and marking all URLs that end in a known image file extension is a
6929 ##########################################################################
6931 ##########################################################################
6933 # Define which file types will be treated as images, in case they get
6934 # blocked further down this file:
6936 { +<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> }
6937 /.*\.(gif|jpe?g|png|bmp|ico)$</screen>
6941 And then there are known banner sources. They often use scripts to
6942 generate the banners, so it won't be visible from the URL that the
6943 request is for an image. Hence we block them <emphasis>and</emphasis>
6944 mark them as images in one go, with the help of our
6945 <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above. (We could of
6946 course just as well use <literal>+<link linkend="block">block</link>
6947 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> here.)
6948 Remember that the type of the replacement image is chosen by the
6949 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
6950 action. Since all URLs have matched the default section with its
6951 <literal>+<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link>{pattern}</literal>
6952 action before, it still applies and needn't be repeated:
6957 # Known ad generators:
6962 .ad.*.doubleclick.net
6963 .a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
6964 .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
6970 One of the most important jobs of <application>Privoxy</application>
6971 is to block banners. Many of these can be <quote>blocked</quote>
6972 by the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{banners-by-size}</literal>
6973 action, which we enabled above, and which deletes the references to banner
6974 images from the pages while they are loaded, so the browser doesn't request
6975 them anymore, and hence they don't need to be blocked here. But this naturally
6976 doesn't catch all banners, and some people choose not to use filters, so we
6977 need a comprehensive list of patterns for banner URLs here, and apply the
6978 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action to them.
6981 First comes many generic patterns, which do most of the work, by
6982 matching typical domain and path name components of banners. Then comes
6983 a list of individual patterns for specific sites, which is omitted here
6984 to keep the example short:
6989 ##########################################################################
6990 # Block these fine banners:
6991 ##########################################################################
6992 { <link linkend="BLOCK">+block{Banner ads.}</link> }
7000 /.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?)
7001 /(?:.*/)?(publicite|werbung|rekla(ma|me|am)|annonse|maino(kset|nta|s)?)/
7003 # Site-specific patterns (abbreviated):
7005 .hitbox.com</screen>
7009 It's quite remarkable how many advertisers actually call their banner
7010 servers ads.<replaceable>company</replaceable>.com, or call the directory
7011 in which the banners are stored simply <quote>banners</quote>. So the above
7012 generic patterns are surprisingly effective.
7015 But being very generic, they necessarily also catch URLs that we don't want
7016 to block. The pattern <literal>.*ads.</literal> e.g. catches
7017 <quote>nasty-<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.nasty-corp.com</quote> as intended,
7018 but also <quote>downlo<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.sourcefroge.net</quote> or
7019 <quote><emphasis>ads</emphasis>l.some-provider.net.</quote> So here come some
7020 well-known exceptions to the <literal>+<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
7024 Note that these are exceptions to exceptions from the default! Consider the URL
7025 <quote>downloads.sourcefroge.net</quote>: Initially, all actions are deactivated,
7026 so it wouldn't get blocked. Then comes the defaults section, which matches the
7027 URL, but just deactivates the <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
7028 action once again. Then it matches <literal>.*ads.</literal>, an exception to the
7029 general non-blocking policy, and suddenly
7030 <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link></literal> applies. And now, it'll match
7031 <literal>.*loads.</literal>, where <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">-block</link></literal>
7032 applies, so (unless it matches <emphasis>again</emphasis> further down) it ends up
7033 with no <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal> action applying.
7038 ##########################################################################
7039 # Save some innocent victims of the above generic block patterns:
7040 ##########################################################################
7044 { -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
7045 adv[io]*. # (for advogato.org and advice.*)
7046 adsl. # (has nothing to do with ads)
7047 adobe. # (has nothing to do with ads either)
7048 ad[ud]*. # (adult.* and add.*)
7049 .edu # (universities don't host banners (yet!))
7050 .*loads. # (downloads, uploads etc)
7058 www.globalintersec.com/adv # (adv = advanced)
7059 www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv</screen>
7063 Filtering source code can have nasty side effects,
7064 so make an exception for our friends at sourceforge.net,
7065 and all paths with <quote>cvs</quote> in them. Note that
7066 <literal>-<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link></literal>
7067 disables <emphasis>all</emphasis> filters in one fell swoop!
7072 # Don't filter code!
7074 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
7079 .sourceforge.net</screen>
7083 The actual <filename>default.action</filename> is of course much more
7084 comprehensive, but we hope this example made clear how it works.
7089 <sect3><title>user.action</title>
7092 So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies,
7093 which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
7094 you might want to be more specific and have customized rules that
7095 are more suitable to your personal habits and preferences. These would
7096 be for narrowly defined situations like your ISP or your bank, and should
7097 be placed in <filename>user.action</filename>, which is parsed after all other
7098 actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding any previously
7099 defined actions. <filename>user.action</filename> is also a
7100 <emphasis>safe</emphasis> place for your personal settings, since
7101 <filename>default.action</filename> is actively maintained by the
7102 <application>Privoxy</application> developers and you'll probably want
7103 to install updated versions from time to time.
7107 So let's look at a few examples of things that one might typically do in
7108 <filename>user.action</filename>:
7112 <!-- brief sample user.action here -->
7116 # My user.action file. <fred@example.com></screen>
7120 As <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link> are local to the actions
7121 file that they are defined in, you can't use the ones from
7122 <filename>default.action</filename>, unless you repeat them here:
7127 # Aliases are local to the file they are defined in.
7128 # (Re-)define aliases for this file:
7132 # These aliases just save typing later, and the alias names should
7133 # be self explanatory.
7135 +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
7136 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
7137 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
7138 allow-popups = -filter{all-popups}
7139 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked as image.} +handle-as-image
7140 -block-as-image = -block
7142 # These aliases define combinations of actions that are useful for
7143 # certain types of sites:
7145 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referrer
7146 shop = -crunch-all-cookies allow-popups
7148 # Allow ads for selected useful free sites:
7150 allow-ads = -block -filter{banners-by-size} -filter{banners-by-link}
7152 # Alias for specific file types that are text, but might have conflicting
7153 # MIME types. We want the browser to force these to be text documents.
7154 handle-as-text = -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> +-<link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite{text/plain}</link> +-<link linkend="FORCE-TEXT-MODE">force-text-mode</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-CONTENT-DISPOSITION">hide-content-disposition</link></screen>
7159 Say you have accounts on some sites that you visit regularly, and
7160 you don't want to have to log in manually each time. So you'd like
7161 to allow persistent cookies for these sites. The
7162 <literal>allow-all-cookies</literal> alias defined above does exactly
7163 that, i.e. it disables crunching of cookies in any direction, and the
7164 processing of cookies to make them only temporary.
7169 { allow-all-cookies }
7173 .redhat.com</screen>
7177 Your bank is allergic to some filter, but you don't know which, so you disable them all:
7182 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
7183 .your-home-banking-site.com</screen>
7187 Some file types you may not want to filter for various reasons:
7192 # Technical documentation is likely to contain strings that might
7193 # erroneously get altered by the JavaScript-oriented filters:
7198 # And this stupid host sends streaming video with a wrong MIME type,
7199 # so that Privoxy thinks it is getting HTML and starts filtering:
7201 stupid-server.example.com/</screen>
7205 Example of a simple <link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> action. Say you've
7206 seen an ad on your favourite page on example.com that you want to get rid of.
7207 You have right-clicked the image, selected <quote>copy image location</quote>
7208 and pasted the URL below while removing the leading http://, into a
7209 <literal>{ +block{} }</literal> section. Note that <literal>{ +handle-as-image
7210 }</literal> need not be specified, since all URLs ending in
7211 <literal>.gif</literal> will be tagged as images by the general rules as set
7212 in default.action anyway:
7217 { +<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link>{Nasty ads.} }
7218 www.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor\.gif
7219 another.example.net/more/junk/here/</screen>
7223 The URLs of dynamically generated banners, especially from large banner
7224 farms, often don't use the well-known image file name extensions, which
7225 makes it impossible for <application>Privoxy</application> to guess
7226 the file type just by looking at the URL.
7227 You can use the <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above for
7229 Note that objects which match this rule but then turn out NOT to be an
7230 image are typically rendered as a <quote>broken image</quote> icon by the
7231 browser. Use cautiously.
7240 ar.atwola.com/</screen>
7244 Now you noticed that the default configuration breaks Forbes Magazine,
7245 but you were too lazy to find out which action is the culprit, and you
7246 were again too lazy to give <link linkend="contact">feedback</link>, so
7247 you just used the <literal>fragile</literal> alias on the site, and
7248 -- <emphasis>whoa!</emphasis> -- it worked. The <literal>fragile</literal>
7249 aliases disables those actions that are most likely to break a site. Also,
7250 good for testing purposes to see if it is <application>Privoxy</application>
7251 that is causing the problem or not. We later find other regular sites
7252 that misbehave, and add those to our personalized list of troublemakers:
7260 .mybank.com</screen>
7264 You like the <quote>fun</quote> text replacements in <filename>default.filter</filename>,
7265 but it is disabled in the distributed actions file.
7266 So you'd like to turn it on in your private,
7267 update-safe config, once and for all:
7272 { +<link linkend="filter-fun">filter{fun}</link> }
7273 / # For ALL sites!</screen>
7277 Note that the above is not really a good idea: There are exceptions
7278 to the filters in <filename>default.action</filename> for things that
7279 really shouldn't be filtered, like code on CVS->Web interfaces. Since
7280 <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word, these exceptions
7281 won't be valid for the <quote>fun</quote> filtering specified here.
7285 You might also worry about how your favourite free websites are
7286 funded, and find that they rely on displaying banner advertisements
7287 to survive. So you might want to specifically allow banners for those
7288 sites that you feel provide value to you:
7300 Note that <literal>allow-ads</literal> has been aliased to
7301 <literal>-<link linkend="block">block</link></literal>,
7302 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-size">filter{banners-by-size}</link></literal>, and
7303 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-link">filter{banners-by-link}</link></literal> above.
7307 Invoke another alias here to force an over-ride of the MIME type <literal>
7308 application/x-sh</literal> which typically would open a download type
7309 dialog. In my case, I want to look at the shell script, and then I can save
7310 it should I choose to.
7320 <filename>user.action</filename> is generally the best place to define
7321 exceptions and additions to the default policies of
7322 <filename>default.action</filename>. Some actions are safe to have their
7323 default policies set here though. So let's set a default policy to have a
7324 <quote>blank</quote> image as opposed to the checkerboard pattern for
7325 <emphasis>ALL</emphasis> sites. <quote>/</quote> of course matches all URL
7331 { +<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker{blank}</link> }
7332 / # ALL sites</screen>
7338 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7342 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7344 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
7346 <sect1 id="filter-file">
7347 <title>Filter Files</title>
7350 On-the-fly text substitutions need
7351 to be defined in a <quote>filter file</quote>. Once defined, they
7352 can then be invoked as an <quote>action</quote>.
7356 &my-app; supports three different filter actions:
7357 <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> to
7358 rewrite the content that is send to the client,
7359 <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header-filter</link></literal>
7360 to rewrite headers that are send by the client, and
7361 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header-filter</link></literal>
7362 to rewrite headers that are send by the server.
7366 &my-app; also supports two tagger actions:
7367 <literal><link linkend="client-header-tagger">client-header-tagger</link></literal>
7369 <literal><link linkend="server-header-tagger">server-header-tagger</link></literal>.
7370 Taggers and filters use the same syntax in the filter files, the difference
7371 is that taggers don't modify the text they are filtering, but use a rewritten
7372 version of the filtered text as tag. The tags can then be used to change the
7373 applying actions through sections with <link linkend="tag-pattern">tag-patterns</link>.
7378 Multiple filter files can be defined through the <literal> <link
7379 linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal> config directive. The filters
7380 as supplied by the developers are located in
7381 <filename>default.filter</filename>. It is recommended that any locally
7382 defined or modified filters go in a separately defined file such as
7383 <filename>user.filter</filename>.
7387 Common tasks for content filters are to eliminate common annoyances in
7388 HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows,
7389 exit consoles, crippled windows without navigation tools, the
7390 infamous <BLINK> tag etc, to suppress images with certain
7391 width and height attributes (standard banner sizes or web-bugs),
7392 or just to have fun.
7396 Enabled content filters are applied to any content whose
7397 <quote>Content Type</quote> header is recognised as a sign
7398 of text-based content, with the exception of <literal>text/plain</literal>.
7399 Use the <link linkend="FORCE-TEXT-MODE">force-text-mode</link> action
7400 to also filter other content.
7404 Substitutions are made at the source level, so if you want to <quote>roll
7405 your own</quote> filters, you should first be familiar with HTML syntax,
7406 and, of course, regular expressions.
7410 Just like the <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, the
7411 filter file is organized in sections, which are called <emphasis>filters</emphasis>
7412 here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with one of the
7413 <emphasis>keywords</emphasis> <literal>FILTER:</literal>,
7414 <literal>CLIENT-HEADER-FILTER:</literal> or <literal>SERVER-HEADER-FILTER:</literal>
7415 followed by the filter's <emphasis>name</emphasis>, and a short (one line)
7416 <emphasis>description</emphasis> of what it does. Below that line
7417 come the <emphasis>jobs</emphasis>, i.e. lines that define the actual
7418 text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter
7419 should describe what the filter <emphasis>eliminates</emphasis>. The
7420 comment is used in the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
7421 user interface</ulink>.
7425 Once a filter called <replaceable>name</replaceable> has been defined
7426 in the filter file, it can be invoked by using an action of the form
7427 +<literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>name</replaceable>}</literal>
7428 in any <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>.
7432 Filter definitions start with a header line that contains the filter
7433 type, the filter name and the filter description.
7434 A content filter header line for a filter called <quote>foo</quote> could look
7439 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"</screen>
7443 Below that line, and up to the next header line, come the jobs that
7444 define what text replacements the filter executes. They are specified
7445 in a syntax that imitates <ulink url="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</ulink>'s
7446 <literal>s///</literal> operator. If you are familiar with Perl, you
7447 will find this to be quite intuitive, and may want to look at the
7448 PCRS documentation for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour. Most
7449 notably, the non-standard option letter <literal>U</literal> is supported,
7450 which turns the default to ungreedy matching.
7455 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
7456 Expressions</quote></ulink>, you might want to take a look at
7457 the <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>, and
7458 see the <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">Perl
7460 <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlop.html">the
7461 <literal>s///</literal> operator's syntax</ulink> and <ulink
7462 url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">Perl-style regular
7463 expressions</ulink> in general.
7464 The below examples might also help to get you started.
7468 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
7470 <sect2><title>Filter File Tutorial</title>
7472 Now, let's complete our <quote>foo</quote> content filter. We have already defined
7473 the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace
7474 <quote>foo</quote> with <quote>bar</quote>, there is only one (trivial) job
7479 <screen>s/foo/bar/</screen>
7483 But wait! Didn't the comment say that <emphasis>all</emphasis> occurrences
7484 of <quote>foo</quote> should be replaced? Our current job will only take
7485 care of the first <quote>foo</quote> on each page. For global substitution,
7486 we'll need to add the <literal>g</literal> option:
7490 <screen>s/foo/bar/g</screen>
7494 Our complete filter now looks like this:
7497 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"
7498 s/foo/bar/g</screen>
7502 Let's look at some real filters for more interesting examples. Here you see
7503 a filter that protects against some common annoyances that arise from JavaScript
7504 abuse. Let's look at its jobs one after the other:
7510 FILTER: js-annoyances Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
7512 # Get rid of JavaScript referrer tracking. Test page: http://www.randomoddness.com/untitled.htm
7514 s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|Usg</screen>
7518 Following the header line and a comment, you see the job. Note that it uses
7519 <literal>|</literal> as the delimiter instead of <literal>/</literal>, because
7520 the pattern contains a forward slash, which would otherwise have to be escaped
7521 by a backslash (<literal>\</literal>).
7525 Now, let's examine the pattern: it starts with the text <literal><script.*</literal>
7526 enclosed in parentheses. Since the dot matches any character, and <literal>*</literal>
7527 means: <quote>Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself</quote>, this
7528 matches <quote><script</quote>, followed by <emphasis>any</emphasis> text, i.e.
7529 it matches the whole page, from the start of the first <script> tag.
7533 That's more than we want, but the pattern continues: <literal>document\.referrer</literal>
7534 matches only the exact string <quote>document.referrer</quote>. The dot needed to
7535 be <emphasis>escaped</emphasis>, i.e. preceded by a backslash, to take away its
7536 special meaning as a joker, and make it just a regular dot. So far, the meaning is:
7537 Match from the start of the first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including,
7538 the text <quote>document.referrer</quote>, if <emphasis>both</emphasis> are present
7539 in the page (and appear in that order).
7543 But there's still more pattern to go. The next element, again enclosed in parentheses,
7544 is <literal>.*</script></literal>. You already know what <literal>.*</literal>
7545 means, so the whole pattern translates to: Match from the start of the first <script>
7546 tag in a page to the end of the last <script> tag, provided that the text
7547 <quote>document.referrer</quote> appears somewhere in between.
7551 This is still not the whole story, since we have ignored the options and the parentheses:
7552 The portions of the page matched by sub-patterns that are enclosed in parentheses, will be
7553 remembered and be available through the variables <literal>$1, $2, ...</literal> in
7554 the substitute. The <literal>U</literal> option switches to ungreedy matching, which means
7555 that the first <literal>.*</literal> in the pattern will only <quote>eat up</quote> all
7556 text in between <quote><script</quote> and the <emphasis>first</emphasis> occurrence
7557 of <quote>document.referrer</quote>, and that the second <literal>.*</literal> will
7558 only span the text up to the <emphasis>first</emphasis> <quote></script></quote>
7559 tag. Furthermore, the <literal>s</literal> option says that the match may span
7560 multiple lines in the page, and the <literal>g</literal> option again means that the
7561 substitution is global.
7565 So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text
7566 <quote>document.referrer</quote>. Remember the parts of the script from
7567 (and including) the start tag up to (and excluding) the string
7568 <quote>document.referrer</quote> as <literal>$1</literal>, and the part following
7569 that string, up to and including the closing tag, as <literal>$2</literal>.
7573 Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So
7574 lets look at the substitute: <literal>$1"Not Your Business!"$2</literal> is
7575 easy to read: The text remembered as <literal>$1</literal>, followed by
7576 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> (<emphasis>including</emphasis>
7577 the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as <literal>$2</literal>.
7578 This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part
7579 (the <quote>document.referrer</quote>) replaced by <literal>"Not Your
7580 Business!"</literal>.
7584 The whole job now reads: Replace <quote>document.referrer</quote> by
7585 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> wherever it appears inside a
7586 <script> tag. Note that this job won't break JavaScript syntax,
7587 since both the original and the replacement are syntactically valid
7588 string objects. The script just won't have access to the referrer
7589 information anymore.
7593 We'll show you two other jobs from the JavaScript taming department, but
7594 this time only point out the constructs of special interest:
7599 # The status bar is for displaying link targets, not pointless blahblah
7601 s/window\.status\s*=\s*(['"]).*?\1/dUmMy=1/ig</screen>
7605 <literal>\s</literal> stands for whitespace characters (space, tab, newline,
7606 carriage return, form feed), so that <literal>\s*</literal> means: <quote>zero
7607 or more whitespace</quote>. The <literal>?</literal> in <literal>.*?</literal>
7608 makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the <literal>U</literal>
7609 option is not set). The <literal>['"]</literal> construct means: <quote>a single
7610 <emphasis>or</emphasis> a double quote</quote>. Finally, <literal>\1</literal> is
7611 a back-reference to the first parenthesis just like <literal>$1</literal> above,
7612 with the difference that in the <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>, a backslash indicates
7613 a back-reference, whereas in the <emphasis>substitute</emphasis>, it's the dollar.
7617 So what does this job do? It replaces assignments of single- or double-quoted
7618 strings to the <quote>window.status</quote> object with a dummy assignment
7619 (using a variable name that is hopefully odd enough not to conflict with
7620 real variables in scripts). Thus, it catches many cases where e.g. pointless
7621 descriptions are displayed in the status bar instead of the link target when
7622 you move your mouse over links.
7627 # Kill OnUnload popups. Yummy. Test: http://www.zdnet.com/zdsubs/yahoo/tree/yfs.html
7629 s/(<body [^>]*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU</screen>
7634 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">OnUnload
7635 event binding</ulink> in the HTML DOM was a <emphasis>CRIME</emphasis>.
7636 When I close a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta.
7637 This job replaces the <quote>onunload</quote> attribute in
7638 <quote><body></quote> tags with the dummy word <literal>never</literal>.
7639 Note that the <literal>i</literal> option makes the pattern matching
7640 case-insensitive. Also note that ungreedy matching alone doesn't always guarantee
7641 a minimal match: In the first parenthesis, we had to use <literal>[^>]*</literal>
7642 instead of <literal>.*</literal> to prevent the match from exceeding the
7643 <body> tag if it doesn't contain <quote>OnUnload</quote>, but the page's
7648 The last example is from the fun department:
7653 FILTER: fun Fun text replacements
7655 # Spice the daily news:
7657 s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig</screen>
7661 Note the <literal>(?!\.com)</literal> part (a so-called negative lookahead)
7662 in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
7663 <quote>.com</quote> appears directly following <quote>microsoft</quote>
7664 in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being trashed, while
7665 still replacing the word everywhere else.
7670 # Buzzword Bingo (example for extended regex syntax)
7672 s* industry[ -]leading \
7674 | customer[ -]focused \
7675 | market[ -]driven \
7676 | award[ -]winning # Comments are OK, too! \
7677 | high[ -]performance \
7678 | solutions[ -]based \
7682 *<font color="red"><b>BINGO!</b></font> \
7687 The <literal>x</literal> option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for
7688 e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
7696 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
7698 <sect2 id="predefined-filters"><title>The Pre-defined Filters</title>
7702 Note each filter is also listed in the +filter action section above. Please
7703 keep these listings in sync.
7708 The distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file contains a selection of
7709 pre-defined filters for your convenience:
7714 <term><emphasis>js-annoyances</emphasis></term>
7717 The purpose of this filter is to get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse.
7722 replaces JavaScript references to the browser's referrer information
7723 with the string "Not Your Business!". This compliments the <literal><link
7724 linkend="hide-referrer">hide-referrer</link></literal> action on the content level.
7729 removes the bindings to the DOM's
7730 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">unload
7731 event</ulink> which we feel has no right to exist and is responsible for most <quote>exit consoles</quote>, i.e.
7732 nasty windows that pop up when you close another one.
7737 removes code that causes new windows to be opened with undesired properties, such as being
7738 full-screen, non-resizeable, without location, status or menu bar etc.
7744 Use with caution. This is an aggressive filter, and can break sites that
7745 rely heavily on JavaScript.
7751 <term><emphasis>js-events</emphasis></term>
7754 This is a very radical measure. It removes virtually all JavaScript event bindings, which
7755 means that scripts can not react to user actions such as mouse movements or clicks, window
7756 resizing etc, anymore. Use with caution!
7759 We <emphasis>strongly discourage</emphasis> using this filter as a default since it breaks
7760 many legitimate scripts. It is meant for use only on extra-nasty sites (should you really
7767 <term><emphasis>html-annoyances</emphasis></term>
7770 This filter will undo many common instances of HTML based abuse.
7773 The <literal>BLINK</literal> and <literal>MARQUEE</literal> tags
7774 are neutralized (yeah baby!), and browser windows will be created as
7775 resizeable (as of course they should be!), and will have location,
7776 scroll and menu bars -- even if specified otherwise.
7782 <term><emphasis>content-cookies</emphasis></term>
7785 Most cookies are set in the HTTP dialog, where they can be intercepted
7787 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>
7788 and <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>
7789 actions. But web sites increasingly make use of HTML meta tags and JavaScript
7790 to sneak cookies to the browser on the content level.
7793 This filter disables most HTML and JavaScript code that reads or sets
7794 cookies. It cannot detect all clever uses of these types of code, so it
7795 should not be relied on as an absolute fix. Use it wherever you would also
7796 use the cookie crunch actions.
7802 <term><emphasis>refresh tags</emphasis></term>
7805 Disable any refresh tags if the interval is greater than nine seconds (so
7806 that redirections done via refresh tags are not destroyed). This is useful
7807 for dial-on-demand setups, or for those who find this HTML feature
7814 <term><emphasis>unsolicited-popups</emphasis></term>
7817 This filter attempts to prevent only <quote>unsolicited</quote> pop-up
7818 windows from opening, yet still allow pop-up windows that the user
7819 has explicitly chosen to open. It was added in version 3.0.1,
7820 as an improvement over earlier such filters.
7823 Technical note: The filter works by redefining the window.open JavaScript
7824 function to a dummy function, <literal>PrivoxyWindowOpen()</literal>,
7825 during the loading and rendering phase of each HTML page access, and
7826 restoring the function afterward.
7829 This is recommended only for browsers that cannot perform this function
7830 reliably themselves. And be aware that some sites require such windows
7831 in order to function normally. Use with caution.
7837 <term><emphasis>all-popups</emphasis></term>
7840 Attempt to prevent <emphasis>all</emphasis> pop-up windows from opening.
7841 Note this should be used with even more discretion than the above, since
7842 it is more likely to break some sites that require pop-ups for normal
7843 usage. Use with caution.
7849 <term><emphasis>img-reorder</emphasis></term>
7852 This is a helper filter that has no value if used alone. It makes the
7853 <literal>banners-by-size</literal> and <literal>banners-by-link</literal>
7854 (see below) filters more effective and should be enabled together with them.
7860 <term><emphasis>banners-by-size</emphasis></term>
7863 This filter removes image tags purely based on what size they are. Fortunately
7864 for us, many ads and banner images tend to conform to certain standardized
7865 sizes, which makes this filter quite effective for ad stripping purposes.
7868 Occasionally this filter will cause false positives on images that are not ads,
7869 but just happen to be of one of the standard banner sizes.
7872 Recommended only for those who require extreme ad blocking. The default
7873 block rules should catch 95+% of all ads <emphasis>without</emphasis> this filter enabled.
7879 <term><emphasis>banners-by-link</emphasis></term>
7882 This is an experimental filter that attempts to kill any banners if
7883 their URLs seem to point to known or suspected click trackers. It is currently
7884 not of much value and is not recommended for use by default.
7890 <term><emphasis>webbugs</emphasis></term>
7893 Webbugs are small, invisible images (technically 1X1 GIF images), that
7894 are used to track users across websites, and collect information on them.
7895 As an HTML page is loaded by the browser, an embedded image tag causes the
7896 browser to contact a third-party site, disclosing the tracking information
7897 through the requested URL and/or cookies for that third-party domain, without
7898 the user ever becoming aware of the interaction with the third-party site.
7899 HTML-ized spam also uses a similar technique to verify email addresses.
7902 This filter removes the HTML code that loads such <quote>webbugs</quote>.
7908 <term><emphasis>tiny-textforms</emphasis></term>
7911 A rather special-purpose filter that can be used to enlarge textareas (those
7912 multi-line text boxes in web forms) and turn off hard word wrap in them.
7913 It was written for the sourceforge.net tracker system where such boxes are
7914 a nuisance, but it can be handy on other sites, too.
7917 It is not recommended to use this filter as a default.
7923 <term><emphasis>jumping-windows</emphasis></term>
7926 Many consider windows that move, or resize themselves to be abusive. This filter
7927 neutralizes the related JavaScript code. Note that some sites might not display
7928 or behave as intended when using this filter. Use with caution.
7934 <term><emphasis>frameset-borders</emphasis></term>
7937 Some web designers seem to assume that everyone in the world will view their
7938 web sites using the same browser brand and version, screen resolution etc,
7939 because only that assumption could explain why they'd use static frame sizes,
7940 yet prevent their frames from being resized by the user, should they be too
7941 small to show their whole content.
7944 This filter removes the related HTML code. It should only be applied to sites
7951 <term><emphasis>demoronizer</emphasis></term>
7954 Many Microsoft products that generate HTML use non-standard extensions (read:
7955 violations) of the ISO 8859-1 aka Latin-1 character set. This can cause those
7956 HTML documents to display with errors on standard-compliant platforms.
7959 This filter translates the MS-only characters into Latin-1 equivalents.
7960 It is not necessary when using MS products, and will cause corruption of
7961 all documents that use 8-bit character sets other than Latin-1. It's mostly
7962 worthwhile for Europeans on non-MS platforms, if weird garbage characters
7963 sometimes appear on some pages, or user agents that don't correct for this on
7966 My version of Mozilla (ancient) shows litte square boxes for quote
7967 characters, and apostrophes on moronized pages. So many pages have this, I
7968 can read them fine now. HB 08/27/06
7975 <term><emphasis>shockwave-flash</emphasis></term>
7978 A filter for shockwave haters. As the name suggests, this filter strips code
7979 out of web pages that is used to embed shockwave flash objects.
7987 <term><emphasis>quicktime-kioskmode</emphasis></term>
7990 Change HTML code that embeds Quicktime objects so that kioskmode, which
7991 prevents saving, is disabled.
7997 <term><emphasis>fun</emphasis></term>
8000 Text replacements for subversive browsing fun. Make fun of your favorite
8001 Monopolist or play buzzword bingo.
8007 <term><emphasis>crude-parental</emphasis></term>
8010 A demonstration-only filter that shows how <application>Privoxy</application>
8011 can be used to delete web content on a keyword basis.
8017 <term><emphasis>ie-exploits</emphasis></term>
8020 An experimental collection of text replacements to disable malicious HTML and JavaScript
8021 code that exploits known security holes in Internet Explorer.
8024 Presently, it only protects against Nimda and a cross-site scripting bug, and
8025 would need active maintenance to provide more substantial protection.
8031 <term><emphasis>site-specifics</emphasis></term>
8034 Some web sites have very specific problems, the cure for which doesn't apply
8035 anywhere else, or could even cause damage on other sites.
8038 This is a collection of such site-specific cures which should only be applied
8039 to the sites they were intended for, which is what the supplied
8040 <filename>default.action</filename> file does. Users shouldn't need to change
8041 anything regarding this filter.
8047 <term><emphasis>google</emphasis></term>
8050 A CSS based block for Google text ads. Also removes a width limitation
8051 and the toolbar advertisement.
8057 <term><emphasis>yahoo</emphasis></term>
8060 Another CSS based block, this time for Yahoo text ads. And removes
8061 a width limitation as well.
8067 <term><emphasis>msn</emphasis></term>
8070 Another CSS based block, this time for MSN text ads. And removes
8071 tracking URLs, as well as a width limitation.
8077 <term><emphasis>blogspot</emphasis></term>
8080 Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this one!
8083 This filter also intentionally removes some navigation stuff and sets the
8084 page width to 100%. As a result, some rounded <quote>corners</quote> would
8085 appear to early or not at all and as fixing this would require a browser
8086 that understands background-size (CSS3), they are removed instead.
8092 <term><emphasis>xml-to-html</emphasis></term>
8095 Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from xml to html.
8101 <term><emphasis>html-to-xml</emphasis></term>
8104 Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from html to xml.
8110 <term><emphasis>no-ping</emphasis></term>
8113 Removes the non-standard <literal>ping</literal> attribute from
8114 anchor and area HTML tags.
8120 <term><emphasis>hide-tor-exit-notation</emphasis></term>
8123 Client-header filter to remove the <command>Tor</command> exit node notation
8124 found in Host and Referer headers.
8127 If &my-app; and <command>Tor</command> are chained and &my-app;
8128 is configured to use socks4a, one can use <quote>http://www.example.org.foobar.exit/</quote>
8129 to access the host <quote>www.example.org</quote> through the
8130 <command>Tor</command> exit node <quote>foobar</quote>.
8133 As the HTTP client isn't aware of this notation, it treats the
8134 whole string <quote>www.example.org.foobar.exit</quote> as host and uses it
8135 for the <quote>Host</quote> and <quote>Referer</quote> headers. From the
8136 server's point of view the resulting headers are invalid and can cause problems.
8139 An invalid <quote>Referer</quote> header can trigger <quote>hot-linking</quote>
8140 protections, an invalid <quote>Host</quote> header will make it impossible for
8141 the server to find the right vhost (several domains hosted on the same IP address).
8144 This client-header filter removes the <quote>foo.exit</quote> part in those headers
8145 to prevent the mentioned problems. Note that it only modifies
8146 the HTTP headers, it doesn't make it impossible for the server
8147 to detect your <command>Tor</command> exit node based on the IP address
8148 the request is coming from.
8155 <term><emphasis> </emphasis></term>
8169 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
8173 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8175 <sect1 id="templates">
8176 <title>Privoxy's Template Files</title>
8178 All <application>Privoxy</application> built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
8179 <ulink url="http://show-the-404-error.page"><quote>404 - No Such Domain</quote>
8180 error page</ulink>, the <ulink
8181 url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
8183 and all pages of its <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
8184 user interface</ulink>, are generated from <emphasis>templates</emphasis>.
8185 (<application>Privoxy</application> must be running for the above links to work as
8190 These templates are stored in a subdirectory of the <link linkend="confdir">configuration
8191 directory</link> called <filename>templates</filename>. On Unixish platforms,
8193 <ulink url="file:///etc/privoxy/templates/"><filename>/etc/privoxy/templates/</filename></ulink>.
8197 The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols
8198 or exports), which <application>Privoxy</application> fills at run time. It
8199 is possible to edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want
8200 to customize them. (<emphasis>Not recommended for the casual
8201 user</emphasis>). Should you create your own custom templates, you should use
8202 the <filename>config</filename> setting <link linkend="templdir">templdir</link>
8203 to specify an alternate location, so your templates do not get overwritten
8207 Note that just like in configuration files, lines starting
8208 with <literal>#</literal> are ignored when the templates are filled in.
8212 The place-holders are of the form <literal>@name@</literal>, and you will
8213 find a list of available symbols, which vary from template to template,
8214 in the comments at the start of each file. Note that these comments are not
8215 always accurate, and that it's probably best to look at the existing HTML
8216 code to find out which symbols are supported and what they are filled in with.
8220 A special application of this substitution mechanism is to make whole
8221 blocks of HTML code disappear when a specific symbol is set. We use this
8222 for many purposes, one of them being to include the beta warning in all
8223 our user interface (CGI) pages when <application>Privoxy</application>
8224 is in an alpha or beta development stage:
8229 <!-- @if-unstable-start -->
8231 ... beta warning HTML code goes here ...
8233 <!-- if-unstable-end@ --></screen>
8237 If the "unstable" symbol is set, everything in between and including
8238 <literal>@if-unstable-start</literal> and <literal>if-unstable-end@</literal>
8239 will disappear, leaving nothing but an empty comment:
8243 <screen><!-- --></screen>
8247 There's also an if-then-else construct and an <literal>#include</literal>
8248 mechanism, but you'll sure find out if you are inclined to edit the
8253 All templates refer to a style located at
8254 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet"><literal>http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet</literal></ulink>.
8255 This is, of course, locally served by <application>Privoxy</application>
8256 and the source for it can be found and edited in the
8257 <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> template.
8262 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
8266 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8268 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
8271 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
8273 <!-- end boilerplate -->
8277 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
8280 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8281 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Privoxy Copyright, License and History</title>
8283 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
8285 <!-- end copyright -->
8287 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8288 <sect2><title>License</title>
8289 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
8291 <!-- end copyright -->
8293 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
8296 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8298 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
8299 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
8301 <!-- end history -->
8304 <sect2 id="authors"><title>Authors</title>
8305 <!-- Include p-authors.sgml: -->
8307 <!-- end authors -->
8312 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
8315 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8316 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
8317 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
8319 <!-- end seealso -->
8324 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8325 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
8328 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8330 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
8332 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl-style <quote>regular
8333 expressions</quote> in its <link linkend="actions-file">actions
8334 files</link> and <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>,
8335 through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> and
8338 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/">PCRS</ulink> libraries.
8340 <application>PCRS</application> libraries.
8344 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
8345 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
8346 introduction only. A full explanation would require a <ulink
8347 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/">book</ulink> ;-)
8351 Regular expressions provide a language to describe patterns that can be
8352 run against strings of characters (letter, numbers, etc), to see if they
8353 match the string or not. The patterns are themselves (sometimes complex)
8354 strings of literal characters, combined with wild-cards, and other special
8355 characters, called meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have
8356 special meanings and are used to build complex patterns to be matched against.
8357 Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are an especially convenient
8358 <quote>dialect</quote> of the regular expression language.
8362 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
8363 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
8364 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
8365 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
8366 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
8367 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
8368 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
8369 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
8373 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
8374 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
8375 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
8376 and then some examples:
8381 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
8382 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
8384 </simplelist></para>
8388 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
8391 </simplelist></para>
8395 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
8398 </simplelist></para>
8402 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
8405 </simplelist></para>
8409 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
8410 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
8411 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
8412 not as a special meta-character. Example: <quote>example\.com</quote>, makes
8413 sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
8414 meta-character meaning of any single character).
8416 </simplelist></para>
8420 <emphasis>[ ]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
8421 any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, <quote>[0-9]</quote>
8422 matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
8423 this with <quote>+</quote> to match any digit one of more times: <quote>[0-9]+</quote>.
8425 </simplelist></para>
8429 <emphasis>( )</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
8430 or multiple sub-expressions.
8432 </simplelist></para>
8436 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
8437 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
8438 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches. As an example:
8439 <quote>/(this|that) example/</quote> uses grouping and the bar character
8440 and would match either <quote>this example</quote> or <quote>that
8441 example</quote>, and nothing else.
8443 </simplelist></para>
8446 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
8447 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
8448 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
8449 be more illuminating:
8453 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
8454 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
8455 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
8456 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
8457 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
8458 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
8459 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
8460 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
8461 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
8462 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
8463 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
8464 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
8465 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
8466 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
8471 And now something a little more complex:
8475 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
8476 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
8477 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
8478 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
8479 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
8480 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
8481 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
8486 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
8487 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
8488 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
8489 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
8490 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
8491 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
8492 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
8493 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
8494 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
8495 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
8496 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
8497 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
8498 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
8499 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
8500 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
8501 changing our regular expression to:
8502 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
8507 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
8508 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
8509 <quote>[ ]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
8510 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
8511 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
8512 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
8513 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
8514 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
8515 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
8516 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
8517 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
8518 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
8519 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
8520 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
8521 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
8522 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
8523 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
8524 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
8525 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
8526 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
8527 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
8528 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
8529 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
8530 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
8531 in the expression anywhere).
8535 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
8536 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
8537 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
8538 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
8539 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
8544 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
8545 <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html</ulink>
8549 For information on regular expression based substitutions and their applications
8550 in filters, please see the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file tutorial</link>
8555 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
8558 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8560 <title>Privoxy's Internal Pages</title>
8563 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
8564 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
8565 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
8566 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
8567 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
8568 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
8569 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
8575 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
8576 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
8577 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
8578 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
8591 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
8595 There is a shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> (But it
8596 doesn't provide a fall-back to a real page, in case the request is not
8597 sent through <application>Privoxy</application>)
8603 Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
8604 editing of actions files:
8608 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
8615 Show the source code version numbers:
8619 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
8626 Show the browser's request headers:
8630 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
8637 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
8641 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
8648 Toggle Privoxy on or off. This feature can be turned off/on in the main
8649 <filename>config</filename> file. When toggled <quote>off</quote>, <quote>Privoxy</quote>
8650 continues to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking
8655 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
8659 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
8663 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
8668 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
8677 These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
8681 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
8682 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
8684 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
8685 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
8686 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
8687 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
8688 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
8689 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
8692 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
8693 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
8694 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
8695 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
8696 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
8697 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
8706 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=enabled','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Enable</ulink>
8713 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=disabled','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Disable</ulink>
8720 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=toggle','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Toggle Privoxy</ulink> (Toggles between enabled and disabled)
8727 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y','ijbstatus','width=250,height=2,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy- View Status</ulink>
8733 <ulink url="javascript:w=Math.floor(screen.width/2);h=Math.floor(screen.height*0.9);void(window.open('http://www.privoxy.org/actions/index.php?url='+escape(location.href),'Feedback','screenx='+w+',width='+w+',height='+h+',scrollbars=yes,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Submit Actions File Feedback</ulink>
8739 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info?url='+escape(location.href),'Why').focus());">Privoxy - Why?</ulink>
8746 Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
8747 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com/">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
8748 have more information about bookmarklets.
8757 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8759 <title>Chain of Events</title>
8761 Let's take a quick look at how some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
8762 core features are triggered, and the ensuing sequence of events when a web
8763 page is requested by your browser:
8770 First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
8771 the request to <application>Privoxy</application>, which will in turn,
8772 relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
8778 <application>Privoxy</application> traps any request for its own internal CGI
8779 pages (e.g <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
8784 Next, <application>Privoxy</application> checks to see if the URL
8786 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link> patterns. If
8787 so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
8788 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>
8790 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-EMPTY-DOCUMENT"><quote>+handle-as-empty-document</quote></link>
8791 are then checked, and if there is no match, an
8792 HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page is sent back to the browser. Otherwise, if
8793 it does match, an image is returned for the former, and an empty text
8794 document for the latter. The type of image would depend on the setting of
8795 <link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></link>
8796 (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
8801 Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
8802 <filename>trust</filename> file, then that is done.
8807 If the URL pattern matches the <link
8808 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link> action,
8809 it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
8814 Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
8815 of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. <link
8816 linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT"><quote>+hide-user-agent</quote></link>,
8817 etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
8823 Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web
8829 First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
8830 things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
8831 filtered as determined by the
8832 <link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES"><quote>+crunch-incoming-cookies</quote></link>,
8833 <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>,
8834 and <link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION"><quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote></link>
8840 If any <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
8842 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
8843 action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
8844 read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from
8845 <filename>default.filter</filename> and any other filter files) are
8846 processed against the buffered content. Filters are applied in the order
8847 they are specified in one of the filter files. Animated GIFs, if present,
8848 are reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
8849 setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
8850 <application>Privoxy</application> back to your browser.
8853 If neither a <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
8855 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
8856 matches, then <application>Privoxy</application> passes the raw data through
8857 to the client browser as it becomes available.
8862 As the browser receives the now (possibly filtered) page content, it
8863 reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
8864 source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
8865 frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a
8866 separate request (this is easily viewable in <application>Privoxy's</application>
8867 logs). And each such request is in turn processed just as above. Note that a
8868 complex web page will have many, many such embedded URLs. If these
8869 secondary requests are to a different server, then quite possibly a very
8870 differing set of actions is triggered.
8877 NOTE: This is somewhat of a simplistic overview of what happens with each URL
8878 request. For the sake of brevity and simplicity, we have focused on
8879 <application>Privoxy's</application> core features only.
8885 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8886 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
8887 <title>Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</title>
8890 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies
8891 <link linkend="ACTIONS">actions</link> and <link linkend="FILTER">filters</link>
8892 to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
8893 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
8894 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
8895 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
8896 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
8897 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
8898 <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> whose consequences are not
8903 One quick test to see if <application>Privoxy</application> is causing a problem
8904 or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
8905 step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
8906 and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!). Looking at the
8907 logs is a good idea too. (Note that both the toggle feature and logging are
8908 enabled via <filename>config</filename> file settings, and may need to be
8909 turned <quote>on</quote>.)
8912 Another easy troubleshooting step to try is if you have done any
8913 customization of your installation, revert back to the installed
8914 defaults and see if that helps. There are times the developers get complaints
8915 about one thing or another, and the problem is more related to a customized
8916 configuration issue.
8920 <application>Privoxy</application> also provides the
8921 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
8922 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
8923 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
8927 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
8928 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
8929 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
8930 help with filtering effects (i.e. the <link
8931 linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action) from
8932 one of the filter files since this is handled very
8933 differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other
8934 URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images
8935 such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So
8936 you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area
8937 -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you
8938 will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View
8939 Page Source</quote> option for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the
8944 Let's try an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
8945 and look at it one section at a time in a sample configuration (your real
8946 configuration may vary):
8951 Matches for http://www.google.com:
8953 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8955 {+change-x-forwarded-for{block}
8956 +deanimate-gifs {last}
8957 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
8958 +filter {refresh-tags}
8959 +filter {img-reorder}
8960 +filter {banners-by-size}
8962 +filter {jumping-windows}
8963 +filter {ie-exploits}
8964 +hide-from-header {block}
8965 +hide-referrer {forge}
8966 +session-cookies-only
8967 +set-image-blocker {pattern}
8970 { -session-cookies-only }
8976 In file: user.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8977 (no matches in this file)
8982 This is telling us how we have defined our
8983 <link linkend="ACTIONS"><quote>actions</quote></link>, and
8984 which ones match for our test case, <quote>google.com</quote>.
8985 Displayed is all the actions that are available to us. Remember,
8986 the <literal>+</literal> sign denotes <quote>on</quote>. <literal>-</literal>
8987 denotes <quote>off</quote>. So some are <quote>on</quote> here, but many
8988 are <quote>off</quote>. Each example we try may provide a slightly different
8989 end result, depending on our configuration directives.
8993 is for our <filename>default.action</filename> file. The large, multi-line
8994 listing, is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default
8995 settings. If you look at your <quote>actions</quote> file, this would be the
8996 section just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section near the top. This
8997 will apply to all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end
8998 of the listing -- <quote> / </quote>.
9002 But we have defined additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
9003 rules, and then we list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions
9004 would apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit
9005 matches for <quote>.google.com</quote>. The first is negating our previous
9006 cookie setting, which was for <link
9007 linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>
9008 (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google, at
9009 least that is how it is in this example. The second turns
9010 <emphasis>off</emphasis> any <link
9011 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link>
9012 action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading
9013 dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will match any hosts and
9014 sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
9015 <quote>www.google.com</quote> or <quote>mail.google.com</quote>. But it would not
9016 match <quote>www.google.de</quote>! So, apparently, we have these two actions
9017 defined as exceptions to the general rules at the top somewhere in the lower
9018 part of our <filename>default.action</filename> file, and
9019 <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced somewhere in these latter sections.
9023 Then, for our <filename>user.action</filename> file, we again have no hits.
9024 So there is nothing google-specific that we might have added to our own, local
9025 configuration. If there was, those actions would over-rule any actions from
9026 previously processed files, such as <filename>default.action</filename>.
9027 <filename>user.action</filename> typically has the last word. This is the
9028 best place to put hard and fast exceptions,
9032 And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
9033 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
9034 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
9045 +change-x-forwarded-for{block}
9046 -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
9047 -content-type-overwrite
9048 -crunch-client-header
9049 -crunch-if-none-match
9050 -crunch-incoming-cookies
9051 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
9052 -crunch-server-header
9053 +deanimate-gifs {last}
9054 -downgrade-http-version
9057 -filter {content-cookies}
9058 -filter {all-popups}
9059 -filter {banners-by-link}
9060 -filter {tiny-textforms}
9061 -filter {frameset-borders}
9062 -filter {demoronizer}
9063 -filter {shockwave-flash}
9064 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
9066 -filter {crude-parental}
9067 -filter {site-specifics}
9068 -filter {js-annoyances}
9069 -filter {html-annoyances}
9070 +filter {refresh-tags}
9071 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
9072 +filter {img-reorder}
9073 +filter {banners-by-size}
9075 +filter {jumping-windows}
9076 +filter {ie-exploits}
9083 -handle-as-empty-document
9085 -hide-accept-language
9086 -hide-content-disposition
9087 +hide-from-header {block}
9088 -hide-if-modified-since
9089 +hide-referrer {forge}
9092 -overwrite-last-modified
9093 -prevent-compression
9095 -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
9096 -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
9097 -session-cookies-only
9098 +set-image-blocker {pattern} </screen>
9102 Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
9103 <quote>fast-redirects</quote> and <quote>session-cookies-only</quote>,
9104 which are activated specifically for this site in our configuration,
9105 and thus show in the <quote>Final Results</quote>.
9109 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
9115 { +block{Domains starts with "ad"} }
9118 { +block{Domain contains "ad"} }
9121 { +block{Doubleclick banner server} +handle-as-image }
9122 .[a-vx-z]*.doubleclick.net
9127 We'll just show the interesting part here - the explicit matches. It is
9128 matched three different times. Two <quote>+block{}</quote> sections,
9129 and a <quote>+block{} +handle-as-image</quote>,
9130 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
9131 <quote>+block-as-image</quote>. (<link
9132 linkend="ALIASES"><quote>Aliases</quote></link> are defined in
9133 the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
9138 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
9139 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
9140 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
9141 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
9142 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
9143 is done here -- as both a <link
9144 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block{}</quote></link>
9145 <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
9146 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>.
9147 The custom alias <quote><literal>+block-as-image</literal></quote> just
9148 simplifies the process and make it more readable.
9152 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
9153 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm ...
9159 Matches for http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
9161 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
9165 +change-x-forwarded-for{block}
9166 -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
9167 -content-type-overwrite
9168 -crunch-client-header
9169 -crunch-if-none-match
9170 -crunch-incoming-cookies
9171 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
9172 -crunch-server-header
9174 -downgrade-http-version
9175 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
9177 -filter {content-cookies}
9178 -filter {all-popups}
9179 -filter {banners-by-link}
9180 -filter {tiny-textforms}
9181 -filter {frameset-borders}
9182 -filter {demoronizer}
9183 -filter {shockwave-flash}
9184 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
9186 -filter {crude-parental}
9187 -filter {site-specifics}
9188 -filter {js-annoyances}
9189 -filter {html-annoyances}
9190 +filter {refresh-tags}
9191 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
9192 +filter {img-reorder}
9193 +filter {banners-by-size}
9195 +filter {jumping-windows}
9196 +filter {ie-exploits}
9203 -handle-as-empty-document
9205 -hide-accept-language
9206 -hide-content-disposition
9207 +hide-from-header{block}
9208 +hide-referer{forge}
9210 -overwrite-last-modified
9211 +prevent-compression
9213 -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
9214 -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
9215 +session-cookies-only
9216 +set-image-blocker{blank} }
9219 { +block{Path contains "ads".} +handle-as-image }
9225 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote> in our
9226 configuration! But we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the
9227 blank page. It is actually triggering two different actions here, and
9228 the effects are aggregated so that the URL is blocked, and &my-app; is told
9229 to treat the block as if it were an image. But this is, of course, all wrong.
9230 We could now add a new action below this (or better in our own
9231 <filename>user.action</filename> file) that explicitly
9232 <emphasis>un</emphasis> blocks (
9233 <link linkend="BLOCK"><quote>{-block}</quote></link>) paths with
9234 <quote>adsl</quote> in them (remember, last match in the configuration
9235 wins). There are various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
9247 Now the page displays ;-)
9248 Remember to flush your browser's caches when making these kinds of changes to
9249 your configuration to insure that you get a freshly delivered page! Or, try
9250 using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
9254 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
9261 { +block{Path starts with "ads".} +handle-as-image }
9267 That actually was very helpful and pointed us quickly to where the problem
9268 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
9269 rules in the first section of <filename>default.action</filename> is causing
9270 the problem. This would require some guesswork, and maybe a little trial and
9271 error to isolate the offending rule. One likely cause would be one of the
9272 <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> actions.
9273 These tend to be harder to troubleshoot.
9274 Try adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off
9275 <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>:
9283 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
9291 <quote><literal>{ shop }</literal></quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
9292 <quote><literal>{ -filter -session-cookies-only }</literal></quote>.
9293 Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
9301 # Disable ALL filter actions for sites in this section
9309 This would turn off all filtering for these sites. This is best
9310 put in <filename>user.action</filename>, for local site
9311 exceptions. Note that when a simple domain pattern is used by itself (without
9312 the subsequent path portion), all sub-pages within that domain are included
9313 automatically in the scope of the action.
9317 Images that are inexplicably being blocked, may well be hitting the
9318 <link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE"><quote>+filter{banners-by-size}</quote></link>
9320 that images of certain sizes are ad banners (works well
9321 <emphasis>most of the time</emphasis> since these tend to be standardized).
9325 <quote><literal>{ fragile }</literal></quote> is an alias that disables most
9326 actions that are the most likely to cause trouble. This can be used as a
9327 last resort for problem sites.
9333 # Handle with care: easy to break
9335 mybank.example.com</screen>
9340 <emphasis>Remember to flush caches!</emphasis> Note that the
9341 <literal>mail.google</literal> reference lacks the TLD portion (e.g.
9342 <quote>.com</quote>). This will effectively match any TLD with
9343 <literal>google</literal> in it, such as <literal>mail.google.de.</literal>,
9347 If this still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining
9348 actions one by one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
9357 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
9358 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
9359 Public License as published by the Free Software
9360 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
9361 your option) any later version.
9363 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
9364 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
9365 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
9366 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
9367 License for more details.
9369 The GNU General Public License should be included with
9370 this file. If not, you can view it at
9371 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
9372 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
9373 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301,
9376 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
9377 Revision 2.136 2011/10/14 16:53:10 fabiankeil
9378 Clarify the effect of compiling Privoxy with zlib support
9380 Suggested by dg1727 in #3423782.
9382 zlib support has been available for years now,
9383 so drop the reference to Privoxy 3.0.7
9385 Revision 2.135 2011/09/04 11:10:12 fabiankeil
9386 Ditch trailing whitespace
9388 Revision 2.134 2011/08/18 11:45:02 fabiankeil
9389 Don't use unspecified MSN sites as examples for User-Agent-based descrimination
9391 Without knowing the URLs, nobody can easily verify it and it could
9392 be mistaken as FUD. I also assume that it's no longer an issue anyway.
9394 Revision 2.133 2011/08/18 11:42:50 fabiankeil
9395 Bump some more documentation copyright ranges.
9397 Revision 2.132 2011/08/17 10:40:07 fabiankeil
9398 Update the entities.
9400 This commit is chronological out of order.
9402 Revision 2.131 2011/04/19 13:14:10 fabiankeil
9403 Fix spelling errors in the documentation. Found with codespell.
9405 Revision 2.130 2010/12/01 19:28:28 fabiankeil
9406 Hopefully unbreak the dok target when using some kind of jade.
9410 Revision 2.129 2010/11/13 20:17:11 fabiankeil
9411 Merge ChangeLog updates
9413 Revision 2.128 2010/11/10 22:00:13 fabiankeil
9414 Update the first paragraph of the 'What's New' section.
9416 Revision 2.127 2010/11/10 21:48:54 fabiankeil
9417 Update the "What's New" section.
9419 Revision 2.126 2010/11/06 12:55:48 fabiankeil
9420 Set p-version to 3.0.17
9422 Revision 2.125 2010/09/03 17:39:37 fabiankeil
9423 Slightly improve the explanation of why filtering may appear slower than it is.
9425 Revision 2.124 2010/05/01 18:21:30 fabiankeil
9426 Explicitly mention how to match any URL.
9428 Revision 2.123 2010/02/19 16:00:38 fabiankeil
9431 Revision 2.122 2010/02/19 15:22:47 fabiankeil
9434 Revision 2.121 2010/02/15 15:30:13 fabiankeil
9435 Mention the use of the no-such-domain template for DNS problems with FEATURE_IPV6_SUPPORT enabled.
9437 Revision 2.120 2010/02/13 17:38:39 fabiankeil
9438 Update entities for 3.0.16 stable.
9440 Revision 2.119 2010/02/13 16:37:37 fabiankeil
9441 Update 'What's new?' section.
9443 Revision 2.118 2010/02/11 13:59:48 fabiankeil
9444 Mention that the headers added by the add-header action aren't modified by other actions.
9446 Revision 2.117 2010/01/11 12:56:04 fabiankeil
9447 Bump copyright range as p-config.sgml's copyright line is only used in the config file.
9449 Revision 2.116 2009/11/15 14:24:12 fabiankeil
9450 Prepare to generate docs for 3.0.16 UNRELEASED.
9452 Revision 2.115 2009/10/10 06:19:34 fabiankeil
9453 Ditch a duplicated 'since'.
9455 Revision 2.114 2009/10/10 05:51:48 fabiankeil
9456 Update "What's new" section.
9458 Revision 2.113 2009/10/10 05:48:55 fabiankeil
9459 Prepare for 3.0.15 beta.
9461 Revision 2.112 2009/07/24 12:20:30 fabiankeil
9462 Remove duplicated period.
9464 Revision 2.111 2009/07/18 18:11:11 fabiankeil
9465 Don't claim that NTLM should work when there are multiple reports that it doesn't.
9467 Revision 2.110 2009/07/18 16:25:17 fabiankeil
9468 Fix trailing whitespace.
9470 Revision 2.109 2009/07/18 16:24:39 fabiankeil
9471 Bump entities for 3.0.14 beta.
9473 Revision 2.108 2009/07/18 15:49:23 fabiankeil
9474 Add most of the changes in 3.0.14 to the "What's New" section.
9476 Revision 2.107 2009/06/12 14:30:58 fabiankeil
9477 Update entities for 3.0.13 beta.
9479 Revision 2.106 2009/06/12 11:04:13 fabiankeil
9480 Import ChangeLog for 3.0.13 beta.
9482 Revision 2.105 2009/04/17 11:32:57 fabiankeil
9483 Grammar and spelling fixes.
9485 Revision 2.104 2009/04/17 11:27:49 fabiankeil
9486 Petr Pisar's privoxy-3.0.12-ipv6-3.diff.
9488 Revision 2.103 2009/03/21 10:49:05 fabiankeil
9489 Merge updated ChangeLog.
9491 Revision 2.102 2009/03/15 19:31:36 fabiankeil
9492 Update "What's New in this Release" section.
9494 Revision 2.101 2009/02/25 19:01:56 fabiankeil
9497 Revision 2.100 2009/02/19 17:14:11 fabiankeil
9498 - Copy the release cycle description from announce.txt into
9499 the "What's New" section.
9500 - Stop referring to the ChangeLog for a "complete list of changes".
9501 The "What's New" section already contains the complete list.
9503 Revision 2.99 2009/02/19 02:20:22 hal9
9504 Make some links in seealso conditional. Man page is now privoxy only links.
9506 Revision 2.98 2009/02/16 17:10:33 fabiankeil
9507 Fix entry about shortened log messages. Noticed by Lee.
9509 Revision 2.97 2009/02/14 18:01:00 fabiankeil
9512 Revision 2.96 2009/02/14 13:14:03 fabiankeil
9515 Revision 2.95 2009/02/14 12:51:26 fabiankeil
9516 Mention match-all.action in the "Actions Files Tutorial" section.
9518 Revision 2.94 2009/02/14 11:50:31 fabiankeil
9519 Some indentation fixes.
9521 Revision 2.93 2009/02/14 10:14:42 fabiankeil
9522 Mention match-all.action in the action file descriptions.
9524 Revision 2.92 2009/02/12 16:08:26 fabiankeil
9525 Declare the code stable.
9527 Revision 2.91 2009/01/13 16:50:35 fabiankeil
9528 The standard.action file is gone.
9530 Revision 2.90 2008/09/26 16:53:09 fabiankeil
9531 Update "What's new" section.
9533 Revision 2.89 2008/09/21 15:38:56 fabiankeil
9534 Fix Portage tree sync instructions in Gentoo section.
9535 Anonymously reported at ijbswa-developers@.
9537 Revision 2.88 2008/09/21 14:42:52 fabiankeil
9538 Add documentation for change-x-forwarded-for{},
9539 remove documentation for hide-forwarded-for-headers.
9541 Revision 2.87 2008/08/30 15:37:35 fabiankeil
9544 Revision 2.86 2008/08/16 10:12:23 fabiankeil
9545 Merge two sentences and move the URL to the end of the item.
9547 Revision 2.85 2008/08/16 10:04:59 fabiankeil
9548 Some more syntax fixes. This version actually builds.
9550 Revision 2.84 2008/08/16 09:42:45 fabiankeil
9551 Turns out building docs works better if the syntax is valid.
9553 Revision 2.83 2008/08/16 09:32:02 fabiankeil
9554 Mention changes since 3.0.9 beta.
9556 Revision 2.82 2008/08/16 09:00:52 fabiankeil
9557 Fix example URL pattern (once more with feeling).
9559 Revision 2.81 2008/08/16 08:51:28 fabiankeil
9560 Update version-related entities.
9562 Revision 2.80 2008/07/18 16:54:30 fabiankeil
9563 Remove erroneous whitespace in documentation link.
9564 Reported by John Chronister in #2021611.
9566 Revision 2.79 2008/06/27 18:00:53 markm68k
9567 remove outdated startup information for mac os x
9569 Revision 2.78 2008/06/21 17:03:03 fabiankeil
9572 Revision 2.77 2008/06/14 13:45:22 fabiankeil
9573 Re-add a colon I unintentionally removed a few revisions ago.
9575 Revision 2.76 2008/06/14 13:21:28 fabiankeil
9576 Prepare for the upcoming 3.0.9 beta release.
9578 Revision 2.75 2008/06/13 16:06:48 fabiankeil
9579 Update the "What's New in this Release" section with
9580 the ChangeLog entries changelog2doc.pl could handle.
9582 Revision 2.74 2008/05/26 15:55:46 fabiankeil
9583 - Update "default profiles" table.
9584 - Add some more pcrs redirect examples and note that
9585 enabling debug 128 helps to get redirects working.
9587 Revision 2.73 2008/05/23 14:43:18 fabiankeil
9588 Remove previously out-commented block that caused syntax problems.
9590 Revision 2.72 2008/05/12 10:26:14 fabiankeil
9591 Synchronize content filter descriptions with the ones in default.filter.
9593 Revision 2.71 2008/04/10 17:37:16 fabiankeil
9594 Actually we use "modern" POSIX 1003.2 regular
9595 expressions in path patterns, not PCRE.
9597 Revision 2.70 2008/04/10 15:59:12 fabiankeil
9598 Add another section to the client-header-tagger example that shows
9599 how to actually change the action settings once the tag is created.
9601 Revision 2.69 2008/03/29 12:14:25 fabiankeil
9602 Remove send-wafer and send-vanilla-wafer actions.
9604 Revision 2.68 2008/03/28 15:13:43 fabiankeil
9605 Remove inspect-jpegs action.
9607 Revision 2.67 2008/03/27 18:31:21 fabiankeil
9608 Remove kill-popups action.
9610 Revision 2.66 2008/03/06 16:33:47 fabiankeil
9611 If limit-connect isn't used, don't limit CONNECT requests to port 443.
9613 Revision 2.65 2008/03/04 18:30:40 fabiankeil
9614 Remove the treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks action. We now
9615 use the "blocked" page for forbidden CONNECT requests by default.
9617 Revision 2.64 2008/03/01 14:10:28 fabiankeil
9618 Use new block syntax. Still needs some polishing.
9620 Revision 2.63 2008/02/22 05:50:37 markm68k
9623 Revision 2.62 2008/02/11 11:52:23 hal9
9624 Fix entity ... s/&/&
9626 Revision 2.61 2008/02/11 03:41:47 markm68k
9627 more updates for mac os x
9629 Revision 2.60 2008/02/11 03:40:25 markm68k
9630 more updates for mac os x
9632 Revision 2.59 2008/02/11 00:52:34 markm68k
9633 reflect new changes for mac os x
9635 Revision 2.58 2008/02/03 21:37:40 hal9
9636 Apply patch from Mark: s/OSX/OS X/
9638 Revision 2.57 2008/02/03 19:10:14 fabiankeil
9639 Mention forward-socks5.
9641 Revision 2.56 2008/01/31 19:11:35 fabiankeil
9642 Let the +client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation} example apply
9643 to all requests as "tainted" Referers aren't limited to exit TLDs.
9645 Revision 2.55 2008/01/19 21:26:37 hal9
9646 Add IE7 to configuration section per Gerry.
9648 Revision 2.54 2008/01/19 17:52:39 hal9
9649 Re-commit to fix various minor issues for new release.
9651 Revision 2.53 2008/01/19 15:03:05 hal9
9652 Doc sources tagged for 3.0.8 release.
9654 Revision 2.52 2008/01/17 01:49:51 hal9
9655 Change copyright notice for docs s/2007/2008/. All these will be rebuilt soon
9658 Revision 2.51 2007/12/23 16:48:24 fabiankeil
9659 Use more precise example descriptions for the mysterious domain patterns.
9661 Revision 2.50 2007/12/08 12:44:36 fabiankeil
9662 - Remove already commented out pre-3.0.7 changes.
9663 - Update the "new log defaults" paragraph.
9665 Revision 2.49 2007/12/06 18:21:55 fabiankeil
9666 Update hide-forwarded-for-headers description.
9668 Revision 2.48 2007/11/24 19:07:17 fabiankeil
9669 - Mention request rewriting.
9670 - Enable the conditional-forge paragraph.
9673 Revision 2.47 2007/11/18 14:59:47 fabiankeil
9674 A few "Note to Upgraders" updates.
9676 Revision 2.46 2007/11/17 17:24:44 fabiankeil
9677 - Use new action defaults.
9678 - Minor fixes and rewordings.
9680 Revision 2.45 2007/11/16 11:48:46 hal9
9681 Fix one typo, and add a couple of small refinements.
9683 Revision 2.44 2007/11/15 03:30:20 hal9
9684 Results of spell check.
9686 Revision 2.43 2007/11/14 18:45:39 fabiankeil
9687 - Mention some more contributors in the "New in this Release" list.
9690 Revision 2.42 2007/11/12 03:32:40 hal9
9691 Updates for "What's New" and "Notes to Upgraders". Various other changes in
9692 preparation for new release. User Manual is almost ready.
9694 Revision 2.41 2007/11/11 16:32:11 hal9
9695 This is primarily syncing What's New and Note to Upgraders sections with the many
9696 new features and changes (gleaned from memory but mostly from ChangeLog).
9698 Revision 2.40 2007/11/10 17:10:59 fabiankeil
9699 In the first third of the file, mention several times that
9700 the action editor is disabled by default in 3.0.7 beta and later.
9702 Revision 2.39 2007/11/05 02:34:49 hal9
9703 Various changes in preparation for the upcoming release. Much yet to be done.
9705 Revision 2.38 2007/09/22 16:01:42 fabiankeil
9706 Update embedded show-url-info output.
9708 Revision 2.37 2007/08/27 16:09:55 fabiankeil
9709 Fix pre-chroot-nslookup description which I failed to
9710 copy and paste properly. Reported by Stephen Gildea.
9712 Revision 2.36 2007/08/26 16:47:14 fabiankeil
9713 Add Stephen Gildea's pre-chroot-nslookup patch [#1276666],
9714 extensive comments moved to user manual.
9716 Revision 2.35 2007/08/26 14:59:49 fabiankeil
9717 Minor rewordings and fixes.
9719 Revision 2.34 2007/08/05 15:19:50 fabiankeil
9720 - Don't claim HTTP/1.1 compliance.
9721 - Use $ in some of the path pattern examples.
9722 - Use a hide-user-agent example argument without
9723 leading and trailing space.
9724 - Make it clear that the cookie actions work with
9726 - Rephrase the inspect-jpegs text to underline
9727 that it's only meant to protect against a single
9730 Revision 2.33 2007/07/27 10:57:35 hal9
9731 Add references for user-agent strings for hide-user-agenet
9733 Revision 2.32 2007/06/07 12:36:22 fabiankeil
9734 Apply Roland's 29_usermanual.dpatch to fix a bunch
9735 of syntax errors I collected over the last months.
9737 Revision 2.31 2007/06/02 14:01:37 fabiankeil
9738 Start to document forward-override{}.
9740 Revision 2.30 2007/04/25 15:10:36 fabiankeil
9741 - Describe installation for FreeBSD.
9742 - Start to document taggers and tag patterns.
9743 - Don't confuse devils and daemons.
9745 Revision 2.29 2007/04/05 11:47:51 fabiankeil
9746 Some updates regarding header filtering,
9747 handling of compressed content and redirect's
9748 support for pcrs commands.
9750 Revision 2.28 2006/12/10 23:42:48 hal9
9751 Fix various typos reported by Adam P. Thanks.
9753 Revision 2.27 2006/11/14 01:57:47 hal9
9754 Dump all docs prior to 3.0.6 release. Various minor changes to faq and user
9757 Revision 2.26 2006/10/24 11:16:44 hal9
9760 Revision 2.25 2006/10/18 10:50:33 hal9
9761 Add note that since filters are off in Cautious, compression is ON. Turn off
9762 compression to make filters work on all sites.
9764 Revision 2.24 2006/10/03 11:13:54 hal9
9765 More references to the new filters. Include html this time around.
9767 Revision 2.23 2006/10/02 22:43:53 hal9
9768 Contains new filter definitions from Fabian, and few other miscellaneous
9771 Revision 2.22 2006/09/22 01:27:55 hal9
9772 Final commit of probably various minor changes here and there. Unless
9773 something changes this should be ready for pending release.
9775 Revision 2.21 2006/09/20 03:21:36 david__schmidt
9776 Just the tiniest tweak. Wafer thin!
9778 Revision 2.20 2006/09/10 14:53:54 hal9
9779 Results of spell check. User manual has some updates to standard.actions file
9782 Revision 2.19 2006/09/08 12:19:02 fabiankeil
9783 Adjust hide-if-modified-since example values
9784 to reflect the recent changes.
9786 Revision 2.18 2006/09/08 02:38:57 hal9
9788 -Fix a number of broken links.
9789 -Migrate the new Windows service command line options, and reference as
9791 -Rebuild so that can be used with the new "user-manual" config capabilities.
9794 Revision 2.17 2006/09/05 13:25:12 david__schmidt
9795 Add Windows service invocation stuff (duplicated) in FAQ and in user manual under Windows startup. One probably ought to reference the other.
9797 Revision 2.16 2006/09/02 12:49:37 hal9
9798 Various small updates for new actions, filterfiles, etc.
9800 Revision 2.15 2006/08/30 11:15:22 hal9
9801 More work on the new actions, especially filter-*-headers, and What's New
9802 section. User Manual is close to final form for 3.0.4 release. Some tinkering
9803 and proof reading left to do.
9805 Revision 2.14 2006/08/29 10:59:36 hal9
9806 Add a "Whats New in this release" Section. Further work on multiple filter
9807 files, and assorted other minor changes.
9809 Revision 2.13 2006/08/22 11:04:59 hal9
9810 Silence warnings and errors. This should build now. New filters were only
9811 stubbed in. More to be done.
9813 Revision 2.12 2006/08/14 08:40:39 fabiankeil
9814 Documented new actions that were part of
9815 the "minor Privoxy improvements".
9817 Revision 2.11 2006/07/18 14:48:51 david__schmidt
9818 Reorganizing the repository: swapping out what was HEAD (the old 3.1 branch)
9819 with what was really the latest development (the v_3_0_branch branch)
9821 Revision 1.123.2.43 2005/05/23 09:59:10 hal9
9824 Revision 1.123.2.42 2004/12/04 14:39:57 hal9
9825 Fix two minor typos per bug SF report.
9827 Revision 1.123.2.41 2004/03/23 12:58:42 oes
9830 Revision 1.123.2.40 2004/02/27 12:48:49 hal9
9831 Add comment re: redirecting to local file system for set-image-blocker may
9832 is dependent on browser.
9834 Revision 1.123.2.39 2004/01/30 22:31:40 oes
9835 Added a hint re bookmarklets to Quickstart section
9837 Revision 1.123.2.38 2004/01/30 16:47:51 oes
9838 Some minor clarifications
9840 Revision 1.123.2.37 2004/01/29 22:36:11 hal9
9841 Updates for no longer filtering text/plain, and demoronizer default settings,
9842 and copyright notice dates.
9844 Revision 1.123.2.36 2003/12/10 02:26:26 hal9
9845 Changed the demoronizer filter description.
9847 Revision 1.123.2.35 2003/11/06 13:36:37 oes
9848 Updated link to nightly CVS tarball
9850 Revision 1.123.2.34 2003/06/26 23:50:16 hal9
9851 Add a small bit on filtering and problems re: source code being corrupted.
9853 Revision 1.123.2.33 2003/05/08 18:17:33 roro
9854 Use apt-get instead of dpkg to install Debian package, which is more
9855 solid, uses the correct and most recent Debian version automatically.
9857 Revision 1.123.2.32 2003/04/11 03:13:57 hal9
9858 Add small note about only one filterfile (as opposed to multiple actions
9861 Revision 1.123.2.31 2003/03/26 02:03:43 oes
9862 Updated hard-coded copyright dates
9864 Revision 1.123.2.30 2003/03/24 12:58:56 hal9
9865 Add new section on Predefined Filters.
9867 Revision 1.123.2.29 2003/03/20 02:45:29 hal9
9868 More problems with \-\-chroot causing markup problems :(
9870 Revision 1.123.2.28 2003/03/19 00:35:24 hal9
9871 Manual edit of revision log because 'chroot' (even inside a comment) was
9872 causing Docbook to hang here (due to double hyphen and the processor thinking
9875 Revision 1.123.2.27 2003/03/18 19:37:14 oes
9876 s/Advanced|Radical/Adventuresome/g to avoid complaints re fun filter
9878 Revision 1.123.2.26 2003/03/17 16:50:53 oes
9879 Added documentation for new chroot option
9881 Revision 1.123.2.25 2003/03/15 18:36:55 oes
9882 Adapted to the new filters
9884 Revision 1.123.2.24 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9
9885 Move default profiles table from FAQ to U-M, and other minor related changes.
9888 Revision 1.123.2.23 2002/10/21 02:32:01 hal9
9889 Updates to the user.action examples section. A few new ones.
9891 Revision 1.123.2.22 2002/10/12 00:51:53 hal9
9892 Add demoronizer to filter section.
9894 Revision 1.123.2.21 2002/10/10 04:09:35 hal9
9895 s/Advanced/Radical/ and added very brief note.
9897 Revision 1.123.2.20 2002/10/10 03:49:21 hal9
9898 Add notes to session-cookies-only and Quickstart about pre-existing
9899 cookies. Also, note content-cookies work differently.
9901 Revision 1.123.2.19 2002/09/26 01:25:36 hal9
9902 More explanation on Privoxy patterns, more on content-cookies and SSL.
9904 Revision 1.123.2.18 2002/08/22 23:47:58 hal9
9905 Add 'Documentation' to Privoxy Menu shot in Configuration section to match
9908 Revision 1.123.2.17 2002/08/18 01:13:05 hal9
9909 Spell checked (only one typo this time!).
9911 Revision 1.123.2.16 2002/08/09 19:20:54 david__schmidt
9912 Update to Mac OS X startup script name
9914 Revision 1.123.2.15 2002/08/07 17:32:11 oes
9915 Converted some internal links from ulink to link for PDF creation; no content changed
9917 Revision 1.123.2.14 2002/08/06 09:16:13 oes
9918 Nits re: actions file download
9920 Revision 1.123.2.13 2002/08/02 18:23:19 g_sauthoff
9921 Just 2 small corrections to the Gentoo sections
9923 Revision 1.123.2.12 2002/08/02 18:17:21 g_sauthoff
9924 Added 2 Gentoo sections
9926 Revision 1.123.2.11 2002/07/26 15:20:31 oes
9927 - Added version info to title
9928 - Added info on new filters
9929 - Revised parts of the filter file tutorial
9930 - Added info on where to get updated actions files
9932 Revision 1.123.2.10 2002/07/25 21:42:29 hal9
9933 Add brief notes on not proxying non-HTTP protocols.
9935 Revision 1.123.2.9 2002/07/11 03:40:28 david__schmidt
9937 Updated Mac OS X sections due to installation location change
9939 Revision 1.123.2.8 2002/06/09 16:36:32 hal9
9940 Clarifications on filtering and MIME. Hardcode 'latest release' in index.html.
9942 Revision 1.123.2.7 2002/06/09 00:29:34 hal9
9943 Touch ups on filtering, in actions section and Anatomy.
9945 Revision 1.123.2.6 2002/06/06 23:11:03 hal9
9946 Fix broken link. Linkchecked all docs.
9948 Revision 1.123.2.5 2002/05/29 02:01:02 hal9
9949 This is break out of the entire config section from u-m, so it can
9950 eventually be used to generate the comments, etc in the main config file
9951 so that these are in sync with each other.
9953 Revision 1.123.2.4 2002/05/27 03:28:45 hal9
9954 Ooops missed something from David.
9956 Revision 1.123.2.3 2002/05/27 03:23:17 hal9
9957 Fix FIXMEs for OS2 and Mac OS X startup. Fix Redhat typos (should be Red Hat).
9958 That's a wrap, I think.
9960 Revision 1.123.2.2 2002/05/26 19:02:09 hal9
9961 Move Amiga stuff around to take of FIXME in start up section.
9963 Revision 1.123.2.1 2002/05/26 17:04:25 hal9
9964 -Spellcheck, very minor edits, and sync across branches
9966 Revision 1.123 2002/05/24 23:19:23 hal9
9967 Include new image (Proxy setup). More fun with guibutton.
9968 Minor corrections/clarifications here and there.
9970 Revision 1.122 2002/05/24 13:24:08 oes
9971 Added Bookmarklet for one-click pre-filled access to show-url-info
9973 Revision 1.121 2002/05/23 23:20:17 oes
9974 - Changed more (all?) references to actions to the
9975 <literal><link> style.
9976 - Small fixes in the actions chapter
9977 - Small clarifications in the quickstart to ad blocking
9978 - Removed <emphasis> from <title>s since the new doc CSS
9979 renders them red (bad in TOC).
9981 Revision 1.120 2002/05/23 19:16:43 roro
9982 Correct Debian specials (installation and startup).
9984 Revision 1.119 2002/05/22 17:17:05 oes
9987 Revision 1.118 2002/05/21 04:54:55 hal9
9988 -New Section: Quickstart to Ad Blocking
9989 -Reformat Actions Anatomy to match new CGI layout
9991 Revision 1.117 2002/05/17 13:56:16 oes
9992 - Reworked & extended Templates chapter
9993 - Small changes to Regex appendix
9994 - #included authors.sgml into (C) and hist chapter
9996 Revision 1.116 2002/05/17 03:23:46 hal9
9997 Fixing merge conflict in Quickstart section.
9999 Revision 1.115 2002/05/16 16:25:00 oes
10000 Extended the Filter File chapter & minor fixes
10002 Revision 1.114 2002/05/16 09:42:50 oes
10003 More ulink->link, added some hints to Quickstart section
10005 Revision 1.113 2002/05/15 21:07:25 oes
10006 Extended and further commented the example actions files
10008 Revision 1.112 2002/05/15 03:57:14 hal9
10009 Spell check. A few minor edits here and there for better syntax and
10012 Revision 1.111 2002/05/14 23:01:36 oes
10015 Revision 1.110 2002/05/14 19:10:45 oes
10016 Restored alphabetical order of actions
10018 Revision 1.109 2002/05/14 17:23:11 oes
10019 Renamed the prevent-*-cookies actions, extended aliases section and moved it before the example AFs
10021 Revision 1.108 2002/05/14 15:29:12 oes
10022 Completed proofreading the actions chapter
10024 Revision 1.107 2002/05/12 03:20:41 hal9
10025 Small clarifications for 127.0.0.1 vs localhost for listen-address since this
10026 apparently an important distinction for some OS's.
10028 Revision 1.106 2002/05/10 01:48:20 hal9
10029 This is mostly proposed copyright/licensing additions and changes. Docs
10030 are still GPL, but licensing and copyright are more visible. Also, copyright
10031 changed in doc header comments (eliminate references to JB except FAQ).
10033 Revision 1.105 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
10034 Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
10036 Revision 1.104 2002/05/04 08:44:45 swa
10039 Revision 1.103 2002/05/04 00:40:53 hal9
10040 -Remove the TOC first page kludge. It's fixed proper now in ldp.dsl.in.
10041 -Some minor additions to Quickstart.
10043 Revision 1.102 2002/05/03 17:46:00 oes
10044 Further proofread & reactivated short build instructions
10046 Revision 1.101 2002/05/03 03:58:30 hal9
10047 Move the user-manual config directive to top of section. Add note about
10048 Privoxy needing read permissions for configs, and write for logs.
10050 Revision 1.100 2002/04/29 03:05:55 hal9
10051 Add clarification on differences of new actions files.
10053 Revision 1.99 2002/04/28 16:59:05 swa
10054 more structure in starting section
10056 Revision 1.98 2002/04/28 05:43:59 hal9
10057 This is the break up of configuration.html into multiple files. This
10058 will probably break links elsewhere :(
10060 Revision 1.97 2002/04/27 21:04:42 hal9
10061 -Rewrite of Actions File example.
10062 -Add section for user-manual directive in config.
10064 Revision 1.96 2002/04/27 05:32:00 hal9
10065 -Add short section to Filter Files to tie in with +filter action.
10066 -Start rewrite of examples in Actions Examples (not finished).
10068 Revision 1.95 2002/04/26 17:23:29 swa
10069 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
10071 Revision 1.94 2002/04/26 05:24:36 hal9
10072 -Add most of Andreas suggestions to Chain of Events section.
10073 -A few other minor corrections and touch up.
10075 Revision 1.92 2002/04/25 18:55:13 hal9
10076 More catchups on new actions files, and new actions names.
10077 Other assorted cleanups, and minor modifications.
10079 Revision 1.91 2002/04/24 02:39:31 hal9
10080 Add 'Chain of Events' section.
10082 Revision 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 hal9
10083 Linuxconf is deprecated on RH, substitute chkconfig.
10085 Revision 1.89 2002/04/23 21:05:28 oes
10086 Added hint for startup on Red Hat
10088 Revision 1.88 2002/04/23 05:37:54 hal9
10089 Add AmigaOS install stuff.
10091 Revision 1.87 2002/04/23 02:53:15 david__schmidt
10092 Updated Mac OS X installation section
10093 Added a few English tweaks here an there
10095 Revision 1.86 2002/04/21 01:46:32 hal9
10096 Re-write actions section.
10098 Revision 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9
10099 Fix ugly typo (mine).
10101 Revision 1.84 2002/04/18 21:17:13 hal9
10102 Spell Redhat correctly (ie Red Hat). A few minor grammar corrections.
10104 Revision 1.83 2002/04/18 18:21:12 oes
10105 Added RPM install detail
10107 Revision 1.82 2002/04/18 12:04:50 oes
10110 Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
10111 Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
10113 Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
10114 Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
10116 Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
10117 Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
10119 Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
10120 Proofreading part 2
10122 Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
10123 Proofreading, part one
10125 Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
10126 -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
10127 -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
10129 Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
10130 Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
10132 Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
10133 Add small section on submitting actions.
10135 Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
10138 Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
10139 Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
10141 Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
10142 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
10144 Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
10147 Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
10148 -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
10149 -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
10150 -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
10151 -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
10153 Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
10154 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
10156 Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
10157 more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
10159 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
10160 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
10161 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
10162 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
10163 eventually be set by Makefile.
10164 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
10166 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
10167 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
10169 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
10170 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
10172 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
10173 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
10175 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
10176 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
10177 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
10178 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
10180 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
10183 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
10184 Added more to Anatomy section.
10186 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
10187 Touch up intro for new name.
10189 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
10190 we have a new homepage!
10192 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
10193 A few minor catch ups with name change.
10195 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
10196 configure needs to be generated.
10198 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
10199 we are too lazy to make a block-built
10200 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
10202 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
10203 name change related issue.
10205 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
10206 name change. changed filenames.
10208 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
10211 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
10212 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
10213 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
10214 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
10215 comments and remarks to history untouched.
10217 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
10220 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
10221 New section in Appendix.
10223 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
10224 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
10226 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
10227 correct feedback channels
10229 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
10230 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
10232 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
10235 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
10236 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
10238 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
10239 Added imageblock{pattern}.
10241 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
10244 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
10245 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
10247 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
10248 provide correct feedback channels
10250 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
10251 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
10253 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
10254 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
10256 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
10257 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
10259 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
10260 Add new - - user option.
10262 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
10263 Added section on command line options.
10265 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
10266 Changed default port to 8118
10268 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
10269 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
10271 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
10272 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
10273 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
10276 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
10279 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
10280 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
10282 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
10283 Update OS/2 build section
10285 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
10286 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
10287 will work - no other changes are needed.
10289 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
10290 Added a very short section on Templates
10292 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
10293 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
10295 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
10296 Touch ups for *.action files.
10298 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
10301 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
10302 Updates for recent changes.
10304 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
10305 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
10307 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
10308 Correct 2 minor errors
10310 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
10311 *** empty log message ***
10313 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
10314 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
10316 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
10317 wrong url in documentation
10319 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
10320 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
10322 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
10323 Very minor changes.
10325 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
10328 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
10331 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
10332 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
10334 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
10335 Some additions, and re-arranging.
10337 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
10340 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
10341 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
10343 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
10346 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
10347 source files for junkbuster documentation
10349 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
10350 first proposal of a structure.
10352 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
10353 docs should have an author.
10355 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
10356 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.