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 p-version "2.9.14">
12 <!entity p-status "beta">
13 <!entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE">
14 <!entity % p-stable "IGNORE">
15 <!entity % p-text "IGNORE"> <!-- define we are not a text only doc -->
16 <!entity % p-doc "INCLUDE"> <!-- and we are a formal doc -->
17 <!entity % p-readme "IGNORE">
18 <!entity % p-config "IGNORE">
19 <!entity % p-supp-userman "IGNORE"> <!-- Omit some from supported.sgml -->
22 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
25 This file belongs into
26 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
28 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.96 2002/04/27 05:32:00 hal9 Exp $
30 Written by and Copyright (C) 2001 the SourceForge
31 Privoxy team. http://www.privoxy.org/
33 Based on the Internet Junkbuster originally written
34 by and Copyright (C) 1997 Anonymous Coders and
35 Junkbusters Corporation. http://www.junkbusters.com
38 ========================================================================
39 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
40 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
41 ========================================================================
47 <title>Privoxy User Manual</title>
49 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.96 2002/04/27 05:32:00 hal9 Exp $</pubdate>
54 <orgname>By: Privoxy Developers</orgname>
63 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
64 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
65 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
71 The user manual gives users information on how to install, configure and use
73 url="http://www.privoxy.org/"><application>Privoxy</application></ulink>.
76 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
78 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
81 You can find the latest version of the user manual at <ulink
82 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
83 Please see the <ulink url="contact.html">Contact section</ulink> on how to
84 contact the developers.
88 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
94 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
95 <sect1 id="intro" label=""><title></title>
96 <!-- dummy section to force TOC on page by itself -->
97 <!-- DO NOT REMOVE! please ;) -->
101 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
102 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
104 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
105 <application>Privoxy</application>, v.&p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
106 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
107 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
108 configuration files. Development of version 3.0 is currently nearing
109 completion, and includes many significant changes and enhancements over
110 earlier versions. The target release date for
111 stable v3.0 is <quote>soon</quote> ;-)]]>.
114 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
117 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
118 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
119 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
124 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
125 <sect2 id="features"><title>Features</title>
127 In addition to <application>Internet Junkbuster's</application> traditional
128 features of ad and banner blocking and cookie management,
129 <application>Privoxy</application> provides new features<![%p-not-stable;[,
130 some of them currently under development]]>:
132 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
134 <!-- end boilerplate -->
139 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
142 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
143 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
146 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
147 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
148 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
149 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project
150 Page</ulink>. For installing and compiling the source code, please look
151 into our Developer Manual.
155 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
156 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
157 version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
158 CVS repository</ulink> or simply download <ulink
159 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.gz">the nightly CVS
160 tarball.</ulink> Again, we refer you to the Developer Manual.
163 <!-- Include supported.sgml boilerplate -->
165 <!-- end boilerplate -->
168 Note: If you have a previous <application>Junkbuster</application> or
169 <application>Privoxy</application> installation on your system, you
170 will need to remove it. Some platforms do this for you as part
171 of their installation procedure. (See below for your platform).
175 In any case <emphasis>be sure to backup your old configuration
176 if it is valuable to you.</emphasis> See the
177 <link linkend="upgradersnote">note to upgraders</link> section
181 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
182 <sect2 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Red Hat and SuSE RPMs</title>
185 RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm</literal>,
186 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location
187 of configuration files.
191 Note that on Red Hat, <application>Privoxy</application> will
192 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be automatically started on system boot. You will
193 need to enable that using <command>chkconfig</command>,
194 <command>ntsysv</command>, or similar methods. Note that SuSE will
195 automatically start Privoxy in the boot process.
199 If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM:
200 <literal>rpm --rebuild privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm;</literal>. This
201 will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.
205 Also note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
206 on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
207 Otherwise, RPM will try to remove <application>Junkbuster</application>
208 automatically, before installing <application>Privoxy</application>.
212 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
213 <sect2 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian</title>
219 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
220 <sect2 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
223 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
224 the installation process. You will find the configuration files
225 in the same directory as you installed Privoxy in. We do not
226 use the registry of Windows.
230 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
231 <sect2 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX</title>
234 Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
235 untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
240 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
241 <sect2 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
244 First, make sure that no previous installations of
245 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
246 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
247 system. You can do this by
251 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
252 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
253 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
254 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
258 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
259 into will contain all of the configuration files.
263 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
264 <sect2 id="installation-mac"><title>Max OSX</title>
266 Unzip the downloaded package (you can either double-click on the file
267 in the finder, or on the desktop if you downloaded it there). Then,
268 double-click on the package installer icon and follow the installation
270 <application>Privoxy</application> will be installed in the subdirectory
271 <literal>/Applications/Privoxy.app</literal>.
272 <application>Privoxy</application> will set itself up to start
273 automatically on system bring-up via
274 <literal>/System/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal>.
278 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
279 <sect2 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
281 Copy and then unpack the <filename>lha</filename> archive to a suitable location.
282 All necessary files will be installed into <application>Privoxy</application>
283 directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just
284 remove this directory.
287 Start <application>Privoxy</application> (with RUN <>NIL:) in your
288 <filename>startnet</filename> script (AmiTCP), in
289 <filename>s:user-startup</filename> (RoadShow), as startup program in your
290 startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
291 <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically quit when you quit your
292 TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that
293 <application>Privoxy</application> is still running).
298 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
300 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
301 <sect1 id="upgradersnote">
302 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
304 There are very significant changes from older versions of
305 <application>Junkbuster</application> to the current
306 <application>Privoxy</application>. Configuration is substantially
307 changed. <application>Junkbuster 2.0.x</application> and earlier
308 configuration files will not migrate. The functionality of the old
309 <filename>blockfile</filename>, <filename>cookiefile</filename> and
310 <filename>imagelist</filename>, are now combined into the
311 <quote>actions files</quote>. <filename>default.action</filename>,
312 is the main actions file. Local exceptions should best be put into
313 <filename>user.action</filename>.
316 A <quote>filter file</quote> (typically <filename>default.filter</filename>)
317 is new as of <application>Privoxy 2.9.x</application>, and provides some
318 of the new sophistication (explained below). <filename>config</filename> is
319 much the same as before.
322 If upgrading from a 2.0.x version, you will have to use the new config
323 files, and possibly adapt any personal rules from your older files.
324 When porting personal rules over from the old <filename>blockfile</filename>
325 to the new actions files, please note that even the pattern syntax has
326 changed. If upgrading from 2.9.x development versions, it is still
327 recommended to use the new configuration files.
330 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading:
338 The default listening port is now 8118 due to a conflict with another
344 Some installers may remove earlier versions completely. Save any
345 important configuration files!
350 <application>Privoxy</application> is controllable with a web browser
351 at the special URL: <ulink
352 url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
353 (Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>). Many
354 aspects of configuration can be done here, including temporarily disabling
355 <application>Privoxy</application>.
360 The primary configuration file for cookie management, ad and banner
361 blocking, and many other aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
362 configuration is in the <quote>actions</quote> files. It is strongly
363 recommended to become familiar with the new actions concept below,
364 before modifying these files. Locally defined rules
365 should go into <filename>user.action</filename>.
370 <!-- I think it is best to keep this somewhat vague, in case -->
371 <!-- the situation changes under our feet. -->
372 Some installers may not automatically start
373 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
381 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
382 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using <application>Privoxy</application></title>
388 Install <application>Privoxy</application>. See the section <link linkend="installation">Installing</link>.
394 Start <application>Privoxy</application>. See the section <link linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link>.
400 Change your browser's configuration to use the proxy <literal>localhost</literal> on port
401 <literal>8118</literal>. See the section <link linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link>.
407 Enjoy surfing with enhanced comfort and privacy. Please see the section
408 <link linkend="contact">Contacting the Developers</link> on how to report
409 bugs or problems with websites or to get help. You may want to change the
410 file <filename>user.action</filename> to further tweak your new browsing
420 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
422 <title>Starting <application>Privoxy</application></title>
424 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
425 will want to configure your browser(s) to use <application>Privoxy</application>
426 as a HTTP and HTTPS proxy. The default is localhost for the proxy address,
427 and port 8118 (earlier versions used port 8000). This is the one
428 configuration step that must be done!
432 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
433 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under <literal>Edit
434 -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Proxies -> HTTP Proxy</literal>.
435 For <application>Internet Explorer</application>: <literal>Tools ->
436 Internet Properties -> Connections -> LAN Setting</literal>. Then,
437 check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info (Address:
438 localhost, Port: 8118). Include if HTTPS proxy support too.
442 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
443 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. You
444 are now ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
445 <application>Privoxy</application>!
450 <application>Privoxy</application> is typically started by specifying the
451 main configuration file to be used on the command line. Example Unix startup
457 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
462 See <link linkend="cmdoptions">below</link> for other command line options.
466 An init script is provided for SuSE and Red Hat.
470 For for SuSE: <command>rcprivoxy start</command>
474 For Red Hat and Debian: <command>/etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start</command>
479 If no configuration file is specified on the command line,
480 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
481 <filename>config</filename> in the current directory. Except on Win32 where
482 it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>. If no file is specified on the
483 command line and no default configuration file can be found,
484 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
489 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
490 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
491 <quote>actions</quote> files. These are where various cookie actions are
492 defined, ad and banner blocking, and other aspects of
493 <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several such
494 files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
498 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites for which you may prefer
499 persistent cookies, and add these to your actions configuration as needed. By
500 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
501 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), unless you add them to the
502 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
503 to edit <filename>user.action</filename> (or through the web based interface)
504 and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser, it would make
505 more sense to let <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which
506 case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
510 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
511 sites is the popup-killing (through the <literal>+popup</literal> and
512 <literal>+filter{popups}</literal> actions), because your favorite shopping,
513 banking, or leisure site may need popups (explained below).
517 <application>Privoxy</application> is HTTP/1.1 compliant, but not all of
518 the optional 1.1 features are as yet supported. In the unlikely event that
519 you experience inexplicable problems with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
520 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
521 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
522 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
523 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote> config option in
524 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
525 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
529 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
530 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
531 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
532 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote>
533 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
534 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
535 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
536 and then follow the link to <quote>View & Change the Current Configuration</quote>.
537 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
541 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
542 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
543 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
544 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
545 to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
546 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
547 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
551 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
552 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
553 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
554 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
555 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
556 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
561 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <ulink
562 url="configuration.html#ACTIONSFILE">read more about the actions concept</ulink>
563 or even dive deep into the <ulink url="appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT">Appendix
568 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
569 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
570 section <ulink url="contact.html"><quote>Contacting the
571 Developers</quote></ulink> below.
574 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
575 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
576 <title>Command Line Options</title>
578 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
579 command-line options:
587 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
590 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
595 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
598 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
603 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
606 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
607 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
612 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
616 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
617 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
618 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
619 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
624 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
628 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
629 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
630 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
635 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
638 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
639 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
640 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
641 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
642 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
643 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
654 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
657 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
658 <sect1 id="configuration"><title><application>Privoxy</application> Configuration</title>
660 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
661 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
662 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
663 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
667 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
670 <title>Controlling <application>Privoxy</application> with Your Web Browser</title>
672 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
673 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
674 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
675 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
676 You will see the following section:
680 <!-- Needs to be put in a table and colorized -->
683 <bridgehead renderas="sect2">Privoxy Menu</bridgehead>
687 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View & change the current configuration</ulink>
690 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">View the source code version numbers</ulink>
693 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">View the request headers.</ulink>
696 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">Look up which actions apply to a URL and why</ulink>
699 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">Toggle Privoxy on or off</ulink>
707 This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the
708 <quote>actions list</quote>, which is where the ad, banner, cookie,
709 and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
710 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
711 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
712 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
716 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
717 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
718 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
719 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
720 to run as a proxy in this case, but all filtering is disabled. There
721 is even a toggle <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklet</link> offered, so
722 that you can toggle <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from
728 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
733 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
735 <sect2 id="confoverview">
736 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
738 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
739 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
740 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
741 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
742 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
743 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
747 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
748 some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
749 principle configuration files are:
757 The main configuration file is named <link linkend="config">config</link>
758 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
759 on Windows. This is a required file.
765 <filename>default.action</filename> (the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>) is used to define
766 the default settings for various <quote>actions</quote> relating to images, banners,
767 pop-ups, access restrictions, banners and cookies.
770 Multiple actions files may be defined in <filename>config</filename>. These
771 are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
772 preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
773 <filename>default.action</filename> are probably best applied in
774 <filename>user.action</filename>, which should be preserved across
775 upgrades. <filename>standard.action</filename> is also included. This is mostly
776 for <application>Privoxy's</application> internal use.
779 There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
781 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status/">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status/</ulink>
783 url="http://p.p/show-status/">http://p.p/show-status/</ulink>) for the
784 various actions files.
790 <filename>default.filter</filename> (the <link linkend="filter-file">filter
791 file</link>) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
792 viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
793 lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
794 whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
802 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
803 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) angd understand line continuation
804 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
805 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
806 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
807 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
812 The actions files and <filename>default.filter</filename>
813 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
818 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
819 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
820 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
821 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
822 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
823 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
824 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
829 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
830 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
831 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
832 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
838 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
841 <title>The Main Configuration File</title>
843 Again, the main configuration file is named <filename>config</filename> on
844 Linux/Unix/BSD and OS/2, and <filename>config.txt</filename> on Windows.
845 Configuration lines consist of an initial keyword followed by a list of
846 values, all separated by whitespace (any number of spaces or tabs). For
854 <emphasis>confdir /etc/privoxy</emphasis>
861 Assigns the value <literal>/etc/privoxy</literal> to the option
862 <literal>confdir</literal> and thus indicates that the configuration
863 directory is named <quote>/etc/privoxy/</quote>.
867 All options in the config file except for <literal>confdir</literal> and
868 <literal>logdir</literal> are optional. Watch out in the below description
869 for what happens if you leave them unset.
873 The main config file controls all aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>'s
874 operation that are not location dependent (i.e. they apply universally, no matter
875 where you may be surfing).
879 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
881 <sect3 id="conf-log-loc">
882 <title>Configuration and Log File Locations</title>
885 <application>Privoxy</application> can (and normally does) use a number of
886 other files for additional configuration, help and logging.
887 This section of the configuration file tells <application>Privoxy</application>
888 where to find those other files.
892 <sect4 id="confdir"><title>confdir</title>
896 <term>Specifies:</term>
898 <para>The directory where the other configuration files are located</para>
902 <term>Type of value:</term>
904 <para>Path name</para>
908 <term>Default value:</term>
910 <para>/etc/privoxy (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> <application>Privoxy</application> installation dir (Windows) </para>
914 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
916 <para><emphasis>Mandatory</emphasis></para>
923 No trailing <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please
926 When development goes modular and multi-user, the blocker, filter, and
927 per-user config will be stored in subdirectories of <quote>confdir</quote>.
928 For now, the configuration directory structure is flat, except for
929 <filename>confdir/templates</filename>, where the HTML templates for CGI
930 output reside (e.g. <application>Privoxy's</application> 404 error page).
938 <sect4 id="logdir"><title>logdir</title>
942 <term>Specifies:</term>
945 The directory where all logging takes place (i.e. where <filename>logfile</filename> and
946 <filename>jarfile</filename> are located)
951 <term>Type of value:</term>
953 <para>Path name</para>
957 <term>Default value:</term>
959 <para>/var/log/privoxy (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> <application>Privoxy</application> installation dir (Windows) </para>
963 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
965 <para><emphasis>Mandatory</emphasis></para>
972 No trailing <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please
979 <sect4 id="actionsfile"><title>
982 <anchor id="default.action">
983 <anchor id="standard.action">
984 <anchor id="user.action">
988 <term>Specifies:</term>
991 The <link linkend="actions">actions</link> file(s) to use
996 <term>Type of value:</term>
998 <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
1002 <term>Default value:</term>
1006 <msgtext><literallayout> standard # Internal purposes, recommended not editing</literallayout></msgtext>
1009 <msgtext><literallayout> default # Main actions file</literallayout></msgtext>
1012 <msgtext><literallayout> user # User customizations</literallayout></msgtext>
1018 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1021 No actions are taken at all. Simple neutral proxying.
1029 Multiple <literal>actionsfile</literal> lines are OK and are in fact recommended!
1032 The default values include standard.action, which is used for internal
1033 purposes and should be loaded, default.action, which is the
1034 <quote>main</quote> actions file maintained by the developers, and
1035 <filename>user.action</filename>, where you can make your personal additions.
1038 There is no point in using <application>Privoxy</application> without an actions file.
1045 <sect4 id="filterfile"><title>filterfile</title>
1046 <anchor id="default.filter">
1049 <term>Specifies:</term>
1052 The <link linkend="filter">filter</link> file to use
1057 <term>Type of value:</term>
1059 <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
1063 <term>Default value:</term>
1065 <para>default.filter (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> default.filter.txt (Windows)</para>
1069 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1072 No textual content filtering takes place, i.e. all
1073 <literal>+filter{<replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>}</literal>
1074 actions in the actions files are turned off
1082 The <quote>default.filter</quote> file contains content modification rules
1083 that use <quote>regular expressions</quote>. These rules permit powerful
1084 changes on the content of Web pages, e.g., you could disable your favorite
1085 JavaScript annoyances, re-write the actual displayed text, or just have some
1086 fun replacing <quote>Microsoft</quote> with <quote>MicroSuck</quote> wherever
1087 it appears on a Web page.
1094 <sect4 id="logfile"><title>logfile</title>
1098 <term>Specifies:</term>
1106 <term>Type of value:</term>
1108 <para>File name, relative to <literal>logdir</literal></para>
1112 <term>Default value:</term>
1114 <para>logfile (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> privoxy.log (Windows)</para>
1118 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1121 No log file is used, all log messages go to the console (<literal>stderr</literal>).
1129 The windows version will additionally log to the console.
1132 The logfile is where all logging and error messages are written. The level
1133 of detail and number of messages are set with the <literal>debug</literal>
1134 option (see below). The logfile can be useful for tracking down a problem with
1135 <application>Privoxy</application> (e.g., it's not blocking an ad you
1136 think it should block) but in most cases you probably will never look at it.
1139 Your logfile will grow indefinitely, and you will probably want to
1140 periodically remove it. On Unix systems, you can do this with a cron job
1141 (see <quote>man cron</quote>). For Red Hat, a <command>logrotate</command>
1142 script has been included.
1145 On SuSE Linux systems, you can place a line like <quote>/var/log/privoxy.*
1146 +1024k 644 nobody.nogroup</quote> in <filename>/etc/logfiles</filename>, with
1147 the effect that cron.daily will automatically archive, gzip, and empty the
1148 log, when it exceeds 1M size.
1155 <sect4 id="jarfile"><title>jarfile</title>
1159 <term>Specifies:</term>
1162 The file to store intercepted cookies in
1167 <term>Type of value:</term>
1169 <para>File name, relative to <literal>logdir</literal></para>
1173 <term>Default value:</term>
1175 <para>jarfile (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> privoxy.jar (Windows)</para>
1179 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1182 Intercepted cookies are not stored at all.
1190 The jarfile may grow to ridiculous sizes over time.
1197 <sect4 id="trustfile"><title>trustfile</title>
1200 <term>Specifies:</term>
1203 The trust file to use
1208 <term>Type of value:</term>
1210 <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
1214 <term>Default value:</term>
1216 <para><emphasis>Unset (commented out)</emphasis>. When activated: trust (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> trust.txt (Windows)</para>
1220 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1223 The whole trust mechanism is turned off.
1231 The trust mechanism is an experimental feature for building white-lists and should
1232 be used with care. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> recommended for the casual user.
1235 If you specify a trust file, <application>Privoxy</application> will only allow
1236 access to sites that are named in the trustfile.
1237 You can also mark sites as trusted referrers (with <literal>+</literal>), with
1238 the effect that access to untrusted sites will be granted, if a link from a
1239 trusted referrer was used.
1240 The link target will then be added to the <quote>trustfile</quote>.
1241 Possible applications include limiting Internet access for children.
1244 If you use <literal>+</literal> operator in the trust file, it may grow considerably over time.
1251 <sect4 id="user-manual"><title>user-manual</title>
1254 <term>Specifies:</term>
1257 Location of the <application>Privoxy</application> User Manual.
1262 <term>Type of value:</term>
1264 <para>A fully qualified URI</para>
1268 <term>Default value:</term>
1270 <para><ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink></para>
1274 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1277 The default will be used.
1285 The User Manual is used for help hints from some of the internal CGI pages.
1286 It is normally packaged with the binary distributions, and would make more
1287 sense to have this pointed at a locally installed copy.
1290 A more useful example (Unix):
1293 <emphasis>user-manual file:///usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;/user-manual/</emphasis>
1302 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1306 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1308 <sect3 id="local-set-up">
1309 <title>Local Set-up Documentation</title>
1312 If you intend to operate <application>Privoxy</application> for more users
1313 that just yourself, it might be a good idea to let them know how to reach
1314 you, what you block and why you do that, your policies etc.
1317 <sect4 id="trust-info-url"><title>trust-info-url</title>
1321 <term>Specifies:</term>
1324 A URL to be displayed in the error page that users will see if access to an untrusted page is denied.
1329 <term>Type of value:</term>
1335 <term>Default value:</term>
1337 <para>Two example URL are provided</para>
1341 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1344 No links are displayed on the "untrusted" error page.
1352 The value of this option only matters if the experimental trust mechanism has been
1353 activated. (See <literal>trustfile</literal> above.)
1356 If you use the trust mechanism, it is a good idea to write up some on-line
1357 documentation about your trust policy and to specify the URL(s) here.
1358 Use multiple times for multiple URLs.
1361 The URL(s) should be added to the trustfile as well, so users don't end up
1362 locked out from the information on why they were locked out in the first place!
1369 <sect4 id="admin-address"><title>admin-address</title>
1373 <term>Specifies:</term>
1376 An email address to reach the proxy administrator.
1381 <term>Type of value:</term>
1383 <para>Email address</para>
1387 <term>Default value:</term>
1389 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1393 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1396 No email address is displayed on error pages and the CGI user interface.
1404 If both <literal>admin-address</literal> and <literal>proxy-info-url</literal>
1405 are unset, the whole "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will
1413 <sect4 id="proxy-info-url"><title>proxy-info-url</title>
1417 <term>Specifies:</term>
1420 A URL to documentation about the local <application>Privoxy</application> setup,
1421 configuration or policies.
1426 <term>Type of value:</term>
1432 <term>Default value:</term>
1434 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1438 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1441 No link to local documentation is displayed on error pages and the CGI user interface.
1449 If both <literal>admin-address</literal> and <literal>proxy-info-url</literal>
1450 are unset, the whole "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will
1454 This URL shouldn't be blocked ;-)
1462 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1464 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1466 <sect3 id="debugging">
1467 <title>Debugging</title>
1470 These options are mainly useful when tracing a problem.
1471 Note that you might also want to invoke
1472 <application>Privoxy</application> with the <literal>--no-daemon</literal>
1473 command line option when debugging.
1476 <sect4 id="debug"><title>debug</title>
1480 <term>Specifies:</term>
1483 Key values that determine what information gets logged.
1488 <term>Type of value:</term>
1490 <para>Integer values</para>
1494 <term>Default value:</term>
1496 <para>12289 (i.e.: URLs plus informational and warning messages)</para>
1500 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1503 Nothing gets logged.
1511 The available debug levels are:
1515 debug 1 # show each GET/POST/CONNECT request
1516 debug 2 # show each connection status
1517 debug 4 # show I/O status
1518 debug 8 # show header parsing
1519 debug 16 # log all data into the logfile
1520 debug 32 # debug force feature
1521 debug 64 # debug regular expression filter
1522 debug 128 # debug fast redirects
1523 debug 256 # debug GIF de-animation
1524 debug 512 # Common Log Format
1525 debug 1024 # debug kill pop-ups
1526 debug 4096 # Startup banner and warnings.
1527 debug 8192 # Non-fatal errors
1531 To select multiple debug levels, you can either add them or use
1532 multiple <literal>debug</literal> lines.
1535 A debug level of 1 is informative because it will show you each request
1536 as it happens. <emphasis>1, 4096 and 8192 are highly recommended</emphasis>
1537 so that you will notice when things go wrong. The other levels are probably
1538 only of interest if you are hunting down a specific problem. They can produce
1539 a hell of an output (especially 16).
1543 The reporting of <emphasis>fatal</emphasis> errors (i.e. ones which crash
1544 <application>Privoxy</application>) is always on and cannot be disabled.
1547 If you want to use CLF (Common Log Format), you should set <quote>debug
1548 512</quote> <emphasis>ONLY</emphasis> and not enable anything else.
1555 <sect4 id="single-threaded"><title>single-threaded</title>
1559 <term>Specifies:</term>
1562 Whether to run only one server thread
1567 <term>Type of value:</term>
1569 <para><emphasis>None</emphasis></para>
1573 <term>Default value:</term>
1575 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1579 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1582 Multi-threaded (or, where unavailable: forked) operation, i.e. the ability to
1583 serve multiple requests simultaneously.
1591 This option is only there for debug purposes and you should never
1592 need to use it. <emphasis>It will drastically reduce performance.</emphasis>
1601 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1603 <sect3 id="access-control">
1604 <title>Access Control and Security</title>
1607 This section of the config file controls the security-relevant aspects
1608 of <application>Privoxy</application>'s configuration.
1611 <sect4 id="listen-address"><title>listen-address</title>
1615 <term>Specifies:</term>
1618 The IP address and TCP port on which <application>Privoxy</application> will
1619 listen for client requests.
1624 <term>Type of value:</term>
1626 <para>[<replaceable class="parameter">IP-Address</replaceable>]:<replaceable class="parameter">Port</replaceable></para>
1630 <term>Default value:</term>
1632 <para>localhost:8118</para>
1636 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1639 Bind to localhost (127.0.0.1), port 8118. This is suitable and recommended for
1640 home users who run <application>Privoxy</application> on the same machine as
1649 You will need to configure your browser(s) to this proxy address and port.
1652 If you already have another service running on port 8118, or if you want to
1653 serve requests from other machines (e.g. on your local network) as well, you
1654 will need to override the default.
1657 If you leave out the IP address, <application>Privoxy</application> will
1658 bind to all interfaces (addresses) on your machine and may become reachable
1659 from the Internet. In that case, consider using access control lists (ACL's)
1660 (see <quote>ACLs</quote> below), or a firewall.
1665 <term>Example:</term>
1668 Suppose you are running <application>Privoxy</application> on
1669 a machine which has the address 192.168.0.1 on your local private network
1670 (192.168.0.0) and has another outside connection with a different address.
1671 You want it to serve requests from inside only:
1675 listen-address 192.168.0.1:8118
1683 <sect4 id="toggle"><title>toggle</title>
1687 <term>Specifies:</term>
1690 Initial state of "toggle" status
1695 <term>Type of value:</term>
1701 <term>Default value:</term>
1707 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1710 Act as if toggled on
1718 If set to 0, <application>Privoxy</application> will start in
1719 <quote>toggled off</quote> mode, i.e. behave like a normal, content-neutral
1720 proxy. See <literal>enable-remote-toggle</literal>
1721 below. This is not really useful anymore, since toggling is much easier
1722 via <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">the web
1723 interface</ulink> then via editing the <filename>conf</filename> file.
1726 The windows version will only display the toggle icon in the system tray
1727 if this option is present.
1735 <sect4 id="enable-remote-toggle"><title>enable-remote-toggle</title>
1738 <term>Specifies:</term>
1741 Whether or not the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">web-based toggle
1742 feature</ulink> may be used
1747 <term>Type of value:</term>
1753 <term>Default value:</term>
1759 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1762 The web-based toggle feature is disabled.
1770 When toggled off, <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal,
1771 content-neutral proxy, i.e. it acts as if none of the actions applied to
1775 For the time being, access to the toggle feature can <emphasis>not</emphasis> be
1776 controlled separately by <quote>ACLs</quote> or HTTP authentication,
1777 so that everybody who can access <application>Privoxy</application> (see
1778 <quote>ACLs</quote> and <literal>listen-address</literal> above) can
1779 toggle it for all users. So this option is <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>
1780 for multi-user environments with untrusted users.
1783 Note that you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
1784 support for this feature, otherwise this option has no effect.
1792 <sect4 id="enable-edit-actions"><title>enable-edit-actions</title>
1795 <term>Specifies:</term>
1798 Whether or not the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">web-based actions
1799 file editor</ulink> may be used
1804 <term>Type of value:</term>
1810 <term>Default value:</term>
1816 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1819 The web-based actions file editor is disabled.
1827 For the time being, access to the editor can <emphasis>not</emphasis> be
1828 controlled separately by <quote>ACLs</quote> or HTTP authentication,
1829 so that everybody who can access <application>Privoxy</application> (see
1830 <quote>ACLs</quote> and <literal>listen-address</literal> above) can
1831 modify its configuration for all users. So this option is <emphasis>not
1832 recommended</emphasis> for multi-user environments with untrusted users.
1835 Note that you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
1836 support for this feature, otherwise this option has no effect.
1843 <sect4 id="acls"><title>
1844 ACLs: permit-access and deny-access</title>
1845 <anchor id="permit-acces">
1846 <anchor id="deny-acces">
1850 <term>Specifies:</term>
1853 Who can access what.
1858 <term>Type of value:</term>
1861 <replaceable class="parameter">src_addr</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable>]
1862 [<replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">dst_masklen</replaceable>]]
1865 Where <replaceable class="parameter">src_addr</replaceable> and
1866 <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable> are IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or valid
1867 DNS names, and <replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable> and
1868 <replaceable class="parameter">dst_masklen</replaceable> are subnet masks in CIDR notation, i.e. integer
1869 values from 2 to 30 representing the length (in bits) of the network address. The masks and the whole
1870 destination part are optional.
1875 <term>Default value:</term>
1877 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1881 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1884 Don't restrict access further than implied by <literal>listen-address</literal>
1892 Access controls are included at the request of ISPs and systems
1893 administrators, and <emphasis>are not usually needed by individual users</emphasis>.
1894 For a typical home user, it will normally suffice to ensure that
1895 <application>Privoxy</application> only listens on the localhost or internal (home)
1896 network address by means of the <literal>listen-address</literal> option.
1899 Please see the warnings in the FAQ that this proxy is not intended to be a substitute
1900 for a firewall or to encourage anyone to defer addressing basic security
1904 Multiple ACL lines are OK.
1905 If any ACLs are specified, then the <application>Privoxy</application>
1906 talks only to IP addresses that match at least one <literal>permit-access</literal> line
1907 and don't match any subsequent <literal>deny-access</literal> line. In other words, the
1908 last match wins, with the default being <literal>deny-access</literal>.
1911 If <application>Privoxy</application> is using a forwarder (see <literal>forward</literal> below)
1912 for a particular destination URL, the <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable>
1913 that is examined is the address of the forwarder and <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the address
1914 of the ultimate target. This is necessary because it may be impossible for the local
1915 <application>Privoxy</application> to determine the IP address of the
1916 ultimate target (that's often what gateways are used for).
1919 You should prefer using IP addresses over DNS names, because the address lookups take
1920 time. All DNS names must resolve! You can <emphasis>not</emphasis> use domain patterns
1921 like <quote>*.org</quote> or partial domain names. If a DNS name resolves to multiple
1922 IP addresses, only the first one is used.
1925 Denying access to particular sites by ACL may have undesired side effects
1926 if the site in question is hosted on a machine which also hosts other sites.
1931 <term>Examples:</term>
1934 Explicitly define the default behavior if no ACL and
1935 <literal>listen-address</literal> are set: <quote>localhost</quote>
1936 is OK. The absence of a <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable> implies that
1937 <emphasis>all</emphasis> destination addresses are OK:
1941 permit-access localhost
1945 Allow any host on the same class C subnet as www.privoxy.org access to
1946 nothing but www.example.com:
1950 permit-access www.privoxy.org/24 www.example.com/32
1954 Allow access from any host on the 26-bit subnet 192.168.45.64 to anywhere,
1955 with the exception that 192.168.45.73 may not access www.dirty-stuff.example.com:
1959 permit-access 192.168.45.64/26
1960 deny-access 192.168.45.73 www.dirty-stuff.example.com
1968 <sect4 id="buffer-limit"><title>buffer-limit</title>
1972 <term>Specifies:</term>
1975 Maximum size of the buffer for content filtering.
1980 <term>Type of value:</term>
1982 <para>Size in Kbytes</para>
1986 <term>Default value:</term>
1992 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1995 Use a 4MB (4096 KB) limit.
2003 For content filtering, i.e. the <literal>+filter</literal> and
2004 <literal>+deanimate-gif</literal> actions, it is necessary that
2005 <application>Privoxy</application> buffers the entire document body.
2006 This can be potentially dangerous, since a server could just keep sending
2007 data indefinitely and wait for your RAM to exhaust -- with nasty consequences.
2011 When a document buffer size reaches the <literal>buffer-limit</literal>, it is
2012 flushed to the client unfiltered and no further attempt to
2013 filter the rest of the document is made. Remember that there may be multiple threads
2014 running, which might require up to <literal>buffer-limit</literal> Kbytes
2015 <emphasis>each</emphasis>, unless you have enabled <quote>single-threaded</quote>
2025 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2028 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2030 <sect3 id="forwarding">
2031 <title>Forwarding</title>
2034 This feature allows routing of HTTP requests through a chain of
2036 It can be used to better protect privacy and confidentiality when
2037 accessing specific domains by routing requests to those domains
2038 through an anonymous public proxy (see e.g. <ulink
2039 url="http://www.multiproxy.org/anon_list.htm">http://www.multiproxy.org/anon_list.htm</ulink>)
2040 Or to use a caching proxy to speed up browsing. Or chaining to a parent
2041 proxy may be necessary because the machine that <application>Privoxy</application>
2042 runs on has no direct Internet access.
2046 Also specified here are SOCKS proxies. <application>Privoxy</application>
2047 supports the SOCKS 4 and SOCKS 4A protocols.
2050 <sect4 id="forward"><title>forward</title>
2053 <term>Specifies:</term>
2056 To which parent HTTP proxy specific requests should be routed.
2061 <term>Type of value:</term>
2064 <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2065 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2068 Where <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable> is a domain name pattern (see the
2069 chapter on domain matching in the <filename>default.action</filename> file),
2070 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is the address of the parent HTTP proxy
2071 as an IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or as a valid DNS name (or <quote>.</quote> to denote
2072 <quote>no forwarding</quote>, and the optional
2073 <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> parameters are TCP ports, i.e. integer
2074 values from 1 to 64535
2079 <term>Default value:</term>
2081 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
2085 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2088 Don't use parent HTTP proxies.
2096 If <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is <quote>.</quote>, then requests are not
2097 forwarded to another HTTP proxy but are made directly to the web servers.
2100 Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
2105 <term>Examples:</term>
2108 Everything goes to an example anonymizing proxy, except SSL on port 443 (which it doesn't handle):
2112 forward .* anon-proxy.example.org:8080
2117 Everything goes to our example ISP's caching proxy, except for requests
2118 to that ISP's sites:
2122 forward .*. caching-proxy.example-isp.net:8000
2123 forward .example-isp.net .
2131 <sect4 id="socks"><title>
2132 forward-socks4 and forward-socks4a</title>
2133 <anchor id="forward-socks4">
2134 <anchor id="forward-socks4a">
2138 <term>Specifies:</term>
2141 Through which SOCKS proxy (and to which parent HTTP proxy) specific requests should be routed.
2146 <term>Type of value:</term>
2149 <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2150 <replaceable class="parameter">socks_proxy</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2151 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2154 Where <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable> is a domain name pattern (see the
2155 chapter on domain matching in the <filename>default.action</filename> file),
2156 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> and <replaceable class="parameter">socks_proxy</replaceable>
2157 are IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or valid DNS names (<replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>
2158 may be <quote>.</quote> to denote <quote>no HTTP forwarding</quote>), and the optional
2159 <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> parameters are TCP ports, i.e. integer values from 1 to 64535
2164 <term>Default value:</term>
2166 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
2170 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2173 Don't use SOCKS proxies.
2181 Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
2184 The difference between <literal>forward-socks4</literal> and <literal>forward-socks4a</literal>
2185 is that in the SOCKS 4A protocol, the DNS resolution of the target hostname happens on the SOCKS
2186 server, while in SOCKS 4 it happens locally.
2189 If <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is <quote>.</quote>, then requests are not
2190 forwarded to another HTTP proxy but are made (HTTP-wise) directly to the web servers, albeit through
2196 <term>Examples:</term>
2199 From the company example.com, direct connections are made to all
2200 <quote>internal</quote> domains, but everything outbound goes through
2201 their ISP's proxy by way of example.com's corporate SOCKS 4A gateway to
2206 forward-socks4a .*. socks-gw.example.com:1080 www-cache.example-isp.net:8080
2207 forward .example.com .
2211 A rule that uses a SOCKS 4 gateway for all destinations but no HTTP parent looks like this:
2215 forward-socks4 .*. socks-gw.example.com:1080 .
2223 <sect4 id="advanced-forwarding-examples"><title>Advanced Forwarding Examples</title>
2226 If you have links to multiple ISPs that provide various special content
2227 only to their subscribers, you can configure multiple <application>Privoxies</application>
2228 which have connections to the respective ISPs to act as forwarders to each other, so that
2229 <emphasis>your</emphasis> users can see the internal content of all ISPs.
2233 Assume that host-a has a PPP connection to isp-a.net. And host-b has a PPP connection to
2234 isp-b.net. Both run <application>Privoxy</application>. Their forwarding
2235 configuration can look like this:
2245 forward .isp-b.net host-b:8118
2256 forward .isp-a.net host-a:8118
2261 Now, your users can set their browser's proxy to use either
2262 host-a or host-b and be able to browse the internal content
2263 of both isp-a and isp-b.
2267 If you intend to chain <application>Privoxy</application> and
2268 <application>squid</application> locally, then chain as
2269 <literal>browser -> squid -> privoxy</literal> is the recommended way.
2273 Assuming that <application>Privoxy</application> and <application>squid</application>
2274 run on the same box, your squid configuration could then look like this:
2279 # Define Privoxy as parent proxy (without ICP)
2280 cache_peer 127.0.0.1 parent 8118 7 no-query
2282 # Define ACL for protocol FTP
2285 # Do not forward FTP requests to Privoxy
2286 always_direct allow ftp
2288 # Forward all the rest to Privoxy
2289 never_direct allow all</screen>
2293 You would then need to change your browser's proxy settings to <application>squid</application>'s address and port.
2294 Squid normally uses port 3128. If unsure consult <literal>http_port</literal> in <filename>squid.conf</filename>.
2301 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2304 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2306 <sect3 id="windows-gui">
2307 <title>Windows GUI Options</title>
2309 <application>Privoxy</application> has a number of options specific to the
2310 Windows GUI interface:
2313 <anchor id="activity-animation">
2315 If <quote>activity-animation</quote> is set to 1, the
2316 <application>Privoxy</application> icon will animate when
2317 <quote>Privoxy</quote> is active. To turn off, set to 0.
2324 <emphasis>activity-animation 1</emphasis>
2330 <anchor id="log-messages">
2332 If <quote>log-messages</quote> is set to 1,
2333 <application>Privoxy</application> will log messages to the console
2341 <emphasis>log-messages 1</emphasis>
2347 <anchor id="log-buffer-size">
2349 If <quote>log-buffer-size</quote> is set to 1, the size of the log buffer,
2350 i.e. the amount of memory used for the log messages displayed in the
2351 console window, will be limited to <quote>log-max-lines</quote> (see below).
2355 Warning: Setting this to 0 will result in the buffer to grow infinitely and
2356 eat up all your memory!
2363 <emphasis>log-buffer-size 1</emphasis>
2369 <anchor id="log-max-lines">
2371 <application>log-max-lines</application> is the maximum number of lines held
2372 in the log buffer. See above.
2379 <emphasis>log-max-lines 200</emphasis>
2385 <anchor id="log-highlight-messages">
2387 If <quote>log-highlight-messages</quote> is set to 1,
2388 <application>Privoxy</application> will highlight portions of the log
2389 messages with a bold-faced font:
2396 <emphasis>log-highlight-messages 1</emphasis>
2402 <anchor id="log-font-name">
2404 The font used in the console window:
2411 <emphasis>log-font-name Comic Sans MS</emphasis>
2417 <anchor id="log-font-size">
2419 Font size used in the console window:
2426 <emphasis>log-font-size 8</emphasis>
2432 <anchor id="show-on-task-bar">
2434 <quote>show-on-task-bar</quote> controls whether or not
2435 <application>Privoxy</application> will appear as a button on the Task bar
2443 <emphasis>show-on-task-bar 0</emphasis>
2449 <anchor id="close-button-minimizes">
2451 If <quote>close-button-minimizes</quote> is set to 1, the Windows close
2452 button will minimize <application>Privoxy</application> instead of closing
2453 the program (close with the exit option on the File menu).
2460 <emphasis>close-button-minimizes 1</emphasis>
2466 <anchor id="hide-console">
2468 The <quote>hide-console</quote> option is specific to the MS-Win console
2469 version of <application>Privoxy</application>. If this option is used,
2470 <application>Privoxy</application> will disconnect from and hide the
2487 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2490 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2491 <sect2 id="actions-file"><title>Actions Files</title>
2494 The actions files are used to define what actions
2495 <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which URLs, and thus determines
2496 how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
2497 transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof). There
2498 are three such files included with <application>Privoxy</application>,
2499 with slightly different purposes. <filename>default.action</filename> sets
2500 the default policies. <filename>standard.action</filename> is used by
2501 <application>Privoxy</application> and the web based editor to set
2502 pre-defined values (and normally should not be edited). Local exceptions
2503 are best done in <filename>user.action</filename>. The content of these
2504 can all be viewed and edited from <ulink
2505 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
2509 Anything you want can be blocked, including ads, banners, or just some obnoxious
2510 URL that you would rather not see is done here. Cookies can be accepted or rejected, or
2511 accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not written to disk),
2512 content can be modified, JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking fooled, and much more.
2513 See below for a complete list of available actions.
2517 An actions file typically has sections. Near the top, <quote>aliases</quote> are
2518 optionally defined (discussed <ulink
2519 url="configuration.html#ALIASES">below</ulink>), then the default set of rules
2520 which will apply universally to all sites and pages. And then below that,
2521 exceptions to the defined universal policies.
2524 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2526 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
2528 Note that some <link linkend="actions">actions</link> like cookie suppression
2529 or script disabling may render some sites unusable, which rely on these
2530 techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not easy and
2531 certainly a matter of personal taste. In general, it can be said that the more
2532 <quote>aggressive</quote> your default settings (in the top section of the
2533 actions file) are, the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you
2534 will have to make later. If, for example, you want to kill popup windows per
2535 default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you
2536 regularly use and that require popups for actually useful content, like maybe
2537 your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
2541 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
2542 distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
2543 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
2544 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :).
2548 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2550 <title>How to Edit</title>
2552 The easiest way to edit the <quote>actions</quote> files is with a browser by
2553 using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from <ulink
2554 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
2558 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
2565 <title>How Actions are Applied to URLs</title>
2567 Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections,
2568 like the <quote><link linkend="aliases">alias</link></quote> sections which will be discussed later. For now
2569 let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a heading line (often split
2570 up to multiple lines for readability) which consist of a list of actions,
2571 separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces. Below that, there
2572 is a list of URL patterns, each on a separate line.
2576 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
2577 compared to all patterns in this file. Every time it matches, the list of
2578 applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated, using the heading
2579 of the section in which the pattern is located. If multiple matches for
2580 the same URL set the same action differently, the last match wins. If not,
2581 the effects are aggregated (e.g. a URL might match both the
2582 <ulink url="configuration.html#HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></ulink>
2583 and <ulink url="configuration.html#BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></ulink> actions).
2588 You can trace this process by visiting <ulink
2589 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
2593 More detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
2594 Anatomy of an Action</link>.
2598 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2600 <title>Patterns</title>
2602 Generally, a pattern has the form <literal><domain>/<path></literal>,
2603 where both the <literal><domain></literal> and <literal><path></literal>
2604 are optional. (This is why the pattern <literal>/</literal> matches all URLs).
2609 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
2612 is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2613 regardless of which document on that server is requested.
2618 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
2621 means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
2627 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
2630 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
2631 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
2636 <term><literal>/index.html</literal></term>
2639 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
2640 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server.
2645 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
2648 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
2649 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>.
2655 <sect4><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
2658 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
2659 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
2665 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
2668 matches any domain that <emphasis>ENDS</emphasis> in
2669 <literal>.example.com</literal>
2674 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
2677 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
2678 <literal>www.</literal>
2683 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
2686 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>
2687 (Correctly speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as a domain.)
2694 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
2695 themselves. They work pretty similar to shell wild-cards: <quote>*</quote>
2696 stands for zero or more arbitrary characters, <quote>?</quote> stands for
2697 any single character, you can define character classes in square
2698 brackets and all of that can be freely mixed:
2703 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2706 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
2707 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
2712 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2715 matches all of the above, and then some.
2720 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
2723 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
2724 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
2729 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
2732 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
2733 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
2734 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
2735 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
2743 <sect4><title>The Path Pattern</title>
2746 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl compatible regular expressions
2747 (through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> library) for
2752 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
2753 expressions, and full (very technical) documentation on PCRE regex syntax is available on-line
2754 at <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/man.txt">http://www.pcre.org/man.txt</ulink>.
2755 You might also find the Perl man page on regular expressions (<literal>man perlre</literal>)
2756 useful, which is available on-line at <ulink
2757 url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>.
2761 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
2762 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote> (regular expression speak
2763 for the beginning of a line).
2767 Please also note that matching in the path is case
2768 <emphasis>INSENSITIVE</emphasis> by default, but you can switch to case
2769 sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
2770 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch:
2771 <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match only
2772 documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
2773 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
2779 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2782 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2784 <sect3 id="actions">
2785 <title>Actions</title>
2787 All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
2788 somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
2789 <quote>+</quote>, and turned off if preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. So a
2790 <quote>+action</quote> means <quote>do that action</quote>, e.g.
2791 <quote>+block</quote> means please <quote>block the following URL
2796 Actions are invoked by enclosing the action name in curly braces (e.g.
2797 {+some_action}), followed by a list of URLs (or patterns that match URLs) to
2798 which the action applies. There are three classes of actions:
2806 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>on</quote> or
2807 <quote>off</quote>. Examples:
2813 <emphasis>{+name}</emphasis> # enable this action
2814 <emphasis>{-name}</emphasis> # disable this action
2824 Parameterized, e.g. <quote>+/-hide-user-agent{ Mozilla 1.0 }</quote>,
2825 where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
2832 <emphasis>{+name{param}}</emphasis> # enable action and set parameter to <quote>param</quote>
2833 <emphasis>{-name}</emphasis> # disable action (<quote>parameter</quote>) can be omitted
2842 <!-- oes, or someone, check this. Re-worded 04/20/02 HB. -->
2843 Multi-value, e.g. <quote>{+/-add-header{Name: value}}</quote> or
2844 <quote>{+/-send-wafer{name=value}}</quote>), where some value needs to be defined
2845 in addition to simply enabling the action. Examples:
2851 <emphasis>{+name{param=value}}</emphasis> # enable action and set <quote>param</quote> to <quote>value</quote>
2852 <emphasis>{-name{param=value}}</emphasis> # remove the parameter <quote>param</quote> completely
2853 <emphasis>{-name}</emphasis> # disable this action totally and remove <application>param</application> too
2864 If nothing is specified in any actions file, no <quote>actions</quote> are
2865 taken. So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
2866 normal, non-blocking, non-anonymizing proxy. You must specifically enable the
2867 privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions
2868 files will give a good starting point).
2872 Later defined actions always over-ride earlier ones. So exceptions
2873 to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
2874 in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files). For
2875 multi-valued actions, the actions are applied in the order they are specified.
2876 Actions files are processed in the order they are defined in
2877 <filename>config</filename> (the default installation has three actions
2878 files). It also quite possible for any given URL pattern to match more than
2882 <!-- start actions listing -->
2884 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> <quote>actions</quote> are:
2888 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2889 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
2890 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
2892 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2895 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2897 <sect4 id="add-header">
2898 <title><emphasis>+add-header</emphasis></title>
2903 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2905 <para>Multi-value.</para>
2910 <term>Typical uses:</term>
2913 Send a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
2919 <term>Possible values:</term>
2922 Any value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
2928 <term>Example usage:</term>
2931 <emphasis>{+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}}</emphasis>
2932 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
2941 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
2942 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
2943 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
2952 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2954 <title><emphasis>+block</emphasis></title>
2959 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2961 <para>Boolean.</para>
2966 <term>Typical uses:</term>
2969 Used to block a URL from reaching your browser. The URL may be
2970 anything, but is typically used to block ads or other obnoxious
2977 <term>Possible values:</term>
2984 <term>Example usage:</term>
2987 <emphasis>{+block}</emphasis>
2988 <emphasis>.banners.example.com</emphasis>
2989 <emphasis>.ads.r.us</emphasis>
2998 If a URL matches one of the blocked patterns, <application>Privoxy</application>
2999 will intercept the URL and display its special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page
3000 instead. If there is sufficient space, a large red banner will appear with
3001 a friendly message about why the page was blocked, and a way to go there
3002 anyway. If there is insufficient space a smaller <quote>BLOCKED</quote>
3003 page will appear without the red banner.
3004 <ulink url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html">Click here</ulink>
3005 to view the default blocked HTML page (<application>Privoxy</application> must be running
3006 for this to work as intended!).
3010 A very important exception is if the URL <emphasis>matches both</emphasis>
3011 <quote>+block</quote> and <ulink
3012 url="configuration.html#HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></ulink>,
3013 then it will be handled by
3014 <ulink url="configuration.html#SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></ulink>
3015 (see below). It is important to understand this process, in order
3016 to understand how <application>Privoxy</application> is able to deal with
3017 ads and other objectionable content.
3020 The <ulink url="configuration.html#FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></ulink>
3021 action can also perform some of the
3022 same functionality as <quote>+block</quote>, but by virtue of very
3023 different programming techniques, and is most often used for different
3033 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3034 <sect4 id="deanimate-gifs">
3035 <title><emphasis>+deanimate-gifs</emphasis></title>
3040 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3042 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3047 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3050 To stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.
3056 <term>Possible values:</term>
3059 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
3065 <term>Example usage:</term>
3068 <emphasis>{+deanimate-gifs{last}}</emphasis>
3069 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3078 De-animate all animated GIF images, i.e. reduce them to their last frame.
3079 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
3080 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
3081 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
3082 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
3083 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
3084 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
3092 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3093 <sect4 id="downgrade-http-version">
3094 <title><emphasis>+downgrade-http-version</emphasis></title>
3099 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3101 <para>Boolean.</para>
3106 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3109 <quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote> will downgrade HTTP/1.1 client requests to
3110 HTTP/1.0 and downgrade the responses as well.
3116 <term>Possible values:</term>
3125 <term>Example usage:</term>
3128 <emphasis>{+downgrade-http-version}</emphasis>
3129 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3138 Use this action for servers that use HTTP/1.1 protocol features that
3139 <application>Privoxy</application> doesn't handle well yet. HTTP/1.1 is
3140 only partially implemented. Default is not to downgrade requests. This is
3141 an infrequently needed action, and is used to help with rare problem sites only.
3149 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3150 <sect4 id="fast-redirects">
3151 <title><emphasis>+fast-redirects</emphasis></title>
3156 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3158 <para>Boolean.</para>
3163 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3166 The <quote>+fast-redirects</quote> action enables interception of
3167 <quote>redirect</quote> requests from one server to another, which
3168 are used to track users.<application>Privoxy</application> can cut off
3169 all but the last valid URL in a redirect request and send a local redirect
3170 back to your browser without contacting the intermediate site(s).
3176 <term>Possible values:</term>
3185 <term>Example usage:</term>
3188 <emphasis>{+fast-redirects}</emphasis>
3189 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3198 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
3199 will link to some script on their own server, giving the destination as a
3200 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
3201 resulting from this scheme typically look like:
3202 <emphasis>http://some.place/some_script?http://some.where-else</emphasis>.
3205 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
3206 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
3207 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go
3208 to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your
3209 browser ask the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds
3213 This is a normally <quote>on</quote> feature, and often requires exceptions
3214 for sites that are sensitive to defeating this mechanism.
3223 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3225 <title><emphasis>+filter</emphasis></title>
3230 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3232 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3237 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3240 Apply page filtering as defined by named sections of the
3241 <filename>default.filter</filename> file to the specified site(s).
3242 <quote>Filtering</quote> can be any modification of the raw
3243 page content, including re-writing or deletion of content.
3249 <term>Possible values:</term>
3252 <quote>+filter</quote> must include the name of one of the section identifiers
3253 from <filename>default.filter</filename> (or whatever
3254 <emphasis>filterfile</emphasis> is specified in <filename>config</filename>).
3260 <term>Example usage (from the current <filename>default.filter</filename>):</term>
3264 <anchor id="filter-html-annoyances">
3265 <emphasis>+filter{html-annoyances}</emphasis>: Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse.
3270 <anchor id="filter-js-annoyances">
3271 <emphasis>+filter{js-annoyances}</emphasis>: Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
3276 <anchor id="filter-content-cookies">
3277 <emphasis>+filter{content-cookies}</emphasis>: Kill cookies that come in the HTML or JS content
3282 <anchor id="filter-popups">
3283 <emphasis>+filter{popups}</emphasis>: Kill all popups in JS and HTML
3288 <anchor id="filter-frameset-borders">
3289 <emphasis>+filter{frameset-borders}</emphasis>: Give frames a border and make them resizable
3294 <anchor id="filter-webbugs">
3295 <emphasis>+filter{webbugs}</emphasis>: Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)
3300 <anchor id="filter-refresh-tags">
3301 <emphasis>+filter{refresh-tags}</emphasis>: Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups)
3306 <anchor id="filter-fun">
3307 <emphasis>+filter{fun}</emphasis>: Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!
3312 <anchor id="filter-nimda">
3313 <emphasis>+filter{nimda}</emphasis>: Remove Nimda (virus) code.
3318 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-size">
3319 <emphasis>+filter{banners-by-size}</emphasis>: Kill banners by size (<emphasis>very</emphasis> efficient!)
3324 <anchor id="filter-shockwave-flash">
3325 <emphasis>+filter{shockwave-flash}</emphasis>: Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects
3330 <anchor id="filter-crude-parental">
3331 <emphasis>+filter{crude-parental}</emphasis>: Kill all web pages that contain the words "sex" or "warez"
3341 This is potentially a very powerful feature! And requires a knowledge
3342 of regular expressions if you want to <quote>roll your own</quote>.
3343 Filtering operates on a line by line basis throughout the entire page.
3346 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
3347 slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
3348 passed the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way
3349 since the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more
3350 noticeable on slower connections.
3353 Filtering can achieve some of the effects as the
3354 <ulink url="configuration.html#BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></ulink>
3355 action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. In the overall
3356 scheme of things, filtering is one of the first things <quote>Privoxy</quote>
3357 does with a web page. So other most other actions are applied to the
3358 already <quote>filtered</quote> page.
3367 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3368 <sect4 id="hide-forwarded-for-headers">
3369 <title><emphasis>+hide-forwarded-for-headers</emphasis></title>
3374 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3376 <para>Boolean.</para>
3381 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3384 Block any existing X-Forwarded-for HTTP header, and do not add a new one.
3390 <term>Possible values:</term>
3399 <term>Example usage:</term>
3402 <emphasis>{+hide-forwarded-for-headers}</emphasis>
3403 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3412 It is fairly safe to leave this on. It does not seem to break many sites.
3421 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3422 <sect4 id="hide-from-header">
3423 <title><emphasis>+hide-from-header</emphasis></title>
3428 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3430 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3435 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3438 To block the browser from sending your email address in a <quote>From:</quote>
3445 <term>Possible values:</term>
3448 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
3454 <term>Example usage:</term>
3457 <emphasis>{+hide-from-header{block}}</emphasis>
3458 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3467 The keyword <quote>block</quote> will completely remove the header
3468 (not to be confused with the <ulink
3469 url="configuration.html#BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></ulink> action).
3470 Alternately, you can specify any value you prefer to send to the web
3480 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3481 <sect4 id="hide-referer">
3482 <title><emphasis>+hide-referer</emphasis></title>
3483 <anchor id="hide-referrer">
3487 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3489 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3494 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3497 Don't send the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) HTTP header to the web site.
3498 Or, alternately send a forged header instead.
3504 <term>Possible values:</term>
3507 Prevent the header from being sent with the keyword, <quote>block</quote>.
3508 Or, <quote>forge</quote> a URL to one from the same server as the request.
3509 Or, set to user defined value of your choice.
3515 <term>Example usage:</term>
3518 <emphasis>{+hide-referer{forge}}</emphasis>
3519 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3528 <quote>forge</quote> is the preferred option here, since some servers will
3529 not send images back otherwise.
3532 <quote>+hide-referrer</quote> is an alternate spelling of
3533 <quote>+hide-referer</quote>. It has the exact same parameters, and can be freely
3534 mixed with, <quote>+hide-referer</quote>. (<quote>referrer</quote> is the
3535 correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
3536 requires it to be spelled as <quote>referer</quote>.)
3545 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3546 <sect4 id="hide-user-agent">
3547 <title><emphasis>+hide-user-agent</emphasis></title>
3552 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3554 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3559 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3562 To change the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> header so web servers can't tell
3563 your browser type. Who's business is it anyway?
3569 <term>Possible values:</term>
3572 Any user defined string.
3578 <term>Example usage:</term>
3581 <emphasis>{+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}}</emphasis>
3582 <emphasis>.msn.com</emphasis>
3591 Warning! This breaks many web sites that depend on this in order
3592 to determine how the target browser will respond to various
3593 requests. Use with caution.
3601 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3602 <sect4 id="handle-as-image">
3603 <title><emphasis>+handle-as-image</emphasis></title>
3608 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3610 <para>Boolean.</para>
3615 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3618 To define what <application>Privoxy</application> should treat
3619 automatically as an image, and is an important ingredient of how
3626 <term>Possible values:</term>
3635 <term>Example usage:</term>
3638 <emphasis>{+handle-as-image}</emphasis>
3639 <emphasis>/.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)</emphasis>
3648 This only has meaning if the URL (or pattern) also is
3649 <quote>+block</quote>ed, in which case a user definable image can
3650 be sent rather than a HTML page. This is integral to the whole concept of
3651 ad blocking: the URL must match <emphasis>both</emphasis> a <ulink
3652 url="configuration.html#BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></ulink> rule,
3653 <emphasis>and</emphasis> <quote>+handle-as-image</quote>.
3655 url="configuration.html#SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></ulink>
3656 below for control over what will actually be displayed by the browser.)
3659 There is little reason to change the default definition for this action.
3668 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3669 <sect4 id="set-image-blocker">
3670 <title><emphasis>+set-image-blocker</emphasis></title>
3675 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3677 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3682 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3685 Decide what to do with URLs that end up tagged with <emphasis>both</emphasis>
3686 <ulink url="configuration.html#BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></ulink>
3688 url="configuration.html#HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></ulink>,
3689 e.g an advertisement.
3695 <term>Possible values:</term>
3698 There are four available options: <quote>-set-image-blocker</quote> will send a HTML
3699 <quote>blocked</quote> page, usually resulting in a <quote>broken
3701 <quote>+set-image-blocker{<emphasis>blank</emphasis>}</quote> will send a
3702 1x1 transparent GIF image.
3703 <quote>+set-image-blocker{<emphasis>pattern</emphasis>}</quote> will send a
3704 checkerboard type pattern (the default). And finally,
3705 <quote>+set-image-blocker{<emphasis>http://xyz.com</emphasis>}</quote> will
3706 send a HTTP temporary redirect to the specified image. This has the
3707 advantage of the icon being being cached by the browser, which will speed
3714 <term>Example usage:</term>
3717 <emphasis>{+set-image-blocker{blank}}</emphasis>
3718 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3727 If you want <emphasis>invisible</emphasis> ads, they need to meet
3728 criteria as matching both <emphasis>images</emphasis> and <emphasis>blocked</emphasis>
3729 actions. And then, <quote>image-blocker</quote> should be set to
3730 <quote>blank</quote> for invisibility. Note you cannot treat HTML pages as
3731 images in most cases. For instance, frames require an HTML page to
3732 display. So a frame that is an ad, typically cannot be treated as an image.
3733 Forcing an <quote>image</quote> in this situation just will not work
3742 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3743 <sect4 id="limit-connect">
3744 <title><emphasis>+limit-connect</emphasis></title>
3749 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3751 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3756 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3759 By default, <application>Privoxy</application> only allows HTTP CONNECT
3760 requests to port 443 (the standard, secure HTTPS port). Use
3761 <quote>+limit-connect</quote> to disable this altogether, or to allow
3768 <term>Possible values:</term>
3771 Any valid port number, or port number range.
3777 <term>Example usages:</term>
3779 <!-- I had trouble getting the spacing to look right in my browser -->
3780 <!-- I probably have the wrong font setup, bollocks. -->
3781 <!-- Apparently the emphasis tag uses a proportional font no matter what -->
3783 <emphasis>+limit-connect{443}</emphasis> # This is the default and need not be specified.
3784 <emphasis>+limit-connect{80,443}</emphasis> # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
3785 <emphasis>+limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-}</emphasis> # Port less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
3794 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
3795 (https:// URLs) through proxies. It works very simply: the proxy connects
3796 to the server on the specified port, and then short-circuits its
3797 connections to the client <emphasis>and</emphasis> to the remote proxy.
3798 This can be a big security hole, since CONNECT-enabled proxies can be
3799 abused as TCP relays very easily.
3802 If you want to allow CONNECT for more ports than this, or want to forbid
3803 CONNECT altogether, you can specify a comma separated list of ports and
3804 port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum defaulting to 0 and
3808 If you don't know what any of this means, there probably is no reason to
3817 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3818 <sect4 id="prevent-compression">
3819 <title><emphasis>+prevent-compression</emphasis></title>
3824 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3826 <para>Boolean.</para>
3831 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3834 Prevent the specified websites from compressing HTTP data.
3840 <term>Possible values:</term>
3849 <term>Example usage:</term>
3852 <emphasis>{+prevent-compression}</emphasis>
3853 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3862 Some websites do this, which can be a problem for
3863 <application>Privoxy</application>, since
3864 <ulink url="configuration.html#FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></ulink>,
3865 <ulink url="configuration.html#KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></ulink>
3867 url="configuration.html#GIF-DEANIMATE"><quote>+gif-deanimate</quote></ulink>
3868 will not work on compressed data. This will slow down connections to those
3869 websites, though. Default typically is to turn
3870 <quote>prevent-compression</quote> on.
3878 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3879 <sect4 id="session-cookies-only">
3880 <title><emphasis>+session-cookies-only</emphasis></title>
3885 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3887 <para>Boolean.</para>
3892 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3895 Allow cookies for the current browser session <emphasis>only</emphasis>.
3901 <term>Possible values:</term>
3910 <term>Example usage (disabling):</term>
3913 <emphasis>{-session-cookies-only}</emphasis>
3914 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3923 If websites set cookies, <quote>+session-cookies-only</quote> will make sure
3924 they are erased when you exit and restart your web browser. This makes
3925 profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
3926 that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
3927 sites, and is the recommended setting.
3930 <quote>+prevent-*-cookies</quote> actions should be turned off as well (see
3931 below), for <quote>+session-cookies-only</quote> to work. Or, else no cookies
3932 will get through at all. For, <quote>persistent</quote> cookies that survive
3933 across browser sessions, see below as well.
3942 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3943 <sect4 id="prevent-reading-cookies">
3944 <title><emphasis>+prevent-reading-cookies</emphasis></title>
3949 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3951 <para>Boolean.</para>
3956 <term>Typical uses:</term>
3959 Explicitly prevent the web server from reading any cookies on your
3966 <term>Possible values:</term>
3975 <term>Example usage:</term>
3978 <emphasis>{+prevent-reading-cookies}</emphasis>
3979 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
3988 Often used in conjunction with <quote>+prevent-setting-cookies</quote> to
3989 disable cookies completely. Note that
3990 <ulink url="configuration.html#SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></ulink>
3991 requires these to both be disabled (or else it never gets any cookies to cache).
3994 For <quote>persistent</quote> cookies to work (i.e. they survive across browser
3995 sessions and reboots), all three cookie settings should be <quote>off</quote>
3996 for the specified sites.
4005 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4006 <sect4 id="prevent-setting-cookies">
4007 <title><emphasis>+prevent-setting-cookies</emphasis></title>
4012 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4014 <para>Boolean.</para>
4019 <term>Typical uses:</term>
4022 Explicitly block the web server from storing cookies on your
4029 <term>Possible values:</term>
4038 <term>Example usage:</term>
4041 <emphasis>{+prevent-setting-cookies}</emphasis>
4042 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
4051 Often used in conjunction with <quote>+prevent-reading-cookies</quote> to
4052 disable cookies completely (see above).
4061 <!-- ~~~~~ Nvarlistentryew section ~~~~~ -->
4062 <sect4 id="kill-popup">
4063 <title><emphasis>+kill-popups<anchor id="kill-popups"></emphasis></title>
4067 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4069 <para>Boolean.</para>
4074 <term>Typical uses:</term>
4077 Stop those annoying JavaScript pop-up windows!
4083 <term>Possible values:</term>
4092 <term>Example usage:</term>
4095 <emphasis>{+kill-popups}</emphasis>
4096 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
4105 <quote>+kill-popups</quote> uses a built in filter to disable pop-ups
4106 that use the <literal>window.open()</literal> function, etc. This is
4107 one of the first actions processed by <application>Privoxy</application>
4108 as it contacts the remote web server. This action is not always 100% reliable,
4109 and is supplemented by <quote>+filter{<emphasis>popups</emphasis>}</quote>.
4113 An alternate spelling is <quote>+kill-popup</quote>, which is
4124 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4125 <sect4 id="send-vanilla-wafer">
4126 <title><emphasis>+send-vanilla-wafer</emphasis></title>
4131 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4133 <para>Boolean.</para>
4138 <term>Typical uses:</term>
4141 Sends a cookie for every site stating that you do not accept any copyright
4142 on cookies sent to you, and asking them not to track you.
4148 <term>Possible values:</term>
4157 <term>Example usage:</term>
4160 <emphasis>{+send-vanilla-wafer}</emphasis>
4161 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
4170 This action only applies if you are using a <filename>jarfile</filename>
4171 for saving cookies. Of course, this is a (relatively) unique header and
4172 could conceivably be used to track you.
4181 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4182 <sect4 id="send-wafer">
4183 <title><emphasis>+send-wafer</emphasis></title>
4188 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4190 <para>Multi-value.</para>
4195 <term>Typical uses:</term>
4198 This allows you to send an arbitrary, user definable cookie.
4204 <term>Possible values:</term>
4207 User specified cookie name and corresponding value.
4213 <term>Example usage:</term>
4216 <emphasis>{+send-wafer{name=value}}</emphasis>
4217 <emphasis>.example.com</emphasis>
4226 This can be specified multiple times in order to add as many cookies as you
4236 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4238 <title>Summary</title>
4240 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
4241 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
4242 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
4243 content, and other criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard
4244 and fast rules for all sites. See the <link
4245 linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link> for a brief example on troubleshooting
4251 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4252 <sect4 id="act-examples" renderas="sect3">
4253 <title>Sample Actions Files</title>
4255 Remember that the meaning of any of the above references is reversed by preceding
4256 the action with a <quote>-</quote>, in place of the <quote>+</quote>. Also,
4257 that some actions are turned on in the default section of the actions file,
4258 and require little to no additional configuration. These are just <quote>on</quote>.
4262 But, other actions that are turned on in the default section <emphasis>do
4263 typically require</emphasis> exceptions to be listed in the latter sections of
4264 one of our actions file. For instance, by default no URLs are
4265 <quote>blocked</quote> (i.e. in the default definitions of
4266 <filename>default.action</filename>). We need exceptions to this in order to
4267 <emphasis>enable</emphasis> ad blocking in the lower sections. But we need to
4268 be very selective about what we do block. Thus, the default is <quote>off</quote>
4273 Below is a liberally commented sample <filename>default.action</filename> file
4274 to demonstrate how all the pieces come together. And to show how exceptions
4275 to the default policies can be handled. This is followed by a brief
4276 <filename>user.action</filename> with similar examples.
4283 # Sample default.action file <developers@privoxy.org>
4285 # Settings -- Don't change! For internal Privoxy use ONLY.
4287 for-privoxy-version=3.0
4290 ##########################################################################
4291 # <ulink url="configuration.html#ALIASES">Aliases</ulink> must be defined *before* they are used. These are
4292 # easier to remember, and can combine several actions into one. Once
4293 # defined they can be used just like any built-in action -- but within
4294 # this file only! Aliases do not require a + or - sign.
4295 ##########################################################################
4297 # Some useful aliases.
4298 # Alias to turn off cookie handling, ie allow all cookies unmolested.
4299 -prevent-cookies = -prevent-setting-cookies -prevent-reading-cookies \
4300 -session-cookies-only
4302 # Alias to both block and treat as if an image for ad blocking
4304 +imageblock = +block +handle-as-image
4306 # Fragile sites should have the minimum changes:
4307 fragile = -block -deanimate-gifs -fast-redirects -filter -hide-referer \
4308 -prevent-cookies -kill-popups
4310 # Shops should be allowed to set persistent cookies
4311 shop = -filter -prevent-cookies -session-cookies-only
4314 ##########################################################################
4315 # Begin default action settings. Anything in this section will match
4316 # all URLs -- UNLESS we have exceptions that also match, defined below this
4317 # section. We will show all potential actions here whether they are on
4318 # or off. We could omit any disabled action if we wanted, since all
4319 # actions are 'off' by default anyway. Shown for completeness only.
4320 # Actions are enabled if preceded by a '+', otherwise they are disabled
4321 # (unless an alias has been defined without this).
4322 ##########################################################################
4324 <ulink url="configuration.html#ADD-HEADER">-add-header</ulink> \
4325 <ulink url="configuration.html#BLOCK">-block</ulink> \
4326 <ulink url="configuration.html#DEANIMATE-GIFS">-deanimate-gifs</ulink> \
4327 <ulink url="configuration.html#DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION">-downgrade-http-version</ulink> \
4328 <ulink url="configuration.html#FAST-REDIRECTS">+fast-redirects</ulink> \
4329 <ulink url="configuration.html#FILTER-HTML-ANNOYANCES">+filter{html-annoyances}</ulink> \
4330 <ulink url="configuration.html#FILTER-JS-ANNOYANCES">+filter{js-annoyances}</ulink> \
4331 <ulink url="configuration.html#FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">-filter{content-cookies}</ulink> \
4332 <ulink url="configuration.html#FILTER-POPUPS">-filter{popups}</ulink> \
4333 <ulink url="configuration.html#FILTER-WEBBUGS">+filter{webbugs}</ulink> \
4334 <ulink url="configuration.html#FILTER-REFRESH-TAGS">-filter{refresh-tags}</ulink> \
4335 <ulink url="configuration.html#FILTER-FUN">-filter{fun}</ulink> \
4336 <ulink url="configuration.html#FILTER-NIMDA">+filter{nimda}</ulink> \
4337 <ulink url="configuration.html#FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE">+filter{banners-by-size}</ulink> \
4338 <ulink url="configuration.html#FILTER-SHOCKWAVE-FLASH">-filter{shockwave-flash}</ulink> \
4339 <ulink url="configuration.html#FILTER-CRUDE-PARENTAL">-filter{crude-prental}</ulink> \
4340 <ulink url="configuration.html#HIDE-FORWARDED-FOR-HEADERS">+hide-forwarded-for-headers</ulink> \
4341 <ulink url="configuration.html#HIDE-FROM-HEADER">+hide-from-header{block}</ulink> \
4342 <ulink url="configuration.html#HIDE-REFERER">-hide-referrer</ulink> \
4343 <ulink url="configuration.html#HIDE-USER-AGENT">-hide-user-agent</ulink> \
4344 <ulink url="configuration.html#HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">-handle-as-image</ulink> \
4345 <ulink url="configuration.html#SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER">+set-image-blocker{pattern}</ulink> \
4346 <ulink url="configuration.html#LIMIT-CONNECT">-limit-connect</ulink> \
4347 <ulink url="configuration.html#PREVENT-COMPRESSION">+prevent-compression</ulink> \
4348 <ulink url="configuration.html#SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">-session-cookies-only</ulink> \
4349 <ulink url="configuration.html#PREVENT-READING-COOKIES">-prevent-reading-cookies</ulink> \
4350 <ulink url="configuration.html#PREVENT-SETTING-COOKIES">-prevent-setting-cookies</ulink> \
4351 <ulink url="configuration.html#KILL-POPUPS">-kill-popups</ulink> \
4352 <ulink url="configuration.html#SEND-VANILLA-WAFER">-send-vanilla-wafer</ulink> \
4353 <ulink url="configuration.html#SEND-WAFER">-send-wafer</ulink> \
4355 / # forward slash will match *all* potential URL patterns.
4357 ##########################################################################
4358 # Default behavior is now set. Now we will define some exceptions to our
4359 # default action policies.
4360 ##########################################################################
4362 # These sites are very complex and require very minimal interference.
4363 # We'll disable most actions with our 'fragile' alias:
4365 .office.microsoft.com # surprise, surprise!
4366 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
4369 # Shopping sites - not as fragile but require some special
4370 # handling. We still want to block ads, and we will allow
4371 # persistant cookies via the 'shop' alias:
4374 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
4379 # These sites require pop-ups too :( We'll combine our 'shop'
4380 # alias with two other actions into one rule to allow all popups.
4381 { shop <ulink url="configuration.html#KILL-POPUPS">-kill-popups</ulink> <ulink url="configuration.html#FILTER-POPUPS">-filter{popups}</ulink> }
4386 # The 'Fast-redirects' action breaks some sites. Disable this action
4387 # for these known sensitive sites:
4388 { <ulink url="configuration.html#FAST-REDIRECTS">-fast-redirects</ulink> }
4390 edit.europe.yahoo.com
4392 .altavista.com/.*(like|url|link):http
4393 .altavista.com/trans.*urltext=http
4397 # Define which file types will be treated as images. Important
4399 { <ulink url="configuration.html#HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">+handle-as-image</ulink> }
4400 /.*\.(gif|jpe?g|png|bmp|ico)
4403 # Now lets list some domains that are known ad generators. And
4404 # our alias that we use here will block these as well as force
4405 # them to be treated as images. This combination of actions is
4406 # important for ad blocking. What the browser will show instead is
4407 # determined by the setting of <ulink url="configuration.html#SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></ulink>
4411 .a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
4412 .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
4416 ad.*.doubleclick.net
4419 # These will just simply be blocked. They will generate the BLOCKED
4420 # banner page, if matched. Heavy use of wildcards and regular
4421 # expressions in this example. Enable block action:
4422 { <ulink url="configuration.html#BLOCK">+block</ulink> }
4427 /.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?)
4428 /(?:.*/)?(publicite|werbung|rekla(ma|me|am)|annonse|maino(kset|nta|s)?)/
4432 # The above block section will probably inadvertantly catch some
4433 # sites we DO NOT want blocked via the wildcards and regular expressions.
4434 # Now let's set exceptions to the exceptions so the good guys get better
4435 # treatment. Disable block action:
4436 { <ulink url="configuration.html#BLOCK">-block</ulink> }
4441 # Let's just trust all .edu top level domains.
4443 www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv
4444 # We'll need to access to path names containing 'download'
4447 # 'adv' is for globalintersec and means advanced, not advertisement
4448 www.globalintersec.com/adv
4451 # Don't filter *anything* from our friends at sourceforge.
4452 # Notice we don't have to name the individual filter
4453 # identifiers -- we just turn them all off in one fell swoop.
4454 # Disable all filters for this one site:
4455 { <ulink url="configuration.html#FILTER">-filter</ulink> }
4463 So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies.
4464 The above would be a reasonable starting point for many situations. Now,
4465 we want to be more specific and have customized rules that are more suitable
4466 to our personal habits and preferences. These would be for narrowly defined
4467 situations like your ISP or your bank, and should be placed in
4468 <filename>user.action</filename>, which is parsed after all other
4469 actions files and should not be clobbered by upgrades. So any settings here,
4470 will have the last word and over-ride any previously defined actions.
4474 Now a few examples of some things that one might do with a
4475 <filename>user.action</filename> file.
4478 <!-- brief sample user.action here -->
4484 # Sample user.action file.
4486 # Any aliases you want to use need to be re-defined here.
4487 # Alias to turn off cookie handling, ie allow all cookies unmolested.
4488 -prevent-cookies = -prevent-setting-cookies -prevent-reading-cookies \
4489 -session-cookies-only
4491 # Fragile sites should have the minimum changes:
4492 fragile = -block -deanimate-gifs -fast-redirects -filter -hide-referer \
4493 -prevent-cookies -kill-popups
4495 # Allow persistent cookies for a few regular sites that we
4496 # trust via our above alias. These will be saved from one browser session
4497 # to the next. We are explicity turning off any and all cookie handling,
4498 # even though the prevent-*-cookie settings were disabled in our above
4499 # default.action anyway. So cookies from these domains will come through
4501 { -prevent-cookies }
4508 # My ISP uses obnoxious self promoting images on many pages.
4509 # Nuke them :) Note that <ulink url="configuration.html#HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></ulink> need not be specified,
4510 # since all URLs ending in .gif will be tagged as images by the
4511 # general rules in default.action anyway.
4512 { <ulink url="configuration.html#BLOCK">+block</ulink> }
4513 www.my-isp-example.com/logo[0-9].gif
4515 # Say the site where you do your homebanking needs to open
4516 # popup windows, but you have chosen to kill popups by
4517 # default. This will allow it for your-example-bank.com:
4519 { <ulink url="configuration.html#FILTER-POPUPS">-filter{popups}</ulink> <ulink url="configuration.html#KILL-POPUPS">-kill-popups</ulink> }
4520 .my-example-bank.com
4522 # This site is delicate, and requires kid-glove
4534 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4537 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4538 <sect3 id="aliases">
4539 <title>Aliases</title>
4541 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
4542 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other <quote>actions</quote>.
4543 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in <quote>actions</quote>.
4544 Currently, an alias can contain any character except space, tab, <quote>=</quote>,
4545 <quote>{</quote> or <quote>}</quote>. But please use only <quote>a</quote>-
4546 <quote>z</quote>, <quote>0</quote>-<quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and
4547 <quote>-</quote>. Alias names are not case sensitive, and
4548 <emphasis>must be defined before other actions</emphasis> in the
4549 actions file! And there can only be one set of <quote>aliases</quote>
4550 defined per file. Each actions file may have its own aliases, but they are
4551 only visible within that file. Aliases do not requir a <quote>+</quote> or
4552 <quote>-</quote> sign in front, since they are merely expanded.
4556 Now let's define a few aliases:
4563 # Useful custom aliases we can use later. These must come first!
4565 +prevent-cookies = +prevent-setting-cookies +prevent-reading-cookies
4566 -prevent-cookies = -prevent-setting-cookies -prevent-reading-cookies
4567 fragile = -block -prevent-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -kill-popups
4568 shop = -prevent-cookies -filter -fast-redirects
4569 +imageblock = +block +handle-as-image
4571 # Aliases defined from other aliases, for people who don't like to type
4573 c0 = +prevent-cookies
4574 c1 = -prevent-cookies
4575 #... etc. Customize to your heart's content.
4582 Some examples using our <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote>
4583 aliases from above. These would appear in the lower sections of an
4584 actions file as exceptions to the default actions (as defined in the
4592 # These sites are very complex and require
4593 # minimal interference.
4595 .office.microsoft.com
4596 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
4599 # Shopping sites - but we still want to block ads.
4602 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
4605 # These shops require pop-ups also
4615 The <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> aliases are often used for
4616 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require most actions to be disabled
4617 in order to function properly.
4624 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4627 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4628 <sect2 id="filter-file">
4629 <title>The Filter File</title>
4631 Any web page can be dynamically modified with the filter file. This
4632 modification can be removal, or re-writing, of any web page content,
4633 including tags and non-visible content. The default filter file is
4634 oddly enough <filename>default.filter</filename>, located in the config
4639 This is potentially a very powerful feature, and requires knowledge of both
4640 <quote>regular expression</quote> and HTML in order create custom
4641 filters. But, there are a number of useful filters included with
4642 <application>Privoxy</application> for many common situations.
4646 The included example file is divided into sections. Each section begins
4647 with the <literal>FILTER</literal> keyword, followed by the identifier
4648 for that section, e.g. <quote>FILTER: webbugs</quote>. Each section performs
4649 a similar type of filtering, such as <quote>html-annoyances</quote>.
4653 This file uses regular expressions to alter or remove any string in the
4654 target page. The expressions can only operate on one line at a time. Some
4655 examples from the included default <filename>default.filter</filename>:
4659 Stop web pages from displaying annoying messages in the status bar by
4660 deleting such references:
4667 FILTER: html-annoyances
4669 # New browser windows should be resizeable and have a location and status
4672 s/resizable="?(no|0)"?/resizable=1/ig s/noresize/yesresize/ig
4673 s/location="?(no|0)"?/location=1/ig s/status="?(no|0)"?/status=1/ig
4674 s/scrolling="?(no|0|Auto)"?/scrolling=1/ig
4675 s/menubar="?(no|0)"?/menubar=1/ig
4677 # The <BLINK> tag was a crime!
4679 s*<blink>|</blink>**ig
4683 #s/framespacing="?(no|0)"?//ig
4684 #s/margin(height|width)=[0-9]*//gi
4691 Just for kicks, replace any occurrence of <quote>Microsoft</quote> with
4692 <quote>MicroSuck</quote>, and have a little fun with topical buzzwords:
4701 s/microsoft(?!.com)/MicroSuck/ig
4705 s/industry-leading|cutting-edge|award-winning/<font color=red><b>BINGO!</b></font>/ig
4712 Kill those pesky little web-bugs:
4719 # webbugs: Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)
4722 s/<img\s+[^>]*?(width|height)\s*=\s*['"]?1\D[^>]*?(width|height)\s*=\s*['"]?1(\D[^>]*?)?>/<!-- Squished WebBug -->/sig
4729 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4731 <title>The +filter Action</title>
4733 Filters are enabled with the <ulink
4734 url="configuration.html#FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></ulink> action from within
4735 one of the actions files. <quote>+filter</quote> requires one parameter, which
4736 should match one of the section identifiers in the filter file itself. Example:
4740 +filter{html-annoyances}
4744 This would activate that particular filter. Similarly, <quote>+filter</quote>
4745 can be turned off for selected sites as:
4746 <quote>-filter{html-annoyances}</quote>. Remember too, all actions are off by
4747 default, unless they are explicity enabled in one of the actions files.
4754 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4758 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4761 <title>Templates</title>
4763 When <application>Privoxy</application> displays one of its internal
4764 pages, such as a <ulink url="http://bogus_404_page.com">404 Not Found error page</ulink>
4765 (<application>Privoxy</application> must be running for link to work as
4766 intended), it uses the appropriate template. On Linux, BSD, and Unix, these
4767 are located in <filename>/etc/privoxy/templates</filename> by default. These
4768 may be customized, if desired. <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> is used to
4769 control the HTML attributes (fonts, etc).
4773 <ulink url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html">Blocked
4774 (<application>Privoxy</application> needs to be running for page to display)</ulink>
4775 banner page with the bright red top
4776 banner, is called just <quote><filename>blocked</filename></quote>. This
4777 may be customized or replaced with something else if desired.
4784 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4788 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4790 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
4793 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
4795 <!-- end boilerplate -->
4800 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4801 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Copyright and History</title>
4803 <sect2><title>Copyright</title>
4804 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
4806 <!-- end copyright -->
4809 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4812 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4814 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
4815 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
4817 <!-- end history -->
4821 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4822 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
4823 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
4825 <!-- end seealso -->
4830 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4831 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
4834 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4836 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
4838 <application>Privoxy</application> can use <quote>regular expressions</quote>
4839 in various config files. Assuming support for <quote>pcre</quote> (Perl
4840 Compatible Regular Expressions) is compiled in, which is the default. Such
4841 configuration directives do not require regular expressions, but they can be
4842 used to increase flexibility by matching a pattern with wild-cards against
4847 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
4848 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
4849 introduction only. A full explanation would require a book ;-)
4853 <quote>Regular expressions</quote> is a way of matching one character
4854 expression against another to see if it matches or not. One of the
4855 <quote>expressions</quote> is a literal string of readable characters
4856 (letter, numbers, etc), and the other is a complex string of literal
4857 characters combined with wild-cards, and other special characters, called
4858 meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have special meanings and
4859 are used to build the complex pattern to be matched against. Perl Compatible
4860 Regular Expressions is an enhanced form of the regular expression language
4861 with backward compatibility.
4865 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
4866 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
4867 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
4868 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
4869 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
4870 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
4871 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
4872 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
4876 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
4877 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
4878 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
4879 and then some examples:
4884 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
4885 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
4887 </simplelist></para>
4891 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
4894 </simplelist></para>
4898 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
4901 </simplelist></para>
4905 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
4908 </simplelist></para>
4912 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
4913 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
4914 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
4915 not as a special meta-character. Example: <quote>example\.com</quote>, makes
4916 sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
4917 meta-character meaning of any single character).
4919 </simplelist></para>
4923 <emphasis>[]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
4924 any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, <quote>[0-9]</quote>
4925 matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
4926 this with <quote>+</quote> to match any digit one of more times: <quote>[0-9]+</quote>.
4928 </simplelist></para>
4932 <emphasis>()</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
4933 or multiple sub-expressions.
4935 </simplelist></para>
4939 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
4940 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
4941 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches. As an example:
4942 <quote>/(this|that) example/</quote> uses grouping and the bar character
4943 and would match either <quote>this example</quote> or <quote>that
4944 example</quote>, and nothing else.
4946 </simplelist></para>
4950 <emphasis>s/string1/string2/g</emphasis> - This is used to rewrite strings of text.
4951 <quote>string1</quote> is replaced by <quote>string2</quote> in this
4952 example. There must of course be a match on <quote>string1</quote> first.
4954 </simplelist></para>
4957 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
4958 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
4959 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
4960 be more illuminating:
4964 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
4965 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
4966 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
4967 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
4968 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
4969 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
4970 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
4971 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
4972 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
4973 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
4974 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
4975 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
4976 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
4977 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
4982 A now something a little more complex:
4986 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
4987 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
4988 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
4989 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
4990 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
4991 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
4992 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
4997 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
4998 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
4999 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
5000 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
5001 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
5002 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
5003 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
5004 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
5005 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
5006 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
5007 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
5008 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
5009 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
5010 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
5011 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
5012 changing our regular expression to:
5013 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
5018 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
5019 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
5020 <quote>[]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
5021 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
5022 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
5023 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
5024 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
5025 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
5026 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
5027 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
5028 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
5029 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
5030 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
5031 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
5032 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
5033 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
5034 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
5035 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
5036 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
5037 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
5038 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
5039 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
5040 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
5041 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
5042 in the expression anywhere).
5046 <emphasis><literal>s/microsoft(?!.com)/MicroSuck/i</literal></emphasis> - This is
5047 a substitution. <quote>MicroSuck</quote> will replace any occurrence of
5048 <quote>microsoft</quote>. The <quote>i</quote> at the end of the expression
5049 means ignore case. The <quote>(?!.com)</quote> means
5050 the match should fail if <quote>microsoft</quote> is followed by
5051 <quote>.com</quote>. In other words, this acts like a <quote>NOT</quote>
5052 modifier. In case this is a hyperlink, we don't want to break it ;-).
5056 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
5057 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
5058 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
5059 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
5060 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
5065 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
5066 <ulink url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>
5071 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5074 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5076 <title><application>Privoxy</application>'s Internal Pages</title>
5079 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
5080 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
5081 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
5082 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
5083 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
5084 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
5085 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
5091 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
5092 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
5093 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
5094 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
5107 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
5111 Alternately, this may be reached at <ulink
5112 url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>, but this
5113 variation may not work as reliably as the above in some configurations.
5119 Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
5120 editing of actions files:
5124 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
5131 Show the source code version numbers:
5135 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
5142 Show the browser's request headers:
5146 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
5153 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
5157 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
5164 Toggle Privoxy on or off. In this case, <quote>Privoxy</quote> continues
5165 to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking place:
5169 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
5173 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
5177 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
5182 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
5191 These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
5195 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
5196 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
5198 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
5199 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
5200 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
5201 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
5202 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
5203 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
5206 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
5207 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
5208 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
5209 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
5210 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
5211 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
5220 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>
5227 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>
5234 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)
5241 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>
5247 <ulink url="javascript:w=Math.floor(screen.width/2);h=Math.floor(screen.height*0.9);void(window.open('http://www.privoxy.org/actions','Feedback','screenx='+w+',width='+w+',height='+h+',scrollbars=yes,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Submit Filter Feedback</ulink>
5257 Credit: The site which gave me the general idea for these bookmarklets is
5258 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
5259 have more information about bookmarklets.
5268 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5270 <title>Chain of Events</title>
5272 Let's take a quick look at the basic sequence of events when a web page is
5273 requested by your browser and <application>Privoxy</application> is on duty:
5280 First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
5281 the request to <application>Privoxy</application>, which will in turn,
5282 relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
5288 <application>Privoxy</application> traps any request for its own internal CGI
5289 pages (e.g http://p.p/) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
5294 Next, <application>Privoxy</application> checks to see if the URL
5296 url="configuration.html#BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></ulink> patterns. If
5297 so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
5298 <ulink url="configuration.html#HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></ulink>
5299 is then checked and if it does not match, an
5300 HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page is sent back. Otherwise, if it does match,
5301 an image is returned. The type of image depends on the setting of <ulink
5302 url="configuration.html#SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></ulink>
5303 (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
5308 Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
5309 <filename>trust</filename> file, then that is done.
5314 If the URL pattern matches the <ulink
5315 url="configuration.html#FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></ulink> action,
5316 it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
5321 Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
5322 of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. <ulink
5323 url="configuration.html#HIDE-USER-AGENT"><quote>+hide-user-agent</quote></ulink>,
5324 etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
5330 Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web page and related
5336 First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
5337 things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
5338 filtered as deterimed by the
5339 <ulink url="configuration.html#PREVENT-SETTING-COOKIES"><quote>+prevent-setting-cookies</quote></ulink>,
5340 <ulink url="configuration.html#SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></ulink>,
5341 and <ulink url="configuration.html#DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION"><quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote></ulink>
5347 If the <ulink url="configuration.html#KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></ulink>
5348 action applies, and it is an HTML or JavaScript document, the popup-code in the
5349 response is filtered on-the-fly as it is received.
5354 If a <ulink url="configuration.html#FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></ulink>
5356 url="configuration.html#DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></ulink>
5357 action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
5358 read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from
5359 <filename>default.filter</filename>) are processed against the buffered
5360 content. Filters are applied in the order they are specified in the
5361 <filename>default.filter</filename> file. Animated GIFs, if present, are
5362 reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
5363 setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
5364 <application>Privoxy</application> back to your browser.
5367 If neither <ulink url="configuration.html#FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></ulink>
5369 url="configuration.html#DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></ulink>
5370 matches, then <application>Privoxy</application> passes the raw data through
5371 to the client browser as it becomes available.
5376 As the browser receives the now (probably filtered) page content, it
5377 reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
5378 source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
5379 frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a new
5380 request. And each such request is in turn processed as above. Note that a
5381 complex web page may have many such embedded URLs.
5391 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5392 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
5393 <title>Anatomy of an Action</title>
5396 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies
5397 <ulink url="configuration.html#ACTIONS"><quote>actions</quote></ulink>
5398 and <ulink url="configuration.html#FILTER"><quote>filters</quote></ulink>
5399 to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
5400 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
5401 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
5402 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
5403 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
5404 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
5405 <quote>regular expressions</quote> whose consequences are not always
5410 One quick test to see if <application>Privoxy</application> is causing a problem
5411 or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
5412 step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
5413 and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!).
5417 <application>Privoxy</application> also provides the
5418 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
5419 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
5420 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
5424 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
5425 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
5426 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
5427 help with filtering effects (i.e. the <ulink
5428 url="configuration.html#FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></ulink> action) from
5429 the <filename>default.filter</filename> file since this is handled very
5430 differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other
5431 URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images
5432 such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So
5433 you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area
5434 -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you
5435 will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View
5436 Page Source</quote> option for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the
5441 Let's try an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
5442 and look at it one section at a time:
5447 Matches for http://google.com:
5449 --- File standard ---
5450 (no matches in this file)
5452 --- File default ---
5454 { -add-header -block +deanimate-gifs{last} -downgrade-http-version +fast-redirects
5455 -filter{popups} -filter{fun} -filter{shockwave-flash} -filter{crude-parental}
5456 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{content-cookies}
5457 +filter{webbugs} +filter{refresh-tags} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size}
5458 +hide-forwarded-for-headers +hide-from-header{block} +hide-referer{forge}
5459 -hide-user-agent -handle-as-image +set-image-blocker{pattern} -limit-connect
5460 +prevent-compression +session-cookies-only -prevent-reading-cookies
5461 -prevent-setting-cookies -kill-popups -send-vanilla-wafer -send-wafer }
5464 { -session-cookies-only }
5471 (no matches in this file)
5476 This tells us how we have defined our
5477 <ulink url="configuration.html#ACTIONS"><quote>actions</quote></ulink>, and
5478 which ones match for our example, <quote>google.com</quote>. The first listing
5479 is any matches for the <filename>standard.action</filename> file. No hits at
5480 all here on <quote>standard</quote>. Then next is <quote>default</quote>, or
5481 our <filename>default.action</filename> file. The large, multi-line listing,
5482 is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default settings.
5483 If you look at your <quote>actions</quote> file, this would be the section
5484 just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section near the top. This will apply to
5485 all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end of the listing
5486 -- <quote>/</quote>.
5490 But we can define additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
5491 rules, and then list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions would
5492 apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit matches for
5493 <quote>.google.com</quote>. The first is negating our previous cookie setting,
5494 which was for <ulink
5495 url="configuration.html#SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></ulink>
5496 (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google. The
5497 second turns <emphasis>off</emphasis> any
5499 url="configuration.html#FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></ulink>
5500 action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading
5501 dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will match any hosts and
5502 sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
5503 <quote>www.google.com</quote>. So, apparently, we have these two actions
5504 defined somewhere in the lower part of our <filename>default.action</filename>
5505 file, and <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced somewhere in these latter
5510 Then, for our <filename>user.action</filename> file, we again have no hits.
5514 And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
5515 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
5516 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
5524 -add-header -block +deanimate-gifs{last} -downgrade-http-version -fast-redirects
5525 -filter{popups} -filter{fun} -filter{shockwave-flash} -filter{crude-parental}
5526 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{content-cookies}
5527 +filter{webbugs} +filter{refresh-tags} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size}
5528 +hide-forwarded-for-headers +hide-from-header{block} +hide-referer{forge}
5529 -hide-user-agent -handle-as-image +set-image-blocker{pattern} -limit-connect
5530 +prevent-compression -session-cookies-only -prevent-reading-cookies
5531 -prevent-setting-cookies -kill-popups -send-vanilla-wafer -send-wafer
5536 Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
5537 <quote>fast-redirects</quote> and <quote>session-cookies-only</quote>.
5541 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
5547 { +block +handle-as-image }
5550 { +block +handle-as-image }
5553 { +block +handle-as-image }
5559 We'll just show the interesting part here, the explicit matches. It is
5560 matched three different times. Each as an <quote>+block +handle-as-image</quote>,
5561 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
5562 <quote>+imageblock</quote>. (<ulink
5563 url="configuration.html#ALIASES"><quote>Aliases</quote></ulink> are defined in
5564 the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
5569 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
5570 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
5571 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
5572 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
5573 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
5574 is done here -- as both a <ulink
5575 url="configuration.html#BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></ulink>
5576 <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
5578 url="configuration.html#HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></ulink>.
5579 The custom alias <quote>+imageblock</quote> just simplifies the process and make
5584 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
5585 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm...
5591 Matches for http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
5593 { -add-header -block +deanimate-gifs -downgrade-http-version +fast-redirects
5594 +filter{html-annoyances} +filter{js-annoyances} +filter{kill-popups}
5595 +filter{webbugs} +filter{nimda} +filter{banners-by-size} +filter{hal}
5596 +filter{fun} +hide-forwarded-for-headers +hide-from-header{block}
5597 +hide-referer{forge} -hide-user-agent -handle-as-image +set-image-blocker{blank}
5598 +prevent-compression +session-cookies-only -prevent-setting-cookies
5599 -prevent-reading-cookies +kill-popups -send-vanilla-wafer -send-wafer }
5602 { +block +handle-as-image }
5608 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote>! But
5609 we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the blank page. We could
5610 now add a new action below this that explicitly does <emphasis>not</emphasis>
5611 block (<quote>{-block}</quote>) paths with <quote>adsl</quote>. There are
5612 various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
5624 Now the page displays ;-) Be sure to flush your browser's caches when
5625 making such changes. Or, try using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
5629 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
5636 { +block +handle-as-image }
5642 That actually was very telling and pointed us quickly to where the problem
5643 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
5644 rules in the first section is causing the problem. This would require some
5645 guesswork, and maybe a little trial and error to isolate the offending rule.
5646 One likely cause would be one of the <quote>{+filter}</quote> actions. Try
5647 adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off <quote>+filter</quote>:
5655 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
5663 <quote>{shop}</quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
5664 <quote>{ -filter -session-cookies-only }</quote>.
5665 Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
5678 This would probably be most appropriately put in <filename>user.action</filename>,
5679 for local site exceptions.
5683 <quote>{fragile}</quote> is an alias that disables most actions. This can be
5684 used as a last resort for problem sites. Remember to flush caches! If this
5685 still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining actions one by
5686 one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
5695 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
5696 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
5697 Public License as published by the Free Software
5698 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
5699 your option) any later version.
5701 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
5702 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
5703 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
5704 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
5705 License for more details.
5707 The GNU General Public License should be included with
5708 this file. If not, you can view it at
5709 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
5710 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
5711 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
5713 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
5714 Revision 1.96 2002/04/27 05:32:00 hal9
5715 -Add short section to Filter Files to tie in with +filter action.
5716 -Start rewrite of examples in Actions Examples (not finished).
5718 Revision 1.95 2002/04/26 17:23:29 swa
5719 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
5721 Revision 1.94 2002/04/26 05:24:36 hal9
5722 -Add most of Andreas suggestions to Chain of Events section.
5723 -A few other minor corrections and touch up.
5725 Revision 1.92 2002/04/25 18:55:13 hal9
5726 More catchups on new actions files, and new actions names.
5727 Other assorted cleanups, and minor modifications.
5729 Revision 1.91 2002/04/24 02:39:31 hal9
5730 Add 'Chain of Events' section.
5732 Revision 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 hal9
5733 Linuxconf is deprecated on RH, substitute chkconfig.
5735 Revision 1.89 2002/04/23 21:05:28 oes
5736 Added hint for startup on Red Hat
5738 Revision 1.88 2002/04/23 05:37:54 hal9
5739 Add AmigaOS install stuff.
5741 Revision 1.87 2002/04/23 02:53:15 david__schmidt
5742 Updated OSX installation section
5743 Added a few English tweaks here an there
5745 Revision 1.86 2002/04/21 01:46:32 hal9
5746 Re-write actions section.
5748 Revision 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9
5749 Fix ugly typo (mine).
5751 Revision 1.84 2002/04/18 21:17:13 hal9
5752 Spell Redhat correctly (ie Red Hat). A few minor grammar corrections.
5754 Revision 1.83 2002/04/18 18:21:12 oes
5755 Added RPM install detail
5757 Revision 1.82 2002/04/18 12:04:50 oes
5760 Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
5761 Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
5763 Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
5764 Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
5766 Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
5767 Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
5769 Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
5772 Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
5773 Proofreading, part one
5775 Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
5776 -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
5777 -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
5779 Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
5780 Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
5782 Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
5783 Add small section on submitting actions.
5785 Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
5788 Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
5789 Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
5791 Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
5792 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
5794 Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
5797 Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
5798 -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
5799 -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
5800 -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
5801 -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
5803 Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
5804 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
5806 Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
5807 more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
5809 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
5810 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
5811 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
5812 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
5813 eventually be set by Makefile.
5814 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
5816 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
5817 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
5819 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
5820 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
5822 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
5823 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
5825 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
5826 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
5827 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
5828 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
5830 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
5833 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
5834 Added more to Anatomy section.
5836 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
5837 Touch up intro for new name.
5839 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
5840 we have a new homepage!
5842 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
5843 A few minor catch ups with name change.
5845 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
5846 configure needs to be generated.
5848 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
5849 we are too lazy to make a block-built
5850 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
5852 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
5853 name change related issue.
5855 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
5856 name change. changed filenames.
5858 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
5861 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
5862 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
5863 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
5864 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
5865 comments and remarks to history untouched.
5867 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
5870 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
5871 New section in Appendix.
5873 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
5874 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
5876 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
5877 correct feedback channels
5879 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
5880 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
5882 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
5885 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
5886 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
5888 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
5889 Added imageblock{pattern}.
5891 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
5894 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
5895 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
5897 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
5898 provide correct feedback channels
5900 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
5901 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
5903 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
5904 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
5906 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
5907 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
5909 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
5910 Add new - - user option.
5912 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
5913 Added section on command line options.
5915 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
5916 Changed default port to 8118
5918 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
5919 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
5921 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
5922 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
5923 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
5926 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
5929 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
5930 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
5932 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
5933 Update OS/2 build section
5935 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
5936 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
5937 will work - no other changes are needed.
5939 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
5940 Added a very short section on Templates
5942 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
5943 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
5945 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
5946 Touch ups for *.action files.
5948 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
5951 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
5952 Updates for recent changes.
5954 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
5955 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
5957 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
5958 Correct 2 minor errors
5960 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
5961 *** empty log message ***
5963 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
5964 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
5966 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
5967 wrong url in documentation
5969 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
5970 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
5972 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
5975 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
5978 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
5981 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
5982 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
5984 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
5985 Some additions, and re-arranging.
5987 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
5990 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
5991 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
5993 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
5996 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
5997 source files for junkbuster documentation
5999 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
6000 first proposal of a structure.
6002 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
6003 docs should have an author.
6005 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
6006 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.