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 contacting SYSTEM "contacting.sgml">
8 <!entity history SYSTEM "history.sgml">
9 <!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
10 <!entity license SYSTEM "license.sgml">
11 <!entity p-version "3.0.18">
12 <!entity p-status "UNRELEASED">
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-supp-userman "INCLUDE"> <!-- Include all from supported.sgml -->
18 <!entity my-copy "©"> <!-- kludge for docbook2man -->
19 <!entity % p-newstuff "INCLUDE"> <!-- exclude stuff from devel versions -->
20 <!entity % seealso-extra "INCLUDE"> <!-- extra stuff from seealso.sgml -->
21 <!entity my-app "<application>Privoxy</application>">
24 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/faq.sgml,v $
27 This file belongs into
28 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
30 $Id: faq.sgml,v 2.81 2011/09/04 11:10:12 fabiankeil Exp $
32 Copyright (C) 2001-2009 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org/
35 Based partially on the Internet Junkbuster FAQ originally written by and
36 Copyright (C) 1997 Anonymous Coders and Junkbusters Corporation.
37 http://www.junkbusters.com/
39 <Qandaset defaultlabel='qanda'>
54 ========================================================================
55 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
58 Please we keep the info in this file as version independent as possible
59 so we only have to maintain one FAQ. Where significant changes are
60 made to Privoxy configuration, please note the change in such a way that
61 it makes sense to both users of older and newer versions.
62 ========================================================================
68 <article id="index" class="faq">
70 <title>Privoxy Frequently Asked Questions</title>
74 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
75 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
76 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001-2011 by
77 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
81 <pubdate>$Id: faq.sgml,v 2.81 2011/09/04 11:10:12 fabiankeil Exp $</pubdate>
85 Note: this should generate a separate page, and a live link to it.
86 But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave commented
87 unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the copyright
88 statement will be in copyright.smgl.
92 <legalnotice id="legalnotice">
94 text goes here ........
104 <orgname>By: Privoxy Developers</orgname>
113 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
114 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
115 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
120 This FAQ gives quick answers to frequently asked questions about
121 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy</ulink>.
122 It is not a substitute for the
123 <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html"><citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle></ulink>.
125 This works, at least in some situtations:
126 Test: <ulink url="privoxy-user-manual.pdf"><citetitle>User Manual</citetitle></ulink>.
130 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
131 <para>What is Privoxy?</para> &p-intro;
132 <!-- end boilerplate -->
135 Please note that this document is a work in progress. This copy represents
136 the state at the release of version &p-version;.
137 You can find the latest version of the document at <ulink
138 url="http://www.privoxy.org/faq/">http://www.privoxy.org/faq/</ulink>.
139 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> if you want to
140 contact the developers.
144 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
150 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
152 <sect1 id="general"><title>General Information</title>
153 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="who-uses"><title>Who should give &my-app; a try?</title>
155 Anyone who is interested in security, privacy, or in
156 finer-grained control over their web and Internet experience.
160 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="bestchoice"><title>Is Privoxy the best choice for
163 &my-app; is certainly a good choice, especially for those who want more
164 control and security. Those with the willingness to read the documentation
165 and the ability to fine-tune their installation will benefit the most.
168 One of <application>Privoxy's</application>
169 strengths is that it is highly configurable giving you the ability to
170 completely personalize your installation. Being familiar with, or at least
171 having an interest in learning about <ulink
172 url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Http">HTTP</ulink> and other networking
173 protocols, <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html">HTML</ulink>, and
174 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
175 Expressions</quote></ulink>
176 will be a big plus and will help you get the most out of &my-app;.
177 A new installation just includes a very basic configuration. The user
178 should take this as a starting point only, and enhance it as he or she
179 sees fit. In fact, the user is encouraged, and expected to, fine-tune the
183 Much of <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration can be done
184 with a <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_browser">Web browser</ulink>.
185 But there are areas where configuration is done using a
186 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_editors">text editor</ulink>
187 to edit configuration files. Also note that the web-based action editor
188 doesn't use authentication and should only be enabled in environments
189 where all clients with access to &my-app; listening port can be trusted.
193 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="proxymoron"><title>What is a <quote>proxy</quote>? How does
194 Privoxy work? </title>
196 A <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">web proxy</ulink>
197 is a service, based on a software such as &my-app;, that clients
198 (i.e. browsers) can use instead of connecting to web servers directly.
199 The clients then ask the proxy to request objects (web pages, images, movies etc)
200 on their behalf and to forward the data to the clients.
201 It is a <quote>go-between</quote>. For details, see
202 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">Wikipedia's proxy definition</ulink>.
205 There are many reasons to use web proxies, such as security (firewalling),
206 efficiency (caching) and others, and there are any number of proxies
207 to accommodate those needs.
210 &my-app; is a proxy that is primarily focused on
211 privacy enhancement, ad and junk elimination and freeing the user from
212 restrictions placed on his activities. Sitting between your browser(s) and the Internet,
213 it is in a perfect position to filter outbound personal information that your
214 browser is leaking, as well as inbound junk. It uses a variety of techniques to do
215 this, all of which are under your complete control via the various configuration
216 files and options. Being a proxy also makes it easier to share
217 configurations among multiple browsers and/or users.
221 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="otherstuff">
222 <title>Does Privoxy do anything more than ad blocking?</title>
224 Yes, ad blocking is but one possible use. There are many, many ways &my-app;
225 can be used to sanitize and customize web browsing.
229 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newjb"><title>What is this new version of
230 <quote><citetitle>Junkbuster</citetitle></quote>?</title>
232 <!-- Include history.sgml -->
239 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
240 <title id="whyprivoxy">Why <quote>Privoxy</quote>? Why change the name from
241 Junkbuster at all?</title>
243 Though outdated, <ulink url="http://junkbusters.com/">Junkbusters Corporation</ulink>
244 continues to offer their original version of the <application>Internet
245 Junkbuster</application>, so publishing our
246 <application> Junkbuster</application>-derived software under the same name
250 There are also potential legal complications from our use of the
251 <application>Junkbuster</application> name, which is a registered trademark of
252 <ulink url="http://junkbusters.com/">Junkbusters Corporation</ulink>.
253 There are, however, no objections from Junkbusters Corporation to the
254 <application>Privoxy</application> project itself, and they, in fact, still
255 share our ideals and goals.
258 The developers also believed that there are so many improvements over the original
259 code, that it was time to make a clean break from the past and make
260 a name in their own right.
263 <application>Privoxy</application> is the
264 <quote><emphasis>Privacy Enhancing Proxy</emphasis></quote>. Also, its content
265 modification and junk suppression gives <emphasis>you</emphasis>, the user, more
266 control, more freedom, and allows you to browse your personal and
267 <quote><emphasis>private</emphasis> edition</quote> of the web.
271 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="differs"><title>How does Privoxy differ
272 from the old Junkbuster?</title>
274 <application>Privoxy</application> picks up where
275 <application>Junkbuster</application> left off.
276 The new <application>Privoxy</application> still blocks ads and banners,
278 url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>, and still
279 helps protect your privacy. But, most of these features have been enhanced,
280 and many new ones have been added, all in the same vein.
283 <application>Privoxy</application>'s new features include:
286 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml: -->
292 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whatsanad">
293 <title id="knows">How does Privoxy know what is
294 an ad, and what is not?</title>
296 <application>Privoxy</application>'s approach to blocking ads is twofold:
299 First, there are certain patterns in the <emphasis>locations</emphasis> (URLs)
300 of banner images. This applies to both the path (you wouldn't guess how many
301 web sites serve their banners from a directory called <quote>banners</quote>!)
302 and the host (blocking the big banner hosting services like doublecklick.net
303 already helps a lot). <application>Privoxy</application> takes advantage of this
304 fact by using <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#AF-PATTERNS">URL
305 patterns</ulink> to sort out and block the requests for things that sound
306 like they would be ads or banners.
309 Second, banners tend to come in certain <emphasis>sizes</emphasis>. But you
310 can't tell the size of an image by its URL without downloading it, and if you
311 do, it's too late to save bandwidth. Therefore, <application>Privoxy</application>
312 also inspects the HTML sources of web pages while they are loaded, and replaces
313 references to images with standard banner sizes by dummy references, so that
314 your browser doesn't request them anymore in the first place.
317 Both of this involves a certain amount of guesswork and is, of course, freely
318 and readily configurable.
322 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
323 <title id="mistakes">Can Privoxy make mistakes?
324 This does not sound very scientific.</title>
326 Actually, it's a black art ;-) And yes, it is always possible to have a broad
327 rule accidentally block or change something by mistake. You will almost surely
328 run into such situations at some point. It is tricky writing rules to
329 cover every conceivable possibility, and not occasionally get false positives.
333 But this should not be a big concern since the
334 <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is very flexible, and
335 includes tools to help identify these types of situations so they can be
336 addressed as needed, allowing you to customize your installation.
337 (<link linkend="badsite">See the Troubleshooting section below</link>.)
342 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
343 <title id="configornot">Will I have to configure Privoxy
344 before I can use it?</title>
346 That depends on your expectations.
347 The default installation should give you a good starting
348 point, and block <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads and unwanted content,
349 but many of the more advanced features are off by default, and require
350 you to activate them.
353 You do have to set up your browser to use
354 <application>Privoxy</application> (see the <link
355 linkend="firststep">Installation section below</link>).
358 And you will certainly run into situations where there are false positives,
359 or ads not being blocked that you may not want to see. In these cases, you
360 would certainly benefit by customizing <application>Privoxy's</application>
361 configuration to more closely match your individual situation. And we
362 encourage you to do this. This is where the real power of
363 <application>Privoxy</application> lies!
368 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="lan">
369 <title>Can Privoxy run as a server on a network?</title>
371 Yes, &my-app; runs as a server already, and can easily be configured to
372 <quote>serve</quote> more than one client. See <link linkend="lanconfig">
373 How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my LAN</link> below.
377 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="browsers2"><title>My browser does the same things as
378 Privoxy. Why should I use Privoxy at all?</title>
380 Modern browsers do indeed have <emphasis>some</emphasis> of the same
381 functionality as <application>Privoxy</application>. Maybe this is
382 adequate for you. But <application>Privoxy</application> is very
383 versatile and powerful, and can probably do a number of things
384 your browser just can't.
387 In addition, a proxy is good choice if you use multiple browsers, or
388 have a LAN with multiple computers since &my-app; can run as a server
389 application. This way all the configuration is in one place, and you don't
390 have to maintain a similar configuration for possibly many browsers or
394 Note, however, that it's recommended to leverage both your browser's
395 and <application>Privoxy's</application> privacy enhancing features
396 at the same time. While your browser probably lacks some features
397 &my-app; offers, it should also be able to do some things more
398 reliable, for example restricting and suppressing JavaScript.
402 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whytrust"><title>Why should I trust Privoxy?</title>
404 The most important reason is because you have access to
405 <emphasis>everything</emphasis>, and you can control everything. You can
406 check every line of every configuration file yourself. You can check every
407 last bit of source code should you desire. And even if you can't read code,
408 there should be some comfort in knowing that <!-- thousands of -->other people can,
409 and do read it. You can build the software from scratch, if you want,
410 so that you know the executable is clean, and that it is
411 <emphasis>yours</emphasis>. In fact, we encourage this level of scrutiny. It
412 is one reason we use &my-app; ourselves.
416 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="license"><title>Is there is a license or fee? What about a
417 warranty? Registration?</title>
419 <application>Privoxy</application> is free software and licensed under the <ulink
420 url="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html">GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2</ulink>.
421 It is free to use, copy, modify or distribute as you wish under the terms of this
422 license. Please see the <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> section for more
423 information on the license and copyright. Or the <filename>LICENSE</filename> file
424 that should be included.
427 There is <emphasis>no warranty</emphasis> of any kind, expressed, implied or otherwise.
428 That is something that would cost real money ;-) There is no registration either.
433 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="spyware">
434 <title>Can Privoxy remove spyware? Adware? Viruses?</title>
436 No, at least not reliably enough to trust it. &my-app; is not designed to be
437 a malware removal tool and the default configuration doesn't even try to
438 filter out any malware.
441 &my-app; could help prevent contact from (known) sites that use such
442 tactics with appropriate configuration rules, and thus could conceivably
443 prevent contamination from such sites. However, keeping such a configuration
444 up to date would require a lot of time and effort that would be better spend
445 on keeping your software itself up to date so it doesn't have known
451 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="otherads">
452 <title>Can I use Privoxy with other ad-blocking software?</title>
454 &my-app; should work fine with other proxies and other software in general.
457 But it is probably not necessary to use &my-app; in conjunction with other
458 ad-blocking products, and this could conceivably cause undesirable results.
459 It might be better to choose one software or the other and work a little to
460 tweak its configuration to your liking.
463 Note that this is an advice specific to ad blocking.
467 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="help-the-developers"><title id="jointeam">I would like to help you, what can I do?</title>
469 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="participate"><title id="jointeam-work">Would you like to participate?</title>
471 Well, we <emphasis>always</emphasis> need help. There is something for
472 everybody who wants to help us. We welcome new developers, packagers,
473 testers, documentation writers or really anyone with a desire to help in
474 any way. You <emphasis>DO NOT</emphasis> need to be a
475 <quote>programmer</quote>. There are many other tasks available. In fact,
476 the programmers often can't spend as much time programming because of some
477 of the other, more mundane things that need to be done, like checking the
478 Tracker feedback sections or responding to user questions on the mailing
482 So first thing, subscribe to the <ulink
483 url="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-users">Privoxy Users</ulink>
484 or the <ulink url="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-developers">Privoxy
485 Developers</ulink> mailing list, join the discussion, help out other users, provide general
486 feedback or report problems you noticed.
489 If you intend to help out with the trackers, you also might want to <ulink
490 url="https://sourceforge.net/account/register.php">get an account on SourceForge.net</ulink>
491 so we don't confuse you with the other name-less users.
494 We also have a <ulink
495 url="../developer-manual/index.html">Developer's Manual</ulink>.
496 While it is partly out of date, it's still worth reading.
499 Our <ulink url="http://ijbswa.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/ijbswa/current/TODO?view=markup">TODO list</ulink>
500 may be of interest to you as well.
501 Please let us know if you want to work on one of the items listed.
505 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="donate"><title>Would you like to donate?</title>
507 <application>Privoxy</application> is developed by unpaid volunteers
508 and thus our current running costs are pretty low. Nevertheless, we
509 have plans that will cost money in the future. We would like to get
510 this money through donations made by our users.
514 <application>Privoxy</application> has therefore become an associated
515 project of <ulink url="http://www.spi-inc.org/about-spi/about-spi">Software
516 in the Public Interest (SPI)</ulink>, which allows us to receive donations.
517 In the United States they are tax-deductible, in a few other western countries
518 they might be tax-deductible in the future.
522 We intend to use the donations to pay for our domain after transferring
523 it to SPI. Our goal is to make sure there's no single point of failure
524 and the bill gets paid and the site keeps running even if a some of
525 the currently active developers were to suddenly disappear for a while.
529 We would also like to spend some money on more reliable hosting,
530 on hardware to help make sure <application>Privoxy</application>
531 keeps running on platforms the developers currently can't test on,
532 and on technical books to educate our developers about said platforms
533 or to improve their knowledge in general.
537 If you enjoy our software and feel like helping out with a donation,
538 please have a look at
539 <ulink url="http://www.spi-inc.org/donations">SPI's donation page</ulink>
540 to see what the options are.
549 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
551 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
553 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whichbrowsers">
554 <title>Which browsers are supported by Privoxy?</title>
556 Any browser that can be configured to use a proxy, which
557 should be virtually all browsers, including
558 <application>Firefox</application>, <application>Internet
559 Explorer</application>, <application>Opera</application>, and
560 <application>Safari</application> among others.
561 Direct browser support is not an absolute requirement since
562 <application>Privoxy</application> runs as a separate application and talks
563 to the browser in the standardized HTTP protocol, just like a web server
568 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whichos">
569 <title>Which operating systems are supported?</title>
571 Include supported.sgml here:
576 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="email-client">
577 <title>Can I use Privoxy with my email client?</title>
579 As long as there is some way to set a HTTP proxy for the client, then yes,
580 any application can be used, whether it is strictly speaking a
581 <quote>browser</quote> or not. Though this may not be the best approach for
582 dealing with some of the common abuses of HTML in email. See <link
583 linkend="outlook">How can I configure <application>Privoxy</application>
584 with <application>Outlook</application>?</link> below for more on
588 Be aware that HTML email presents a number of unique security and privacy
589 related issues, that can require advanced skills to overcome. The developers
590 recommend using email clients that can be configured to convert HTML to plain
591 text for these reasons.
595 <!-- Nobody is going to still be doing this!
596 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newinstall"><title>Can I install
597 Privoxy over Junkbuster?</title>
599 We recommend you un-install <application>Junkbuster</application>
600 first to minimize conflicts and confusion. You may want to
601 save your old configuration files for future reference. The configuration
602 files and syntax have substantially changed, so you will need to manually
603 port your old patterns. See the <ulink url="../user-manual/upgradersnote.html">note
604 to upgraders</ulink> and <ulink url="../user-manual/installation.html">installation
605 chapter</ulink> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">User Manual</ulink>
609 Note: Some installers may automatically un-install
610 <application>Junkbuster</application>, if present!
616 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="firststep">
617 <title>I just installed Privoxy. Is there anything
618 special I have to do now?</title>
621 All browsers should be told to use <application>Privoxy</application>
622 as a proxy by specifying the correct proxy address and port number
623 in the appropriate configuration area for the browser. It's possible
624 to combine &my-app; with a packet filter to intercept HTTP requests
625 even if the client isn't explicitly configured to use &my-app;,
626 but where possible, configuring the client is recommended. See
627 <ulink url="../user-manual/startup.html">the User Manual for more
628 details</ulink>. You should also flush your browser's memory and disk
629 cache to get rid of any cached junk items, and remove any stored
630 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>.
636 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="localhost"><title>What is the proxy address of Privoxy?</title>
638 If you set up the <application>Privoxy</application> to run on
639 the computer you browse from (rather than your ISP's server or some
640 networked computer on a LAN), the proxy will be on <literal>127.0.0.1</literal>
641 (sometimes referred to as <quote>localhost</quote>,
642 which is the special name used by every computer on the Internet to refer
643 to itself) and the port will be 8118 (unless you used the <ulink
644 url="../user-manual/config.html#LISTEN-ADDRESS">listen-address</ulink>
645 config option to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to run on
649 When configuring your browser's proxy settings you typically enter
650 the word <quote>localhost</quote> or the IP address <quote>127.0.0.1</quote>
651 in the boxes next to <quote>HTTP</quote> and <quote>Secure</quote> (HTTPS) and
652 then the number <quote>8118</quote> for <quote>port</quote>.
653 This tells your browser to send all web requests to <application>Privoxy</application>
654 instead of directly to the Internet.
657 <application>Privoxy</application> can also be used to proxy for
658 a Local Area Network. In this case, your would enter either the IP
659 address of the LAN host where <application>Privoxy</application>
660 is running, or the equivalent hostname, e.g. <literal>192.168.1.1</literal>.
661 Port assignment would be same as above. Note that
662 <application>Privoxy</application> doesn't listen on any LAN interfaces by
666 <application>Privoxy</application> does not currently handle
667 any other protocols such as FTP, SMTP, IM, IRC, ICQ, etc.
671 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="nothing">
672 <title>I just installed Privoxy, and nothing is happening.
673 All the ads are there. What's wrong?</title>
676 Did you configure your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application>
677 as a proxy? It does not sound like it. See above. You might also try flushing
678 the browser's caches to force a full re-reading of pages. You can verify
679 that <application>Privoxy</application> is running, and your browser
680 is correctly configured by entering the special URL:
681 <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>.
682 <!-- Use http://p.p/ instead of http://config.privoxy.org/ here because
683 of potential redirect caching problem (see next Q). -->
684 This should take you to a page titled <quote>This is Privoxy..</quote> with
685 access to <application>Privoxy's</application> internal configuration.
686 If you see this, then you are good to go. If you receive a page saying
687 <quote>Privoxy is not running</quote>, then the browser is not set up to use
688 your <application>Privoxy</application> installation.
689 If you receive anything else (probably nothing at all), it could either
690 be that the browser is not set up correctly, or that
691 <application>Privoxy</application> is not running at all. Check the <ulink
692 url="../user-manual/config.html#LOGFILE">log file</ulink>. For instructions
693 on starting <application>Privoxy</application> and browser configuration,
694 see the <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/startup.html">chapter
695 on starting <application>Privoxy</application></ulink> in the
696 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">User Manual</ulink>.
701 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="notused">
702 <title>I get a <quote>Privoxy is not being used</quote> dummy page although
703 Privoxy is running and being used.</title>
706 First, make sure that Privoxy is <emphasis>really</emphasis> running and
707 being used by visiting <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>. You
708 should see the <application>Privoxy</application> main page. If not, see
709 the <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/startup.html">chapter
710 on starting <application>Privoxy</application></ulink> in the
711 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">User Manual</ulink>.
715 Now if <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> works for you, but
716 other parts of <application>Privoxy</application>'s web interface show
717 the dummy page, your browser has cached a redirection it encountered before
718 <application>Privoxy</application> was being used. You need to clear your
719 browser's cache. Note that shift-reloading the dummy page won't help, since
720 that'll only refresh the dummy page, not the redirection that lead you there.
724 The procedure for clearing the cache varies from browser to browser. For
725 example, <application>Mozilla/Netscape</application> users would click
726 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> --> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -->
727 <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> --> <guibutton>Cache</guibutton> and
728 then click both <quote><guibutton>Clear Memory Cache</guibutton></quote>
729 and <quote><guibutton>Clear Disk Cache</guibutton></quote>.
730 In some <application>Firefox</application> versions it's
731 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> --> <guibutton>Options</guibutton> -->
732 <guibutton>Privacy</guibutton> --> <guibutton>Cache</guibutton> and
733 then click <quote><guibutton>Clear Cache Now</guibutton></quote>.
734 <!-- In my Firefox versions it's the Netscape way. fk 2007-11-19-->
741 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
743 <sect1 id="configuration"><title>Configuration</title>
744 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
745 <title id="actionsfile">What exactly is an <quote>actions</quote> file?</title>
748 &my-app; utilizes the concept of <quote>
749 <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACTIONS">actions</ulink></quote>
750 that are used to manipulate and control web page data.
751 <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">Actions files</ulink>
752 are where these <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACTIONS">actions</ulink>
753 that <application>Privoxy</application> could take while processing a certain
754 request, are configured. Typically, you would define a set of default actions
755 that apply globally to all URLs, then add exceptions to these defaults where needed.
756 There is a wide array of actions available that give the user a high degree
757 of control and flexibility on how to process each and every web page.
761 Actions can be defined on a <ulink
762 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#AF-PATTERNS">URL pattern</ulink> basis, i.e.
763 for single URLs, whole web sites, groups or parts thereof etc. Actions can also be
764 grouped together and then applied to requests matching one or more patterns.
765 There are many possible actions that might apply to any given site. As an example,
766 if you are blocking <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>
767 as one of your default actions, but need to accept cookies from a given site,
768 you would need to define an exception for this site in one of your actions
769 files, preferably in <filename>user.action</filename>.
774 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="actionss">
775 <title>The <quote>actions</quote> concept confuses me. Please list
776 some of these <quote>actions</quote>.</title>
778 For a comprehensive discussion of the actions concept, please refer
779 to the <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">actions file
780 chapter</ulink> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">User
781 Manual</ulink>. It includes a <ulink
782 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACTIONS">list of all actions</ulink>
783 and an <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACT-EXAMPLES">actions
784 file tutorial</ulink> to get you started.
789 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
790 <title id="actconfig">How are actions files configured? What is the easiest
791 way to do this?</title>
794 Actions files are just text files in a special syntax and can be edited
795 with a text editor. But probably the easiest way is to access
796 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface with your web browser
797 at <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
798 (Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>) and then select
799 <quote><ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View &
800 change the current configuration</ulink></quote> from the menu. Note
801 that this feature must be explicitly enabled in the main config file
803 url="../user-manual/config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions</ulink>).
808 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
809 <title>There are several different <quote>actions</quote> files. What are
810 the differences?</title>
812 Please have a look at the <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">the actions chapter</ulink>
813 in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">User Manual</ulink> for a detailed explanation.
818 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="getupdates"><title>Where can I get updated Actions Files?</title>
820 Based on your feedback and the continuing development, updates of
821 <filename>default.action</filename> will be
822 made available from time to time on the <ulink
823 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">files section</ulink> of
824 our <ulink url="http://sf.net/projects/ijbswa/">project page</ulink>.
828 If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
829 <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
830 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce/">subscribe
831 to our announce mailing list</ulink>, ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
836 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newconfig"><title>Can I use my old config files?</title>
838 The syntax and purpose of configuration files has remained roughly the
839 same throughout the 3.x series, but backwards compatibility is not guaranteed.
840 Also each release contains updated, <quote>improved</quote> versions and it is
841 therefore strongly recommended to install the newer configuration files
842 and merge back your modifications.
846 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="difficult">
847 <title>Why is the configuration so complicated?</title>
849 <quote>Complicated</quote> is in the eye of the beholder. Those that are
850 familiar with some of the underlying concepts, such as regular expression
851 syntax, take to it like a fish takes to water. Also, software that tries
852 hard to be <quote>user friendly</quote>, often lacks sophistication and
853 flexibility. There is always that trade-off there between power vs.
854 easy-of-use. Furthermore, anyone is welcome to contribute ideas and
855 implementations to enhance &my-app;.
859 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="yahoo"><title>How can I make my Yahoo/Hotmail/Gmail account work?</title>
861 The default configuration shouldn't impact the usability of any of these services.
862 It may, however, make all <ulink
863 url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>
864 temporary, so that your browser will forget your
865 login credentials in between browser sessions. If you would like not to have to log
866 in manually each time you access those websites, simply turn off all cookie handling
867 for them in the <filename>user.action</filename> file. An example for yahoo might
871 <screen># Allow all cookies for Yahoo login:
873 { -<ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</ulink> -<ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</ulink> -<ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</ulink> }
874 .login.yahoo.com</screen>
877 These kinds of sites are often quite complex and heavy with
878 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript">Javascript</ulink> and
879 thus <quote>fragile</quote>. So if <emphasis>still</emphasis> a problem,
881 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ALIASES">alias</ulink> just for such
885 <screen># Gmail is a _fragile_ site:
887 { <literal>fragile</literal> }
889 mail.google.com</screen>
892 Be sure to flush your browser's caches whenever making these kinds of
893 changes, just to make sure the changes <quote>take</quote>.
896 Make sure the domain, host and path are appropriate as well. Your browser can
897 tell you where you are specifically and you should use that information for
898 your configuration settings. Note that above it is not referenced as
899 <literal>gmail.com</literal>, which is a valid domain name.
904 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="configfiles"> <title>What's the difference between the
905 <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> and <quote>Advanced</quote> defaults?</title>
907 Configuring <application>Privoxy</application> is not entirely trivial. To
908 help you get started, we provide you with three different default action
909 <quote>profiles</quote> in the web based actions file editor at <ulink
910 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
911 See the <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html"><citetitle>User
912 Manual</citetitle></ulink> for a list of actions, and how the default
917 Where the defaults are likely to break some sites, exceptions for
918 known popular <quote>problem</quote> sites are included, but in
919 general, the more aggressive your default settings are, the more exceptions
920 you will have to make later. New users are best to start off in
921 <quote>Cautious</quote> setting. This is safest and will have the fewest
922 problems. See the <ulink
923 url="../user-manual/index.html"><citetitle>User Manual</citetitle></ulink>
924 for a more detailed discussion.
928 It should be noted that the <quote>Advanced</quote> profile (formerly known
929 as the <quote>Adventuresome</quote> profile) is more
930 aggressive, and will make use of some of
931 <application>Privoxy's</application> advanced features. Use at your own risk!
936 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="browseconfig"> <title>Why can I change the configuration
937 with a browser? Does that not raise security issues?</title>
939 It may seem strange that regular users can edit the config files with their
940 browsers, although the whole <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> hierarchy
941 belongs to the user <quote>privoxy</quote>, with only 644 permissions.
944 When you use the browser-based editor, <application>Privoxy</application>
945 itself is writing to the config files. Because
946 <application>Privoxy</application> is running as the user <quote>privoxy</quote>,
947 it can update its own config files.
950 If you run <application>Privoxy</application> for multiple untrusted users (e.g. in
951 a LAN) or aren't entirely in control of your own browser, you will probably want
952 to make sure that the web-based editor and remote toggle features are
953 <quote>off</quote> by setting <quote><literal><ulink
954 url="../user-manual/config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions</ulink>
955 0</literal></quote> and <quote><literal><ulink
956 url="../user-manual/config.html#ENABLE-REMOTE-TOGGLE">enable-remote-toggle</ulink>
957 0</literal></quote> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html">main configuration file</ulink>.
960 As of &my-app; 3.0.7 these options are disabled by default.
965 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
966 <title id="filterfile">What is the <filename>default.filter</filename> file? What is a <quote>filter</quote>?</title>
968 The <ulink url="../user-manual/filter-file.html"><filename>default.filter</filename></ulink>
969 file is where <emphasis>filters</emphasis> as supplied by the developers are defined.
970 Filters are a special subset of actions that can be used to modify or
971 remove web page content or headers on the fly. Content filters can
972 be applied to <emphasis>anything</emphasis> in the page source,
973 header filters can be applied to either server or client headers.
974 Regular expressions are used to accomplish this.
977 There are a number of pre-defined filters to deal with common annoyances. The
978 filters are only defined here, to invoke them, you need to use the
980 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER"><literal>filter</literal>
981 action</ulink> in one of the actions files. Content filtering is automatically
982 disabled for inappropriate MIME types, but if you know better than Privoxy
983 what should or should not be filtered you can filter any content you like.
987 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be confused with <ulink
988 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK"><literal>blocks</literal></ulink>, which
989 is a completely different action, and is more typically used to block ads and
994 If you are familiar with regular expressions, and HTML, you can look at
995 the provided <filename>default.filter</filename> with a text editor and define
996 your own filters. This is potentially a very powerful feature, but
997 requires some expertise in both regular expressions and HTML/HTTP.
998 <![%p-newstuff;[ You should
999 place any modifications to the default filters, or any new ones you create
1000 in a separate file, such as <filename>user.filter</filename>, so they won't
1001 be overwritten during upgrades.
1002 The ability to define multiple filter files
1003 in <filename>config</filename> is a new feature as of v. 3.0.5.]]>
1007 There is no GUI editor option for this part of the configuration,
1008 but you can disable/enable the various pre-defined filters of the included
1009 <filename>default.filter</filename> file with the <ulink
1010 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">web-based actions file editor</ulink>.
1011 Note that the custom actions editor must be explicitly enabled in
1012 the main config file (see <ulink
1013 url="../user-manual/config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions</ulink>).
1017 If you intend to develop your own filters, you might want to have a look at
1019 url="http://www.fabiankeil.de/sourcecode/pft/">Privoxy-Filter-Test</ulink>.
1024 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="lanconfig">
1025 <title>How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my
1028 By default, <application>Privoxy</application> only responds to requests
1029 from <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> (localhost). To have it act as a server for
1030 a network, this needs to be changed in the <ulink
1031 url="../user-manual/config.html">main configuration file</ulink>. Look for
1033 url="../user-manual/config.html#LISTEN-ADDRESS">listen-address</ulink></literal>
1034 option, which may be commented out with a <quote>#</quote> symbol. Make sure
1035 it is uncommented, and assign it the address of the LAN gateway interface,
1036 and port number to use. Assuming your LAN address is 192.168.1.1 and you
1037 wish to run <application>Privoxy</application> on port 8118, this line
1043 listen-address 192.168.1.1:8118</screen>
1047 Save the file, and restart <application>Privoxy</application>. Configure
1048 all browsers on the network then to use this address and port number.
1052 Alternately, you can have <application>Privoxy</application> listen on
1053 all available interfaces:
1058 listen-address :8118</screen>
1062 And then use <application>Privoxy's</application>
1064 url="../user-manual/config.html#PERMIT-ACCESS">permit-access</ulink>
1065 feature to limit connections. A firewall in this situation is recommended
1070 The above steps should be the same for any TCP network, regardless of
1075 If you run <application>Privoxy</application> on a LAN with untrusted users,
1076 we recommend that you double-check the <ulink
1077 url="../user-manual/config.html#ACCESS-CONTROL">access control and security</ulink>
1084 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1085 <title id="noseeum">Instead of ads, now I get a checkerboard pattern. I don't want to see anything.</title>
1087 The replacement for blocked images can be controlled with the <ulink
1088 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><literal>set-image-blocker</literal>
1089 action</ulink>. You have the choice of a checkerboard pattern, a transparent 1x1 GIF
1090 image (aka <quote>blank</quote>), or a redirect to a custom image of your choice.
1091 Note that this choice only has effect for images which are blocked as images, i.e.
1092 whose URLs match both a <literal><ulink
1093 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</ulink></literal>
1094 <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><ulink
1095 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">block</ulink></literal> action.
1098 If you want to see nothing, then change the <ulink
1099 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><literal>set-image-blocker</literal>
1100 action</ulink> to <quote>blank</quote>. This can be done by editing the
1101 <filename>user.action</filename> file, or through the <ulink
1102 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">web-based actions file editor</ulink>.
1107 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1108 <title id="whyseeum">Why would anybody want to see a checkerboard pattern?</title>
1110 Remember that <link linkend="whatsanad">telling which image is an ad and which
1111 isn't</link>, is an educated guess. While we hope that the standard configuration
1112 is rather smart, it will make occasional mistakes. The checkerboard image is visually
1113 decent, and it shows you where images have been blocked, which can be very
1114 helpful in case some navigation aid or otherwise innocent image was
1115 erroneously blocked. It is recommended for new users so they can
1116 <quote>see</quote> what is happening. Some people might also enjoy seeing how
1117 many banners they <emphasis>don't</emphasis> have to see.
1122 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1123 <title id="blockedbytext">I see some images being replaced with text
1124 instead of the checkerboard image. Why and how do I get rid of this?</title>
1126 This happens when the banners are not embedded in the HTML code of the
1127 page itself, but in separate HTML (sub)documents that are loaded into (i)frames
1128 or (i)layers, and these external HTML documents are blocked. Being non-images
1129 they get replaced by a substitute HTML page rather than a substitute image,
1130 which wouldn't work out technically, since the browser expects and accepts
1131 only HTML when it has requested an HTML document.
1134 The substitute page adapts to the available space and shows itself as a
1135 miniature two-liner if loaded into small frames, or full-blown with a
1136 large red "BLOCKED" banner if space allows.
1139 If you prefer the banners to be blocked by images, you must see to it that
1140 the HTML documents in which they are embedded are not blocked. Clicking
1141 the <quote>See why</quote> link offered in the substitute page will show
1142 you which rule blocked the page. After changing the rule and un-blocking
1143 the HTML documents, the browser will try to load the actual banner images
1144 and the usual image blocking will (hopefully!) kick in.
1149 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="srvany">
1150 <title>Can Privoxy run as a service
1151 on Win2K/NT/XP?</title>
1154 Yes. Version 3.0.5 introduces full <application>Windows</application> service
1155 functionality. See <ulink url="../user-manual/installation.html#installation-pack-win">
1156 the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle></ulink> for details on how to install and configure
1157 <application>Privoxy</application> as a service.
1160 Earlier ]]>3.x versions could run as a system service using <command>srvany.exe</command>.
1161 See the discussion at <ulink
1162 url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=361118&aid=485617&group_id=11118">http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=361118&aid=485617&group_id=11118</ulink>,
1163 for details, and a sample configuration.
1168 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="otherproxy">
1169 <title>How can I make Privoxy work with other proxies?</title>
1171 This can be done and is often useful to combine the benefits of
1172 <application>Privoxy</application> with those of a another proxy,
1173 for example to cache content.
1175 url="../user-manual/config.html#FORWARDING">forwarding chapter</ulink>
1176 in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">User Manual</ulink> which
1177 describes how to do this. If you intend to use Privoxy with Tor,
1178 please also have a look at
1179 <link linkend="TOR">How do I use Privoxy together with Tor</link>.
1183 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="port-80">
1184 <title>Can I just set Privoxy to use port 80
1185 and thus avoid individual browser configuration?</title>
1188 No, its more complicated than that. This only works with special kinds
1189 of proxies known as <quote>intercepting</quote> proxies
1190 (<link linkend="INTERCEPTING">see below</link>).
1195 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="transparent">
1196 <title>Can Privoxy run as a <quote>transparent
1197 </quote> proxy?</title>
1199 The whole idea of Privoxy is to modify client requests
1200 and server responses in all sorts of ways and therefore
1201 it's not a transparent proxy as described in
1202 <ulink url="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616">RFC 2616</ulink>.
1205 However, some people say <quote>transparent proxy</quote> when they
1206 mean <quote>intercepting proxy</quote>. If you are one of them,
1207 please read the <link linkend="INTERCEPTING">next entry</link>.
1212 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="intercepting">
1213 <title>Can Privoxy run as a <quote>intercepting</quote> proxy?</title>
1215 <application>Privoxy</application> can't intercept traffic itself,
1216 but it can handle requests that where intercepted and redirected
1217 with a packet filter (like <application>PF</application> or
1218 <application>iptables</application>), as long as the <literal>Host</literal>
1222 As the <literal>Host</literal> header is required by HTTP/1.1 and as most
1223 web sites rely on it anyway, this limitation shouldn't be a problem.
1226 Please refer to your packet filter's documentation to learn how to
1227 intercept and redirect traffic into <application>Privoxy</application>.
1228 Afterward you just have to configure <application>Privoxy</application> to
1229 <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html#ACCEPT-INTERCEPTED-REQUESTS">accept
1230 intercepted requests</ulink>.
1235 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="outlook">
1236 <title>How can I configure Privoxy for use with Outlook?</title>
1238 Versions of <application>Outlook</application> prior to Office 2007, use
1239 <application>Internet Explorer</application> components to both render HTML,
1240 and fetch any HTTP requests that may be embedded in an HTML email. So however
1241 you have <application>Privoxy</application> configured to work with IE, this
1242 configuration should automatically be shared, at least with older version of
1246 Starting with Office 2007, Microsoft is instead using the MS-Word rendering
1247 engine with Outlook. It is unknown whether this can be configured to use a
1249 <!-- FIXME HB 2009-02-15 -->
1253 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="outlook-more">
1254 <title>How can I have separate rules just for HTML mail?</title>
1256 The short answer is, you can't. <application>Privoxy</application> has no way
1257 of knowing which particular application makes a request, so there is no way to
1258 distinguish between web pages and HTML mail.
1259 <application>Privoxy</application> just blindly proxies all requests. In the
1260 case of <application>Outlook Express</application> (see above), OE uses
1261 IE anyway, and there is no way for <application>Privoxy</application> to ever
1262 be able to distinguish between them (nor could any other proxy type application for
1266 For a good discussion of some of the issues involved (including privacy and
1267 security issues), see
1268 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=211118&aid=629518&group_id=11118">http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=211118&aid=629518&group_id=11118</ulink>.
1272 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="sneaky-cookies">
1273 <title>I sometimes notice cookies sneaking through. How?</title>
1276 url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">Cookies</ulink> can be
1277 set in several ways. The classic method is via the
1278 <literal>Set-Cookie</literal> HTTP header. This is straightforward, and an
1279 easy one to manipulate, such as the &my-app; concept of
1280 <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</ulink>.
1281 There is also the possibility of using
1282 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript">Javascript</ulink> to
1283 set cookies (&my-app; calls these <literal>content-cookies</literal>). This
1284 is trickier because the syntax can vary widely, and thus requires a certain
1285 amount of guesswork. It is not realistic to catch all of these short of
1286 disabling Javascript, which would break many sites. And lastly, if the
1287 cookies are embedded in a HTTPS/SSL secure session via Javascript, they are beyond
1288 <application>Privoxy's</application> reach.
1291 All in all, &my-app; can help manage cookies in general, can help minimize
1292 the loss of privacy posed by cookies, but can't realistically stop all
1297 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="evil-cookies">
1298 <title>Are all cookies bad? Why?</title>
1300 No, in fact there are many beneficial uses of
1302 url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>. Cookies are just a
1303 method that browsers can use to store data between pages, or between browser
1304 sessions. Sometimes there is a good reason for this, and the user's life is a
1305 bit easier as a result. But there is a long history of some websites taking
1306 advantage of this layer of trust, and using the data they glean from you and
1307 your browsing habits for their own purposes, and maybe to your potential
1308 detriment. Such sites are using you and storing their data on your system.
1309 That is why the privacy conscious watch from whom those cookies come, and why
1310 they really <emphasis>need</emphasis> to be there.
1314 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">Wikipedia cookie
1315 definition</ulink> for more.
1319 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="allow-cookies">
1320 <title>How can I allow permanent cookies for my trusted sites?</title>
1323 There are several actions that relate to cookies. The default behavior is to
1324 allow only <quote>session cookies</quote>, which means the cookies only last
1325 for the current browser session. This eliminates most kinds of abuse related
1326 to cookies. But there may be cases where you want cookies to last.
1329 To disable all cookie actions, so that cookies are allowed unrestricted,
1330 both in and out, for <literal>example.com</literal>:
1334 { -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies -session-cookies-only -filter{content-cookies} }
1335 .example.com</screen>
1338 Place the above in <filename>user.action</filename>. Note that some of these may
1339 be off by default anyway, so this might be redundant, but there is no harm
1340 being explicit in what you want to happen. <filename>user.action</filename>
1341 includes an alias for this situation, called
1342 <literal>allow-all-cookies</literal>.
1346 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="multiples">
1347 <title>Can I have separate configurations for different users?</title>
1349 Each instance of <application>Privoxy</application> has its own
1350 configuration, including such attributes as the TCP port that it listens on.
1351 What you can do is run multiple instances of <application>Privoxy</application>, each with
1353 <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html#LISTEN-ADDRESS">listen-address</ulink>
1354 configuration setting, and configuration path, and then
1355 each of these can have their own configurations. Think of it as per-port
1359 Simple enough for a few users, but for large installations, consider having
1360 groups of users that might share like configurations.
1364 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whitelists">
1365 <title>Can I set-up Privoxy as a whitelist of
1366 <quote>good</quote> sites?</title>
1368 Sure. There are a couple of things you can do for simple white-listing.
1369 Here's one real easy one:
1372 ############################################################
1374 ############################################################
1375 { <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">+block</ulink> }
1376 / # Block *all* URLs
1378 ############################################################
1380 ############################################################
1381 { <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">-block</ulink> }
1384 games.example.com</screen>
1386 This allows access to only those three sites by first blocking all URLs, and
1387 then subsequently allowing three specific exceptions.
1390 Another approach is <application>Privoxy's</application>
1391 <literal>trustfile</literal> concept, which incorporates the notion of
1392 <quote>trusted referrers</quote>. See the <ulink
1393 url="../user-manual/config.html#TRUSTFILE">Trust documentation</ulink>
1397 These are fairly simple approaches and are not completely foolproof. There
1398 are various other configuration options that should be disabled (described
1399 elsewhere here and in <ulink url="../user-manual/">the User Manual</ulink>)
1400 so that users can't modify their own configuration and easily circumvent the
1405 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="no-adblock">
1406 <title>How can I turn off ad-blocking?</title>
1408 Ad blocking is achieved through a complex application of various &my-app;
1409 <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">actions</ulink>. These
1410 actions are deployed against simple images, banners, flash animations,
1411 text pages, JavaScript, pop-ups and pop-unders, etc., so its not as simple as
1412 just turning one or two actions off. The various actions that make up
1413 &my-app; ad blocking are hard-coded into the default configuration files. It
1414 has been assumed that everyone using &my-app; is interested in this
1418 If you want to do without this, there are several approaches you can take:
1419 You can manually undo the many block rules in
1420 <filename>default.action</filename>. Or even easier, just create your own
1421 <filename>default.action</filename> file from scratch without the many ad
1422 blocking rules, and corresponding exceptions. Or lastly, if you are not
1423 concerned about the additional blocks that are done for privacy reasons, you
1424 can very easily over-ride <emphasis>all</emphasis> blocking with the
1425 following very simple rule in your <filename>user.action</filename>:
1429 # Unblock everybody, everywhere
1430 { <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">-block</ulink> }
1431 / # UN-Block *all* URLs</screen>
1434 Or even a more comprehensive reversing of various ad related actions:
1438 # Unblock everybody, everywhere, and turn off appropriate filtering, etc
1439 { <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">-block</ulink> \
1440 <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE">-filter{banners-by-size}</ulink> \
1441 <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER-BANNERS-BY-LINK">-filter{banners-by-link}</ulink> \
1442 <literal>allow-popups</literal> \
1444 / # UN-Block *all* URLs and allow ads</screen>
1447 This last <quote>action</quote> in this compound statement,
1448 <literal>allow-popups</literal>, is an <ulink
1449 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ALIASES">alias</ulink> that disables
1450 various pop-up blocking features.
1454 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="templates">
1455 <title>How can I have custom template pages, like the
1456 <emphasis>BLOCKED</emphasis> page?</title>
1458 &my-app; <quote>templates</quote> are specialized text files utilized by
1459 &my-app; for various purposes and can easily be modified using any text
1460 editor. All the template pages are installed in a sub-directory appropriately
1461 named: <filename>templates</filename>. Knowing something about HTML syntax
1462 will of course be helpful.
1465 Be forewarned that the default templates are subject to being overwritten
1466 during upgrades. You can, however, create completely new templates,
1467 place them in another directory and specify the alternate path in the main
1468 <filename>config</filename>. For details, have a look at the <ulink
1469 url="../user-manual/config.html#templdir">templdir</ulink> option.
1473 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="blockall">
1474 <title>How can I remove the <quote>Go There Anyway</quote> link from
1475 the <emphasis>BLOCKED</emphasis> page?</title>
1477 There is more than one way to do it (although Perl is not involved).
1480 Editing the BLOCKED template page (see above) may dissuade some users, but
1481 this method is easily circumvented. Where you need this level of control, you
1482 might want to build &my-app; from source, and disable various features that are
1483 available as compile-time options. You should
1484 <command>configure</command> the sources as follows:
1488 ./configure --disable-toggle --disable-editor --disable-force</screen>
1491 This will create an executable with hard-coded security features so that
1492 &my-app; does not allow easy bypassing of blocked sites, or changing the
1493 current configuration via any connected user's web browser.
1496 Finally, all of these features can also be toggled on/off via options in
1497 <application>Privoxy's</application> main <ulink
1498 url="../user-manual/config.html#ACCESS-CONTROL">config</ulink> file which
1499 means you don't have to recompile anything.
1505 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1508 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1510 <sect1 id="misc"><title>Miscellaneous</title>
1512 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1513 <title id="slowsme">How much does Privoxy slow my browsing down? This
1514 has to add extra time to browsing.</title>
1516 How much of an impact depends on many things, including the CPU of the host
1517 system, how aggressive the configuration is, which specific actions are being triggered,
1518 the size of the page, the bandwidth of the connection, etc.
1521 Overall, it should not slow you down any in real terms, and may actually help
1522 speed things up since ads, banners and other junk are not typically being
1523 retrieved and displayed. The actual processing time required by
1524 <application>Privoxy</application> itself for each page, is relatively small
1525 in the overall scheme of things, and happens very quickly. This is typically
1526 more than offset by time saved not downloading and rendering ad images and
1527 other junk content (if ad blocking is being used).
1531 <quote>Filtering</quote> content via the <literal><ulink
1532 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER">filter</ulink></literal> or
1534 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</ulink></literal>
1535 actions may cause a perceived slowdown, since the entire document
1536 needs to be buffered before displaying. And on very large documents,
1537 filtering may have some measurable impact. How much depends on the page size,
1538 the actual definition of the filter(s), etc. See below. Most other actions
1539 have little to no impact on speed.
1542 Also, when filtering is enabled but zlib support isn't available, compression
1543 is often disabled (see <ulink
1544 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</ulink>).
1545 This can have an impact on speed as well, although it's probably smaller than
1546 you might think. Again, the page size, etc. will determine how much of an impact.
1552 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="loadingtimes"><title>I notice considerable
1553 delays in page requests. What's wrong?</title>
1555 If you use any <literal><ulink
1556 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER">filter</ulink></literal> action,
1557 such as filtering banners by size, web-bugs etc, or the <literal><ulink
1558 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</ulink></literal>
1559 action, the entire document must be loaded into memory in order for the filtering
1560 mechanism to work, and nothing is sent to the browser during this time.
1563 The loading time typically does not really change much in real numbers, but
1564 the feeling is different, because most browsers are able to start rendering
1565 incomplete content, giving the user a feeling of "it works". This effect is
1566 more noticeable on slower dialup connections. Extremely large documents
1567 may have some impact on the time to load the page where there is filtering
1568 being done. But overall, the difference should be very minimal. If there is a
1569 big impact, then probably some other situation is contributing (like
1570 anti-virus software).
1573 Filtering is automatically disabled for inappropriate MIME types. But note
1574 that if the web server mis-reports the MIME type, then content that should
1575 not be filtered, could be. <application>Privoxy</application> only knows how
1576 to differentiate filterable content because of the MIME type as reported by
1577 the server, or because of some configuration setting that enables/disables
1582 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="configurl"><title>What are "http://config.privoxy.org/" and
1583 "http://p.p/"?</title>
1585 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink> is the
1586 address of <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in user interface, and
1587 <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> is a shortcut for it.
1590 Since <application>Privoxy</application> sits between your web browser and the Internet,
1591 it can simply intercept requests for these addresses and answer them with its built-in
1592 <quote>web server</quote>.
1595 This also makes for a good test for your browser configuration: If entering the
1596 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1597 takes you to a page saying <quote>This is Privoxy ...</quote>, everything is OK.
1598 If you get a page saying <quote>Privoxy is not working</quote> instead, then
1599 your browser didn't use <application>Privoxy</application> for the request,
1600 hence it could not be intercepted, and you have accessed the <emphasis>real</emphasis>
1601 web site at config.privoxy.org.
1607 out of date 09/02/06 HB
1608 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="blocklist"><title>Do you still maintain the blocklists?</title>
1610 No. The patterns for blocking now reside (among other things) in the <ulink
1611 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">actions files</ulink>, which are
1612 actively maintained instead. See next question ...
1616 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newads"><title>How can I submit new ads, or report
1619 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> for
1620 various ways to interact with the developers.
1625 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newads2"><title>If I do submit missed ads, will
1626 they be included in future updates?</title>
1628 Whether such submissions are eventually included in the
1629 <filename>default.action</filename> configuration file depends on how
1630 significant the issue is. We of course want to address any potential
1631 problem with major, high-profile sites such as <citetitle>Google</citetitle>,
1632 <citetitle>Yahoo</citetitle>, etc. Any site with global or regional reach,
1633 has a good chance of being a candidate. But at the other end of the spectrum
1634 are any number of smaller, low-profile sites such as for local clubs or
1635 schools. Since their reach and impact are much less, they are best handled by
1636 inclusion in the user's <filename>user.action</filename>, and thus would be
1637 unlikely to be included.
1643 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="noonecares"><title>Why doesn't anyone answer my support
1646 Rest assured that it has been read and considered. Why it is not answered,
1647 could be for various reasons, including no one has a good answer for it, no
1648 one has had time to yet investigate it thoroughly, it has been reported
1649 numerous times already, or because not enough information was provided to help
1650 us help you. Your efforts are not wasted, and we do appreciate them.
1656 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="ip"><title>How can I hide my IP address?</title>
1658 If you run both the browser and &my-app; locally, you cannot hide your IP
1659 address with <application>Privoxy</application> or ultimately any other
1660 software alone. The server needs to know your IP address so that it knows
1661 where to send the responses back.
1664 There are many publicly usable "anonymous" proxies out there, which
1665 provide a further level of indirection between you and the web server.
1668 However, these proxies are called "anonymous" because you don't need
1669 to authenticate, not because they would offer any real anonymity.
1670 Most of them will log your IP address and make it available to the
1671 authorities in case you violate the law of the country they run in. In fact
1672 you can't even rule out that some of them only exist to *collect* information
1673 on (those suspicious) people with a more than average preference for privacy.
1676 If you want to hide your IP address from most adversaries,
1677 you should consider chaining <application>Privoxy</application>
1678 with <ulink url="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</ulink>.
1679 The configuration details can be found in
1680 <ulink url="#TOR">How do I use <application>Privoxy</application> together
1681 with <application>Tor</application> section</ulink>
1686 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1687 <title id="anonforsure">Can Privoxy guarantee I am anonymous?</title>
1689 No. Your chances of remaining anonymous are improved, but unless you
1690 <ulink url="#TOR">chain <application>Privoxy</application> with <application>Tor</application></ulink>
1691 or a similar proxy and know what you're doing when it comes to configuring
1692 the rest of your system, you should assume that everything you do
1693 on the Web can be traced back to you.
1696 <application>Privoxy</application> can remove various information about you,
1697 and allows <emphasis>you</emphasis> more freedom to decide which sites
1698 you can trust, and what details you want to reveal. But it neither
1699 hides your IP address, nor can it guarantee that the rest of the system
1700 behaves correctly. There are several possibilities how a web sites can find
1701 out who you are, even if you are using a strict <application>Privoxy</application>
1702 configuration and chained it with <application>Tor</application>.
1705 Most of <application>Privoxy's</application> privacy-enhancing features can be easily subverted
1706 by an insecure browser configuration, therefore you should use a browser that can
1707 be configured to only execute code from trusted sites, and be careful which sites you trust.
1708 For example there is no point in having <application>Privoxy</application>
1709 modify the User-Agent header, if websites can get all the information they want
1710 through JavaScript, ActiveX, Flash, Java etc.
1713 A few browsers disclose the user's email address in certain situations, such
1714 as when transferring a file by FTP. <application>Privoxy</application>
1715 does not filter FTP. If you need this feature, or are concerned about the
1716 mail handler of your browser disclosing your email address, you might
1717 consider products such as <application>NSClean</application>.
1720 Browsers available only as binaries could use non-standard headers to give
1721 out any information they can have access to: see the manufacturer's license
1722 agreement. It's impossible to anticipate and prevent every breach of privacy
1723 that might occur. The professionally paranoid prefer browsers available as
1724 source code, because anticipating their behavior is easier. Trust the source,
1730 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1731 <title id="proxytest">A test site says I am not using a Proxy.</title>
1733 Good! Actually, they are probably testing for some other kinds of proxies.
1734 Hiding yourself completely would require additional steps.
1738 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="tor"><title>How do I use Privoxy
1739 together with Tor?</title>
1741 Before you configure <application>Privoxy</application> to use
1742 <ulink url="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</ulink>,
1743 please follow the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> chapters
1744 <ulink url="../user-manual/installation.html">2. Installation</ulink> and
1745 <ulink url="../user-manual/startup.html">5. Startup</ulink> to make sure
1746 <application>Privoxy</application> itself is setup correctly.
1749 If it is, refer to <ulink url="https://www.torproject.org/documentation.html">Tor's
1750 extensive documentation</ulink> to learn how to install <application>Tor</application>,
1751 and make sure <application>Tor</application>'s logfile says that
1752 <quote>Tor has successfully opened a circuit</quote> and it
1753 <quote>looks like client functionality is working</quote>.
1756 If either <application>Tor</application> or <application>Privoxy</application>
1757 isn't working, their combination most likely will neither. Testing them on their
1758 own will also help you to direct problem reports to the right audience.
1759 If <application>Privoxy</application> isn't working, don't bother the
1760 <application>Tor</application> developers. If <application>Tor</application>
1761 isn't working, don't send bug reports to the <application>Privoxy</application> Team.
1764 If you verified that <application>Privoxy</application> and <application>Tor</application>
1765 are working, it is time to connect them. As far as <application>Privoxy</application>
1766 is concerned, <application>Tor</application> is just another proxy that can be reached
1767 by socks4, socks4a and socks5. Most likely you are interested in <application>Tor</application>
1768 to increase your anonymity level, therefore you should use socks5, to make sure DNS
1769 requests are done through <application>Tor</application> and thus invisible to your
1770 local network. Using socks4a would work too, but with socks5 you get more precise error
1776 Since <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.5, its
1777 <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html">main configuration file</ulink>
1778 is already prepared for <application>Tor</application>, if you are using a
1779 default <application>Tor</application> configuration and run it on the same
1780 system as &my-app;, you just have to edit the
1781 <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html#FORWARDING">forwarding section</ulink>
1782 and uncomment the line:
1786 # forward-socks5 / 127.0.0.1:9050 .
1790 This is enough to reach the Internet, but additionally you might want to
1791 uncomment the following forward rules, to make sure your local network is still
1792 reachable through Privoxy:
1796 # forward 192.168.*.*/ .
1797 # forward 10.*.*.*/ .
1798 # forward 127.*.*.*/ .
1802 Unencrypted connections to systems in these address ranges will
1803 be as (un)secure as the local network is, but the alternative is
1804 that your browser can't reach the network at all. Then again,
1805 that may actually be desired and if you don't know for sure
1806 that your browser has to be able to reach the local network,
1807 there's no reason to allow it.
1810 If you want your browser to be able to reach servers in your local
1811 network by using their names, you will need additional exceptions
1812 that look like this:
1816 # forward localhost/ .
1820 Save the modified configuration file and open
1821 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status/</ulink>
1822 in your browser, confirm that <application>Privoxy</application> has reloaded its configuration
1823 and that there are no other forward lines, unless you know that you need them. If everything looks good,
1825 <ulink url="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#IsMyConnectionPrivate">Tor
1826 Faq 4.2</ulink> to learn how to verify that you are really using <application>Tor</application>.
1829 Afterward, please take the time to at least skim through the rest
1830 of <application>Tor's</application> documentation. Make sure you understand
1831 what <application>Tor</application> does, why it is no replacement for
1832 application level security, and why you probably don't want to
1833 use it for unencrypted logins.
1837 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1838 <title id="sitebreak">Might some things break because header information or
1839 content is being altered?</title>
1842 Definitely. It is common for sites to use browser type, browser version,
1843 HTTP header content, and various other techniques in order to dynamically
1844 decide what to display and how to display it. What you see, and what I see,
1845 might be very different. There are many, many ways that this can be handled,
1846 so having hard and fast rules, is tricky.
1850 The <quote>User-Agent</quote> is sometimes used in this way to identify
1851 the browser, and adjust content accordingly.
1855 Also, different browsers use different encodings of non-English
1856 characters, certain web servers convert pages on-the-fly according to the
1857 User Agent header. Giving a <quote>User Agent</quote> with the wrong
1858 operating system or browser manufacturer causes some sites in these languages
1859 to be garbled; Surfers to Eastern European sites should change it to
1860 something closer. And then some page access counters work by looking at the
1861 <quote>Referer</quote> header; they may fail or break if unavailable. The
1862 weather maps of Intellicast have been blocked by their server when no
1863 <quote>Referer</quote> or cookie is provided, is another example. (But you
1864 can forge both headers without giving information away). There are
1865 many other ways things can go wrong when trying to fool a web server. The
1866 results of which could inadvertently cause pages to load incorrectly,
1867 partially, or even not at all. And there may be no obvious clues as to just
1868 what went wrong, or why. Nowhere will there be a message that says
1869 <quote><emphasis>Turn off <literal>fast-redirects</literal> or else!</emphasis>
1874 Similar thoughts apply to modifying JavaScript, and, to a lesser degree,
1879 If you have problems with a site, you will have to adjust your configuration
1880 accordingly. Cookies are probably the most likely adjustment that may
1881 be required, but by no means the only one.
1887 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1888 <title id="caching">Can Privoxy act as a <quote>caching</quote> proxy to
1889 speed up web browsing?</title>
1891 No, it does not have this ability at all. You want something like
1892 <ulink url="http://www.squid-cache.org/">Squid</ulink> or
1893 <ulink url="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/">Polipo</ulink> for this.
1894 And, yes, before you ask, <application>Privoxy</application> can co-exist
1895 with other kinds of proxies like <application>Squid</application>.
1896 See the <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html#FORWARDING">forwarding
1897 chapter</ulink> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">user
1898 manual</ulink> for details.
1902 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1903 <title id="firewall">What about as a firewall? Can Privoxy protect me?</title>
1905 Not in the way you mean, or in the way some firewall vendors claim they can.
1906 <application>Privoxy</application> can help protect your privacy, but can't
1907 protect your system from intrusion attempts. It is, of course, perfectly possible
1908 to use <emphasis>both</emphasis>.
1912 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1913 <title id="wasted">I have large empty spaces / a checkerboard pattern now where
1914 ads used to be. Why?</title>
1916 It is technically possible to eliminate banners and ads in a way that frees
1917 their allocated page space. This could easily be done by blocking with
1918 <application>Privoxy's</application> filters,
1919 and eliminating the <emphasis>entire</emphasis> image references from the
1923 But, this would consume considerably more CPU resources (IOW, slow things
1924 down), would likely destroy the layout of some web pages which rely on the
1925 banners utilizing a certain amount of page space, and might fail in other
1926 cases, where the screen space is reserved (e.g. by HTML tables for instance).
1927 Also, making ads and banners disappear without any trace complicates
1928 troubleshooting, and would sooner or later be problematic.
1931 The better alternative is to instead let them stay, and block the resulting
1932 requests for the banners themselves as is now the case. This leaves either
1933 empty space, or the familiar checkerboard pattern.
1936 So the developers won't support this in the default configuration, but you
1937 can of course define appropriate filters yourself to achieve this.
1941 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1942 <title id="ssl">How can Privoxy filter Secure (HTTPS) URLs?</title>
1944 Since secure HTTP connections are encrypted SSL sessions between your browser
1945 and the secure site, and are meant to be reliably <emphasis>secure</emphasis>,
1946 there is little that <application>Privoxy</application> can do but hand the raw
1947 gibberish data though from one end to the other unprocessed.
1950 The only exception to this is blocking by host patterns, as the client needs
1951 to tell <application>Privoxy</application> the name of the remote server,
1952 so that <application>Privoxy</application> can establish the connection.
1953 If that name matches a host-only pattern, the connection will be blocked.
1956 As far as ad blocking is concerned, this is less of a restriction than it may
1957 seem, since ad sources are often identifiable by the host name, and often
1958 the banners to be placed in an encrypted page come unencrypted nonetheless
1959 for efficiency reasons, which exposes them to the full power of
1960 <application>Privoxy</application>'s ad blocking.
1963 <quote>Content cookies</quote> (those that are embedded in the actual HTML or
1964 JS page content, see <literal><ulink
1965 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</ulink></literal>),
1966 in an SSL transaction will be impossible to block under these conditions.
1967 Fortunately, this does not seem to be a very common scenario since most
1968 cookies come by traditional means.
1973 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1974 <title id="secure">Privoxy runs as a <quote>server</quote>. How
1975 secure is it? Do I need to take any special precautions?</title>
1977 On Unix-like systems, <application>Privoxy</application> can run as a non-privileged
1978 user, which is how we recommend it be run. Also, by default
1979 <application>Privoxy</application> listens to requests from <quote>localhost</quote>
1983 The server aspect of <application>Privoxy</application> is not itself directly
1984 exposed to the Internet in this configuration. If you want to have
1985 <application>Privoxy</application> serve as a LAN proxy, this will have to
1986 be opened up to allow for LAN requests. In this case, we'd recommend
1987 you specify only the LAN gateway address, e.g. 192.168.1.1, in the main
1988 <application>Privoxy</application> configuration file and check all <ulink
1989 url="../user-manual/config.html#ACCESS-CONTROL">access control and security
1990 options</ulink>. All LAN hosts can then use this as their proxy address
1991 in the browser proxy configuration, but <application>Privoxy</application>
1992 will not listen on any external interfaces. ACLs can be defined in addition,
1993 and using a firewall is always good too. Better safe than sorry.
1998 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="turnoff">
1999 <title>Can I temporarily disable Privoxy?</title>
2001 &my-app; doesn't have a transparent proxy mode,
2002 but you can toggle off blocking and content filtering.
2005 The easiest way to do that is to point your browser
2006 to the remote toggle URL: <ulink
2007 url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>.
2010 See the <ulink url="../user-manual/appendix.html#BOOKMARKLETS">Bookmarklets section</ulink>
2011 of the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> for an easy way to access this
2012 feature. Note that this is a feature that may need to be enabled in the main
2013 <filename>config</filename> file.
2018 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="reallyoff">
2019 <title>When <quote>disabled</quote> is Privoxy totally
2020 out of the picture?</title>
2022 No, this just means all optional filtering and actions are disabled.
2023 <application>Privoxy</application> is still acting as a proxy, but just
2024 doing less of the things that <application>Privoxy</application> would
2025 normally be expected to do. It is still a <quote>middle-man</quote> in
2026 the interaction between your browser and web sites. See below to bypass
2031 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="turnoff2">
2032 <title>How can I tell Privoxy to totally ignore certain sites?</title>
2034 Bypassing a proxy, or proxying based on arbitrary criteria, is purely a browser
2035 configuration issue, not a &my-app; issue. Modern browsers typically do have
2036 settings for not proxying certain sites. Check your browser's help files.
2041 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="crunch">
2042 <title>My logs show Privoxy <quote>crunches</quote>
2043 ads, but also its own internal CGI pages. What is a <quote>crunch</quote>?</title>
2045 A <quote>crunch</quote> simply means <application>Privoxy</application> intercepted
2046 <emphasis>something</emphasis>, nothing more. Often this is indeed ads or
2047 banners, but <application>Privoxy</application> uses the same mechanism for
2048 trapping requests for its own internal pages. For instance, a request for
2049 <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration page at: <ulink
2050 url="http://config.privoxy.org">http://config.privoxy.org</ulink>, is
2051 intercepted (i.e. it does not go out to the 'net), and the familiar CGI
2052 configuration is returned to the browser, and the log consequently will show
2053 a <quote>crunch</quote>.
2056 Since version 3.0.7, Privoxy will also log the crunch reason.
2057 If you are using an older version you might want to upgrade.
2061 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="downloads">
2062 <title>Can Privoxy effect files that I download
2063 from a webserver? FTP server?</title>
2065 From the webserver's perspective, there is no difference between
2066 viewing a document (i.e. a page), and downloading a file. The same is true of
2067 <application>Privoxy</application>. If there is a match for a <literal><ulink
2068 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">block</ulink></literal> pattern,
2069 it will still be blocked, and of course this is obvious.
2072 Filtering is potentially more of a concern since the results are not always
2073 so obvious, and the effects of filtering are there whether the file is simply
2074 viewed, or downloaded. And potentially whether the content is some obnoxious
2075 advertisement, or Mr. Jimmy's latest/greatest source code jewel. Of course,
2076 one of these presumably is <quote>bad</quote> content that we don't want, and
2077 the other is <quote>good</quote> content that we do want.
2078 <application>Privoxy</application> is blind to the differences, and can only
2079 distinguish <quote>good from bad</quote> by the configuration parameters
2080 <emphasis>we</emphasis> give it.
2083 <application>Privoxy</application> knows the differences in files according
2084 to the <quote>Content Type</quote> as reported by the webserver. If this is
2085 reported accurately (e.g. <quote>application/zip</quote> for a zip archive),
2086 then <application>Privoxy</application> knows to ignore these where
2087 appropriate. <application>Privoxy</application> potentially can filter HTML
2088 as well as plain text documents, subject to configuration parameters of
2089 course. Also, documents that are of an unknown type (generally assumed to be
2090 <quote>text/plain</quote>) can be filtered, as will those that might be
2091 incorrectly reported by the webserver. If such a file is a downloaded file
2092 that is intended to be saved to disk, then any content that might have been
2093 altered by filtering, will be saved too, for these (probably rare) cases.
2096 Note that versions later than 3.0.2 do NOT filter document types reported as
2097 <quote>text/plain</quote>. Prior to this, <application>Privoxy</application>
2098 did filter this document type.
2101 In short, filtering is <quote>ON</quote> if a) the content type as reported
2102 by the webserver is appropriate <emphasis>and</emphasis> b) the configuration
2103 allows it (or at least does not disallow it). That's it. There is no magic
2104 cookie anywhere to say this is <quote>good</quote> and this is
2105 <quote>bad</quote>. It's the configuration that lets it all happen or not.
2108 If you download text files, you probably do not want these to be filtered,
2109 particularly if the content is source code, or other critical content. Source
2110 code sometimes might be mistaken for Javascript (i.e. the kind that might
2111 open a pop-up window). It is recommended to turn off filtering for download
2112 sites (particularly if the content may be plain text files and you are using
2113 version 3.0.2 or earlier) in your <filename>user.action</filename> file. And
2114 also, for any site or page where making <emphasis>any</emphasis> changes at
2115 all to the content is to be avoided.
2118 <application>Privoxy</application> does not do FTP at all, only HTTP
2119 and HTTPS (SSL) protocols.
2123 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="downloads2">
2124 <title>I just downloaded a Perl script, and Privoxy
2125 altered it! Yikes, what is wrong!</title>
2131 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="hostsfile">
2132 <title>Should I continue to use a <quote>HOSTS</quote> file for ad-blocking?</title>
2134 One time-tested technique to defeat common ads is to trick the local DNS
2135 system by giving a phony IP address for the ad generator in the local
2136 <filename>HOSTS</filename> file, typically using <literal>127.0.0.1</literal>, aka
2137 <literal>localhost</literal>. This effectively blocks the ad.
2140 There is no reason to use this technique in conjunction with
2141 <application>Privoxy</application>. <application>Privoxy</application>
2142 does essentially the same thing, much more elegantly and with much more
2143 flexibility. A large <filename>HOSTS</filename> file, in fact, not only
2144 duplicates effort, but may get in the way and seriously slow down your system.
2145 It is recommended to remove such entries from your <filename>HOSTS</filename> file. If you think
2146 your hosts list is neglected by <application>Privoxy's </application>
2147 configuration, consider adding your list to your <filename>user.action</filename> file:
2154 ads.galore.example.com
2155 etc.example.com</screen>
2159 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="seealso">
2160 <title>Where can I find more information about Privoxy
2161 and related issues?</title>
2162 <!-- Include seealso.sgml boilerplate: -->
2164 <!-- end boilerplate -->
2169 <ulink url="../user-manual/seealso.html">user-manual</ulink> for
2175 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="microsuck">
2176 <title>I've noticed that Privoxy changes <quote>Microsoft</quote> to
2177 <quote>MicroSuck</quote>! Why are you manipulating my browsing?</title>
2180 We're not. The text substitutions that you are seeing are disabled
2181 in the default configuration as shipped. You have either manually
2182 activated the <quote><literal>fun</literal></quote> filter which
2183 is clearly labeled <quote>Text replacements for subversive browsing
2184 fun!</quote> or you are using an older Privoxy version and have implicitly
2185 activated it by choosing the <quote>Advanced</quote> profile in the
2186 web-based editor. Please upgrade.
2190 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="valid">
2191 <title>Does Privoxy produce <quote>valid</quote> HTML (or XHTML)?</title>
2194 Privoxy generates HTML in both its own <quote>templates</quote>, and possibly
2195 whenever there are text substitutions via a &my-app; filter. While this
2196 should always conform to the HTML 4.01 specifications, it has not been
2197 validated against this or any other standard.
2201 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="surprise-privoxy">
2202 <title>How did you manage to get Privoxy on my computer without my consent?</title>
2205 We didn't. We make Privoxy available for download, but we don't go
2206 around installing it on other people's systems behind their back.
2207 If you discover Privoxy running on your system and are sure you didn't
2208 install it yourself, somebody else did. You may not even be running
2209 the real Privoxy, but maybe something else that only pretends to be
2210 Privoxy, or maybe something that is based on the real Privoxy,
2211 but has been modified.
2214 Lately there have been reports of problems with some kind of
2215 Privoxy versions that come preinstalled on some Netbooks.
2216 Some of the problems described are inconsistent with the behaviour
2217 of official Privoxy versions, which suggests that the preinstalled
2218 software may contain vendor modifications that we don't know about
2219 and thus can't debug.
2222 Privoxy's <link linkend="copyright">license</link> allows vendor
2223 modifications, but the vendor has to comply with the license,
2224 which involves informing the user about the changes and to make
2225 the changes available under the same license as Privoxy itself.
2228 If you are having trouble with a modified Privoxy version,
2229 please try to talk to whoever made the modifications before
2230 reporting the problem to us. Please also try to convince
2231 whoever made the modifications to talk to us. If you think
2232 somebody gave you a modified Privoxy version without complying
2233 to the license, please let us know.
2241 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2243 <sect1 id="trouble">
2244 <title>Troubleshooting</title>
2246 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
2247 <title id="refused">I cannot connect to any websites. Or, I am getting
2248 <quote>connection refused</quote> message with every web page. Why?</title>
2250 There are several possibilities:
2255 <application>Privoxy</application> is not running. Solution: verify
2256 that &my-app; is installed correctly, has not crashed, and is indeed running.
2257 Turn on <application>Privoxy's</application> logging, and look at the logs to see what they say.
2259 <listitem><para>Or your browser is configured for a different port than what
2260 <application>Privoxy</application> is using. Solution: verify that &my-app;
2261 and your browser are set to the same port (<literal>listen-address</literal>).
2263 <listitem><para>Or if using a forwarding rule, you have a configuration problem or a
2264 problem with a host in the forwarding chain. Solution: temporarily alter your
2265 configuration and take the forwarders out of the equation.
2268 Or you have a firewall that is interfering and blocking you. Solution:
2269 try disabling or removing the firewall as a simple test.
2276 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2277 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="error503">
2278 <title>Why am I getting a 503 Error (WSAECONNREFUSED) on every page?</title>
2280 More than likely this is a problem with your TCP/IP networking. ZoneAlarm has
2281 been reported to cause this symptom -- even if not running! The solution is
2282 to either fight the ZA configuration, or uninstall ZoneAlarm, and then find
2283 something better behaved in its place. Other personal firewall type products
2284 may cause similar type problems if not configured correctly.
2288 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
2289 <title id="flushit">I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is
2290 still getting through. How?</title>
2292 If the ad had been displayed before you added its URL, it will probably be
2293 held in the browser's cache for some time, so it will be displayed without
2294 the need for any request to the server, and <application>Privoxy</application>
2295 will not be involved. Flush the browser's caches, and then try again.
2299 If this doesn't help, you probably have an error in the rule you
2300 applied. Try pasting the full URL of the offending ad into <ulink
2301 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
2302 and see if it really matches your new rule. Blocking ads is like blocking
2303 spam: a lot of tinkering is required to stay ahead of the game. And
2304 remember you need to block the URL of the ad in question, which may be
2305 entirely different from the site URL itself. Most ads are hosted on different
2306 servers than the main site itself. If you right-click on the ad, you should
2307 be able to get all the relevant information you need. Alternately, you can
2308 find the correct URL by looking at <application>Privoxy's</application> logs
2309 (you may need to enable logging in the main config file if its disabled).
2312 Below is a slightly modified real-life log snippet that originates with one
2313 requested URL: <literal>www.example.com</literal> (name of site was changed
2314 for this example, the number of requests is real). You can see in this the
2315 complexity of what goes into making up this one <quote>page</quote>. There
2316 are eight different domains involved here, with thirty two separate URLs
2317 requested in all, making up all manner of images, Shockwave Flash,
2318 JavaScript, CSS stylesheets, scripts, and other related content. Some of this
2319 content is obviously <quote>good</quote> or <quote>bad</quote>, but not all.
2320 Many of the more questionable looking requests, are going to outside domains
2321 that seem to be identifying themselves with suspicious looking names, making
2322 our job a little easier. &my-app; has <quote>crunched</quote> (meaning caught
2323 and BLOCKED) quite a few items in this example, but perhaps missed a few as well.
2328 Request: www.example.com/
2329 Request: www.example.com/favicon.ico
2330 Request: img.example.com/main.css
2331 Request: img.example.com/sr.js
2332 Request: example.betamarker.com/example.html
2333 Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/bestsellers/skyscraper.php?likref=BSellers
2334 Request: img.example.com/pb.png
2335 Request: www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js crunch! (Blocked)
2336 Request: www.advertising-department.com/ats/switch.ps.php?26856 crunch! (Blocked)
2337 Request: img.example.com/p.gif
2338 Request: www.popuptraffic.com/assign.php?l=example&mode=behind crunch! (Blocked)
2339 Request: www.popuptraffic.com/scripts/popup.php?hid=5c3cf&tmpl=PBa.tmpl crunch! (Blocked)
2340 Request: www.popuptraffic.com/assign.php?l=example crunch! (Blocked)
2341 Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/best_sellers.css
2342 Request: www.adtrak.net/adx.js crunch! (Blocked)
2343 Request: img.example.com/hbg.gif
2344 Request: img.example.com/example.jpg
2345 Request: img.example.com/mt.png
2346 Request: img.example.com/mm.png
2347 Request: img.example.com/mb.png
2348 Request: www.popuptraffic.com/scripts/popup.php?hid=a71b91fa5&tmpl=Ua.tmp crunch! (Blocked)
2349 Request: www.example.com/tracker.js
2350 Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/lsi_head.gif
2351 Request: www.adtrak.net/adjs.php?n=020548130&what=zone:61 crunch! (Blocked)
2352 Request: www.adtrak.net/adjs.php?n=463594413&what=zone:58&source=Ua crunch! (Blocked)
2353 Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/bottomani.swf
2354 Request: mmm.elitemediagroup.net/install.php?allowpop=no&popupmincook=0&allowsp2=1 crunch! (Blocked)
2355 Request: www.example.com/tracker.js?screen=1400x1050&win=962x693
2356 Request: www.adtrak.net/adlog.php?bannerid=1309&clientid=439&zoneid=61 crunch! (Blocked)
2357 Request: 66.70.21.80/scripts/click.php?hid=5c3cf599a9efd0320d26&si
2358 Request: 66.70.21.80/img/pixel.gif
2359 Request: www.adtrak.net/adlog.php?bannerid=1309&clientid=439&zoneid=58&source=Ua&block=86400 crunch! (Blocked)
2360 Request: 66.70.21.80/scripts/click.php?hid=a71b9f6504b0c5681fa5&si=Ua
2365 Despite 12 out of 32 requests being blocked, the page looked, and seemed to
2366 behave perfectly <quote>normal</quote> (minus some ads, of course).
2371 <sect2 id="badsite" renderas="sect3">
2372 <title >One of my favorite sites does not work with Privoxy.
2373 What can I do?</title>
2376 First verify that it is indeed a <application>Privoxy</application> problem,
2377 by toggling off <application>Privoxy</application> through <ulink
2378 url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
2379 (the toggle feature may need to be enabled in the main
2380 <filename>config</filename>),
2381 and then shift-reloading the problem page (i.e. holding down the shift key
2382 while clicking reload. Alternatively, flush your browser's disk and memory
2387 If the problem went away, we know we have a configuration related problem.
2389 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
2390 and paste the full URL of the page in question into the prompt. See which
2391 actions are being applied to the URL, and which matches in which actions
2392 files are responsible for that. It might be helpful also to look at your logs
2393 for this site too, to see what else might be happening (note: logging may need
2394 to be enabled in the main config file). Many sites are
2395 complex and require a number of related pages to help present their content.
2396 Look at what else might be used by the page in question, and what of that
2397 might be <emphasis>required</emphasis>.
2398 Now, armed with this information, go to
2400 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
2401 and select the appropriate actions files for editing. </para>
2403 You can now either look for a section which disables the actions that
2404 you suspect to cause the problem and add a pattern for your site there,
2405 or make up a completely new section for your site. In any case, the recommended
2406 way is to disable only the prime suspect, reload the problem page, and only
2407 if the problem persists, disable more and more actions until you have
2408 identified the culprit. You may or may not want to turn the other actions
2409 on again. Remember to flush your browser's caches in between any such changes!
2412 Alternately, if you are comfortable with a text editor, you can accomplish
2413 the same thing by editing the appropriate actions file. Probably the easiest
2414 way to deal with such problems when editing by hand is to add your
2415 site to a <literal>{ fragile }</literal> section in <filename>user.action</filename>,
2416 which is an alias that turns off most <quote>dangerous</quote>
2417 actions, but is also likely to turn off more actions then needed, and thus lower
2418 your privacy and protection more than necessary,
2421 Troubleshooting actions is discussed in more detail in the <ulink
2422 url="../user-manual/appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT">User Manual appendix,
2423 Troubleshooting: the Anatomy of an Action</ulink>.
2424 There is also an <ulink
2425 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACT-EXAMPLES">actions tutorial</ulink>
2426 with general configuration information and examples.
2429 As a last resort, you can always see if your browser has a setting that will
2430 bypass the proxy setting for selective sites. Modern browsers can do this.
2436 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2437 <sect2 id="dun" renderas="sect3">
2438 <title>After installing Privoxy, I have to log in
2439 every time I start IE. What gives?</title>
2442 This is a quirk that effects the installation of
2443 <application>Privoxy</application>, in conjunction with Internet Explorer and
2444 Internet Connection Sharing on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The symptoms may
2445 appear to be corrupted or invalid DUN settings, or passwords.
2449 When setting up an NT based Windows system with
2450 <application>Privoxy</application> you may find that things do not seem to be
2451 doing what you expect. When you set your system up you will probably have set
2452 up Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) with Dial up Networking (DUN) when
2453 logged in with administrator privileges. You will probably have made this DUN
2454 connection available to other accounts that you may have set-up on your
2455 system. E.g. Mum or Dad sets up the system and makes accounts suitably
2456 configured for the kids.
2460 When setting up <application>Privoxy</application> in this environment you
2461 will have to alter the proxy set-up of Internet Explorer (IE) for the
2462 specific DUN connection on which you wish to use
2463 <application>Privoxy</application>. When you do this the ICS DUN set-up
2464 becomes user specific. In this instance you will see no difference if you
2465 change the DUN connection under the account used to set-up the connection.
2466 However when you do this from another user you will notice that the DUN
2467 connection changes to make available to "Me only". You will also find that
2468 you have to store the password under each different user!
2472 The reason for this is that each user's set-up for IE is user specific. Each
2473 set-up DUN connection and each LAN connection in IE store the settings for
2474 each user individually. As such this enforces individual configurations
2475 rather than common ones. Hence the first time you use a DUN connection after
2476 re-booting your system it may not perform as you expect, and prompt you for
2477 the password. Just set and save the password again and all should be OK.
2481 [Thanks to Ray Griffith for this submission.]
2486 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2487 <sect2 id="ftp" renderas="sect3">
2488 <title>I cannot connect to any FTP sites. Privoxy
2489 is blocking me.</title>
2491 <application>Privoxy</application> cannot act as a proxy for FTP traffic,
2492 so do not configure your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application>
2493 as an FTP proxy. The same is true for <emphasis>any protocol other than HTTP
2494 or HTTPS (SSL)</emphasis>.
2497 Most browsers understand FTP as well as HTTP. If you connect to a site, with
2498 a URL like <literal>ftp://ftp.example.com</literal>, your browser is making
2499 an FTP connection, and not a HTTP connection. So while your browser may
2500 speak FTP, <application>Privoxy</application> does not, and cannot proxy
2504 To complicate matters, some systems may have a generic <quote>proxy</quote>
2505 setting, which will enable various protocols, including
2506 <emphasis>both</emphasis> HTTP and FTP proxying! So it is possible to
2507 accidentally enable FTP proxying in these cases. And of course, if this
2508 happens, <application>Privoxy</application> will indeed cause problems since
2509 it does not know FTP. <![%p-newstuff;[Newer version will give a sane error
2510 message if a FTP connection is attempted.]]> Just disable the FTP setting
2511 and all will be well again.
2514 Will <application>Privoxy</application> ever proxy FTP traffic? Unlikely.
2515 There just is not much reason, and the work to make this happen is more than
2520 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2521 <sect2 id="macosxie" renderas="sect3">
2522 <title>In Mac OS X, I can't configure Microsoft Internet Explorer to use
2523 Privoxy as the HTTP proxy.</title>
2525 Microsoft Internet Explorer (in versions like 5.1) respects system-wide
2526 network settings. In order to change the HTTP proxy, open System
2527 Preferences, and click on the Network icon. In the settings pane that
2528 comes up, click on the Proxies tab. Ensure the "Web Proxy (HTTP)" checkbox
2529 is checked and enter <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> in the entry field.
2530 Enter <literal>8118</literal> in the Port field. The next time you start
2531 IE, it should reflect these values.
2535 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2536 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="macosxuninstall">
2537 <title>In Mac OS X, I dragged the Privoxy folder to the trash in order to
2538 uninstall it. Now the finder tells me I don't have sufficient privileges to
2539 empty the trash.</title>
2541 Note: This ONLY applies to privoxy 3.0.6 and earlier.
2544 Just dragging the <application>Privoxy</application> folder to the trash is
2545 not enough to delete it. <application>Privoxy</application> supplies an
2546 <application>uninstall.command</application> file that takes care of
2547 these details. Open the trash, drag the <application>uninstall.command</application>
2548 file out of the trash and double-click on it. You will be prompted for
2549 confirmation and the administration password.
2552 The trash may still appear full after this command; emptying the trash
2553 from the desktop should make it appear empty again.
2558 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2559 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="macosximages">
2560 <title>In Mac OS X Panther (10.3), images often fail to load and/or I
2561 experience random delays in page loading. I'm using
2562 <literal>localhost</literal> as my browser's proxy setting.</title>
2564 We believe this is due to an IPv6-related bug in Mac OS X, but don't fully
2565 understand the issue yet. In any case, changing the proxy setting to
2566 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> instead of <literal>localhost</literal>
2567 works around the problem.
2571 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2572 <!-- XXX: Is this still relevant now that we have gzip support? -->
2573 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="blankpage">
2574 <title>I get a completely blank page at one site. <quote>View Source</quote>
2575 shows only: <markup><![CDATA[<html><body></body></html>]]></markup>. Without
2576 Privoxy the page loads fine.</title>
2578 Chances are that the site suffers from a bug in
2579 <ulink url="http://www.php.net/"><application>PHP</application></ulink>,
2580 which results in empty pages being sent if the client explicitly requests
2581 an uncompressed page, like <application>Privoxy</application> does.
2582 This bug has been fixed in PHP 4.2.3.
2585 To find out if this is in fact the source of the problem, try adding
2586 the site to a <literal>-prevent-compression</literal> section in
2587 <filename>user.action</filename>:
2590 # Make exceptions for ill-behaved sites:
2592 {-prevent-compression}
2593 .example.com</screen>
2595 If that works, you may also want to report the problem to the
2596 site's webmasters, telling them to use zlib.output_compression
2597 instead of ob_gzhandler in their PHP applications (workaround)
2598 or upgrade to PHP 4.2.3 or later (fix).
2602 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="nohostname">
2603 <title>My logs show many <quote>Unable to get my own hostname</quote> lines.
2606 <application>Privoxy</application> tries to get the hostname of the system
2607 its running on from the IP address of the system interface it is bound to
2608 (from the <filename>config</filename> file
2609 <emphasis>listen-address</emphasis> setting). If the system cannot supply
2610 this information, <application>Privoxy</application> logs this condition.
2613 Typically, this would be considered a minor system configuration error. It is
2614 not a fatal error to <application>Privoxy</application> however, but may
2615 result in a much slower response from <application>Privoxy</application> on
2616 some platforms due to DNS timeouts.
2619 This can be caused by a problem with the local <filename>hosts</filename>
2620 file. If this file has been changed from the original, try reverting it to
2621 see if that helps. Make sure whatever name(s) are used for the local system,
2622 that they resolve both ways.
2625 You should also be able to work around the problem with the
2626 <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html#HOSTNAME">hostname option</ulink>.
2630 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="inuse">
2631 <title>When I try to launch Privoxy, I get an
2632 error message <quote>port 8118 is already in use</quote> (or similar wording).
2635 Port 8118 is <application>Privoxy's</application> default TCP
2636 <quote>listening</quote> port. Typically this message would mean that there
2637 is already one instance of <application>Privoxy</application> running, and
2638 your system is actually trying to start a second
2639 <application>Privoxy</application> on the same port, which will not work.
2640 (You can have multiple instances but they must be assigned different ports.)
2641 How and why this might happen varies from platform to platform, but you need
2642 to check your installation and start-up procedures.
2646 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="demoronizer">
2648 Pages with UTF-8 fonts are garbled.
2651 This is caused by the <quote>demoronizer</quote> filter. You should either
2652 upgrade <application>Privoxy</application>, or at least upgrade to the most
2653 recent <filename>default.action</filename> file available from <ulink
2654 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">SourceForge</ulink>.
2655 Or you can simply disable the demoronizer filter.
2659 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="demoronizer2">
2661 Why are binary files (such as images) corrupted when Privoxy
2665 This may also be caused by the <quote>demoronizer</quote> filter,
2666 in conjunction with a web server that is misreporting the content type. Binary
2667 files are exempted from <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering
2668 (unless the web server by mistake says the file is something else). Either
2669 upgrade <application>Privoxy</application>, or go to the most recent
2670 <filename>default.action</filename> file available from <ulink
2671 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">SourceForge</ulink>.
2675 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="demoronizer3">
2677 What is the <quote>demoronizer</quote> and why is it there?
2680 The original demoronizer was a Perl script that cleaned up HTML pages which
2681 were created with certain Microsoft products. MS has used proprietary extensions
2682 to standardized font encodings (ISO 8859-1), which has caused problems for pages
2683 that are viewed with non-Microsoft products (and are expecting to see a
2684 standard set of fonts). The demoronizer corrected these errors so the pages
2685 displayed correctly. <application>Privoxy</application> borrowed from this
2686 script, introducing a filter based on the original demoronizer, which in turn could
2687 correct these errors on the fly.
2690 But this is only needed in some situations, and will cause serious problems in some
2694 If you are using Microsoft products, you do not need it. If you need to view
2695 pages with UTF-8 characters (such as Cyrillic or Chinese), then it will
2696 cause corruption of the fonts, and thus <emphasis>should not be on</emphasis>.
2699 On the other hand, if you use non-Microsoft products, and you occasionally
2700 notice weird characters on pages, you might want to try it.
2704 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="windowopen">
2706 Why do I keep seeing <quote>PrivoxyWindowOpen()</quote> in raw source code?
2709 <application>Privoxy</application> is attempting to disable malicious
2710 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript">Javascript</ulink>
2711 in this case, with the <literal>unsolicited-popups</literal>
2712 filter. <application>Privoxy</application> cannot tell very well
2713 <quote>good</quote> code snippets from <quote>bad</quote> code snippets.
2716 If you see this in HTML source, and the page displays without problems, then
2717 this is good, and likely some pop-up window was disabled. If you see this
2718 where it is causing a problem, such as a downloaded program source code file,
2719 then you should set an exception for this site or page such that the
2720 integrity of the page stays in tact by disabling all filtering.
2724 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="dnserrors">
2726 I am getting too many DNS errors like <quote>404 No Such Domain</quote>. Why
2727 can't Privoxy do this better?
2730 There are potentially several factors here. First of all, the DNS resolution
2731 is done by the underlying operating system -- not
2732 <application>Privoxy</application> itself. <application>Privoxy</application>
2733 merely initiates the process and hands it off, and then later reports
2734 whatever the outcome was and tries to give a coherent message if there seems
2735 to be a problem. In some cases, this might otherwise be mitigated by the
2736 browser itself which might try some work-arounds and alternate approaches (e.g
2737 adding <quote>www.</quote> to the URL).
2740 In other cases, if <application>Privoxy</application> is being chained
2741 with another proxy, this could complicate the issue, and cause undue
2742 delays and timeouts. In the case of a <quote>socks4a</quote> proxy, the socks
2743 server handles all the DNS. <application>Privoxy</application> would just be
2744 the <quote>messenger</quote> which is reporting whatever problem occurred
2745 downstream, and not the root cause of the error.
2749 In any case, versions newer than 3.0.3 include various improvements to help
2750 <application>Privoxy</application> better handle these cases.
2754 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="allcpu">
2756 At one site Privoxy just hangs, and starts taking
2757 all CPU. Why is this?
2760 This is probably a manifestation of the <quote>100% cpu</quote> problem that
2761 occurs on pages containing many (thousands upon thousands) of blank lines. The blank lines
2762 are in the raw HTML source of the page, and the browser just ignores them. But the
2763 pattern matching in <application>Privoxy's</application> page filtering
2764 mechanism is trying to match against absurdly long strings and this becomes
2765 very CPU-intensive, taking a long, long time to complete.
2768 Until a better solution comes along, disable filtering on these pages,
2769 particularly the <literal>js-annoyances</literal> and
2770 <literal>unsolicited-popups</literal> filters. If you run into this problem
2771 with a recent &my-app; version, please send a problem report.
2775 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="slowcrawl">
2776 <title>I just installed Privoxy, and all my
2777 browsing has slowed to a crawl. What gives? </title>
2779 This should not happen, and for the overwhelming number of users world-wide,
2780 it does not happen. I would suspect some inadvertent interaction of software
2781 components such as anti-virus software, spyware protectors, personal
2782 firewalls or similar components. Try disabling (or uninstalling) these one
2783 at a time and see if that helps. Either way, if you are using a
2784 recent &my-app; version, please report the problem.
2788 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="preventcomp">
2789 <title>Why do my filters work on some sites but not on others? </title>
2791 It's probably due to compression. It is a common practice for web servers to
2792 send their content <quote>compressed</quote> in order to speed things up, and
2793 then let the browser <quote>uncompress</quote> them. When compiled with zlib support
2794 &my-app; can decompress content before filtering, otherwise you may want to enable
2796 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</ulink>.
2799 As of &my-app; 3.0.9, zlib support is enabled in the default builds.
2804 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="ssl-warnings">
2805 <title>On some HTTPS sites my browser warns me about unauthenticated content,
2806 the URL bar doesn't get highlighted and the lock symbol appears to be broken.
2807 What's going on?</title>
2809 Probably the browser is requesting ads through HTTPS and &my-app;
2810 is blocking the requests. Privoxy's error messages are delivered
2811 unencrypted and while it's obvious for the browser that the HTTPS
2812 request is already blocked by the proxy, some warn about unauthenticated
2816 To work around the problem you can redirect those requests to an invalid
2817 local address instead of blocking them. While the redirects aren't
2818 encrypted either, many browsers don't care. They simply follow the
2819 redirect, fail to reach a server and display an error message instead
2823 To do that, enable logging to figure out which requests get blocked by
2824 &my-app; and add the hosts (no path patterns) to a section like this:
2829 {+redirect{http://127.0.0.1:0/} -block -limit-connect}
2835 Additionally you have to configure your browser to contact
2836 <quote>127.0.0.1:0</quote> directly (instead of through &my-app;).
2839 To add a proxy exception in <application>Mozilla Firefox</application>
2840 open the <quote>Preferences</quote>, click the <quote>Settings</quote>
2841 button located on the <quote>Network</quote> tab in the <quote>Advanced</quote>
2842 section, and add <quote>127.0.0.1:0</quote> in the <quote>No Proxy for:</quote>
2848 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="se-linux">
2849 <title>I get selinux error messages. How can I fix this?</title>
2851 Please report the problem to the creator of your selinux policies.
2854 The problem is that some selinux policy writers aren't familiar
2855 with the application they are trying to <quote>secure</quote> and
2856 thus create policies that make no sense.
2859 In <application>Privoxy's</application> case the problem usually
2860 is that the policy only allows outgoing connections for certain
2861 destination ports (e.g. 80 and 443). While this may cover the
2862 standard ports, websites occasionally use other ports as well.
2863 This isn't a security problem and therefore <application>Privoxy's</application>
2864 default configuration doesn't block these requests.
2867 If you really want to block these ports (and don't be able
2868 to load websites that don't use standard ports), you should
2869 configure Privoxy to block these ports as well, so it doesn't
2870 trigger the selinux warnings.
2875 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="gentoo-ricers">
2876 <title>I compiled &my-app; with Gentoo's portage and it appears to be very slow. Why?</title>
2878 Probably you unintentionally compiled &my-app; without threading support
2879 in which case requests have to be serialized and only one can be served
2883 Check your <quote>USE</quote> flags and make sure they include
2884 <quote>threads</quote>. If they don't, add the flag and rebuild &my-app;.
2887 If you compiled &my-app; with threading support (on POSIX-based systems),
2888 the <quote>Conditional #defines</quote> section on <ulink
2889 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
2890 will list <quote>FEATURE_PTHREAD</quote> as <quote>enabled</quote>.
2897 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2898 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests</title>
2899 <!-- Include contacting.sgml -->
2901 <!-- end contacting -->
2904 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2905 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Privoxy Copyright, License and History</title>
2907 <!-- Include copyright.sgml -->
2913 Portions of this document are <quote>borrowed</quote> from the original
2914 <application>Junkbuster</application> (tm) FAQ, and modified as
2915 appropriate for <application>Privoxy</application>.
2918 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2919 <sect2><title>License</title>
2920 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
2922 <!-- end copyright -->
2924 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2926 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2927 <sect2><title>History</title>
2928 <!-- Include history.sgml -->
2934 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2937 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2939 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See also</title>
2941 <!-- Include seealso.sgml -->
2952 Tue 09/11/01 06:38:14 PM EST: Test SGML doc by Hal Burgiss.
2954 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
2955 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
2956 Public License as published by the Free Software
2957 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
2958 your option) any later version.
2960 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
2961 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
2962 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
2963 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
2964 License for more details.
2966 The GNU General Public License should be included with
2967 this file. If not, you can view it at
2968 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
2969 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
2970 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA
2973 Revision 2.81 2011/09/04 11:10:12 fabiankeil
2974 Ditch trailing whitespace
2976 Revision 2.80 2011/08/18 11:42:50 fabiankeil
2977 Bump some more documentation copyright ranges.
2979 Revision 2.79 2011/08/17 10:40:07 fabiankeil
2980 Update the entities.
2982 This commit is chronological out of order.
2984 Revision 2.78 2011/04/19 13:14:10 fabiankeil
2985 Fix spelling errors in the documentation. Found with codespell.
2987 Revision 2.77 2011/03/03 14:22:12 fabiankeil
2988 Remove duplicated 'the'
2990 Revision 2.76 2010/11/22 10:35:02 fabiankeil
2991 Mention socks5 in another part of the Tor section.
2993 Revision 2.75 2010/11/13 10:08:00 fabiankeil
2994 Fix a link to the 'intercepting' entry and add another one
2996 Revision 2.74 2010/11/13 10:07:46 fabiankeil
2997 Remove the product names in the 'otherproxy' entry's title.
2999 I'm tired of getting the 'otherproxy' entry as first hit
3000 when searching the index for the Tor FAQ.
3002 Revision 2.73 2010/11/06 12:55:48 fabiankeil
3003 Set p-version to 3.0.17
3005 Revision 2.72 2010/02/27 12:13:17 fabiankeil
3008 Revision 2.71 2010/02/27 12:12:13 fabiankeil
3009 Consistently recommending socks5 in the Tor entry and mention its advantage compared to socks4a.
3010 Reported by David in #2960129.
3012 Revision 2.70 2010/02/20 18:08:31 ler762
3015 Revision 2.69 2010/02/13 17:38:27 fabiankeil
3016 Update entities for 3.0.16 stable.
3018 Revision 2.68 2010/01/30 19:51:28 fabiankeil
3019 New FAQ entry: How did you manage to get Privoxy on my computer without my consent?
3021 Also bump copyright.
3023 Revision 2.67 2009/11/15 14:24:12 fabiankeil
3024 Prepare to generate docs for 3.0.16 UNRELEASED.
3026 Revision 2.66 2009/10/10 05:48:55 fabiankeil
3027 Prepare for 3.0.15 beta.
3029 Revision 2.65 2009/07/18 16:24:39 fabiankeil
3030 Bump entities for 3.0.14 beta.
3032 Revision 2.64 2009/07/18 12:18:52 fabiankeil
3033 Don't describe the action files in the FAQ when we can simply link to the description in the User Manual.
3035 Revision 2.63 2009/06/15 15:08:03 fabiankeil
3036 Patch #2806626 from Frédéric Crozat to fix a closing tag.
3038 Revision 2.62 2009/06/12 14:30:58 fabiankeil
3039 Update entities for 3.0.13 beta.
3041 Revision 2.61 2009/06/12 11:52:33 fabiankeil
3042 Mention the TODO list in the participate entry.
3044 Revision 2.60 2009/04/07 12:25:05 fabiankeil
3045 In the "I would like to help ..." entry:
3046 - Change the ids to more general ones as helping out doesn't require
3047 joining the team (and joining the team requires significantly helping
3049 - Add links to the subscription pages for the main mailing lists.
3051 Revision 2.59 2009/03/28 15:33:41 fabiankeil
3052 Recommend the use of forward-socks5 when forwarding to Tor.
3053 The error messages are more detailed than with forward-socks4a.
3055 Revision 2.58 2009/03/21 12:27:44 fabiankeil
3056 Turn the donation entry title into a question,
3057 also rephrase the content a bit.
3059 Revision 2.57 2009/03/19 19:07:49 fabiankeil
3060 First draft of a "Donating" entry. To be polished tomorrow.
3062 Revision 2.56 2009/02/19 17:05:05 fabiankeil
3063 Explain slowness when build with Gentoo's portage.
3065 Revision 2.55 2009/02/19 02:20:21 hal9
3066 Make some links in seealso conditional. Man page is now privoxy only links.
3068 Revision 2.54 2009/02/15 20:47:12 hal9
3071 Revision 2.53 2009/02/15 20:46:13 hal9
3072 Update Outlook HTML rendering engine comments re: Office 2007.
3074 Revision 2.52 2009/02/14 10:27:52 fabiankeil
3075 Finish last paragraph in the selinux entry which
3076 I unintentionally committed with the last commit.
3078 Revision 2.51 2009/02/12 16:08:26 fabiankeil
3079 Declare the code stable.
3081 Revision 2.50 2009/02/11 18:13:36 fabiankeil
3084 Revision 2.49 2009/02/10 16:30:20 fabiankeil
3085 Add a workaround for "unauthenticated content" warnings on HTTPS sites.
3087 Revision 2.48 2009/01/13 16:50:35 fabiankeil
3088 The standard.action file is gone.
3090 Revision 2.47 2008/11/24 18:29:39 fabiankeil
3091 Two changes suggested by Roger Dingledine:
3092 - Use https://www.torproject.org/ in section 4.7, too.
3093 - Replace the Tor wiki URL in section 4.10 with one
3094 with a more useful anchor name.
3096 Revision 2.46 2008/08/30 15:37:35 fabiankeil
3099 Revision 2.45 2008/08/16 08:51:28 fabiankeil
3100 Update version-related entities.
3102 Revision 2.44 2008/06/19 01:41:36 hal9
3103 Add short note about zlib being enabled in 3.0.9
3105 Revision 2.43 2008/06/14 13:21:25 fabiankeil
3106 Prepare for the upcoming 3.0.9 beta release.
3108 Revision 2.42 2008/06/07 13:11:15 fabiankeil
3109 - Note that the "100% cpu problem" is worth
3110 reporting if it happens with a recent release.
3111 - Mention the hostname option as a workaround for
3112 the "can't get my own hostname" issue.
3113 - The profile formerly known as "Adventuresome"
3114 is called "Advanced" now.
3115 - Some white-space fixes.
3117 Revision 2.41 2008/06/06 15:32:09 fabiankeil
3119 - Don't claim that all the old Junkbuster features remain.
3120 Some of them have been removed or replaced with better ones.
3122 Revision 2.40 2008/02/22 05:54:27 markm68k
3123 updates for mac os x
3125 Revision 2.39 2008/02/03 21:37:41 hal9
3126 Apply patch from Mark: s/OSX/OS X/
3128 Revision 2.38 2008/01/19 17:52:39 hal9
3129 Re-commit to fix various minor issues for new release.
3131 Revision 2.37 2008/01/19 15:03:05 hal9
3132 Doc sources tagged for 3.0.8 release.
3134 Revision 2.36 2008/01/17 01:49:51 hal9
3135 Change copyright notice for docs s/2007/2008/. All these will be rebuilt soon
3138 Revision 2.35 2007/11/19 17:57:59 fabiankeil
3139 A bunch of rewordings, minor updates and fixes.
3141 Revision 2.34 2007/11/19 02:38:11 hal9
3142 Minor revisions and rebuild
3144 Revision 2.33 2007/11/15 03:30:20 hal9
3145 Results of spell check.
3147 Revision 2.32 2007/11/13 03:03:42 hal9
3148 Various changes to reflect new features and revised configuration for the
3151 Revision 2.31 2007/11/05 02:34:53 hal9
3152 Various changes in preparation for the upcoming release. Much yet to be done.
3154 Revision 2.30 2007/11/04 15:16:40 hal9
3157 Revision 2.29 2007/11/04 15:12:47 hal9
3158 Various minor adjustments.
3160 Revision 2.28 2007/10/27 15:14:16 fabiankeil
3161 Change Tor links to use the new domain torproject.org.
3163 Revision 2.27 2007/10/22 19:47:05 fabiankeil
3164 - Bump version and copyright.
3165 - Adjust Tor section to make it clear that forward exceptions
3166 aren't required and may not even be desired.
3167 - A bunch of other minor rewordings.
3168 - Fix markup problems Roland noticed (hopefully without adding new ones).
3170 Revision 2.26 2007/08/05 15:37:55 fabiankeil
3171 - Don't claim that thousands of people read our code.
3172 - Specify the GPL version and link to GPLv2 instead of v3.
3173 - Note that configuration syntax may change between releases.
3174 - Mention zlib support.
3175 - Answer the "transparent proxy" question properly.
3176 - Add "intercepting proxy" entry.
3178 - Rephrase some other sentences for various reasons.
3180 Revision 2.25 2007/07/18 11:00:34 hal9
3181 Add misc note about valid mark-up in Privoxy.
3183 Revision 2.24 2006/11/14 01:57:46 hal9
3184 Dump all docs prior to 3.0.6 release. Various minor changes to faq and user
3187 Revision 2.23 2006/10/21 22:19:52 hal9
3188 Two new FAQs, a rewrite or two, and some touch ups.
3190 Revision 2.22 2006/10/14 20:33:10 hal9
3191 Three new FAQ's re: templates and blocking, and various minor touch-ups/improvements.
3193 Revision 2.21 2006/10/03 14:40:51 fabiankeil
3194 Added links from the Tor faq to the
3195 configuration chapter in the User Manual.
3197 Revision 2.20 2006/09/26 10:12:37 fabiankeil
3200 Revision 2.19 2006/09/22 10:54:32 hal9
3201 Change references to 3.0.4 to 3.0.5 and minor adjustments.
3203 Revision 2.18 2006/09/22 01:27:55 hal9
3204 Final commit of probably various minor changes here and there. Unless
3205 something changes this should be ready for pending release.
3207 Revision 2.17 2006/09/17 14:56:32 hal9
3208 This includes yet several more new FAQs, some improved wording, enhanced
3209 mark-up, various hyper links to wikipedia to explain key terminology to the
3210 uninitiated, etc. This is ready for release IMO pending final tagging of cvs
3211 and Privoxy version stamping.
3213 Revision 2.16 2006/09/10 15:30:46 hal9
3216 Revision 2.15 2006/09/08 23:05:07 hal9
3217 Fix broken links. Add faq on hosts files. Move most of new windows service
3218 feature to user manual and reference in faq. Various other small changes.
3220 Revision 2.14 2006/09/05 13:25:12 david__schmidt
3221 Add Windows service invocation stuff (duplicated) in FAQ and in user manual under Windows startup. One probably ought to reference the other.
3223 Revision 2.13 2006/09/04 19:20:33 fabiankeil
3224 Adjusted anonymity related sections to match reality.
3225 Added a section about using Privoxy with Tor.
3227 Revision 2.12 2006/09/03 14:15:30 hal9
3228 Various updates, including 7 or 8 new FAQs, and updates/changes to various
3229 other ones to better reflect improvements, additions and changes for the
3230 upcoming release. This is close to final form for 3.0.4 IMHO.
3232 Revision 2.11 2006/07/18 14:48:50 david__schmidt
3233 Reorganizing the repository: swapping out what was HEAD (the old 3.1 branch)
3234 with what was really the latest development (the v_3_0_branch branch)
3236 Revision 1.61.2.41 2004/04/05 13:44:05 oes
3237 Fixed allow-all-cookies alias name; closes SR #929746
3239 Revision 1.61.2.40 2004/01/30 17:00:33 oes
3240 Added Mac OS X Panther problem
3242 Revision 1.61.2.39 2004/01/29 22:53:08 hal9
3243 Minor changes for exempting docs of text/plain. Change copyright date.
3245 Revision 1.61.2.38 2003/12/10 03:39:45 hal9
3246 Added FAQs for: demoronizer, related problems and why its included. Also,
3247 port 8118 already in use questions, and PrivoxyWindowOpen() questions. All in
3248 troubleshooting section.
3250 Revision 1.61.2.37 2003/10/17 11:01:50 oes
3251 Added Q&A for "not being used" page problem
3253 Revision 1.61.2.36 2003/06/26 23:49:20 hal9
3254 More on the filter/source code problem.
3256 Revision 1.61.2.35 2003/06/26 13:38:08 hal9
3257 Add FAQ on whether configuring Privoxy is necessary or not.
3259 Revision 1.61.2.34 2003/06/26 03:00:03 hal9
3260 Sorry, found another copyright date.
3262 Revision 1.61.2.33 2003/06/26 02:57:05 hal9
3263 Fix typo (finally!) and very minor modifications.
3265 Revision 1.61.2.32 2003/06/26 02:52:04 hal9
3268 Revision 1.61.2.31 2003/06/25 01:27:51 hal9
3269 Fix copyright, and a few nits.
3271 Revision 1.61.2.30 2003/06/25 01:13:52 hal9
3274 - FAQ on "Unable to get my own hostname"
3275 - Another one on filtering effects on text files.
3277 Revision 1.61.2.29 2003/06/15 21:32:58 hal9
3278 Add to the 4.17 (filtering effects on downloaded files).
3280 Revision 1.61.2.28 2003/03/18 19:37:21 oes
3281 s/Advanced|Radical/Adventuresome/g to avoid complaints re fun filter
3283 Revision 1.61.2.27 2002/12/01 06:31:58 hal9
3284 Add faq on win32 error 503 due to ZoneAlarm.
3286 Revision 1.61.2.26 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9
3287 Move default profiles table from FAQ to U-M, and other minor related changes.
3290 Revision 1.61.2.25 2002/10/29 03:21:50 hal9
3291 Add 3 Q/A's relating to HTML in email. Other minor touchups.
3293 Revision 1.61.2.24 2002/10/15 12:50:22 oes
3294 s/Advanced/Radical/ (stupid me)
3296 Revision 1.61.2.23 2002/10/15 12:38:56 oes
3297 Added Microsuck faq; more detail for PHP problem
3299 Revision 1.61.2.22 2002/10/12 01:13:13 hal9
3300 Updates for demoronizer, more commentary on Radical profile, and update on
3301 the srvany.exe/icon fix.
3303 Revision 1.61.2.21 2002/10/10 04:09:35 hal9
3304 s/Advanced/Radical/ and added very brief note.
3306 Revision 1.61.2.20 2002/09/26 01:22:45 hal9
3307 Small additions for LAN setup, content-cookies/SSL, and FTP non-support.
3309 Revision 1.61.2.19 2002/08/25 23:31:56 hal9
3310 Fix one grammatical error. Add brief FAQ relating to tranparent proxies (ie
3311 port 80 setting). Add FAQ on effects of Privoxy on downloaded files
3312 (especially filtering).
3314 Revision 1.61.2.18 2002/08/14 16:39:37 hal9
3315 Fix wrong tag on FAQ addition.
3317 Revision 1.61.2.17 2002/08/14 00:01:18 hal9
3320 Revision 1.61.2.16 2002/08/13 00:10:38 hal9
3321 Add faq to troubleshooting re: blank page syndrome, ie {-prevent-compression}.
3323 Revision 1.61.2.15 2002/08/10 11:34:22 oes
3324 Add disclaimer about probably being out-of-date
3326 Revision 1.61.2.14 2002/08/07 02:53:43 hal9
3327 Fix some minor markup errors, and move one Mac OS X Q/A to troubleshooting section.
3329 Revision 1.61.2.13 2002/08/06 11:55:32 oes
3330 Added missing close tag
3332 Revision 1.61.2.12 2002/08/06 11:43:46 david__schmidt
3333 Updated Mac OS X uninstall FAQ... we have an uninstall script now.
3335 Revision 1.61.2.11 2002/08/06 08:54:03 oes
3336 Style police: Fixed formatting details
3338 Revision 1.61.2.10 2002/08/02 14:00:25 david__schmidt
3339 Made the Mac OS X removal commands far less dangerous
3341 Revision 1.61.2.9 2002/08/02 13:14:45 oes
3342 Added warning about sudo rm -r for Mac OS X deinstallation; moved this item to install section
3344 Revision 1.61.2.8 2002/08/02 02:01:42 david__schmidt
3345 Add FAQ item for MSIE on Mac OS X HTTP proxy confusion
3347 Revision 1.61.2.7 2002/08/02 01:46:01 david__schmidt
3348 Added FAQ item for Mac OS X uninstall woes
3350 Revision 1.61.2.6 2002/07/30 20:04:56 hal9
3351 Fix typo: 'schould'.
3353 Revision 1.61.2.5 2002/07/26 15:22:58 oes
3354 - Updated to reflect changes in standard.action
3355 - Added info on where to get updated actions files
3357 Revision 1.61.2.4 2002/07/25 21:42:29 hal9
3358 Add brief notes on not proxying non-HTTP protocols.
3360 Revision 1.61.2.3 2002/06/09 16:36:33 hal9
3361 Clarifications on filtering and MIME. Hardcode 'latest release' in index.html.
3363 Revision 1.61.2.2 2002/06/06 02:51:34 hal9
3364 Fix typo in URL http:/config.privoxy.org
3366 Revision 1.61.2.1 2002/06/05 23:10:43 hal9
3367 Add new FAQ re: DUN/IE. Change release date from May to June :)
3369 Revision 1.61 2002/05/25 12:37:25 hal9
3370 Various minor changes and edits.
3372 Revision 1.60 2002/05/22 17:17:48 oes
3373 Proofread & added more links into u-m
3375 Revision 1.59 2002/05/15 04:03:30 hal9
3376 Fix ulink -> link markup.
3378 Revision 1.58 2002/05/10 01:48:20 hal9
3379 This is mostly proposed copyright/licensing additions and changes. Docs
3380 are still GPL, but licensing and copyright are more visible. Also, copyright
3381 changed in doc header comments (eliminate references to JB except FAQ).
3383 Revision 1.57 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
3384 Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
3386 Revision 1.56 2002/05/04 08:44:44 swa
3389 Revision 1.55 2002/05/04 00:41:56 hal9
3390 -Remove TOC/first page kludge in favor of proper handling via dsl file.
3392 Revision 1.54 2002/05/03 05:06:44 hal9
3393 Add brief Q/A on transparent proxies.
3395 Revision 1.53 2002/05/03 01:34:52 hal9
3396 Fix section numbering for new sections (due to TOC kludge).
3398 Revision 1.52 2002/04/29 03:08:43 hal9
3399 -Added new Q/A on new actions file set up (pointer to u-m)
3400 -Fixed a few broken links and converted old actions as a result of
3403 Revision 1.51 2002/04/26 17:24:31 swa
3404 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
3406 Revision 1.50 2002/04/26 05:25:23 hal9
3407 Mass commit to catch a few scattered fixes.
3409 Revision 1.49 2002/04/12 10:10:18 swa
3412 Revision 1.48 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
3415 Revision 1.47 2002/04/10 04:05:32 hal9
3418 Revision 1.45 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
3419 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
3421 Revision 1.44 2002/04/07 21:24:29 hal9
3422 Touch up on name change.
3424 Revision 1.43 2002/04/04 21:59:53 hal9
3425 Added NT/W2K service/icon situation.
3427 Revision 1.42 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
3428 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
3430 Revision 1.41 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
3431 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
3432 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
3433 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
3434 eventually be set by Makefile.
3435 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
3437 Revision 1.40 2002/04/03 04:22:03 hal9
3438 Fixed several typos.
3440 Revision 1.39 2002/04/03 03:53:03 hal9
3441 Revert some changes, and then make some news, to layout, and appearance.
3443 Revision 1.38 2002/04/02 03:49:10 hal9
3444 Major changes to doc structure and layout. Sections are not automatically
3445 numbered now. TOC is on page by itself.
3447 Revision 1.37 2002/04/01 16:24:07 hal9
3448 -Rework of supported Q/A.
3449 -Set up entities to include boilerplate text.
3451 Revision 1.36 2002/03/31 23:18:47 hal9
3452 More on dealing with BLOCKED.
3454 Revision 1.35 2002/03/30 04:14:19 hal9
3455 Fix privoxy.org/config links.
3457 Revision 1.34 2002/03/29 04:35:56 hal9
3460 Revision 1.33 2002/03/29 01:31:48 hal9
3461 Several new Q/A's and other touch ups.
3463 Revision 1.32 2002/03/27 00:57:03 hal9
3464 Touch ups for name change.
3466 Revision 1.31 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
3467 we have a new homepage!
3469 Revision 1.30 2002/03/25 16:39:22 hal9
3470 A few new sections. Made all links relative to user-manual.
3472 Revision 1.29 2002/03/25 05:23:57 hal9
3473 Moved section, and touch ups.
3475 Revision 1.28 2002/03/25 04:27:33 hal9
3476 New section related to name change.
3478 Revision 1.25 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
3479 we are too lazy to make a block-built
3480 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
3482 Revision 1.24 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
3483 name change related issue.
3485 Revision 1.23 2002/03/24 12:33:01 swa
3488 Revision 1.22 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
3489 name change. changed filenames.
3491 Revision 1.21 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
3494 Revision 1.20 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
3495 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
3496 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
3497 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
3498 comments and remarks to history untouched.
3500 Revision 1.19 2002/03/21 17:01:54 hal9
3503 Revision 1.18 2002/03/18 16:40:31 hal9
3506 Revision 1.17 2002/03/18 03:53:53 hal9
3509 Revision 1.16 2002/03/17 21:32:56 hal9
3510 A few more additions.
3512 Revision 1.15 2002/03/17 07:25:59 hal9
3513 Correcting some of my typos, and some additions.
3515 Revision 1.14 2002/03/17 02:39:13 hal9
3516 A little more added ...
3518 Revision 1.13 2002/03/17 00:22:20 hal9
3519 Adding new stuff, and trying to incorporate stuff from old faq.
3521 Revision 1.12 2002/03/11 20:13:21 swa
3524 Revision 1.11 2002/03/11 18:42:27 swa
3527 Revision 1.10 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
3528 correct feedback channels
3530 Revision 1.9 2002/03/10 23:34:04 swa
3531 more info on not hiding ip address
3533 Revision 1.8 2002/03/09 15:55:48 swa
3534 added default config section
3536 Revision 1.7 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
3539 Revision 1.6 2002/03/07 13:16:31 oes
3540 Committing changes by Stefan
3542 Revision 1.5 2002/03/02 15:50:04 swa
3543 2.9.11 version. more input for docs.
3545 Revision 1.4 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
3546 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
3547 will work - no other changes are needed.
3549 Revision 1.3 2001/09/23 10:13:48 swa
3550 upload process established. run make webserver and
3551 the documentation is moved to the webserver. documents
3552 are now linked correctly.
3554 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:20:17 swa
3555 merged standards into developer manual
3557 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
3558 source files for junkbuster documentation
3560 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
3561 first proposal of a structure.
3563 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
3564 docs should have an author.
3566 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
3567 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.