1 <!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V3.1//EN" [
2 <!entity % dummy "IGNORE">
3 <!entity supported SYSTEM "supported.sgml">
4 <!entity newfeatures SYSTEM "newfeatures.sgml">
5 <!entity p-intro SYSTEM "privoxy.sgml">
6 <!entity seealso SYSTEM "seealso.sgml">
7 <!entity buildsource SYSTEM "buildsource.sgml">
8 <!entity contacting SYSTEM "contacting.sgml">
9 <!entity history SYSTEM "history.sgml">
10 <!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
11 <!entity license SYSTEM "license.sgml">
12 <!entity p-authors SYSTEM "p-authors.sgml">
13 <!entity config SYSTEM "p-config.sgml">
14 <!entity p-version "3.0.18">
15 <!entity p-status "stable">
16 <!entity % p-authors-formal "INCLUDE"> <!-- include additional text, etc -->
17 <!entity % p-not-stable "IGNORE">
18 <!entity % p-stable "INCLUDE">
19 <!entity % p-text "IGNORE"> <!-- define we are not a text only doc -->
20 <!entity % p-doc "INCLUDE"> <!-- and we are a formal doc -->
21 <!entity % p-readme "IGNORE">
22 <!entity % user-man "IGNORE">
23 <!entity % config-file "IGNORE">
24 <!entity % p-supp-userman "IGNORE"> <!-- Omit some from supported.sgml -->
25 <!entity my-copy "©"> <!-- kludge for docbook2man -->
26 <!entity % draft "IGNORE"> <!-- WIP stuff -->
27 <!entity % seealso-extra "INCLUDE"> <!-- extra stuff from seealso.sgml -->
28 <!entity my-app "<application>Privoxy</application>">
31 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
34 This file belongs into
35 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
37 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.140 2011/11/19 15:18:02 fabiankeil Exp $
39 Copyright (C) 2001-2011 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org/
42 ========================================================================
43 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
44 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
45 ========================================================================
52 <title>Privoxy &p-version; User Manual</title>
56 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
57 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
58 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001-2011 by
59 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
63 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.140 2011/11/19 15:18:02 fabiankeil Exp $</pubdate>
67 Note: the following should generate a separate page, and a live link to it,
68 all nicely done. But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave
69 commented unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the
70 copyright/license declarations will be in their own sgml.
83 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
84 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
85 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
91 The <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> gives users information on how to
92 install, configure and use <ulink
93 url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy</ulink>.
96 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
98 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
101 You can find the latest version of the <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> at <ulink
102 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
103 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> on how to
104 contact the developers.
108 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
114 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
115 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
117 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
118 <application>Privoxy</application>, v.&p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
119 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
120 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
121 configuration files. Development of a new version is currently nearing
122 completion, and includes significant changes and enhancements over
126 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
129 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
130 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
131 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
136 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
137 <sect2 id="features"><title>Features</title>
139 In addition to the core
140 features of ad blocking and
141 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookie</ulink> management,
142 <application>Privoxy</application> provides many supplemental
143 features<![%p-not-stable;[, some of them currently under development]]>,
144 that give the end-user more control, more privacy and more freedom:
146 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
148 <!-- end boilerplate -->
153 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
156 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
157 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
160 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
161 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
162 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
163 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project
169 On some platforms, the installer may remove previously installed versions, if
170 found. (See below for your platform). In any case <emphasis>be sure to backup
171 your old configuration if it is valuable to you.</emphasis> See the <link
172 linkend="upgradersnote">note to upgraders</link> section below.
175 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
176 <sect2 id="installation-packages"><title>Binary Packages</title>
178 How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
181 <!-- XXX: The installation sections should be sorted -->
183 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
184 <sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Red Hat and Fedora RPMs</title>
187 RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm</literal>,
188 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location
189 of configuration files.
193 Note that on Red Hat, <application>Privoxy</application> will
194 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be automatically started on system boot. You will
195 need to enable that using <command>chkconfig</command>,
196 <command>ntsysv</command>, or similar methods.
200 If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM:
201 <literal>rpm --rebuild privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm</literal>. This
202 will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.
206 Also note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
207 on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
208 Otherwise, RPM will try to remove <application>Junkbuster</application>
209 automatically if found, before installing <application>Privoxy</application>.
213 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
214 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian and Ubuntu</title>
216 DEBs can be installed with <literal>apt-get install privoxy</literal>,
217 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location of
222 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
223 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
226 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
227 the installation process. You will find the configuration files
228 in the same directory as you installed <application>Privoxy</application> in.
231 Version 3.0.5 beta introduced full <application>Windows</application> service
232 functionality. On Windows only, the <application>Privoxy</application>
233 program has two new command line arguments to install and uninstall
234 <application>Privoxy</application> as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>.
238 <term>Arguments:</term>
241 <replaceable class="parameter">--install</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
244 <replaceable class="parameter">--uninstall</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
250 After invoking <application>Privoxy</application> with
251 <command>--install</command>, you will need to bring up the
252 <application>Windows</application> service console to assign the user you
253 want <application>Privoxy</application> to run under, and whether or not you
254 want it to run whenever the system starts. You can start the
255 <application>Windows</application> services console with the following
256 command: <command>services.msc</command>. If you do not take the manual step
257 of modifying <application>Privoxy's</application> service settings, it will
258 not start. Note too that you will need to give Privoxy a user account that
259 actually exists, or it will not be permitted to
260 write to its log and configuration files.
265 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
266 <sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris <!--, NetBSD, HP-UX--></title>
269 Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
270 untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
271 things go. <!-- FIXME, more info needed? -->
275 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
276 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
279 First, make sure that no previous installations of
280 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
281 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
282 system. Check that no <application>Junkbuster</application>
283 or <application>Privoxy</application> objects are in
289 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
290 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
291 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
292 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
296 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
297 into will contain all of the configuration files.
301 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
302 <sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Mac OS X</title>
304 Unzip the downloaded file (you can either double-click on the zip file
305 icon from the Finder, or from the desktop if you downloaded it there).
306 Then, double-click on the package installer icon and follow the
307 installation process.
310 The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful
311 installation (in addition to every time your computer starts up). To
312 prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your
313 computer starts up, remove or rename the folder named
314 <literal>/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal>.
317 To manually start or stop the privoxy service, use the Privoxy Utility
318 for Mac OS X. This application controls the privoxy service (e.g.
319 starting and stopping the service as well as uninstalling the software).
323 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
324 <sect3 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
326 Copy and then unpack the <filename>lha</filename> archive to a suitable location.
327 All necessary files will be installed into <application>Privoxy</application>
328 directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just
329 remove this directory.
333 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
334 <sect3 id="installation-tbz"><title>FreeBSD</title>
337 Privoxy is part of FreeBSD's Ports Collection, you can build and install
338 it with <literal>cd /usr/ports/www/privoxy; make install clean</literal>.
341 If you don't use the ports, you can fetch and install
342 the package with <literal>pkg_add -r privoxy</literal>.
345 The port skeleton and the package can also be downloaded from the
346 <ulink url="https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">File Release
347 Page</ulink>, but there's no reason to use them unless you're interested in the
348 beta releases which are only available there.
352 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
353 <sect3 id="installattion-gentoo"><title>Gentoo</title>
355 Gentoo source packages (Ebuilds) for <application>Privoxy</application> are
356 contained in the Gentoo Portage Tree (they are not on the download page,
357 but there is a Gentoo section, where you can see when a new
358 <application>Privoxy</application> Version is added to the Portage Tree).
361 Before installing <application>Privoxy</application> under Gentoo just do
362 first <literal>emerge --sync</literal> to get the latest changes from the
363 Portage tree. With <literal>emerge privoxy</literal> you install the latest
367 Configuration files are in <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename>, the
368 documentation is in <filename>/usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;</filename>
369 and the Log directory is in <filename>/var/log/privoxy</filename>.
375 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
376 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
379 The most convenient way to obtain the <application>Privoxy</application> sources
380 is to download the source tarball from our
381 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&package_id=10571">project download
386 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
387 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
388 version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
389 CVS repository</ulink>.
391 deprecated...out of business.
392 or simply download <ulink
393 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.bz2">the nightly CVS
398 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
400 <!-- end boilerplate -->
403 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
404 <sect2 id="installation-keepupdated"><title>Keeping your Installation Up-to-Date</title>
406 As user feedback comes in and development continues, we will make updated versions
407 of both the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link> (as a <ulink
408 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&release_id=103670">separate
409 package</ulink>) and the software itself (including the actions file) available for
414 If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
415 <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
416 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce/">subscribe
417 to our announce mailing list</ulink>, ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
421 In order not to lose your personal changes and adjustments when updating
422 to the latest <literal>default.action</literal> file we <emphasis>strongly
423 recommend</emphasis> that you use <literal>user.action</literal> and
424 <literal>user.filter</literal> for your local
425 customizations of <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
426 linkend="actions-file">Chapter on actions files</link> for details.
434 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
436 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
437 <sect1 id="whatsnew">
438 <title>What's New in this Release</title>
440 <application>Privoxy 3.0.18</application> is a stable release.
441 The changes since 3.0.17 stable are:
452 If the redirect URL contains characters RFC 3986 doesn't permit,
453 they are (re)encoded. Not doing this makes Privoxy versions from
454 3.0.5 to 3.0.17 susceptible to HTTP response splitting (CWE-113)
455 attacks if the +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} action is used.
460 Fix a logic bug that could cause Privoxy to reuse a server
461 socket after it got tainted by a server-header-tagger-induced
462 block that was triggered before the whole server response had
463 been read. If keep-alive was enabled and the request following
464 the blocked one was to the same host and using the same forwarding
465 settings, Privoxy would send it on the tainted server socket.
466 While the server would simply treat it as a pipelined request,
467 Privoxy would later on fail to properly parse the server's
468 response as it would try to parse the unread data from the
469 first response as server headers for the second one.
470 Regression introduced in 3.0.17.
475 When implying keep-alive in client_connection(), remember that
476 the client didn't. Fixes a regression introduced in 3.0.13 that
477 would cause Privoxy to wait for additional client requests after
478 receiving a HTTP/1.1 request with "Connection: close" set
479 and connection sharing enabled.
480 With clients which terminates the client connection after detecting
481 that the whole body has been received it doesn't really matter,
482 but with clients that don't the connection would be kept open until
488 Fix a subtle race condition between prepare_csp_for_next_request()
489 and sweep() A thread preparing itself for the next client request
490 could briefly appear to be inactive.
491 If all other threads were already using more recent files,
492 the thread could get its files swept away under its feet.
493 So far this has only been reproduced while stress testing in
494 valgrind while touching action files in a loop. It's unlikely
495 to have caused any actual problems in the real world.
500 Disable filters if SDCH compression is used unless filtering is forced.
501 If SDCH was combined with a supported compression algorithm, Privoxy
502 previously could try to decompress it and ditch the Content-Encoding
503 header even though the SDCH compression wasn't dealt with.
504 Reported by zebul666 in #3225863.
509 Make a copy of the --user value and only mess with that when splitting
510 user and group. On some operating systems modifying the value directly
511 is reflected in the output of ps and friends and can be misleading.
512 Reported by zepard in #3292710.
517 If forwarded-connect-retries is set, only retry if Privoxy is actually
518 forwarding the request. Previously direct connections would be retried
524 Fixed a small memory leak when retrying connections with IPv6 support
530 Remove an incorrect assertion in compile_dynamic_pcrs_job_list()
531 It could be triggered by a pcrs job with an invalid pcre
532 pattern (for example one that contains a lone quantifier).
537 If the --user argument user[.group] contains a dot, always bail out
538 if no group has been specified. Previously the intended, but undocumented
539 (and apparently untested), behaviour was to try interpreting the whole
540 argument as user name, but the detection was flawed and checked for '0'
541 instead of '\0', thus merely preventing group names beginning with a zero.
546 In html_code_map[], use a numeric character reference instead of '
547 which wasn't standardized before XHTML 1.0.
552 Fix an invalid free when compiled with FEATURE_GRACEFUL_TERMINATION
553 and shut down through http://config.privoxy.org/die
558 In get_actions(), fix the "temporary" backwards compatibility hack
559 to accept block actions without reason.
560 It also covered other actions that should be rejected as invalid.
561 Reported by Billy Crook.
569 General improvements:
573 Privoxy can (re)compress buffered content before delivering
574 it to the client. Disabled by default as most users wouldn't
580 The +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} action checks URL
581 segments separately. If there are other parameters behind
582 the redirect URL, this makes it unnecessary to cut them off
583 by additionally using a +redirect{} pcrs command.
584 Initial patch submitted by Jamie Zawinski in #3429848.
589 When loading action sections, verify that the referenced filters
590 exist. Currently missing filters only result in an error message,
591 but eventually the severity will be upgraded to fatal.
596 Allow to bind to multiple separate addresses.
597 Patch set submitted by Petr Pisar in #3354485.
602 Set socket_error to errno if connecting fails in rfc2553_connect_to()
603 Previously rejected direct connections could be incorrectly reported
604 as DNS issues if Privoxy was compiled with IPv6 support.
609 Adjust url_code_map[] so spaces are replaced with %20 instead of '+'
610 While '+' can be used by client's submitting form data, this is not
611 actually what Privoxy is using the lookups for. This is more of a
612 cosmetic issue and doesn't fix any known problems.
617 When compiled without FEATURE_FAST_REDIRECTS, do not silently
618 ignore +fast-redirect{} directives
623 Added a workaround for GNU libc's strptime() reporting negative
624 year values when the parsed year is only specified with two digits.
625 On affected systems cookies with such a date would not be turned
626 into session cookies by the +session-cookies-only action.
627 Reported by Vaeinoe in #3403560
632 Fixed bind failures with certain GNU libc versions if no non-loopback
633 IP address has been configured on the system. This is mainly an issue
634 if the system is using DHCP and Privoxy is started before the network
635 is completely configured.
636 Reported by Raphael Marichez in #3349356.
637 Additional insight from Petr Pisar.
642 Privoxy log messages now use the ISO 8601 date format %Y-%m-%d.
643 It's only slightly longer than the old format, but contains
644 the full date including the year and allows sorting by date
645 (when grepping in multiple log files) without hassle.
650 In get_last_url(), do not bother trying to decode URLs that do
651 not contain at least one '%' sign. It reduces the log noise and
652 a number of unnecessary memory allocations.
657 In case of SOCKS5 failures, dump the socks response in the log message.
662 Simplify the signal setup in main()
667 Streamline socks5_connect() slightly
672 In socks5_connect(), require a complete socks response from the server
673 Previously Privoxy didn't care how much data the server response
674 contained as long as the first two bytes contained the expected
675 values. While at it, shrink the buffer size so Privoxy can't read
676 more than a whole socks response.
681 In chat(), do not bother to generate a client request in case of
682 direct CONNECT requests. It will not be used anyway.
687 Reduce server_last_modified()'s stack size.
692 Shorten get_http_time() by using strftime().
697 Constify the known_http_methods pointers in unknown_method().
702 Constify the time_formats pointers in parse_header_time().
707 Constify the formerly_valid_actions pointers in action_used_to_be_valid().
712 Introduce a GNUMakefile MAN_PAGE variable that defaults to privoxy.1.
713 The Debian package uses section 8 for the man page and this
714 should simplify the patch.
719 Deduplicate the INADDR_NONE definition for Solaris by moving it to jbsockets.h
724 In block_url(), ditch the obsolete workaround for ancient Netscape versions
725 that supposedly couldn't properly deal with status code 403.
730 Remove a useless NULL pointer check in load_trustfile().
735 Remove two useless NULL pointer checks in load_one_re_filterfile().
740 Change url_code_map[] from an array of pointers to an array of arrays
741 It removes an unnecessary layer of indirection and on 64bit system reduces
742 the size of the binary a bit.
747 Fix various typos. Fixes taken from Debian's 29_typos.dpatch by Roland Rosenfeld.
752 Add a dok-tidy GNUMakefile target to clean up the messy HTML
753 generated by the other dok targets.
758 GNUisms in the GNUMakefile have been removed.
763 Change the HTTP version in static responses to 1.1
768 Synced config.sub and config.guess with upstream
769 2011-11-11/386c7218162c145f5f9e1ff7f558a3fbb66c37c5.
774 Add a dedicated function to parse the values of toggles. Reduces duplicated
775 code in load_config() and provides better error handling. Invalid or missing
776 toggle values are now a fatal error instead of being silently ignored.
781 Terminate HTML lines in static error messages with \n instead of \r\n.
786 Simplify cgi_error_unknown() a bit.
791 In LogPutString(), don't bother looking at pszText when not
792 actually logging anything.
797 Change ssplit()'s fourth parameter from int to size_t.
798 Fixes a clang complaint.
803 Add a warning that the statistics currently can't be trusted.
804 Mention Privoxy-Log-Parser's --statistics option as
805 an alternative for the time being.
810 In rfc2553_connect_to(), start setting cgi->error_message on error
815 Change the expected status code returned for http://p.p/die depending
816 on whether or not FEATURE_GRACEFUL_TERMINATION is available.
821 In cgi_die(), mark the client connection for closing.
822 If the client will fetch the style sheet through another connection
823 it gets the main thread out of the accept() state and should thus
824 trigger the actual shutdown.
829 Add a proper CGI message for cgi_die().
834 Don't enforce a logical line length limit in read_config_line()
839 Slightly refactor server_last_modified() to remove useless gmtime*() calls
844 In get_content_type(), also recognize '.jpeg' as JPEG extension
849 Add '.png' to the list of recognized file extenstions in get_content_type()
854 In block_url(), consistently use the block reason "Request blocked by Privoxy"
855 In two places the reason was "Request for blocked URL" which hides the
856 fact that the request got blocked by Privoxy and isn't necessarily
857 correct as the block may be due to tags.
862 In listen_loop(), reload the configuration files after accepting
863 a new connection instead of before.
864 Previously the first connection that arrived after a configuration
865 change would still be handled with the old configuration.
870 In chat()'s receive-data loop, skip a client socket check if
871 the socket will be written to right away anyway. This can
872 increase the transfer speed for unfiltered content on fast
878 The socket timeout is used for SOCKS negotiations as well which
879 previously couldn't timeout.
884 Don't keep the client connection alive if any configuration file
885 changed since the time the connection came in. This is closer to
886 Privoxy's behaviour before keep-alive support for client connection
887 has been added and also less confusing in general.
892 Treat all Content-Type header values containing the pattern
893 'script' as a sign of text. Reported by pribog in #3134970.
901 Action file improvements:
905 Moved the site-specific block pattern section below the one for the
906 generic patterns so for requests that are matched in both, the block
907 reason for the domain is shown which is usually more useful than showing
908 the one for the generic pattern.
913 Remove -prevent-compression from the fragile alias It's no longer
914 used anywhere by default and isn't known to break stuff anyway.
919 Add a (disabled) section to block various Facebook tracking URLs
920 Reported by Dan Stahlke in #3421764.
925 Add a (disabled) section to rewrite and redirect click-tracking
926 URLs used on news.google.com
927 Reported by Dan Stahlke in #3421755.
932 Unblock linuxcounter.net/
933 Reported by Dan Stahlke in #3422612.
938 Block 'www91.intel.com/' which is used by Omniture.
939 Reported by Adam Piggott in #3167370.
944 Disable the handle-as-empty-doc-returns-ok option and mark it as deprecated.
945 Reminded by tceverling in #2790091.
950 Add ".ivwbox.de/" to the "Cross-site user tracking" section.
951 Reported by Nettozahler in #3172525.
956 Unblock and fast-redirect ".awin1.com/.*=http://"
957 Reported by Adam Piggott in #3170921.
962 Block "b.collective-media.net/".
967 Widen the Debian popcon exception to "qa.debian.org/popcon".
968 Seen in Debian's 05_default_action.dpatch by Roland Rosenfeld.
973 Block ".gemius.pl/" which only seems to be used for user tracking.
974 Reported by johnd16 in #3002731. Additional input from Lee and movax.
979 Disable banners-by-size filters for '.thinkgeek.com/'
980 The filter only seems to catch pictures of the inventory.
985 Block requests for 'go.idmnet.bbelements.com/please/showit/'
986 Reported by kacperdominik in #3372959.
991 Unblock adainitiative.org/
996 Add a fast-redirects exception for '.googleusercontent.com/.*=cache'
1001 Add a fast-redirects exception for webcache.googleusercontent.com/
1006 Unblock http://adassier.wordpress.com/ and http://adassier.files.wordpress.com/
1014 Filter file improvements:
1018 Let the yahoo filter hide '.ads'
1023 Let the msn filter hide overlay ads for Facebook 'likes' in search
1024 results and elements with the id 's_notf_div'. They only seem to be
1025 used to advertise site 'enhancements'.
1030 Let the js-events filter additionally disarm setInterval()
1031 Suggested by dg1727 in #3423775.
1039 Documentation improvements:
1043 Clarify the effect of compiling Privoxy with zlib support
1044 Suggested by dg1727 in #3423782.
1049 Point out that the SourceForge messaging system works like a black
1050 hole and should thus not be used to contact individual developers.
1055 Mention some of the problems one can experience when not explicitly
1056 configuring an IP addresses as listen address.
1061 Explicitly mention that hostnames can be used instead of IP addresses
1062 for the listen-address, that only the first address returned will be
1063 used and what happens if the address is invalid.
1064 Requested by Calestyo in #3302213.
1072 Log message improvements:
1076 If only the server connection is kept alive, do not pretent to
1077 wait for a new client request.
1082 Remove a superfluos log message in forget_connection()
1087 In chat(), properly report missing server responses as such
1088 instead of calling them empty
1093 In forwarded_connect(), fix a log message nobody should ever see
1098 Fix a log message in socks5_connect(), a failed write operation
1099 was logged as failed read operation
1104 Let load_one_actions_file() properly complain about a missing
1105 '{' at the beginning of the file
1106 Simply stating that a line is invalid isn't particularly helpful.
1111 Do not claim to listen on a socket until Privoxy actually does.
1112 Patch submitted by Petr Pisar #3354485
1117 Prevent a duplicated LOG_LEVEL_CLF message when sending out
1118 the "no-server-data" response
1123 Also log the client socket when dropping a connection.
1128 Include the destination host in the 'Request ... marked for
1129 blocking. limit-connect{...} doesn't allow CONNECT ...' message
1130 Patch submitted by Saperski in #3296250.
1135 Prevent a duplicated log message if none of the resolved IP
1136 addresses were reachable
1141 In connect_to(), do not pretend to retry if forwarded-connect-retries
1147 When a specified user or group can't be found, put the name in
1148 single-quotes when logging it.
1153 In rfc2553_connect_to(), explain getnameinfo() errors better.
1158 Remove a useless log message in chat()
1163 When retrying to connect, also log the maximum number of connection
1169 Rephrase a log message in compile_dynamic_pcrs_job_list().
1170 Divide the error code and its meaning with a colon. Call the pcrs
1171 job dynamic and not the filter. Filters may contain dynamic and
1172 non-dynamic pcrs jobs at the same time. Only mention the name of
1173 the filter or tagger, but don't claim it's a filter when it could
1179 In a fatal error message in load_one_actions_file(), cover both
1180 URL and TAG patterns.
1185 In pcrs_strerror(), properly report unknown positive error code
1186 values as such. Previously they were handled like 0 (no error).
1191 In compile_dynamic_pcrs_job_list(), also log the actual error code as
1192 pcrs_strerror() doesn't handle all errors reported by pcre
1197 Don't bother trying to continue chatting if the client didn't ask for it.
1198 Reduces log noise a bit.
1203 Make two fatal error message in load_one_actions_file() more descriptive
1208 In cgi_send_user_manual(), log when rejecting a file name due to '/' or '..'
1213 In load_file(), log a message if opening a file failed
1214 The CGI error message alone isn't too helpful.
1219 In connection_destination_matches(), improve two log messages
1220 to help understand why the destinations don't match.
1225 Rephrase a log message in serve(). Client request arrival
1226 should be differentiated from closed client connections now.
1231 In serve(), log if a client connection isn't reused due to a
1232 configuration file change.
1237 Let mark_server_socket_tainted() always mark the server socket tainted,
1238 just don't talk about it in cases where it has no effect. It doesn't change
1239 Privoxy's behaviour, but makes understanding the log file easier.
1251 Added a --disable-ipv6-support switch for platforms where support
1252 is detected but doesn't actually work.
1257 Do not check for the existence of strerror() and memmove() twice
1262 Remove a useless test for setpgrp(2). Privoxy doesn't need it and
1263 it can cause problems when cross-compiling.
1268 Rename the --disable-acl-files switch to --disable-acl-support.
1269 Since about 2001, ACL directives are specified in the standard
1275 Update the URL of the 'Removing outdated PCRE version after the
1276 next stable release' posting. The old URL stopped working after
1277 one of SF's recent site "optimizations". Reported by Han Liu.
1285 Privoxy-Regression-Test:
1289 Added --shuffle-tests option to increase the chances of detection race conditions.
1294 Added a --local-test-file option that allows to use Privoxy-Regression-Test without Privoxy
1299 Added tests for missing socks4 and socks4a forwarders
1304 The --privoxy-address option now works with IPv6 addresses containing brackets, too
1309 Perform limited sanity checks for parameters that are supposed to have numerical values.
1314 Added a --sleep-time option to specify a number of seconds to
1315 sleep between tests, defaults to 0.
1320 Disable the range-requests tagger for tests that break if it's enabled
1325 Log messages use the ISO 8601 date format %Y-%m-%d.
1330 Fix spelling in two error messages.
1335 In the --help output, include a list of supported tests and their default levels.
1340 Adjust the tests to properly deal with FEATURE_TOGGLE being disabled.
1352 Perform limited sanity checks for command line parameters that
1353 are supposed to have numerical values.
1358 Implement a --unbreak-lines-only option to try to revert MUA breakage.
1363 Accept and highlight: Added header: Content-Encoding: deflate
1368 Accept and highlight: Compressed content from 29258 to 8630 bytes.
1373 Accept and highlight: Client request arrived in time on socket 21.
1378 Highlight: Didn't receive data in time: a.fsdn.com:443
1383 Accept log messages with ISO 8601 time stamps, too
1395 Bump generated Firefox version to 8.0
1400 Only randomize the release date if the new --randomize-release-date
1401 option is enabled. Firefox versions after 4 use a fixed date string
1412 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1414 <sect2 id="upgradersnote">
1415 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
1418 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading from earlier
1419 versions of <application>Privoxy</application>:
1427 The recommended way to upgrade &my-app; is to backup your old
1428 configuration files, install the new ones, verify that &my-app;
1429 is working correctly and finally merge back your changes using
1430 <application>diff</application> and maybe <application>patch</application>.
1433 There are a number of new features in each &my-app; release and
1434 most of them have to be explicitly enabled in the configuration
1435 files. Old configuration files obviously don't do that and due
1436 to syntax changes using old configuration files with a new
1437 &my-app; isn't always possible anyway.
1442 Note that some installers remove earlier versions completely,
1443 including configuration files, therefore you should really save
1444 any important configuration files!
1449 On the other hand, other installers don't overwrite existing configuration
1450 files, thinking you will want to do that yourself.
1455 <filename>standard.action</filename> has been merged into
1456 the <filename>default.action</filename> file.
1461 In the default configuration only fatal errors are logged now.
1462 You can change that in the <link linkend="DEBUG">debug section</link>
1463 of the configuration file. You may also want to enable more verbose
1464 logging until you verified that the new &my-app; version is working
1471 Three other config file settings are now off by default:
1472 <link linkend="enable-remote-toggle">enable-remote-toggle</link>,
1473 <link linkend="enable-remote-http-toggle">enable-remote-http-toggle</link>,
1474 and <link linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link>.
1475 If you use or want these, you will need to explicitly enable them, and
1476 be aware of the security issues involved.
1483 What constitutes a <quote>default</quote> configuration has changed,
1484 and you may want to review which actions are <quote>on</quote> by
1485 default. This is primarily a matter of emphasis, but some features
1486 you may have been used to, may now be <quote>off</quote> by default.
1487 There are also a number of new actions and filters you may want to
1488 consider, most of which are not fully incorporated into the default
1489 settings as yet (see above).
1496 The default actions setting is now <literal>Cautious</literal>. Previous
1497 releases had a default setting of <literal>Medium</literal>. Experienced
1498 users may want to adjust this, as it is fairly conservative by &my-app;
1499 standards and past practices. See <ulink
1500 url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default">
1501 http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default</ulink>. New users
1502 should try the default settings for a while before turning up the volume.
1508 The default setting has filtering turned <emphasis>off</emphasis>, which
1509 subsequently means that compression is <emphasis>on</emphasis>. Remember
1510 that filtering does not work on compressed pages, so if you use, or want to
1511 use, filtering, you will need to force compression off. Example:
1515 { +<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{google} +<link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link> }
1519 Or if you use a number of filters, or filter many sites, you may just want
1520 to turn off compression for all sites in
1521 <filename>default.action</filename> (or
1522 <filename>user.action</filename>).
1529 Also, <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> is
1530 off by default now. If you've liked this feature in the past, you may want
1531 to turn it back on in <filename>user.action</filename> now.
1538 Some installers may not automatically start
1539 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
1550 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1551 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using Privoxy</title>
1557 Install <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
1558 linkend="installation">Installation Section</link> below for platform specific
1565 Advanced users and those who want to offer <application>Privoxy</application>
1566 service to more than just their local machine should check the <link
1567 linkend="config">main config file</link>, especially the <link
1568 linkend="access-control">security-relevant</link> options. These are
1575 Start <application>Privoxy</application>, if the installation program has
1576 not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
1577 <link linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link>.
1583 Set your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application> as HTTP and
1584 HTTPS (SSL) <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>
1585 by setting the proxy configuration for address of
1586 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> and port <literal>8118</literal>.
1587 <emphasis>DO NOT</emphasis> activate proxying for <literal>FTP</literal> or
1588 any protocols besides HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) unless you intend to prevent your
1589 browser from using these protocols.
1595 Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
1596 If using <application>Privoxy</application> to manage
1597 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
1598 you should remove any currently stored cookies too.
1604 A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
1605 most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
1606 configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
1607 to no initial configuration is required in most cases, you may want
1609 <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">web-based action editor</ulink> though.
1610 Be sure to read the warnings first.
1613 See the <link linkend="configuration">Configuration section</link> for more
1614 configuration options, and how to customize your installation.
1615 You might also want to look at the <link
1616 linkend="quickstart-ad-blocking">next section</link> for a quick
1617 introduction to how <application>Privoxy</application> blocks ads and
1624 If you experience ads that slip through, innocent images that are
1625 blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
1626 <application>Privoxy's</application> behavior, take a look at the <link
1627 linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>. As a quick start, you might
1628 find the <link linkend="act-examples">richly commented examples</link>
1629 helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the <ulink
1630 url="http://config.privoxy.org">web-based user interface</ulink>. The
1631 Appendix <quote><link linkend="actionsanat">Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an
1632 Action</link></quote> has hints on how to understand and debug actions that
1633 <quote>misbehave</quote>.
1638 Did anyone test these lately?
1642 For easy access to &my-app;'s most important controls, drag the provided
1643 <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklets</link> into your browser's
1651 Please see the section <link linkend="contact">Contacting the
1652 Developers</link> on how to report bugs, problems with websites or to get
1659 Now enjoy surfing with enhanced control, comfort and privacy!
1667 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1669 <sect2 id="quickstart-ad-blocking">
1670 <title>Quickstart to Ad Blocking</title>
1672 NOTE: This section is deliberately redundant for those that don't
1673 want to read the whole thing (which is getting lengthy).
1676 Ad blocking is but one of <application>Privoxy's</application>
1677 array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
1678 user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody.
1681 This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
1682 you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive
1683 information provided below, though this is highly recommended.
1686 First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
1687 more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
1688 things that were not intended. And the more likely that some things
1689 may not work as intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
1690 extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
1691 <quote>problem</quote> sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
1692 configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
1693 not an easy way to eliminate <emphasis>all</emphasis> ads. Either take
1694 the easy way and settle for <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads blocked with the
1695 default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing
1696 habits and preferences.
1699 Secondly, a brief explanation of <application>Privoxy's </application>
1700 <quote>actions</quote>. <quote>Actions</quote> in this context, are
1701 the directives we use to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to perform
1702 some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell
1703 <application>Privoxy</application> to take some <quote>action</quote>. Each
1704 action has a unique name and function. While there are many potential
1705 <application>actions</application> in <application>Privoxy's</application>
1706 arsenal, only a few are used for ad blocking. <link
1707 linkend="actions">Actions</link>, and <link linkend="actions-file">action
1708 configuration files</link>, are explained in depth below.
1711 Actions are specified in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
1712 followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
1713 can actually be URL type <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> that use
1714 wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs. The
1715 actions, together with the URL patterns are called a section.
1718 When you connect to a website, the full URL will either match one or more
1719 of the sections as defined in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
1720 or not. If so, then <application>Privoxy</application> will perform the
1721 respective actions. If not, then nothing special happens. Furthermore, web
1722 pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your web browser will
1723 use to load additional components of the page, as it parses the
1724 original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just an URL
1725 embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server,
1726 or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many
1727 such embedded URLs. &my-app; can deal with each URL individually, so, for
1728 instance, the main page text is not touched, but images from such-and-such
1733 The most important actions for basic ad blocking are: <literal><link
1734 linkend="block">block</link></literal>, <literal><link
1735 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
1737 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal>,and
1738 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>:
1746 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> - this is perhaps
1747 the single most used action, and is particularly important for ad blocking.
1748 This action stops any contact between your browser and any URL patterns
1749 that match this action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads,
1750 but also anything that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply
1751 stops any communication with the remote server and sends
1752 <application>Privoxy</application>'s own built-in BLOCKED page instead to
1753 let you now what has happened (with some exceptions, see below).
1759 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> -
1760 tells <application>Privoxy</application> to treat this URL as an image.
1761 <application>Privoxy</application>'s default configuration already does this
1762 for all common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this
1763 is not so easy to determine. So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly
1764 important for ad blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of
1765 some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the
1766 <application>Privoxy</application> BLOCKED page (which would only result in
1767 a <quote>broken image</quote> icon). There are some limitations to this
1768 though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an image substitution for
1769 an entire HTML page in most situations.
1775 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> -
1776 sends an empty document instead of <application>Privoxy's</application>
1777 normal BLOCKED HTML page. This is useful for file types that are neither
1778 HTML nor images, such as blocking JavaScript files.
1785 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> - tells
1786 <application>Privoxy</application> what to display in place of an ad image that
1787 has hit a block rule. For this to come into play, the URL must match a
1788 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action somewhere in the
1789 configuration, <emphasis>and</emphasis>, it must also match an
1790 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action.
1793 The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are:
1797 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad
1798 replacement is obvious. This is the default.
1803 <emphasis>blank</emphasis> - A very small empty GIF image is displayed.
1804 This is the so-called <quote>invisible</quote> configuration option.
1809 <emphasis>http://<URL></emphasis> - A redirect to any image anywhere
1810 of the user's choosing (advanced usage).
1819 Advanced users will eventually want to explore &my-app;
1820 <literal><link linkend="filter">filters</link></literal> as well. Filters
1821 are very different from <literal><link
1822 linkend="block">blocks</link></literal>.
1823 A <quote>block</quote> blocks a site, page, or unwanted contented. Filters
1824 are a way of filtering or modifying what is actually on the page. An example
1825 filter usage: a text replacement of <quote>no-no</quote> for
1826 <quote>nasty-word</quote>. That is a very simple example. This process can be
1827 used for ad blocking, but it is more in the realm of advanced usage and has
1828 some pitfalls to be wary off.
1832 The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
1833 the special <application>Privoxy</application> editor at <ulink
1834 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1835 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>). This
1836 is an internal page, and does not require Internet access.
1840 Note that as of <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta the
1841 action editor is disabled by default. Check the
1842 <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions
1843 section in the configuration file</ulink> to learn why and in which
1844 cases it's safe to enable again.
1848 If you decided to enable the action editor, select the appropriate
1849 <quote>actions</quote> file, and click
1850 <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>. It is best to put personal or
1851 local preferences in <filename>user.action</filename> since this is not
1852 meant to be overwritten during upgrades, and will over-ride the settings in
1853 other files. Here you can insert new <quote>actions</quote>, and URLs for ad
1854 blocking or other purposes, and make other adjustments to the configuration.
1855 <application>Privoxy</application> will detect these changes automatically.
1859 A quick and simple step by step example:
1867 Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
1868 <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote> from the
1876 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1881 Find <filename>user.action</filename> in the top section, and click
1882 on <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>:
1885 <!-- image of editor and actions files selections -->
1887 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Actions Files in Use</title>
1890 <imagedata fileref="files-in-use.jpg" format="jpg">
1893 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ]</phrase>
1902 You should have a section with only
1903 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> listed under
1904 <quote>Actions:</quote>.
1905 If not, click a <quote><guibutton>Insert new section below</guibutton></quote>
1906 button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the
1907 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button right under the word <quote>Actions:</quote>.
1908 This will bring up a list of all actions. Find
1909 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> near the top, and click
1910 in the <quote>Enabled</quote> column, then <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote>
1911 just below the list.
1916 Now, in the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> actions section,
1917 click the <quote><guibutton>Add</guibutton></quote> button, and paste the URL the
1918 browser got from <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote>.
1919 Remove the <literal>http://</literal> at the beginning of the URL. Then, click
1920 <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote> (or
1921 <quote><guibutton>OK</guibutton></quote> if in a pop-up window).
1926 Now go back to the original page, and press <keycap>SHIFT-Reload</keycap>
1927 (or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now.
1935 This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
1936 wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same
1937 site. For a more extensive explanation of <quote>patterns</quote>, and
1938 the entire actions concept, see <link linkend="actions-file">the Actions
1943 For advanced users who want to hand edit their config files, you might want
1944 to now go to the <link linkend="act-examples">Actions Files Tutorial</link>.
1945 The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor.
1948 There are also various
1949 <link linkend="filter">filters</link> that can be used for ad blocking
1950 (filters are a special subset of actions). These
1951 fall into the <quote>advanced</quote> usage category, and are explained in
1952 depth in later sections.
1959 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1962 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1963 <sect1 id="startup">
1964 <title>Starting Privoxy</title>
1966 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
1967 will want to configure your browser(s) to use
1968 <application>Privoxy</application> as a HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)
1969 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>. The default is
1970 127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions
1971 used port 8000). This is the one configuration step <emphasis>that must be done
1975 Please note that <application>Privoxy</application> can only proxy HTTP and
1976 HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols.
1979 <!-- image of Mozilla Proxy configuration -->
1981 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
1982 Mozilla/Netscape HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) Settings</title>
1985 <imagedata fileref="proxy_setup.jpg" format="jpg">
1988 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
1996 With <application>Firefox</application>, this is typically set under:
2000 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Network</guibutton> -><guibutton>Connection</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Settings</guibutton>
2005 Or optionally on some platforms:
2009 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>General</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connection Settings</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Manual Proxy Configuration</guibutton>
2015 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
2016 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under:
2021 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
2022 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
2023 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Proxies</guibutton> -> <guibutton>HTTP Proxy</guibutton>
2028 For <application>Internet Explorer v.5-7</application>:
2032 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Internet Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connections</guibutton> -> <guibutton>LAN Settings</guibutton>
2036 Then, check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info
2037 (Address: 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include HTTPS (SSL), if you want HTTPS
2038 proxy support too (sometimes labeled <quote>Secure</quote>). Make sure any
2039 checkboxes like <quote>Use the same proxy server for all protocols</quote> is
2040 <emphasis>UNCHECKED</emphasis>. You want only HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)!
2043 <!-- image of IE Proxy configuration -->
2045 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
2046 Internet Explorer HTTP and HTTPS (Secure) Settings</title>
2049 <imagedata fileref="proxy2.jpg" format="jpg">
2052 <phrase>[ Screenshot of IE Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
2060 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
2061 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. Remove
2062 any <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
2063 if you want <application>Privoxy</application> to manage that. You are now
2064 ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
2065 <application>Privoxy</application>!
2069 <application>Privoxy</application> itself is typically started by specifying the
2070 main configuration file to be used on the command line. If no configuration
2071 file is specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application>
2072 will look for a file named <filename>config</filename> in the current
2073 directory. Except on Win32 where it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>.
2076 <sect2 id="start-redhat">
2077 <title>Red Hat and Fedora</title>
2079 A default Red Hat installation may not start &my-app; upon boot. It will use
2080 the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
2085 # /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
2093 # service privoxy start
2098 <sect2 id="start-debian">
2099 <title>Debian</title>
2101 We use a script. Note that Debian typically starts &my-app; upon booting per
2102 default. It will use the file
2103 <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
2108 # /etc/init.d/privoxy start
2113 <sect2 id="start-windows">
2114 <title>Windows</title>
2116 Click on the &my-app; Icon to start <application>Privoxy</application>. If no configuration file is
2117 specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application> will look
2118 for a file named <filename>config.txt</filename>. Note that Windows will
2119 automatically start &my-app; when the system starts if you chose that option
2123 <application>Privoxy</application> can run with full Windows service functionality.
2124 On Windows only, the &my-app; program has two new command line arguments
2125 to install and uninstall &my-app; as a service. See the
2126 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Windows Installation
2127 instructions</link> for details.
2131 <sect2 id="start-unices">
2132 <title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others</title>
2134 Example Unix startup command:
2138 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
2143 <sect2 id="start-os2">
2146 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
2147 start automatically when the system restarts. You can start it manually by
2148 double-clicking on the <application>Privoxy</application> icon in the
2149 <application>Privoxy</application> folder.
2153 <sect2 id="start-macosx">
2154 <title>Mac OS X</title>
2156 After downloading the privoxy software, unzip the downloaded file by
2157 double-clicking on the zip file icon. Then, double-click on the
2158 installer package icon and follow the installation process.
2161 The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful
2162 installation. In addition, the privoxy service will automatically
2163 start every time your computer starts up.
2166 To prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your
2167 computer starts up, remove or rename the folder named
2168 /Library/StartupItems/Privoxy.
2171 A simple application named Privoxy Utility has been created which
2172 enables administrators to easily start and stop the privoxy service.
2175 In addition, the Privoxy Utility presents a simple way for
2176 administrators to edit the various privoxy config files. A method
2177 to uninstall the software is also available.
2180 An administrator username and password must be supplied in order for
2181 the Privoxy Utility to perform any of the tasks.
2186 <sect2 id="start-amigaos">
2187 <title>AmigaOS</title>
2189 Start <application>Privoxy</application> (with RUN <>NIL:) in your
2190 <filename>startnet</filename> script (AmiTCP), in
2191 <filename>s:user-startup</filename> (RoadShow), as startup program in your
2192 startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
2193 <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically quit when you quit your
2194 TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that
2195 <application>Privoxy</application> is still running).
2199 <sect2 id="start-gentoo">
2200 <title>Gentoo</title>
2202 A script is again used. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config
2203 </filename> as its main configuration file.
2207 /etc/init.d/privoxy start
2211 Note that <application>Privoxy</application> is not automatically started at
2212 boot time by default. You can change this with the <literal>rc-update</literal>
2217 rc-update add privoxy default
2225 See the section <link linkend="cmdoptions">Command line options</link> for
2229 must find a better place for this paragraph
2232 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
2233 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
2234 <ulink url="actions-file.html"><quote>actions</quote></ulink> files. These are
2235 where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking, and other
2236 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several
2237 such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
2241 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites for which you may prefer
2242 persistent cookies, and add these to your actions configuration as needed. By
2243 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
2244 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), unless you add them to the
2245 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
2246 to edit <filename>user.action</filename> (or through the web based interface)
2247 and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser, it would make
2248 more sense to let <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which
2249 case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
2253 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
2254 sites is the popup-killing (through <ulink
2255 url="actions-file.html#FILTER-POPUPS"><quote>+filter{popups}</quote></ulink>),
2256 because your favorite shopping, banking, or leisure site may need
2257 popups (explained below).
2261 <application>Privoxy</application> does not support all of the optional HTTP/1.1
2262 features yet. In the unlikely event that you experience inexplicable problems
2263 with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
2264 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
2265 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
2266 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
2267 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote> config option in
2268 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
2269 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
2273 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
2274 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
2275 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
2276 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote>
2277 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
2278 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
2279 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
2280 and then follow the link to <quote>View & Change the Current Configuration</quote>.
2281 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
2285 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
2286 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
2287 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
2288 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
2289 to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
2290 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
2291 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
2295 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
2296 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
2297 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
2298 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
2299 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
2300 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
2305 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <link
2306 linkend="actions-file">read more about the actions concept</link>
2307 or even dive deep into the <link linkend="actionsanat">Appendix
2312 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
2313 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
2314 section <link linkend="contact"><quote>Contacting the
2315 Developers</quote></link> below.
2320 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2321 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
2322 <title>Command Line Options</title>
2324 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
2325 command-line options:
2333 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
2336 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
2341 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
2344 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
2349 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
2352 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
2353 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
2358 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
2361 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
2362 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
2363 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
2364 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
2369 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
2372 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
2373 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
2374 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
2379 <emphasis>--chroot</emphasis>
2382 Before changing to the user ID given in the <emphasis>--user</emphasis> option,
2383 chroot to that user's home directory, i.e. make the kernel pretend to the &my-app;
2384 process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit
2385 the impact of possible vulnerabilities in &my-app; to the files contained in that hierarchy.
2391 <emphasis>--pre-chroot-nslookup hostname</emphasis>
2394 Specifies a hostname to look up before doing a chroot. On some systems, initializing the
2395 resolver library involves reading config files from /etc and/or loading additional shared
2396 libraries from /lib. On these systems, doing a hostname lookup before the chroot reduces
2397 the number of files that must be copied into the chroot tree.
2400 For fastest startup speed, a good value is a hostname that is not in /etc/hosts but that
2401 your local name server (listed in /etc/resolv.conf) can resolve without recursion
2402 (that is, without having to ask any other name servers). The hostname need not exist,
2403 but if it doesn't, an error message (which can be ignored) will be output.
2409 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
2412 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
2413 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
2414 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
2415 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
2416 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
2417 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
2425 On <application>MS Windows</application> only there are two additional
2426 command-line options to allow <application>Privoxy</application> to install and
2427 run as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>. See the
2428 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Window Installation section</link>
2436 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2439 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2440 <sect1 id="configuration"><title>Privoxy Configuration</title>
2442 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
2443 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
2444 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
2445 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
2449 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2452 <title>Controlling Privoxy with Your Web Browser</title>
2454 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
2455 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
2456 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
2457 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
2458 You will see the following section:
2462 <!-- Needs to be put in a table and colorized -->
2465 <bridgehead renderas="sect2"> Privoxy Menu</bridgehead>
2469 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View & change the current configuration</ulink>
2472 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">View the source code version numbers</ulink>
2475 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">View the request headers.</ulink>
2478 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">Look up which actions apply to a URL and why</ulink>
2481 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">Toggle Privoxy on or off</ulink>
2484 ▪ <ulink
2485 url="http://www.privoxy.org/&p-version;/user-manual/">Documentation</ulink>
2493 This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the
2494 <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, which is where the ad, banner,
2495 cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
2496 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
2497 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
2498 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
2502 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
2503 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
2504 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
2505 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
2506 to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e.
2507 <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There
2508 is even a toggle <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklet</link> offered, so
2509 that you can toggle <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from
2514 Note that several of the features described above are disabled by default
2515 in <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta and later.
2517 <ulink url="config.html">configuration file</ulink> to learn why
2518 and in which cases it's safe to enable them again.
2523 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2528 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2530 <sect2 id="confoverview">
2531 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
2533 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
2534 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
2535 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
2536 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
2537 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
2538 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
2542 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
2543 some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
2544 principle configuration files are:
2552 The <link linkend="config">main configuration file</link> is named <filename>config</filename>
2553 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
2554 on Windows. This is a required file.
2560 <filename>match-all.action</filename> is used to define which <quote>actions</quote>
2561 relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups, content modification, cookie handling
2562 etc should be applied by default. It should be the first actions file loaded.
2565 <filename>default.action</filename> defines many exceptions (both positive and negative)
2566 from the default set of actions that's configured in <filename>match-all.action</filename>.
2567 It should be the second actions file loaded and shouldn't be edited by the user.
2570 Multiple actions files may be defined in <filename>config</filename>. These
2571 are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
2572 preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
2573 <filename>match-all.action</filename> (which you will most probably want
2574 to define sooner or later) are best applied in <filename>user.action</filename>,
2575 where you can preserve them across upgrades. The file isn't installed by all
2576 installers, but you can easily create it yourself with a text editor.
2579 There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
2581 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
2583 url="http://p.p/show-status">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>) for the
2584 various actions files.
2590 <quote>Filter files</quote> (the <link linkend="filter-file">filter
2591 file</link>) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
2592 viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
2593 lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
2594 whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
2595 <filename>default.filter</filename> includes various filters made
2596 available for use by the developers. Some are much more intrusive than
2597 others, and all should be used with caution. You may define additional
2598 filter files in <filename>config</filename> as you can with
2599 actions files. We suggest <filename>user.filter</filename> for any
2600 locally defined filters or customizations.
2608 The syntax of the configuration and filter files may change between different
2609 Privoxy versions, unfortunately some enhancements cost backwards compatibility.
2610 <!-- Add link to documentation-->
2614 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
2615 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
2616 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
2617 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
2618 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
2619 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
2620 out" that line. Blank lines are ignored.
2624 The actions files and filter files
2625 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
2626 maximum flexibility.
2630 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
2631 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
2632 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
2633 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
2634 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
2635 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
2636 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
2641 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
2642 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
2643 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
2644 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
2650 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2653 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
2655 <!-- **************************************************** -->
2656 <!-- Include config.sgml here -->
2657 <!-- This is where the entire config file is detailed. -->
2659 <!-- end include -->
2662 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2666 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
2668 <sect1 id="actions-file"><title>Actions Files</title>
2672 XXX: similar descriptions are in the Configuration Files sections.
2673 We should only describe them at one place.
2676 The actions files are used to define what <emphasis>actions</emphasis>
2677 <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which URLs, and thus determines
2678 how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
2679 transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof).
2680 There are a number of such actions, with a wide range of functionality.
2681 Each action does something a little different.
2682 These actions give us a veritable arsenal of tools with which to exert
2683 our control, preferences and independence. Actions can be combined so that
2684 their effects are aggregated when applied against a given set of URLs.
2688 are three action files included with <application>Privoxy</application> with
2695 <filename>match-all.action</filename> - is used to define which
2696 <quote>actions</quote> relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups,
2697 content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default.
2698 It should be the first actions file loaded
2703 <filename>default.action</filename> - defines many exceptions (both
2704 positive and negative) from the default set of actions that's configured
2705 in <filename>match-all.action</filename>. It is a set of rules that should
2706 work reasonably well as-is for most users. This file is only supposed to
2707 be edited by the developers. It should be the second actions file loaded.
2712 <filename>user.action</filename> - is intended to be for local site
2713 preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank
2714 has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
2715 thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded.
2720 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Cautious</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Medium</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Advanced</guibutton>
2723 These have increasing levels of aggressiveness <emphasis>and have no
2724 influence on your browsing unless you select them explicitly in the
2725 editor</emphasis>. A default installation should be pre-set to
2726 <literal>Cautious</literal>. New users should try this for a while before
2727 adjusting the settings to more aggressive levels. The more aggressive
2728 the settings, then the more likelihood there is of problems such as sites
2729 not working as they should.
2732 The <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button allows you to turn each
2733 action on/off individually for fine-tuning. The <guibutton>Cautious</guibutton>
2734 button changes the actions list to low/safe settings which will activate
2735 ad blocking and a minimal set of &my-app;'s features, and subsequently
2736 there will be less of a chance for accidental problems. The
2737 <guibutton>Medium</guibutton> button sets the list to a medium level of
2738 other features and a low level set of privacy features. The
2739 <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> button sets the list to a high level of
2740 ad blocking and medium level of privacy. See the chart below. The latter
2741 three buttons over-ride any changes via with the
2742 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button. More fine-tuning can be done in the
2743 lower sections of this internal page.
2746 While the actions file editor allows to enable these settings in all
2747 actions files, they are only supposed to be enabled in the first one
2748 to make sure you don't unintentionally overrule earlier rules.
2751 The default profiles, and their associated actions, as pre-defined in
2752 <filename>default.action</filename> are:
2755 <table frame=all><title>Default Configurations</title>
2756 <tgroup cols=4 align=left colsep=1 rowsep=1>
2757 <colspec colname=c1>
2758 <colspec colname=c2>
2759 <colspec colname=c3>
2760 <colspec colname=c4>
2763 <entry>Feature</entry>
2764 <entry>Cautious</entry>
2765 <entry>Medium</entry>
2766 <entry>Advanced</entry>
2771 <!-- <entry>f1</entry> -->
2772 <!-- <entry>f2</entry> -->
2773 <!-- <entry>f3</entry> -->
2774 <!-- <entry>f4</entry> -->
2780 <entry>Ad-blocking Aggressiveness</entry>
2781 <entry>medium</entry>
2787 <entry>Ad-filtering by size</entry>
2794 <entry>Ad-filtering by link</entry>
2800 <entry>Pop-up killing</entry>
2801 <entry>blocks only</entry>
2802 <entry>blocks only</entry>
2803 <entry>blocks only</entry>
2807 <entry>Privacy Features</entry>
2809 <entry>medium</entry>
2810 <entry>medium/high</entry>
2814 <entry>Cookie handling</entry>
2816 <entry>session-only</entry>
2821 <entry>Referer forging</entry>
2828 <entry>GIF de-animation</entry>
2835 <entry>Fast redirects</entry>
2842 <entry>HTML taming</entry>
2849 <entry>JavaScript taming</entry>
2856 <entry>Web-bug killing</entry>
2863 <entry>Image tag reordering</entry>
2879 The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
2880 file, and are processed in the order they are defined (e.g.
2881 <filename>default.action</filename> is typically processed before
2882 <filename>user.action</filename>). The content of these can all be viewed and
2884 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
2885 The over-riding principle when applying actions, is that the last action that
2886 matches a given URL wins. The broadest, most general rules go first
2887 (defined in <filename>default.action</filename>),
2888 followed by any exceptions (typically also in
2889 <filename>default.action</filename>), which are then followed lastly by any
2890 local preferences (typically in <emphasis>user</emphasis><filename>.action</filename>).
2891 Generally, <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word.
2895 An actions file typically has multiple sections. If you want to use
2896 <quote>aliases</quote> in an actions file, you have to place the (optional)
2897 <link linkend="aliases">alias section</link> at the top of that file.
2898 Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all
2899 sites and pages (be <emphasis>very careful</emphasis> with using such a
2900 universal set in <filename>user.action</filename> or any other actions file after
2901 <filename>default.action</filename>, because it will override the result
2902 from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
2903 exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
2904 <filename>user.action</filename> as an appendix to <filename>default.action</filename>,
2905 with the advantage that it is a separate file, which makes preserving your
2906 personal settings across <application>Privoxy</application> upgrades easier.
2910 Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
2911 just some obnoxious URL whose content you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
2912 or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
2913 written to disk), content can be modified, some JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking
2914 fooled, and much more. See below for a <link linkend="actions">complete list
2918 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2920 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
2922 Note that some <link linkend="actions">actions</link>, like cookie suppression
2923 or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these
2924 techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and
2925 certainly a matter of personal taste. And, things can always change, requiring
2926 refinements in the configuration. In general, it can be said that the more
2927 <quote>aggressive</quote> your default settings (in the top section of the
2928 actions file) are, the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you
2929 will have to make later. If, for example, you want to crunch all cookies per
2930 default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you
2931 regularly use and that require cookies for actually useful purposes, like maybe
2932 your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
2936 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
2937 distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
2938 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
2939 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :).
2943 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2945 <title>How to Edit</title>
2947 The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by
2948 using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from <ulink
2949 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
2950 Note: the config file option <link
2951 linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link> must be enabled for
2952 this to work. The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single
2953 feature on a per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults
2954 like <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> or
2955 <quote>Advanced</quote>. Warning: the <quote>Advanced</quote> setting is more
2956 aggressive, and will be more likely to cause problems for some sites.
2957 Experienced users only!
2961 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
2962 the actions files with your favorite text editor. Look at
2963 <filename>default.action</filename> which is richly commented with many
2969 <sect2 id="actions-apply">
2970 <title>How Actions are Applied to Requests</title>
2972 Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections,
2973 like the <quote><link linkend="aliases">alias</link></quote> sections which will
2974 be discussed later. For now let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a
2975 heading line (often split up to multiple lines for readability) which consist
2976 of a list of actions, separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces.
2977 Below that, there is a list of URL and tag patterns, each on a separate line.
2981 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
2982 compared to all URL patterns in each <quote>action file</quote>.
2983 Every time it matches, the list of applicable actions for the request is
2984 incrementally updated, using the heading of the section in which the
2985 pattern is located. The same is done again for tags and tag patterns later on.
2989 If multiple applying sections set the same action differently,
2990 the last match wins. If not, the effects are aggregated.
2991 E.g. a URL might match a regular section with a heading line of <literal>{
2992 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link> }</literal>,
2993 then later another one with just <literal>{
2994 +<link linkend="block">block</link> }</literal>, resulting
2995 in <emphasis>both</emphasis> actions to apply. And there may well be
2996 cases where you will want to combine actions together. Such a section then
3002 { +<literal>handle-as-image</literal> +<literal>block{Banner ads.}</literal> }
3003 # Block these as if they were images. Send no block page.
3005 media.example.com/.*banners
3006 .example.com/images/ads/</screen>
3010 You can trace this process for URL patterns and any given URL by visiting <ulink
3011 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
3015 Examples and more detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
3016 Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</link> section.
3020 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3021 <sect2 id="af-patterns">
3022 <title>Patterns</title>
3024 As mentioned, <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>patterns</quote>
3025 to determine what <emphasis>actions</emphasis> might apply to which sites and
3026 pages your browser attempts to access. These <quote>patterns</quote> use wild
3027 card type <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> matching to achieve a high degree of
3028 flexibility. This allows one expression to be expanded and potentially match
3029 against many similar patterns.
3033 Generally, an URL pattern has the form
3034 <literal><domain><port>/<path></literal>, where the
3035 <literal><domain></literal>, the <literal><port></literal>
3036 and the <literal><path></literal> are optional. (This is why the special
3037 <literal>/</literal> pattern matches all URLs). Note that the protocol
3038 portion of the URL pattern (e.g. <literal>http://</literal>) should
3039 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be included in the pattern. This is assumed already!
3042 The pattern matching syntax is different for the domain and path parts of
3043 the URL. The domain part uses a simple globbing type matching technique,
3044 while the path part uses more flexible
3045 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
3046 Expressions</quote></ulink> (POSIX 1003.2).
3049 The port part of a pattern is a decimal port number preceded by a colon
3050 (<literal>:</literal>). If the domain part contains a numerical IPv6 address,
3051 it has to be put into angle brackets
3052 (<literal><</literal>, <literal>></literal>).
3057 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
3060 is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
3061 regardless of which document on that server is requested. So ALL pages in
3062 this domain would be covered by the scope of this action. Note that a
3063 simple <literal>example.com</literal> is different and would NOT match.
3068 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
3071 means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
3077 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
3080 matches all the documents on <literal>www.example.com</literal>
3081 whose name starts with <literal>/index.html</literal>.
3086 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html$</literal></term>
3089 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
3090 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
3095 <term><literal>/index.html$</literal></term>
3098 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
3099 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server anywhere.
3104 <term><literal>/</literal></term>
3107 Matches any URL because there's no requirement for either the
3108 domain or the path to match anything.
3113 <term><literal>:8000/</literal></term>
3116 Matches any URL pointing to TCP port 8000.
3121 <term><literal><2001:db8::1>/</literal></term>
3124 Matches any URL with the host address <literal>2001:db8::1</literal>.
3125 (Note that the real URL uses plain brackets, not angle brackets.)
3130 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
3133 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
3134 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>. So its
3142 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3143 <sect3><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
3146 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
3147 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
3153 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
3156 matches any domain with first-level domain <literal>com</literal>
3157 and second-level domain <literal>example</literal>.
3158 For example <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
3159 <literal>example.com</literal> and <literal>foo.bar.baz.example.com</literal>.
3160 Note that it wouldn't match if the second-level domain was <literal>another-example</literal>.
3165 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
3168 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
3169 <literal>www.</literal> (It also matches the domain
3170 <literal>www</literal> but most of the time that doesn't matter.)
3175 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
3178 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>.
3179 And, by the way, also included would be any files or documents that exist
3180 within that domain since no path limitations are specified. (Correctly
3181 speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as
3182 a domain.) This might be <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
3183 <literal>news.example.de</literal>, or
3184 <literal>www.example.net/cgi/testing.pl</literal> for instance. All these
3192 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
3193 themselves. These work similarly to shell globbing type wild-cards:
3194 <quote>*</quote> represents zero or more arbitrary characters (this is
3196 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
3197 Expression</quote></ulink> based syntax of <quote>.*</quote>),
3198 <quote>?</quote> represents any single character (this is equivalent to the
3199 regular expression syntax of a simple <quote>.</quote>), and you can define
3200 <quote>character classes</quote> in square brackets which is similar to
3201 the same regular expression technique. All of this can be freely mixed:
3206 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
3209 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
3210 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
3215 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
3218 matches all of the above, and then some.
3223 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
3226 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
3227 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
3232 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
3235 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
3236 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
3237 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
3238 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
3245 While flexible, this is not the sophistication of full regular expression based syntax.
3250 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3253 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3254 <sect3><title>The Path Pattern</title>
3257 <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>modern</quote> POSIX 1003.2
3258 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
3259 Expressions</quote></ulink> for matching the path portion (after the slash),
3260 and is thus more flexible.
3264 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
3265 expressions, you also might want to have a look at your operating system's documentation
3266 on regular expressions (try <literal>man re_format</literal>).
3270 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
3271 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote> (regular expression speak
3272 for the beginning of a line).
3276 Please also note that matching in the path is <emphasis>CASE INSENSITIVE</emphasis>
3277 by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
3278 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch: <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match
3279 only documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
3280 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
3285 <term><literal>.example.com/.*</literal></term>
3288 Is equivalent to just <quote>.example.com</quote>, since any documents
3289 within that domain are matched with or without the <quote>.*</quote>
3290 regular expression. This is redundant
3295 <term><literal>.example.com/.*/index.html$</literal></term>
3298 Will match any page in the domain of <quote>example.com</quote> that is
3299 named <quote>index.html</quote>, and that is part of some path. For
3300 example, it matches <quote>www.example.com/testing/index.html</quote> but
3301 NOT <quote>www.example.com/index.html</quote> because the regular
3302 expression called for at least two <quote>/'s</quote>, thus the path
3303 requirement. It also would match
3304 <quote>www.example.com/testing/index_html</quote>, because of the
3305 special meta-character <quote>.</quote>.
3310 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)?index\.html$</literal></term>
3313 This regular expression is conditional so it will match any page
3314 named <quote>index.html</quote> regardless of path which in this case can
3315 have one or more <quote>/'s</quote>. And this one must contain exactly
3316 <quote>.html</quote> (but does not have to end with that!).
3321 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)</literal></term>
3324 This regular expression will match any path of <quote>example.com</quote>
3325 that contains any of the words <quote>ads</quote>, <quote>banner</quote>,
3326 <quote>banners</quote> (because of the <quote>?</quote>) or <quote>junk</quote>.
3327 The path does not have to end in these words, just contain them.
3332 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)/.*\.(jpe?g|gif|png)$</literal></term>
3335 This is very much the same as above, except now it must end in either
3336 <quote>.jpg</quote>, <quote>.jpeg</quote>, <quote>.gif</quote> or <quote>.png</quote>. So this
3337 one is limited to common image formats.
3344 There are many, many good examples to be found in <filename>default.action</filename>,
3345 and more tutorials below in <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>.
3350 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3353 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3354 <sect3 id="tag-pattern"><title>The Tag Pattern</title>
3357 Tag patterns are used to change the applying actions based on the
3358 request's tags. Tags can be created with either the
3359 <link linkend="CLIENT-HEADER-TAGGER">client-header-tagger</link>
3360 or the <link linkend="SERVER-HEADER-TAGGER">server-header-tagger</link> action.
3364 Tag patterns have to start with <quote>TAG:</quote>, so &my-app;
3365 can tell them apart from URL patterns. Everything after the colon
3366 including white space, is interpreted as a regular expression with
3367 path pattern syntax, except that tag patterns aren't left-anchored
3368 automatically (&my-app; doesn't silently add a <quote>^</quote>,
3369 you have to do it yourself if you need it).
3373 To match all requests that are tagged with <quote>foo</quote>
3374 your pattern line should be <quote>TAG:^foo$</quote>,
3375 <quote>TAG:foo</quote> would work as well, but it would also
3376 match requests whose tags contain <quote>foo</quote> somewhere.
3377 <quote>TAG: foo</quote> wouldn't work as it requires white space.
3381 Sections can contain URL and tag patterns at the same time,
3382 but tag patterns are checked after the URL patterns and thus
3383 always overrule them, even if they are located before the URL patterns.
3387 Once a new tag is added, Privoxy checks right away if it's matched by one
3388 of the tag patterns and updates the action settings accordingly. As a result
3389 tags can be used to activate other tagger actions, as long as these other
3390 taggers look for headers that haven't already be parsed.
3394 For example you could tag client requests which use the
3395 <literal>POST</literal> method,
3396 then use this tag to activate another tagger that adds a tag if cookies
3397 are sent, and then use a block action based on the cookie tag. This allows
3398 the outcome of one action, to be input into a subsequent action. However if
3399 you'd reverse the position of the described taggers, and activated the
3400 method tagger based on the cookie tagger, no method tags would be created.
3401 The method tagger would look for the request line, but at the time
3402 the cookie tag is created, the request line has already been parsed.
3406 While this is a limitation you should be aware of, this kind of
3407 indirection is seldom needed anyway and even the example doesn't
3408 make too much sense.
3415 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3418 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3420 <sect2 id="actions">
3421 <title>Actions</title>
3423 All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
3424 somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
3425 <quote>+</quote>, and turned off if preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. So a
3426 <literal>+action</literal> means <quote>do that action</quote>, e.g.
3427 <literal>+block</literal> means <quote>please block URLs that match the
3428 following patterns</quote>, and <literal>-block</literal> means <quote>don't
3429 block URLs that match the following patterns, even if <literal>+block</literal>
3430 previously applied.</quote>
3435 Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
3436 separated by whitespace, like in
3437 <literal>{+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}}</literal>,
3438 followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
3439 Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
3440 of the actions file.
3444 Actions fall into three categories:
3451 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>enabled</quote> or
3452 <quote>disabled</quote>. Syntax:
3456 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # enable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>
3457 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable></screen>
3460 Example: <literal>+handle-as-image</literal>
3467 Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
3472 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and set parameter to <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>,
3473 # overwriting parameter from previous match if necessary
3474 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action. The parameter can be omitted</screen>
3477 Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action,
3478 the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
3481 Example: <literal>+hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070602 Firefox/2.0.0.4}</literal>
3487 Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions,
3488 but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the
3489 same URL, but with different parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> the parameters
3490 from <emphasis>all</emphasis> matches are remembered. This is used for actions
3491 that can be executed for the same request repeatedly, like adding multiple
3492 headers, or filtering through multiple filters. Syntax:
3496 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and add <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> to the list of parameters
3497 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # remove the parameter <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> from the list of parameters
3498 # If it was the last one left, disable the action.
3499 <replaceable class="parameter">-name</replaceable> # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list</screen>
3502 Examples: <literal>+add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text}</literal> and
3503 <literal>+filter{html-annoyances}</literal>
3511 If nothing is specified in any actions file, no <quote>actions</quote> are
3512 taken. So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
3513 normal, non-blocking, non-filtering proxy. You must specifically enable the
3514 privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions
3515 files will give a good starting point).
3519 Later defined action sections always over-ride earlier ones of the same type.
3520 So exceptions to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
3521 in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files such
3522 as <filename>user.action</filename>). For multi-valued actions, the actions
3523 are applied in the order they are specified. Actions files are processed in
3524 the order they are defined in <filename>config</filename> (the default
3525 installation has three actions files). It also quite possible for any given
3526 URL to match more than one <quote>pattern</quote> (because of wildcards and
3527 regular expressions), and thus to trigger more than one set of actions! Last
3531 <!-- start actions listing -->
3533 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> actions are:
3537 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
3538 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
3539 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
3541 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
3544 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3546 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="add-header">
3547 <title>add-header</title>
3551 <term>Typical use:</term>
3553 <para>Confuse log analysis, custom applications</para>
3558 <term>Effect:</term>
3561 Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
3568 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3570 <para>Multi-value.</para>
3575 <term>Parameter:</term>
3578 Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
3579 It is recommended that you use the <quote><literal>X-</literal></quote> prefix
3589 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
3590 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
3591 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
3595 Headers added by this action are not modified by other actions.
3601 <term>Example usage:</term>
3604 <screen>+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}</screen>
3612 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3613 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="block">
3614 <title>block</title>
3618 <term>Typical use:</term>
3620 <para>Block ads or other unwanted content</para>
3625 <term>Effect:</term>
3628 Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the
3629 requests are trapped by &my-app; and the requested URL is never retrieved,
3630 but is answered locally with a substitute page or image, as determined by
3632 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
3634 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>, and
3636 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> actions.
3644 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3646 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3651 <term>Parameter:</term>
3653 <para>A block reason that should be given to the user.</para>
3661 <application>Privoxy</application> sends a special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page
3662 for requests to blocked pages. This page contains the block reason given as
3663 parameter, a link to find out why the block action applies, and a click-through
3664 to the blocked content (the latter only if the force feature is available and
3668 A very important exception occurs if <emphasis>both</emphasis>
3669 <literal>block</literal> and <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
3670 apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If
3671 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
3672 (see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter,
3673 if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent.
3676 It is important to understand this process, in order
3677 to understand how <application>Privoxy</application> deals with
3678 ads and other unwanted content. Blocking is a core feature, and one
3679 upon which various other features depend.
3682 The <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
3683 action can perform a very similar task, by <quote>blocking</quote>
3684 banner images and other content through rewriting the relevant URLs in the
3685 document's HTML source, so they don't get requested in the first place.
3686 Note that this is a totally different technique, and it's easy to confuse the two.
3692 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3695 <screen>{+block{No nasty stuff for you.}}
3696 # Block and replace with "blocked" page
3697 .nasty-stuff.example.com
3699 {+block{Doubleclick banners.} +handle-as-image}
3700 # Block and replace with image
3704 {+block{Layered ads.} +handle-as-empty-document}
3705 # Block and then ignore
3706 adserver.example.net/.*\.js$</screen>
3716 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3717 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="change-x-forwarded-for">
3718 <title>change-x-forwarded-for</title>
3722 <term>Typical use:</term>
3724 <para>Improve privacy by not forwarding the source of the request in the HTTP headers.</para>
3729 <term>Effect:</term>
3732 Deletes the <quote>X-Forwarded-For:</quote> HTTP header from the client request,
3740 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3742 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3747 <term>Parameter:</term>
3751 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header.</para>
3755 <quote>add</quote> to create the header (or append
3756 the client's IP address to an already existing one).
3767 It is safe and recommended to use <literal>block</literal>.
3770 Forwarding the source address of the request may make
3771 sense in some multi-user setups but is also a privacy risk.
3776 <term>Example usage:</term>
3779 <screen>+change-x-forwarded-for{block}</screen>
3786 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3787 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-filter">
3788 <title>client-header-filter</title>
3792 <term>Typical use:</term>
3795 Rewrite or remove single client headers.
3801 <term>Effect:</term>
3804 All client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
3805 the specified regular expression based substitutions.
3812 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3814 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3819 <term>Parameter:</term>
3822 The name of a client-header filter, as defined in one of the
3823 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
3832 Client-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
3833 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
3834 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
3835 You can do that by using tags though.
3838 Client-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
3839 and use their output as input.
3842 If the request URL gets changed, &my-app; will detect that and use the new
3843 one. This can be used to rewrite the request destination behind the client's
3844 back, for example to specify a Tor exit relay for certain requests.
3847 Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
3848 to learn which client-header filters are available by default, and how to
3856 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3860 # Hide Tor exit notation in Host and Referer Headers
3861 {+client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}}
3872 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3873 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-tagger">
3874 <title>client-header-tagger</title>
3878 <term>Typical use:</term>
3881 Block requests based on their headers.
3887 <term>Effect:</term>
3890 Client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
3891 the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
3899 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3901 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3906 <term>Parameter:</term>
3909 The name of a client-header tagger, as defined in one of the
3910 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
3919 Client-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
3920 and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
3924 Client-header taggers are the first actions that are executed
3925 and their tags can be used to control every other action.
3931 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3935 # Tag every request with the User-Agent header
3936 {+client-header-tagger{user-agent}}
3939 # Tagging itself doesn't change the action
3940 # settings, sections with TAG patterns do:
3942 # If it's a download agent, use a different forwarding proxy,
3943 # show the real User-Agent and make sure resume works.
3944 {+forward-override{forward-socks5 10.0.0.2:2222 .} \
3945 -hide-if-modified-since \
3946 -overwrite-last-modified \
3951 TAG:^User-Agent: NetBSD-ftp/
3952 TAG:^User-Agent: Novell ZYPP Installer
3953 TAG:^User-Agent: RPM APT-HTTP/
3954 TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/
3955 TAG:^User-Agent: Ubuntu APT-HTTP/
3956 TAG:^User-Agent: MPlayer/
3966 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3967 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="content-type-overwrite">
3968 <title>content-type-overwrite</title>
3972 <term>Typical use:</term>
3974 <para>Stop useless download menus from popping up, or change the browser's rendering mode</para>
3979 <term>Effect:</term>
3982 Replaces the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header.
3989 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3991 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3996 <term>Parameter:</term>
4008 The <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header is used by the
4009 browser to decide what to do with the document. The value of this
4010 header can cause the browser to open a download menu instead of
4011 displaying the document by itself, even if the document's format is
4012 supported by the browser.
4015 The declared content type can also affect which rendering mode
4016 the browser chooses. If XHTML is delivered as <quote>text/html</quote>,
4017 many browsers treat it as yet another broken HTML document.
4018 If it is send as <quote>application/xml</quote>, browsers with
4019 XHTML support will only display it, if the syntax is correct.
4022 If you see a web site that proudly uses XHTML buttons, but sets
4023 <quote>Content-Type: text/html</quote>, you can use &my-app;
4024 to overwrite it with <quote>application/xml</quote> and validate
4025 the web master's claim inside your XHTML-supporting browser.
4026 If the syntax is incorrect, the browser will complain loudly.
4029 You can also go the opposite direction: if your browser prints
4030 error messages instead of rendering a document falsely declared
4031 as XHTML, you can overwrite the content type with
4032 <quote>text/html</quote> and have it rendered as broken HTML document.
4035 By default <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal> only replaces
4036 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> headers that look like some kind of text.
4037 If you want to overwrite it unconditionally, you have to combine it with
4038 <literal><link linkend="force-text-mode">force-text-mode</link></literal>.
4039 This limitation exists for a reason, think twice before circumventing it.
4042 Most of the time it's easier to replace this action with a custom
4043 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
4044 It allows you to activate it for every document of a certain site and it will still
4045 only replace the content types you aimed at.
4048 Of course you can apply <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal>
4049 to a whole site and then make URL based exceptions, but it's a lot
4050 more work to get the same precision.
4056 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
4059 <screen># Check if www.example.net/ really uses valid XHTML
4060 { +content-type-overwrite{application/xml} }
4063 # but leave the content type unmodified if the URL looks like a style sheet
4064 {-content-type-overwrite}
4065 www.example.net/.*\.css$
4066 www.example.net/.*style
4075 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4076 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-client-header">
4080 <title>crunch-client-header</title>
4084 <term>Typical use:</term>
4086 <para>Remove a client header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
4091 <term>Effect:</term>
4094 Deletes every header sent by the client that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
4101 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4103 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4108 <term>Parameter:</term>
4120 This action allows you to block client headers for which no dedicated
4121 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists.
4122 <application>Privoxy</application> will remove every client header that
4123 contains the string you supplied as parameter.
4126 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
4127 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
4128 they contain the same string.
4131 <literal>crunch-client-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
4132 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
4133 parts of them, you should use a
4134 <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header filter</link></literal>.
4138 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
4145 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4148 <screen># Block the non-existent "Privacy-Violation:" client header
4149 { +crunch-client-header{Privacy-Violation:} }
4159 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4160 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-if-none-match">
4161 <title>crunch-if-none-match</title>
4167 <term>Typical use:</term>
4169 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
4174 <term>Effect:</term>
4177 Deletes the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header.
4184 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4186 <para>Boolean.</para>
4191 <term>Parameter:</term>
4203 Removing the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header
4204 is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
4205 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote> which
4206 would cause the browser to use a cached copy of the page.
4209 It is also useful to make sure the header isn't used as a cookie
4210 replacement (unlikely but possible).
4213 Blocking the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> header shouldn't cause any
4214 caching problems, as long as the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> header
4215 isn't blocked or missing as well.
4218 It is recommended to use this action together with
4219 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hide-if-modified-since</link></literal>
4221 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>.
4227 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4230 <screen># Let the browser revalidate cached documents but don't
4231 # allow the server to use the revalidation headers for user tracking.
4232 {+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
4233 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
4234 +crunch-if-none-match}
4243 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4244 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-incoming-cookies">
4245 <title>crunch-incoming-cookies</title>
4249 <term>Typical use:</term>
4252 Prevent the web server from setting HTTP cookies on your system
4258 <term>Effect:</term>
4261 Deletes any <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from server replies.
4268 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4270 <para>Boolean.</para>
4275 <term>Parameter:</term>
4287 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
4288 <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
4289 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>.
4290 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
4293 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
4294 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
4295 since it would prevent the session cookies from being set. See also
4296 <literal><link linkend="filter-content-cookies">filter-content-cookies</link></literal>.
4302 <term>Example usage:</term>
4305 <screen>+crunch-incoming-cookies</screen>
4313 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4314 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-server-header">
4315 <title>crunch-server-header</title>
4321 <term>Typical use:</term>
4323 <para>Remove a server header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
4328 <term>Effect:</term>
4331 Deletes every header sent by the server that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
4338 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4340 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4345 <term>Parameter:</term>
4357 This action allows you to block server headers for which no dedicated
4358 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists. <application>Privoxy</application>
4359 will remove every server header that contains the string you supplied as parameter.
4362 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
4363 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
4364 they contain the same string.
4367 <literal>crunch-server-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
4368 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
4369 parts of them, you should use a custom
4370 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
4374 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
4381 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4384 <screen># Crunch server headers that try to prevent caching
4385 { +crunch-server-header{no-cache} }
4394 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4395 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-outgoing-cookies">
4396 <title>crunch-outgoing-cookies</title>
4400 <term>Typical use:</term>
4403 Prevent the web server from reading any HTTP cookies from your system
4409 <term>Effect:</term>
4412 Deletes any <quote>Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from client requests.
4419 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4421 <para>Boolean.</para>
4426 <term>Parameter:</term>
4438 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
4439 <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
4440 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>.
4441 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
4444 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
4445 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
4446 since it would prevent the session cookies from being read.
4452 <term>Example usage:</term>
4455 <screen>+crunch-outgoing-cookies</screen>
4464 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4465 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="deanimate-gifs">
4466 <title>deanimate-gifs</title>
4470 <term>Typical use:</term>
4472 <para>Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.</para>
4477 <term>Effect:</term>
4480 De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image.
4487 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
4489 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4494 <term>Parameter:</term>
4497 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
4506 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
4507 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
4508 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
4509 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
4510 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
4511 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
4514 You can safely use this action with patterns that will also match non-GIF
4515 objects, because no attempt will be made at anything that doesn't look like
4522 <term>Example usage:</term>
4525 <screen>+deanimate-gifs{last}</screen>
4532 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4533 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="downgrade-http-version">
4534 <title>downgrade-http-version</title>
4538 <term>Typical use:</term>
4540 <para>Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1</para>
4545 <term>Effect:</term>
4548 Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0.
4555 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
4557 <para>Boolean.</para>
4562 <term>Parameter:</term>
4574 This is a left-over from the time when <application>Privoxy</application>
4575 didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
4576 unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server
4577 out there. Not all HTTP/1.1 features and requirements are supported yet,
4578 so there is a chance you might need this action.
4584 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4587 <screen>{+downgrade-http-version}
4588 problem-host.example.com</screen>
4596 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4597 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="fast-redirects">
4598 <title>fast-redirects</title>
4602 <term>Typical use:</term>
4604 <para>Fool some click-tracking scripts and speed up indirect links.</para>
4609 <term>Effect:</term>
4612 Detects redirection URLs and redirects the browser without contacting
4613 the redirection server first.
4620 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
4622 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4627 <term>Parameter:</term>
4632 <quote>simple-check</quote> to just search for the string <quote>http://</quote>
4633 to detect redirection URLs.
4638 <quote>check-decoded-url</quote> to decode URLs (if necessary) before searching
4639 for redirection URLs.
4650 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
4651 will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a
4652 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
4653 resulting from this scheme typically look like:
4654 <quote>http://www.example.org/click-tracker.cgi?target=http%3a//www.example.net/</quote>.
4657 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
4658 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
4659 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go
4660 to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your
4661 browser asks the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds
4665 This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement.
4666 If it is enabled by default, you will have to create some exceptions to
4667 this action. It can lead to failures in several ways:
4670 Not every URLs with other URLs as parameters is evil.
4671 Some sites offer a real service that requires this information to work.
4672 For example a validation service needs to know, which document to validate.
4673 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> assumes that every URL parameter that
4674 looks like another URL is a redirection target, and will always redirect to
4675 the last one. Most of the time the assumption is correct, but if it isn't,
4676 the user gets redirected anyway.
4679 Another failure occurs if the URL contains other parameters after the URL parameter.
4681 <quote>http://www.example.org/?redirect=http%3a//www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
4682 contains the redirection URL <quote>http://www.example.net/</quote>,
4683 followed by another parameter. <literal>fast-redirects</literal> doesn't know that
4684 and will cause a redirect to <quote>http://www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
4685 Depending on the target server configuration, the parameter will be silently ignored
4686 or lead to a <quote>page not found</quote> error. You can prevent this problem by
4687 first using the <literal><link linkend="redirect">redirect</link></literal> action
4688 to remove the last part of the URL, but it requires a little effort.
4691 To detect a redirection URL, <literal>fast-redirects</literal> only
4692 looks for the string <quote>http://</quote>, either in plain text
4693 (invalid but often used) or encoded as <quote>http%3a//</quote>.
4694 Some sites use their own URL encoding scheme, encrypt the address
4695 of the target server or replace it with a database id. In theses cases
4696 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> is fooled and the request reaches the
4697 redirection server where it probably gets logged.
4703 <term>Example usage:</term>
4707 { +fast-redirects{simple-check} }
4710 { +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} }
4711 another.example.com/testing</screen>
4720 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4721 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter">
4722 <title>filter</title>
4726 <term>Typical use:</term>
4728 <para>Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size),
4729 do fun text replacements, add personalized effects, etc.</para>
4734 <term>Effect:</term>
4737 All instances of text-based type, most notably HTML and JavaScript, to which
4738 this action applies, can be filtered on-the-fly through the specified regular
4739 expression based substitutions. (Note: as of version 3.0.3 plain text documents
4740 are exempted from filtering, because web servers often use the
4741 <literal>text/plain</literal> MIME type for all files whose type they don't know.)
4748 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
4750 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4755 <term>Parameter:</term>
4758 The name of a content filter, as defined in the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>.
4759 Filters can be defined in one or more files as defined by the
4760 <literal><link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal>
4761 option in the <link linkend="config">config file</link>.
4762 <filename>default.filter</filename> is the collection of filters
4763 supplied by the developers. Locally defined filters should go
4764 in their own file, such as <filename>user.filter</filename>.
4767 When used in its negative form,
4768 and without parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> filtering is completely disabled.
4777 For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available
4778 in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the examples below for
4782 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
4783 slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
4784 passed the filters. (The total time until the page is completely rendered
4785 doesn't change much, but it may be perceived as slower since the page is
4786 not incrementally displayed.)
4787 This effect will be more noticeable on slower connections.
4790 <quote>Rolling your own</quote>
4791 filters requires a knowledge of
4792 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
4793 Expressions</quote></ulink> and
4794 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html"><quote>HTML</quote></ulink>.
4795 This is very powerful feature, and potentially very intrusive.
4796 Filters should be used with caution, and where an equivalent
4797 <quote>action</quote> is not available.
4800 The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the
4801 <literal><link linkend="buffer-limit">buffer-limit</link></literal>
4802 option in the main <link linkend="config">config file</link>. The
4803 default is 4096 KB (4 Megs). Once this limit is exceeded, the buffered
4804 data, and all pending data, is passed through unfiltered.
4807 Inappropriate MIME types, such as zipped files, are not filtered at all.
4808 (Again, only text-based types except plain text). Encrypted SSL data
4809 (from HTTPS servers) cannot be filtered either, since this would violate
4810 the integrity of the secure transaction. In some situations it might
4811 be necessary to protect certain text, like source code, from filtering
4812 by defining appropriate <literal>-filter</literal> exceptions.
4815 Compressed content can't be filtered either, but if &my-app;
4816 is compiled with zlib support and a supported compression algorithm
4817 is used (gzip or deflate), &my-app; can first decompress the content
4821 If you use a &my-app; version without zlib support, but want filtering to work on
4822 as much documents as possible, even those that would normally be sent compressed,
4823 you must use the <literal><link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link></literal>
4824 action in conjunction with <literal>filter</literal>.
4827 Content filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
4828 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
4829 action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism
4830 works quite differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners
4831 based on their size (see below), since many of these seem to be somewhat
4835 <link linkend="contact">Feedback</link> with suggestions for new or
4836 improved filters is particularly welcome!
4839 The below list has only the names and a one-line description of each
4840 predefined filter. There are <link linkend="predefined-filters">more
4841 verbose explanations</link> of what these filters do in the <link
4842 linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>.
4848 <term>Example usage (with filters from the distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file).
4849 See <link linkend="PREDEFINED-FILTERS">the Predefined Filters section</link> for
4850 more explanation on each:</term>
4853 <anchor id="filter-js-annoyances">
4854 <screen>+filter{js-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse.</screen>
4857 <anchor id="filter-js-events">
4858 <screen>+filter{js-events} # Kill all JS event bindings and timers (Radically destructive! Only for extra nasty sites).</screen>
4861 <anchor id="filter-html-annoyances">
4862 <screen>+filter{html-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse.</screen>
4865 <anchor id="filter-content-cookies">
4866 <screen>+filter{content-cookies} # Kill cookies that come in the HTML or JS content.</screen>
4869 <anchor id="filter-refresh-tags">
4870 <screen>+filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups).</screen>
4873 <anchor id="filter-unsolicited-popups">
4874 <screen>+filter{unsolicited-popups} # Disable only unsolicited pop-up windows. Useful if your browser lacks this ability.</screen>
4877 <anchor id="filter-all-popups">
4878 <screen>+filter{all-popups} # Kill all popups in JavaScript and HTML. Useful if your browser lacks this ability.</screen>
4881 <anchor id="filter-img-reorder">
4882 <screen>+filter{img-reorder} # Reorder attributes in <img> tags to make the banners-by-* filters more effective.</screen>
4885 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-size">
4886 <screen>+filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners by size.</screen>
4889 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-link">
4890 <screen>+filter{banners-by-link} # Kill banners by their links to known clicktrackers.</screen>
4893 <anchor id="filter-webbugs">
4894 <screen>+filter{webbugs} # Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking).</screen>
4897 <anchor id="filter-tiny-textforms">
4898 <screen>+filter{tiny-textforms} # Extend those tiny textareas up to 40x80 and kill the hard wrap.</screen>
4901 <anchor id="filter-jumping-windows">
4902 <screen>+filter{jumping-windows} # Prevent windows from resizing and moving themselves.</screen>
4905 <anchor id="filter-frameset-borders">
4906 <screen>+filter{frameset-borders} # Give frames a border and make them resizable.</screen>
4909 <anchor id="filter-demoronizer">
4910 <screen>+filter{demoronizer} # Fix MS's non-standard use of standard charsets.</screen>
4913 <anchor id="filter-shockwave-flash">
4914 <screen>+filter{shockwave-flash} # Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects.</screen>
4917 <anchor id="filter-quicktime-kioskmode">
4918 <screen>+filter{quicktime-kioskmode} # Make Quicktime movies saveable.</screen>
4921 <anchor id="filter-fun">
4922 <screen>+filter{fun} # Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!</screen>
4925 <anchor id="filter-crude-parental">
4926 <screen>+filter{crude-parental} # Crude parental filtering. Note that this filter doesn't work reliably.</screen>
4929 <anchor id="filter-ie-exploits">
4930 <screen>+filter{ie-exploits} # Disable some known Internet Explorer bug exploits.</screen>
4933 <anchor id="filter-site-specifics">
4934 <screen>+filter{site-specifics} # Cure for site-specific problems. Don't apply generally!</screen>
4937 <anchor id="filter-no-ping">
4938 <screen>+filter{no-ping} # Removes non-standard ping attributes in <a> and <area> tags.</screen>
4941 <anchor id="filter-google">
4942 <screen>+filter{google} # CSS-based block for Google text ads. Also removes a width limitation and the toolbar advertisement.</screen>
4945 <anchor id="filter-yahoo">
4946 <screen>+filter{yahoo} # CSS-based block for Yahoo text ads. Also removes a width limitation.</screen>
4949 <anchor id="filter-msn">
4950 <screen>+filter{msn} # CSS-based block for MSN text ads. Also removes tracking URLs and a width limitation.</screen>
4953 <anchor id="filter-blogspot">
4954 <screen>+filter{blogspot} # Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this.</screen>
4962 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4963 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="force-text-mode">
4964 <title>force-text-mode</title>
4970 <term>Typical use:</term>
4972 <para>Force <application>Privoxy</application> to treat a document as if it was in some kind of <emphasis>text</emphasis> format. </para>
4977 <term>Effect:</term>
4980 Declares a document as text, even if the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> isn't detected as such.
4987 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4989 <para>Boolean.</para>
4994 <term>Parameter:</term>
5006 As explained <literal><link linkend="filter">above</link></literal>,
5007 <application>Privoxy</application> tries to only filter files that are
5008 in some kind of text format. The same restrictions apply to
5009 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite</link></literal>.
5010 <literal>force-text-mode</literal> declares a document as text,
5011 without looking at the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> first.
5015 Think twice before activating this action. Filtering binary data
5016 with regular expressions can cause file damage.
5023 <term>Example usage:</term>
5036 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5037 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="forward-override">
5038 <title>forward-override</title>
5044 <term>Typical use:</term>
5046 <para>Change the forwarding settings based on User-Agent or request origin</para>
5051 <term>Effect:</term>
5054 Overrules the forward directives in the configuration file.
5061 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5063 <para>Multi-value.</para>
5068 <term>Parameter:</term>
5072 <para><quote>forward .</quote> to use a direct connection without any additional proxies.</para>
5076 <quote>forward 127.0.0.1:8123</quote> to use the HTTP proxy listening at 127.0.0.1 port 8123.
5081 <quote>forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 .</quote> to use the socks4a proxy listening at
5082 127.0.0.1 port 9050. Replace <quote>forward-socks4a</quote> with <quote>forward-socks4</quote>
5083 to use a socks4 connection (with local DNS resolution) instead, use <quote>forward-socks5</quote>
5084 for socks5 connections (with remote DNS resolution).
5089 <quote>forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 proxy.example.org:8000</quote> to use the socks4a proxy
5090 listening at 127.0.0.1 port 9050 to reach the HTTP proxy listening at proxy.example.org port 8000.
5091 Replace <quote>forward-socks4a</quote> with <quote>forward-socks4</quote> to use a socks4 connection
5092 (with local DNS resolution) instead, use <quote>forward-socks5</quote>
5093 for socks5 connections (with remote DNS resolution).
5104 This action takes parameters similar to the
5105 <link linkend="forwarding">forward</link> directives in the configuration
5106 file, but without the URL pattern. It can be used as replacement, but normally it's only
5107 used in cases where matching based on the request URL isn't sufficient.
5111 Please read the description for the <link linkend="forwarding">forward</link> directives before
5112 using this action. Forwarding to the wrong people will reduce your privacy and increase the
5113 chances of man-in-the-middle attacks.
5116 If the ports are missing or invalid, default values will be used. This might change
5117 in the future and you shouldn't rely on it. Otherwise incorrect syntax causes Privoxy
5121 Use the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">show-url-info CGI page</ulink>
5122 to verify that your forward settings do what you thought the do.
5129 <term>Example usage:</term>
5133 # Always use direct connections for requests previously tagged as
5134 # <quote>User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2.0</quote> and make sure
5135 # resuming downloads continues to work.
5136 # This way you can continue to use Tor for your normal browsing,
5137 # without overloading the Tor network with your FreeBSD ports updates
5138 # or downloads of bigger files like ISOs.
5139 # Note that HTTP headers are easy to fake and therefore their
5140 # values are as (un)trustworthy as your clients and users.
5141 {+forward-override{forward .} \
5142 -hide-if-modified-since \
5143 -overwrite-last-modified \
5145 TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2\.0$
5154 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5155 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-empty-document">
5156 <title>handle-as-empty-document</title>
5162 <term>Typical use:</term>
5164 <para>Mark URLs that should be replaced by empty documents <emphasis>if they get blocked</emphasis></para>
5169 <term>Effect:</term>
5172 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs.
5173 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
5174 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote>
5175 page, or an empty document will be sent to the client as a substitute for the blocked content.
5176 The <emphasis>empty</emphasis> document isn't literally empty, but actually contains a single space.
5183 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5185 <para>Boolean.</para>
5190 <term>Parameter:</term>
5202 Some browsers complain about syntax errors if JavaScript documents
5203 are blocked with <application>Privoxy's</application>
5204 default HTML page; this option can be used to silence them.
5205 And of course this action can also be used to eliminate the &my-app;
5206 BLOCKED message in frames.
5209 The content type for the empty document can be specified with
5210 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite{}</link></literal>,
5211 but usually this isn't necessary.
5217 <term>Example usage:</term>
5220 <screen># Block all documents on example.org that end with ".js",
5221 # but send an empty document instead of the usual HTML message.
5222 {+block{Blocked JavaScript} +handle-as-empty-document}
5232 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5233 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-image">
5234 <title>handle-as-image</title>
5238 <term>Typical use:</term>
5240 <para>Mark URLs as belonging to images (so they'll be replaced by images <emphasis>if they do get blocked</emphasis>, rather than HTML pages)</para>
5245 <term>Effect:</term>
5248 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs as images.
5249 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
5250 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>blocked</quote>
5251 page, or a replacement image (as determined by the <literal><link
5252 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> action) will be sent to the
5253 client as a substitute for the blocked content.
5260 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5262 <para>Boolean.</para>
5267 <term>Parameter:</term>
5279 The below generic example section is actually part of <filename>default.action</filename>.
5280 It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should
5284 Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with
5285 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>, to block sources of banners, whose URLs don't
5286 reflect the file type, like in the second example section.
5289 Note that you cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, (in-line) ad
5290 frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they won't display properly.
5291 Forcing <literal>handle-as-image</literal> in this situation will not replace the
5292 ad frame with an image, but lead to error messages.
5298 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
5301 <screen># Generic image extensions:
5304 /.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)$
5306 # These don't look like images, but they're banners and should be
5307 # blocked as images:
5309 {+block{Nasty banners.} +handle-as-image}
5310 nasty-banner-server.example.com/junk.cgi\?output=trash
5319 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5320 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-accept-language">
5321 <title>hide-accept-language</title>
5327 <term>Typical use:</term>
5329 <para>Pretend to use different language settings.</para>
5334 <term>Effect:</term>
5337 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> HTTP header in client requests.
5344 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5346 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5351 <term>Parameter:</term>
5354 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
5363 Faking the browser's language settings can be useful to make a
5364 foreign User-Agent set with
5365 <literal><link linkend="hide-user-agent">hide-user-agent</link></literal>
5369 However some sites with content in different languages check the
5370 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> to decide which one to take by default.
5371 Sometimes it isn't possible to later switch to another language without
5372 changing the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header first.
5375 Therefore it's a good idea to either only change the
5376 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header to languages you understand,
5377 or to languages that aren't wide spread.
5380 Before setting the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header
5381 to a rare language, you should consider that it helps to
5382 make your requests unique and thus easier to trace.
5383 If you don't plan to change this header frequently,
5384 you should stick to a common language.
5390 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5393 <screen># Pretend to use Canadian language settings.
5394 {+hide-accept-language{en-ca} \
5395 +hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; OpenBSD i386; en-CA; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060628 Firefox/1.5.0.4} \
5405 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5406 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-content-disposition">
5407 <title>hide-content-disposition</title>
5413 <term>Typical use:</term>
5415 <para>Prevent download menus for content you prefer to view inside the browser.</para>
5420 <term>Effect:</term>
5423 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header set by some servers.
5430 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5432 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5437 <term>Parameter:</term>
5440 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
5449 Some servers set the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header for
5450 documents they assume you want to save locally before viewing them.
5451 The <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header contains the file name
5452 the browser is supposed to use by default.
5455 In most browsers that understand this header, it makes it impossible to
5456 <emphasis>just view</emphasis> the document, without downloading it first,
5457 even if it's just a simple text file or an image.
5460 Removing the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header helps
5461 to prevent this annoyance, but some browsers additionally check the
5462 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> header, before they decide if they can
5463 display a document without saving it first. In these cases, you have
5464 to change this header as well, before the browser stops displaying
5468 It is also possible to change the server's file name suggestion
5469 to another one, but in most cases it isn't worth the time to set
5473 This action will probably be removed in the future,
5474 use server-header filters instead.
5480 <term>Example usage:</term>
5483 <screen># Disarm the download link in Sourceforge's patch tracker
5485 +content-type-overwrite{text/plain}\
5486 +hide-content-disposition{block} }
5487 .sourceforge.net/tracker/download\.php</screen>
5495 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5496 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-if-modified-since">
5497 <title>hide-if-modified-since</title>
5503 <term>Typical use:</term>
5505 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
5510 <term>Effect:</term>
5513 Deletes the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> HTTP client header or modifies its value.
5520 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5522 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5527 <term>Parameter:</term>
5530 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or a user defined value that specifies a range of hours.
5539 Removing this header is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
5540 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the
5541 browser to use a cached copy of the page.
5544 Instead of removing the header, <literal>hide-if-modified-since</literal> can
5545 also add or subtract a random amount of time to/from the header's value.
5546 You specify a range of minutes where the random factor should be chosen from and
5547 <application>Privoxy</application> does the rest. A negative value means
5548 subtracting, a positive value adding.
5551 Randomizing the value of the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> makes
5552 it less likely that the server can use the time as a cookie replacement,
5553 but you will run into caching problems if the random range is too high.
5556 It is a good idea to only use a small negative value and let
5557 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>
5558 handle the greater changes.
5561 It is also recommended to use this action together with
5562 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>,
5563 otherwise it's more or less pointless.
5569 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5572 <screen># Let the browser revalidate but make tracking based on the time less likely.
5573 {+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
5574 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
5575 +crunch-if-none-match}
5584 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5585 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-from-header">
5586 <title>hide-from-header</title>
5590 <term>Typical use:</term>
5592 <para>Keep your (old and ill) browser from telling web servers your email address</para>
5597 <term>Effect:</term>
5600 Deletes any existing <quote>From:</quote> HTTP header, or replaces it with the
5608 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5610 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5615 <term>Parameter:</term>
5618 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
5627 The keyword <quote>block</quote> will completely remove the header
5628 (not to be confused with the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
5632 Alternately, you can specify any value you prefer to be sent to the web
5633 server. If you do, it is a matter of fairness not to use any address that
5634 is actually used by a real person.
5637 This action is rarely needed, as modern web browsers don't send
5638 <quote>From:</quote> headers anymore.
5644 <term>Example usage:</term>
5647 <screen>+hide-from-header{block}</screen> or
5648 <screen>+hide-from-header{spam-me-senseless@sittingduck.example.com}</screen>
5656 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5657 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-referrer">
5658 <title>hide-referrer</title>
5659 <anchor id="hide-referer">
5662 <term>Typical use:</term>
5664 <para>Conceal which link you followed to get to a particular site</para>
5669 <term>Effect:</term>
5672 Deletes the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) HTTP header from the client request,
5673 or replaces it with a forged one.
5680 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5682 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5687 <term>Parameter:</term>
5691 <para><quote>conditional-block</quote> to delete the header completely if the host has changed.</para>
5694 <para><quote>conditional-forge</quote> to forge the header if the host has changed.</para>
5697 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header unconditionally.</para>
5700 <para><quote>forge</quote> to pretend to be coming from the homepage of the server we are talking to.</para>
5703 <para>Any other string to set a user defined referrer.</para>
5713 <literal>conditional-block</literal> is the only parameter,
5714 that isn't easily detected in the server's log file. If it blocks the
5715 referrer, the request will look like the visitor used a bookmark or
5716 typed in the address directly.
5719 Leaving the referrer unmodified for requests on the same host
5720 allows the server owner to see the visitor's <quote>click path</quote>,
5721 but in most cases she could also get that information by comparing
5722 other parts of the log file: for example the User-Agent if it isn't
5723 a very common one, or the user's IP address if it doesn't change between
5727 Always blocking the referrer, or using a custom one, can lead to
5728 failures on servers that check the referrer before they answer any
5729 requests, in an attempt to prevent their content from being
5730 embedded or linked to elsewhere.
5733 Both <literal>conditional-block</literal> and <literal>forge</literal>
5734 will work with referrer checks, as long as content and valid referring page
5735 are on the same host. Most of the time that's the case.
5738 <literal>hide-referer</literal> is an alternate spelling of
5739 <literal>hide-referrer</literal> and the two can be can be freely
5740 substituted with each other. (<quote>referrer</quote> is the
5741 correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
5742 requires it to be spelled as <quote>referer</quote>.)
5748 <term>Example usage:</term>
5751 <screen>+hide-referrer{forge}</screen> or
5752 <screen>+hide-referrer{http://www.yahoo.com/}</screen>
5760 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5761 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-user-agent">
5762 <title>hide-user-agent</title>
5766 <term>Typical use:</term>
5768 <para>Try to conceal your type of browser and client operating system</para>
5773 <term>Effect:</term>
5776 Replaces the value of the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> HTTP header
5777 in client requests with the specified value.
5784 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5786 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5791 <term>Parameter:</term>
5794 Any user-defined string.
5804 This can lead to problems on web sites that depend on looking at this header in
5805 order to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the
5806 way, is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the right thing to do: good web sites
5807 work browser-independently).
5811 Using this action in multi-user setups or wherever different types of
5812 browsers will access the same <application>Privoxy</application> is
5813 <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>. In single-user, single-browser
5814 setups, you might use it to delete your OS version information from
5815 the headers, because it is an invitation to exploit known bugs for your
5816 OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
5817 sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
5818 reason in some cases).
5821 More information on known user-agent strings can be found at
5822 <ulink url="http://www.user-agents.org/">http://www.user-agents.org/</ulink>
5824 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent</ulink>.
5830 <term>Example usage:</term>
5833 <screen>+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}</screen>
5841 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5842 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="limit-connect">
5843 <title>limit-connect</title>
5847 <term>Typical use:</term>
5849 <para>Prevent abuse of <application>Privoxy</application> as a TCP proxy relay or disable SSL for untrusted sites</para>
5854 <term>Effect:</term>
5857 Specifies to which ports HTTP CONNECT requests are allowable.
5864 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5866 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5871 <term>Parameter:</term>
5874 A comma-separated list of ports or port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum
5875 defaulting to 0 and the maximum to 65K).
5884 By default, i.e. if no <literal>limit-connect</literal> action applies,
5885 <application>Privoxy</application> allows HTTP CONNECT requests to all
5886 ports. Use <literal>limit-connect</literal> if fine-grained control
5887 is desired for some or all destinations.
5890 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
5891 (<quote>https://</quote> URLs) through proxies. It works very simply:
5892 the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then
5893 short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote server.
5894 This means CONNECT-enabled proxies can be used as TCP relays very easily.
5897 <application>Privoxy</application> relays HTTPS traffic without seeing
5898 the decoded content. Websites can leverage this limitation to circumvent &my-app;'s
5899 filters. By specifying an invalid port range you can disable HTTPS entirely.
5905 <term>Example usages:</term>
5907 <!-- I had trouble getting the spacing to look right in my browser -->
5908 <!-- I probably have the wrong font setup, bollocks. -->
5909 <!-- Apparently the emphasis tag uses a proportional font no matter what -->
5911 <screen>+limit-connect{443} # Port 443 is OK.
5912 +limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
5913 +limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Ports less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
5914 +limit-connect{-} # All ports are OK
5915 +limit-connect{,} # No HTTPS/SSL traffic is allowed</screen>
5922 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5923 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="prevent-compression">
5924 <title>prevent-compression</title>
5928 <term>Typical use:</term>
5931 Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be
5932 passed through <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>s.
5938 <term>Effect:</term>
5941 Removes the Accept-Encoding header which can be used to ask for compressed transfer.
5948 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5950 <para>Boolean.</para>
5955 <term>Parameter:</term>
5967 More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which
5968 is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But the <literal><link
5969 linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> and
5970 <literal><link linkend="deanimate-gifs">deanimate-gifs</link></literal>
5971 actions need access to the uncompressed data.
5974 When compiled with zlib support (available since &my-app; 3.0.7), content that should be
5975 filtered is decompressed on-the-fly and you don't have to worry about this action.
5976 If you are using an older &my-app; version, or one that hasn't been compiled with zlib
5977 support, this action can be used to convince the server to send the content uncompressed.
5980 Most text-based instances compress very well, the size is seldom decreased by less than 50%,
5981 for markup-heavy instances like news feeds saving more than 90% of the original size isn't
5985 Not using compression will therefore slow down the transfer, and you should only
5986 enable this action if you really need it. As of &my-app; 3.0.7 it's disabled in all
5987 predefined action settings.
5990 Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed
5991 documents correctly. Broken PHP applications tend to send an empty document body,
5992 some IIS versions only send the beginning of the content. If you enable
5993 <literal>prevent-compression</literal> per default, you might want to add
5994 exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
6000 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
6004 # Selectively turn off compression, and enable a filter
6006 { +filter{tiny-textforms} +prevent-compression }
6007 # Match only these sites
6012 # Or instead, we could set a universal default:
6014 { +prevent-compression }
6017 # Then maybe make exceptions for broken sites:
6019 { -prevent-compression }
6020 .compusa.com/</screen>
6029 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6030 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="overwrite-last-modified">
6031 <title>overwrite-last-modified</title>
6037 <term>Typical use:</term>
6039 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
6044 <term>Effect:</term>
6047 Deletes the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> HTTP server header or modifies its value.
6054 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
6056 <para>Parameterized.</para>
6061 <term>Parameter:</term>
6064 One of the keywords: <quote>block</quote>, <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote>
6065 and <quote>randomize</quote>
6074 Removing the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header is useful for filter
6075 testing, where you want to force a real reload instead of getting status
6076 code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the browser to reuse the old
6077 version of the page.
6080 The <quote>randomize</quote> option overwrites the value of the
6081 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with a randomly chosen time
6082 between the original value and the current time. In theory the server
6083 could send each document with a different <quote>Last-Modified:</quote>
6084 header to track visits without using cookies. <quote>Randomize</quote>
6085 makes it impossible and the browser can still revalidate cached documents.
6088 <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote> overwrites the value of the
6089 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with the current time. You could use
6090 this option together with
6091 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hide-if-modified-since</link></literal>
6092 to further customize your random range.
6095 The preferred parameter here is <quote>randomize</quote>. It is safe
6096 to use, as long as the time settings are more or less correct.
6097 If the server sets the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header to the time
6098 of the request, the random range becomes zero and the value stays the same.
6099 Therefore you should later randomize it a second time with
6100 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hided-if-modified-since</link></literal>,
6104 It is also recommended to use this action together with
6105 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>.
6111 <term>Example usage:</term>
6114 <screen># Let the browser revalidate without being tracked across sessions
6115 { +hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
6116 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
6117 +crunch-if-none-match}
6126 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6127 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="redirect">
6128 <title>redirect</title>
6134 <term>Typical use:</term>
6137 Redirect requests to other sites.
6143 <term>Effect:</term>
6146 Convinces the browser that the requested document has been moved
6147 to another location and the browser should get it from there.
6154 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
6156 <para>Parameterized</para>
6161 <term>Parameter:</term>
6164 An absolute URL or a single pcrs command.
6173 Requests to which this action applies are answered with a
6174 HTTP redirect to URLs of your choosing. The new URL is
6175 either provided as parameter, or derived by applying a
6176 single pcrs command to the original URL.
6179 This action will be ignored if you use it together with
6180 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>.
6181 It can be combined with
6182 <literal><link linkend="fast-redirects">fast-redirects{check-decoded-url}</link></literal>
6183 to redirect to a decoded version of a rewritten URL.
6186 Use this action carefully, make sure not to create redirection loops
6187 and be aware that using your own redirects might make it
6188 possible to fingerprint your requests.
6191 In case of problems with your redirects, or simply to watch
6192 them working, enable <link linkend="DEBUG">debug 128</link>.
6198 <term>Example usages:</term>
6201 <screen># Replace example.com's style sheet with another one
6202 { +redirect{http://localhost/css-replacements/example.com.css} }
6203 example.com/stylesheet\.css
6205 # Create a short, easy to remember nickname for a favorite site
6206 # (relies on the browser accept and forward invalid URLs to &my-app;)
6207 { +redirect{http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/actions-file.html} }
6210 # Always use the expanded view for Undeadly.org articles
6211 # (Note the $ at the end of the URL pattern to make sure
6212 # the request for the rewritten URL isn't redirected as well)
6213 {+redirect{s@$@&mode=expanded@}}
6214 undeadly.org/cgi\?action=article&sid=\d*$
6216 # Redirect Google search requests to MSN
6217 {+redirect{s@^http://[^/]*/search\?q=([^&]*).*@http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=$1@}}
6220 # Redirect MSN search requests to Yahoo
6221 {+redirect{s@^http://[^/]*/results\.aspx\?q=([^&]*).*@http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=$1@}}
6222 search.msn.com//results\.aspx\?q=
6224 # Redirect remote requests for this manual
6225 # to the local version delivered by Privoxy
6226 {+redirect{s@^http://www@http://config@}}
6227 www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</screen>
6236 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6237 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="server-header-filter">
6238 <title>server-header-filter</title>
6242 <term>Typical use:</term>
6245 Rewrite or remove single server headers.
6251 <term>Effect:</term>
6254 All server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly
6255 through the specified regular expression based substitutions.
6262 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
6264 <para>Parameterized.</para>
6269 <term>Parameter:</term>
6272 The name of a server-header filter, as defined in one of the
6273 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
6282 Server-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
6283 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
6284 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
6285 You can do that by using tags though.
6288 Server-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
6289 and use their output as input.
6292 Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
6293 to learn which server-header filters are available by default, and how to
6300 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
6304 {+server-header-filter{html-to-xml}}
6305 example.org/xml-instance-that-is-delivered-as-html
6307 {+server-header-filter{xml-to-html}}
6308 example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
6318 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6319 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="server-header-tagger">
6320 <title>server-header-tagger</title>
6324 <term>Typical use:</term>
6327 Enable or disable filters based on the Content-Type header.
6333 <term>Effect:</term>
6336 Server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
6337 the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
6345 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
6347 <para>Parameterized.</para>
6352 <term>Parameter:</term>
6355 The name of a server-header tagger, as defined in one of the
6356 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
6365 Server-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
6366 and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
6370 Server-header taggers are executed before all other header actions
6371 that modify server headers. Their tags can be used to control
6372 all of the other server-header actions, the content filters
6373 and the crunch actions (<link linkend="redirect">redirect</link>
6374 and <link linkend="block">block</link>).
6377 Obviously crunching based on tags created by server-header taggers
6378 doesn't prevent the request from showing up in the server's log file.
6385 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
6389 # Tag every request with the content type declared by the server
6390 {+server-header-tagger{content-type}}
6401 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6402 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="session-cookies-only">
6403 <title>session-cookies-only</title>
6407 <term>Typical use:</term>
6410 Allow only temporary <quote>session</quote> cookies (for the current
6411 browser session <emphasis>only</emphasis>).
6417 <term>Effect:</term>
6420 Deletes the <quote>expires</quote> field from <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote>
6421 server headers. Most browsers will not store such cookies permanently and
6422 forget them in between sessions.
6429 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
6431 <para>Boolean.</para>
6436 <term>Parameter:</term>
6448 This is less strict than <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> /
6449 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal> and allows you to browse
6450 websites that insist or rely on setting cookies, without compromising your privacy too badly.
6453 Most browsers will not permanently store cookies that have been processed by
6454 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal> and will forget about them between sessions.
6455 This makes profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
6456 that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
6457 sites, and is the recommended setting.
6460 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>
6461 together with <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> or
6462 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>. If you do, cookies
6463 will be plainly killed.
6466 Note that it is up to the browser how it handles such cookies without an <quote>expires</quote>
6467 field. If you use an exotic browser, you might want to try it out to be sure.
6470 This setting also has no effect on cookies that may have been stored
6471 previously by the browser before starting <application>Privoxy</application>.
6472 These would have to be removed manually.
6475 <application>Privoxy</application> also uses
6476 the <link linkend="filter-content-cookies">content-cookies filter</link>
6477 to block some types of cookies. Content cookies are not effected by
6478 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>.
6484 <term>Example usage:</term>
6487 <screen>+session-cookies-only</screen>
6495 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6496 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="set-image-blocker">
6497 <title>set-image-blocker</title>
6501 <term>Typical use:</term>
6503 <para>Choose the replacement for blocked images</para>
6508 <term>Effect:</term>
6511 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. If <emphasis>both</emphasis>
6512 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><link
6513 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> <emphasis>also</emphasis>
6514 apply, i.e. if the request is to be blocked as an image,
6515 <emphasis>then</emphasis> the parameter of this action decides what will be
6516 sent as a replacement.
6523 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
6525 <para>Parameterized.</para>
6530 <term>Parameter:</term>
6535 <quote>pattern</quote> to send a built-in checkerboard pattern image. The image is visually
6536 decent, scales very well, and makes it obvious where banners were busted.
6541 <quote>blank</quote> to send a built-in transparent image. This makes banners disappear
6542 completely, but makes it hard to detect where <application>Privoxy</application> has blocked
6543 images on a given page and complicates troubleshooting if <application>Privoxy</application>
6544 has blocked innocent images, like navigation icons.
6549 <quote><replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable></quote> to
6550 send a redirect to <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>. You can redirect
6551 to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem via <quote>file:///</quote> URL.
6552 (But note that not all browsers support redirecting to a local file system).
6555 A good application of redirects is to use special <application>Privoxy</application>-built-in
6556 URLs, which send the built-in images, as <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>.
6557 This has the same visual effect as specifying <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote> in
6558 the first place, but enables your browser to cache the replacement image, instead of requesting
6559 it over and over again.
6570 The URLs for the built-in images are <quote>http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=<replaceable
6571 class="parameter">type</replaceable></quote>, where <replaceable class="parameter">type</replaceable> is
6572 either <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote>.
6575 There is a third (advanced) type, called <quote>auto</quote>. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> to be
6576 used in <literal>set-image-blocker</literal>, but meant for use from <link linkend="filter-file">filters</link>.
6577 Auto will select the type of image that would have applied to the referring page, had it been an image.
6583 <term>Example usage:</term>
6589 <screen>+set-image-blocker{pattern}</screen>
6592 Redirect to the BSD daemon:
6595 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://www.freebsd.org/gifs/dae_up3.gif}</screen>
6598 Redirect to the built-in pattern for better caching:
6601 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=pattern}</screen>
6609 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6611 <title>Summary</title>
6613 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
6614 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
6615 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
6616 content, and other criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard
6617 and fast rules for all sites. See the <link
6618 linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link> for a brief example on troubleshooting
6624 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6625 <sect2 id="aliases">
6626 <title>Aliases</title>
6628 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
6629 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other actions.
6630 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in actions.
6631 Currently, an alias name can contain any character except space, tab,
6633 <quote>{</quote> and <quote>}</quote>, but we <emphasis>strongly
6634 recommend</emphasis> that you only use <quote>a</quote> to <quote>z</quote>,
6635 <quote>0</quote> to <quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and <quote>-</quote>.
6636 Alias names are not case sensitive, and are not required to start with a
6637 <quote>+</quote> or <quote>-</quote> sign, since they are merely textually
6641 Aliases can be used throughout the actions file, but they <emphasis>must be
6642 defined in a special section at the top of the file!</emphasis>
6643 And there can only be one such section per actions file. Each actions file may
6644 have its own alias section, and the aliases defined in it are only visible
6648 There are two main reasons to use aliases: One is to save typing for frequently
6649 used combinations of actions, the other one is a gain in flexibility: If you
6650 decide once how you want to handle shops by defining an alias called
6651 <quote>shop</quote>, you can later change your policy on shops in
6652 <emphasis>one</emphasis> place, and your changes will take effect everywhere
6653 in the actions file where the <quote>shop</quote> alias is used. Calling aliases
6654 by their purpose also makes your actions files more readable.
6657 Currently, there is one big drawback to using aliases, though:
6658 <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in web-based action file
6659 editor honors aliases when reading the actions files, but it expands
6660 them before writing. So the effects of your aliases are of course preserved,
6661 but the aliases themselves are lost when you edit sections that use aliases
6666 Now let's define some aliases...
6671 # Useful custom aliases we can use later.
6673 # Note the (required!) section header line and that this section
6674 # must be at the top of the actions file!
6678 # These aliases just save typing later:
6679 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
6681 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6682 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6683 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked image.} +handle-as-image
6684 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
6686 # These aliases define combinations of actions
6687 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
6689 fragile = -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer</link> -<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link>
6691 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link>
6693 # Short names for other aliases, for really lazy people ;-)
6695 c0 = +crunch-all-cookies
6696 c1 = -crunch-all-cookies</screen>
6700 ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
6701 actions file and define exceptions to the default actions (as specified further
6702 up for the <quote>/</quote> pattern):
6707 # These sites are either very complex or very keen on
6708 # user data and require minimal interference to work:
6711 .office.microsoft.com
6712 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
6713 # Gmail is really mail.google.com, not gmail.com
6717 # Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data)
6721 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
6724 # These shops require pop-ups:
6726 {-filter{all-popups} -filter{unsolicited-popups}}
6728 .overclockers.co.uk</screen>
6732 Aliases like <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> are typically used for
6733 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require more than one action to be disabled
6734 in order to function properly.
6740 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6741 <sect2 id="act-examples">
6742 <title>Actions Files Tutorial</title>
6744 The above chapters have shown <link linkend="actions-file">which actions files
6745 there are and how they are organized</link>, how actions are <link
6746 linkend="actions">specified</link> and <link linkend="actions-apply">applied
6747 to URLs</link>, how <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> work, and how to
6748 define and use <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link>. Now, let's look at an
6749 example <filename>match-all.action</filename>, <filename>default.action</filename>
6750 and <filename>user.action</filename> file and see how all these pieces come together:
6754 <title>match-all.action</title>
6756 Remember <emphasis>all actions are disabled when matching starts</emphasis>,
6757 so we have to explicitly enable the ones we want.
6761 While the <filename>match-all.action</filename> file only contains a
6762 single section, it is probably the most important one. It has only one
6763 pattern, <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, but this pattern
6764 <link linkend="af-patterns">matches all URLs</link>. Therefore, the set of
6765 actions used in this <quote>default</quote> section <emphasis>will
6766 be applied to all requests as a start</emphasis>. It can be partly or
6767 wholly overridden by other actions files like <filename>default.action</filename>
6768 and <filename>user.action</filename>, but it will still be largely responsible
6769 for your overall browsing experience.
6773 Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is
6774 no need to disable any actions here. (Remember: a <quote>+</quote>
6775 preceding the action name enables the action, a <quote>-</quote> disables!).
6776 Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into
6777 multiple lines with line continuation.
6783 +<link linkend="CHANGE-X-FORWARDED-FOR">change-x-forwarded-for{block}</link> \
6784 +<link linkend="HIDE-FROM-HEADER">hide-from-header{block}</link> \
6785 +<link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER">set-image-blocker{pattern}</link> \
6792 The default behavior is now set.
6797 <title>default.action</title>
6800 If you aren't a developer, there's no need for you to edit the
6801 <filename>default.action</filename> file. It is maintained by
6802 the &my-app; developers and if you disagree with some of the
6803 sections, you should overrule them in your <filename>user.action</filename>.
6807 Understanding the <filename>default.action</filename> file can
6808 help you with your <filename>user.action</filename>, though.
6812 The first section in this file is a special section for internal use
6813 that prevents older &my-app; versions from reading the file:
6818 ##########################################################################
6819 # Settings -- Don't change! For internal Privoxy use ONLY.
6820 ##########################################################################
6822 for-privoxy-version=3.0.11</screen>
6826 After that comes the (optional) alias section. We'll use the example
6827 section from the above <link linkend="aliases">chapter on aliases</link>,
6828 that also explains why and how aliases are used:
6833 ##########################################################################
6835 ##########################################################################
6838 # These aliases just save typing later:
6839 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
6841 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6842 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6843 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked image.} +handle-as-image
6844 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
6846 # These aliases define combinations of actions
6847 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
6849 fragile = -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer</link>
6850 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link></screen>
6854 The first of our specialized sections is concerned with <quote>fragile</quote>
6855 sites, i.e. sites that require minimum interference, because they are either
6856 very complex or very keen on tracking you (and have mechanisms in place that
6857 make them unusable for people who avoid being tracked). We will simply use
6858 our pre-defined <literal>fragile</literal> alias instead of stating the list
6859 of actions explicitly:
6864 ##########################################################################
6865 # Exceptions for sites that'll break under the default action set:
6866 ##########################################################################
6868 # "Fragile" Use a minimum set of actions for these sites (see alias above):
6871 .office.microsoft.com # surprise, surprise!
6872 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
6873 mail.google.com</screen>
6877 Shopping sites are not as fragile, but they typically
6878 require cookies to log in, and pop-up windows for shopping
6879 carts or item details. Again, we'll use a pre-defined alias:
6888 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
6890 .scan.co.uk</screen>
6894 The <literal><link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link></literal>
6895 action, which may have been enabled in <filename>match-all.action</filename>,
6896 breaks some sites. So disable it for popular sites where we know it misbehaves:
6901 { -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> }
6905 .altavista.com/.*(like|url|link):http
6906 .altavista.com/trans.*urltext=http
6907 .nytimes.com</screen>
6911 It is important that <application>Privoxy</application> knows which
6912 URLs belong to images, so that <emphasis>if</emphasis> they are to
6913 be blocked, a substitute image can be sent, rather than an HTML page.
6914 Contacting the remote site to find out is not an option, since it
6915 would destroy the loading time advantage of banner blocking, and it
6916 would feed the advertisers information about you. We can mark any
6917 URL as an image with the <literal><link
6918 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action,
6919 and marking all URLs that end in a known image file extension is a
6925 ##########################################################################
6927 ##########################################################################
6929 # Define which file types will be treated as images, in case they get
6930 # blocked further down this file:
6932 { +<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> }
6933 /.*\.(gif|jpe?g|png|bmp|ico)$</screen>
6937 And then there are known banner sources. They often use scripts to
6938 generate the banners, so it won't be visible from the URL that the
6939 request is for an image. Hence we block them <emphasis>and</emphasis>
6940 mark them as images in one go, with the help of our
6941 <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above. (We could of
6942 course just as well use <literal>+<link linkend="block">block</link>
6943 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> here.)
6944 Remember that the type of the replacement image is chosen by the
6945 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
6946 action. Since all URLs have matched the default section with its
6947 <literal>+<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link>{pattern}</literal>
6948 action before, it still applies and needn't be repeated:
6953 # Known ad generators:
6958 .ad.*.doubleclick.net
6959 .a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
6960 .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
6966 One of the most important jobs of <application>Privoxy</application>
6967 is to block banners. Many of these can be <quote>blocked</quote>
6968 by the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{banners-by-size}</literal>
6969 action, which we enabled above, and which deletes the references to banner
6970 images from the pages while they are loaded, so the browser doesn't request
6971 them anymore, and hence they don't need to be blocked here. But this naturally
6972 doesn't catch all banners, and some people choose not to use filters, so we
6973 need a comprehensive list of patterns for banner URLs here, and apply the
6974 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action to them.
6977 First comes many generic patterns, which do most of the work, by
6978 matching typical domain and path name components of banners. Then comes
6979 a list of individual patterns for specific sites, which is omitted here
6980 to keep the example short:
6985 ##########################################################################
6986 # Block these fine banners:
6987 ##########################################################################
6988 { <link linkend="BLOCK">+block{Banner ads.}</link> }
6996 /.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?)
6997 /(?:.*/)?(publicite|werbung|rekla(ma|me|am)|annonse|maino(kset|nta|s)?)/
6999 # Site-specific patterns (abbreviated):
7001 .hitbox.com</screen>
7005 It's quite remarkable how many advertisers actually call their banner
7006 servers ads.<replaceable>company</replaceable>.com, or call the directory
7007 in which the banners are stored simply <quote>banners</quote>. So the above
7008 generic patterns are surprisingly effective.
7011 But being very generic, they necessarily also catch URLs that we don't want
7012 to block. The pattern <literal>.*ads.</literal> e.g. catches
7013 <quote>nasty-<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.nasty-corp.com</quote> as intended,
7014 but also <quote>downlo<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.sourcefroge.net</quote> or
7015 <quote><emphasis>ads</emphasis>l.some-provider.net.</quote> So here come some
7016 well-known exceptions to the <literal>+<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
7020 Note that these are exceptions to exceptions from the default! Consider the URL
7021 <quote>downloads.sourcefroge.net</quote>: Initially, all actions are deactivated,
7022 so it wouldn't get blocked. Then comes the defaults section, which matches the
7023 URL, but just deactivates the <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
7024 action once again. Then it matches <literal>.*ads.</literal>, an exception to the
7025 general non-blocking policy, and suddenly
7026 <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link></literal> applies. And now, it'll match
7027 <literal>.*loads.</literal>, where <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">-block</link></literal>
7028 applies, so (unless it matches <emphasis>again</emphasis> further down) it ends up
7029 with no <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal> action applying.
7034 ##########################################################################
7035 # Save some innocent victims of the above generic block patterns:
7036 ##########################################################################
7040 { -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
7041 adv[io]*. # (for advogato.org and advice.*)
7042 adsl. # (has nothing to do with ads)
7043 adobe. # (has nothing to do with ads either)
7044 ad[ud]*. # (adult.* and add.*)
7045 .edu # (universities don't host banners (yet!))
7046 .*loads. # (downloads, uploads etc)
7054 www.globalintersec.com/adv # (adv = advanced)
7055 www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv</screen>
7059 Filtering source code can have nasty side effects,
7060 so make an exception for our friends at sourceforge.net,
7061 and all paths with <quote>cvs</quote> in them. Note that
7062 <literal>-<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link></literal>
7063 disables <emphasis>all</emphasis> filters in one fell swoop!
7068 # Don't filter code!
7070 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
7075 .sourceforge.net</screen>
7079 The actual <filename>default.action</filename> is of course much more
7080 comprehensive, but we hope this example made clear how it works.
7085 <sect3><title>user.action</title>
7088 So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies,
7089 which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
7090 you might want to be more specific and have customized rules that
7091 are more suitable to your personal habits and preferences. These would
7092 be for narrowly defined situations like your ISP or your bank, and should
7093 be placed in <filename>user.action</filename>, which is parsed after all other
7094 actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding any previously
7095 defined actions. <filename>user.action</filename> is also a
7096 <emphasis>safe</emphasis> place for your personal settings, since
7097 <filename>default.action</filename> is actively maintained by the
7098 <application>Privoxy</application> developers and you'll probably want
7099 to install updated versions from time to time.
7103 So let's look at a few examples of things that one might typically do in
7104 <filename>user.action</filename>:
7108 <!-- brief sample user.action here -->
7112 # My user.action file. <fred@example.com></screen>
7116 As <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link> are local to the actions
7117 file that they are defined in, you can't use the ones from
7118 <filename>default.action</filename>, unless you repeat them here:
7123 # Aliases are local to the file they are defined in.
7124 # (Re-)define aliases for this file:
7128 # These aliases just save typing later, and the alias names should
7129 # be self explanatory.
7131 +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
7132 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
7133 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
7134 allow-popups = -filter{all-popups}
7135 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked as image.} +handle-as-image
7136 -block-as-image = -block
7138 # These aliases define combinations of actions that are useful for
7139 # certain types of sites:
7141 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referrer
7142 shop = -crunch-all-cookies allow-popups
7144 # Allow ads for selected useful free sites:
7146 allow-ads = -block -filter{banners-by-size} -filter{banners-by-link}
7148 # Alias for specific file types that are text, but might have conflicting
7149 # MIME types. We want the browser to force these to be text documents.
7150 handle-as-text = -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> +-<link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite{text/plain}</link> +-<link linkend="FORCE-TEXT-MODE">force-text-mode</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-CONTENT-DISPOSITION">hide-content-disposition</link></screen>
7155 Say you have accounts on some sites that you visit regularly, and
7156 you don't want to have to log in manually each time. So you'd like
7157 to allow persistent cookies for these sites. The
7158 <literal>allow-all-cookies</literal> alias defined above does exactly
7159 that, i.e. it disables crunching of cookies in any direction, and the
7160 processing of cookies to make them only temporary.
7165 { allow-all-cookies }
7169 .redhat.com</screen>
7173 Your bank is allergic to some filter, but you don't know which, so you disable them all:
7178 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
7179 .your-home-banking-site.com</screen>
7183 Some file types you may not want to filter for various reasons:
7188 # Technical documentation is likely to contain strings that might
7189 # erroneously get altered by the JavaScript-oriented filters:
7194 # And this stupid host sends streaming video with a wrong MIME type,
7195 # so that Privoxy thinks it is getting HTML and starts filtering:
7197 stupid-server.example.com/</screen>
7201 Example of a simple <link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> action. Say you've
7202 seen an ad on your favourite page on example.com that you want to get rid of.
7203 You have right-clicked the image, selected <quote>copy image location</quote>
7204 and pasted the URL below while removing the leading http://, into a
7205 <literal>{ +block{} }</literal> section. Note that <literal>{ +handle-as-image
7206 }</literal> need not be specified, since all URLs ending in
7207 <literal>.gif</literal> will be tagged as images by the general rules as set
7208 in default.action anyway:
7213 { +<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link>{Nasty ads.} }
7214 www.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor\.gif
7215 another.example.net/more/junk/here/</screen>
7219 The URLs of dynamically generated banners, especially from large banner
7220 farms, often don't use the well-known image file name extensions, which
7221 makes it impossible for <application>Privoxy</application> to guess
7222 the file type just by looking at the URL.
7223 You can use the <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above for
7225 Note that objects which match this rule but then turn out NOT to be an
7226 image are typically rendered as a <quote>broken image</quote> icon by the
7227 browser. Use cautiously.
7236 ar.atwola.com/</screen>
7240 Now you noticed that the default configuration breaks Forbes Magazine,
7241 but you were too lazy to find out which action is the culprit, and you
7242 were again too lazy to give <link linkend="contact">feedback</link>, so
7243 you just used the <literal>fragile</literal> alias on the site, and
7244 -- <emphasis>whoa!</emphasis> -- it worked. The <literal>fragile</literal>
7245 aliases disables those actions that are most likely to break a site. Also,
7246 good for testing purposes to see if it is <application>Privoxy</application>
7247 that is causing the problem or not. We later find other regular sites
7248 that misbehave, and add those to our personalized list of troublemakers:
7256 .mybank.com</screen>
7260 You like the <quote>fun</quote> text replacements in <filename>default.filter</filename>,
7261 but it is disabled in the distributed actions file.
7262 So you'd like to turn it on in your private,
7263 update-safe config, once and for all:
7268 { +<link linkend="filter-fun">filter{fun}</link> }
7269 / # For ALL sites!</screen>
7273 Note that the above is not really a good idea: There are exceptions
7274 to the filters in <filename>default.action</filename> for things that
7275 really shouldn't be filtered, like code on CVS->Web interfaces. Since
7276 <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word, these exceptions
7277 won't be valid for the <quote>fun</quote> filtering specified here.
7281 You might also worry about how your favourite free websites are
7282 funded, and find that they rely on displaying banner advertisements
7283 to survive. So you might want to specifically allow banners for those
7284 sites that you feel provide value to you:
7296 Note that <literal>allow-ads</literal> has been aliased to
7297 <literal>-<link linkend="block">block</link></literal>,
7298 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-size">filter{banners-by-size}</link></literal>, and
7299 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-link">filter{banners-by-link}</link></literal> above.
7303 Invoke another alias here to force an over-ride of the MIME type <literal>
7304 application/x-sh</literal> which typically would open a download type
7305 dialog. In my case, I want to look at the shell script, and then I can save
7306 it should I choose to.
7316 <filename>user.action</filename> is generally the best place to define
7317 exceptions and additions to the default policies of
7318 <filename>default.action</filename>. Some actions are safe to have their
7319 default policies set here though. So let's set a default policy to have a
7320 <quote>blank</quote> image as opposed to the checkerboard pattern for
7321 <emphasis>ALL</emphasis> sites. <quote>/</quote> of course matches all URL
7327 { +<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker{blank}</link> }
7328 / # ALL sites</screen>
7334 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7338 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7340 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
7342 <sect1 id="filter-file">
7343 <title>Filter Files</title>
7346 On-the-fly text substitutions need
7347 to be defined in a <quote>filter file</quote>. Once defined, they
7348 can then be invoked as an <quote>action</quote>.
7352 &my-app; supports three different filter actions:
7353 <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> to
7354 rewrite the content that is send to the client,
7355 <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header-filter</link></literal>
7356 to rewrite headers that are send by the client, and
7357 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header-filter</link></literal>
7358 to rewrite headers that are send by the server.
7362 &my-app; also supports two tagger actions:
7363 <literal><link linkend="client-header-tagger">client-header-tagger</link></literal>
7365 <literal><link linkend="server-header-tagger">server-header-tagger</link></literal>.
7366 Taggers and filters use the same syntax in the filter files, the difference
7367 is that taggers don't modify the text they are filtering, but use a rewritten
7368 version of the filtered text as tag. The tags can then be used to change the
7369 applying actions through sections with <link linkend="tag-pattern">tag-patterns</link>.
7374 Multiple filter files can be defined through the <literal> <link
7375 linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal> config directive. The filters
7376 as supplied by the developers are located in
7377 <filename>default.filter</filename>. It is recommended that any locally
7378 defined or modified filters go in a separately defined file such as
7379 <filename>user.filter</filename>.
7383 Common tasks for content filters are to eliminate common annoyances in
7384 HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows,
7385 exit consoles, crippled windows without navigation tools, the
7386 infamous <BLINK> tag etc, to suppress images with certain
7387 width and height attributes (standard banner sizes or web-bugs),
7388 or just to have fun.
7392 Enabled content filters are applied to any content whose
7393 <quote>Content Type</quote> header is recognised as a sign
7394 of text-based content, with the exception of <literal>text/plain</literal>.
7395 Use the <link linkend="FORCE-TEXT-MODE">force-text-mode</link> action
7396 to also filter other content.
7400 Substitutions are made at the source level, so if you want to <quote>roll
7401 your own</quote> filters, you should first be familiar with HTML syntax,
7402 and, of course, regular expressions.
7406 Just like the <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, the
7407 filter file is organized in sections, which are called <emphasis>filters</emphasis>
7408 here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with one of the
7409 <emphasis>keywords</emphasis> <literal>FILTER:</literal>,
7410 <literal>CLIENT-HEADER-FILTER:</literal> or <literal>SERVER-HEADER-FILTER:</literal>
7411 followed by the filter's <emphasis>name</emphasis>, and a short (one line)
7412 <emphasis>description</emphasis> of what it does. Below that line
7413 come the <emphasis>jobs</emphasis>, i.e. lines that define the actual
7414 text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter
7415 should describe what the filter <emphasis>eliminates</emphasis>. The
7416 comment is used in the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
7417 user interface</ulink>.
7421 Once a filter called <replaceable>name</replaceable> has been defined
7422 in the filter file, it can be invoked by using an action of the form
7423 +<literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>name</replaceable>}</literal>
7424 in any <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>.
7428 Filter definitions start with a header line that contains the filter
7429 type, the filter name and the filter description.
7430 A content filter header line for a filter called <quote>foo</quote> could look
7435 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"</screen>
7439 Below that line, and up to the next header line, come the jobs that
7440 define what text replacements the filter executes. They are specified
7441 in a syntax that imitates <ulink url="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</ulink>'s
7442 <literal>s///</literal> operator. If you are familiar with Perl, you
7443 will find this to be quite intuitive, and may want to look at the
7444 PCRS documentation for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour. Most
7445 notably, the non-standard option letter <literal>U</literal> is supported,
7446 which turns the default to ungreedy matching.
7451 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
7452 Expressions</quote></ulink>, you might want to take a look at
7453 the <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>, and
7454 see the <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">Perl
7456 <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlop.html">the
7457 <literal>s///</literal> operator's syntax</ulink> and <ulink
7458 url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">Perl-style regular
7459 expressions</ulink> in general.
7460 The below examples might also help to get you started.
7464 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
7466 <sect2><title>Filter File Tutorial</title>
7468 Now, let's complete our <quote>foo</quote> content filter. We have already defined
7469 the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace
7470 <quote>foo</quote> with <quote>bar</quote>, there is only one (trivial) job
7475 <screen>s/foo/bar/</screen>
7479 But wait! Didn't the comment say that <emphasis>all</emphasis> occurrences
7480 of <quote>foo</quote> should be replaced? Our current job will only take
7481 care of the first <quote>foo</quote> on each page. For global substitution,
7482 we'll need to add the <literal>g</literal> option:
7486 <screen>s/foo/bar/g</screen>
7490 Our complete filter now looks like this:
7493 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"
7494 s/foo/bar/g</screen>
7498 Let's look at some real filters for more interesting examples. Here you see
7499 a filter that protects against some common annoyances that arise from JavaScript
7500 abuse. Let's look at its jobs one after the other:
7506 FILTER: js-annoyances Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
7508 # Get rid of JavaScript referrer tracking. Test page: http://www.randomoddness.com/untitled.htm
7510 s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|Usg</screen>
7514 Following the header line and a comment, you see the job. Note that it uses
7515 <literal>|</literal> as the delimiter instead of <literal>/</literal>, because
7516 the pattern contains a forward slash, which would otherwise have to be escaped
7517 by a backslash (<literal>\</literal>).
7521 Now, let's examine the pattern: it starts with the text <literal><script.*</literal>
7522 enclosed in parentheses. Since the dot matches any character, and <literal>*</literal>
7523 means: <quote>Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself</quote>, this
7524 matches <quote><script</quote>, followed by <emphasis>any</emphasis> text, i.e.
7525 it matches the whole page, from the start of the first <script> tag.
7529 That's more than we want, but the pattern continues: <literal>document\.referrer</literal>
7530 matches only the exact string <quote>document.referrer</quote>. The dot needed to
7531 be <emphasis>escaped</emphasis>, i.e. preceded by a backslash, to take away its
7532 special meaning as a joker, and make it just a regular dot. So far, the meaning is:
7533 Match from the start of the first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including,
7534 the text <quote>document.referrer</quote>, if <emphasis>both</emphasis> are present
7535 in the page (and appear in that order).
7539 But there's still more pattern to go. The next element, again enclosed in parentheses,
7540 is <literal>.*</script></literal>. You already know what <literal>.*</literal>
7541 means, so the whole pattern translates to: Match from the start of the first <script>
7542 tag in a page to the end of the last <script> tag, provided that the text
7543 <quote>document.referrer</quote> appears somewhere in between.
7547 This is still not the whole story, since we have ignored the options and the parentheses:
7548 The portions of the page matched by sub-patterns that are enclosed in parentheses, will be
7549 remembered and be available through the variables <literal>$1, $2, ...</literal> in
7550 the substitute. The <literal>U</literal> option switches to ungreedy matching, which means
7551 that the first <literal>.*</literal> in the pattern will only <quote>eat up</quote> all
7552 text in between <quote><script</quote> and the <emphasis>first</emphasis> occurrence
7553 of <quote>document.referrer</quote>, and that the second <literal>.*</literal> will
7554 only span the text up to the <emphasis>first</emphasis> <quote></script></quote>
7555 tag. Furthermore, the <literal>s</literal> option says that the match may span
7556 multiple lines in the page, and the <literal>g</literal> option again means that the
7557 substitution is global.
7561 So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text
7562 <quote>document.referrer</quote>. Remember the parts of the script from
7563 (and including) the start tag up to (and excluding) the string
7564 <quote>document.referrer</quote> as <literal>$1</literal>, and the part following
7565 that string, up to and including the closing tag, as <literal>$2</literal>.
7569 Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So
7570 lets look at the substitute: <literal>$1"Not Your Business!"$2</literal> is
7571 easy to read: The text remembered as <literal>$1</literal>, followed by
7572 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> (<emphasis>including</emphasis>
7573 the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as <literal>$2</literal>.
7574 This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part
7575 (the <quote>document.referrer</quote>) replaced by <literal>"Not Your
7576 Business!"</literal>.
7580 The whole job now reads: Replace <quote>document.referrer</quote> by
7581 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> wherever it appears inside a
7582 <script> tag. Note that this job won't break JavaScript syntax,
7583 since both the original and the replacement are syntactically valid
7584 string objects. The script just won't have access to the referrer
7585 information anymore.
7589 We'll show you two other jobs from the JavaScript taming department, but
7590 this time only point out the constructs of special interest:
7595 # The status bar is for displaying link targets, not pointless blahblah
7597 s/window\.status\s*=\s*(['"]).*?\1/dUmMy=1/ig</screen>
7601 <literal>\s</literal> stands for whitespace characters (space, tab, newline,
7602 carriage return, form feed), so that <literal>\s*</literal> means: <quote>zero
7603 or more whitespace</quote>. The <literal>?</literal> in <literal>.*?</literal>
7604 makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the <literal>U</literal>
7605 option is not set). The <literal>['"]</literal> construct means: <quote>a single
7606 <emphasis>or</emphasis> a double quote</quote>. Finally, <literal>\1</literal> is
7607 a back-reference to the first parenthesis just like <literal>$1</literal> above,
7608 with the difference that in the <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>, a backslash indicates
7609 a back-reference, whereas in the <emphasis>substitute</emphasis>, it's the dollar.
7613 So what does this job do? It replaces assignments of single- or double-quoted
7614 strings to the <quote>window.status</quote> object with a dummy assignment
7615 (using a variable name that is hopefully odd enough not to conflict with
7616 real variables in scripts). Thus, it catches many cases where e.g. pointless
7617 descriptions are displayed in the status bar instead of the link target when
7618 you move your mouse over links.
7623 # Kill OnUnload popups. Yummy. Test: http://www.zdnet.com/zdsubs/yahoo/tree/yfs.html
7625 s/(<body [^>]*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU</screen>
7630 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">OnUnload
7631 event binding</ulink> in the HTML DOM was a <emphasis>CRIME</emphasis>.
7632 When I close a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta.
7633 This job replaces the <quote>onunload</quote> attribute in
7634 <quote><body></quote> tags with the dummy word <literal>never</literal>.
7635 Note that the <literal>i</literal> option makes the pattern matching
7636 case-insensitive. Also note that ungreedy matching alone doesn't always guarantee
7637 a minimal match: In the first parenthesis, we had to use <literal>[^>]*</literal>
7638 instead of <literal>.*</literal> to prevent the match from exceeding the
7639 <body> tag if it doesn't contain <quote>OnUnload</quote>, but the page's
7644 The last example is from the fun department:
7649 FILTER: fun Fun text replacements
7651 # Spice the daily news:
7653 s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig</screen>
7657 Note the <literal>(?!\.com)</literal> part (a so-called negative lookahead)
7658 in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
7659 <quote>.com</quote> appears directly following <quote>microsoft</quote>
7660 in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being trashed, while
7661 still replacing the word everywhere else.
7666 # Buzzword Bingo (example for extended regex syntax)
7668 s* industry[ -]leading \
7670 | customer[ -]focused \
7671 | market[ -]driven \
7672 | award[ -]winning # Comments are OK, too! \
7673 | high[ -]performance \
7674 | solutions[ -]based \
7678 *<font color="red"><b>BINGO!</b></font> \
7683 The <literal>x</literal> option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for
7684 e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
7692 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
7694 <sect2 id="predefined-filters"><title>The Pre-defined Filters</title>
7698 Note each filter is also listed in the +filter action section above. Please
7699 keep these listings in sync.
7704 The distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file contains a selection of
7705 pre-defined filters for your convenience:
7710 <term><emphasis>js-annoyances</emphasis></term>
7713 The purpose of this filter is to get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse.
7718 replaces JavaScript references to the browser's referrer information
7719 with the string "Not Your Business!". This compliments the <literal><link
7720 linkend="hide-referrer">hide-referrer</link></literal> action on the content level.
7725 removes the bindings to the DOM's
7726 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">unload
7727 event</ulink> which we feel has no right to exist and is responsible for most <quote>exit consoles</quote>, i.e.
7728 nasty windows that pop up when you close another one.
7733 removes code that causes new windows to be opened with undesired properties, such as being
7734 full-screen, non-resizeable, without location, status or menu bar etc.
7740 Use with caution. This is an aggressive filter, and can break sites that
7741 rely heavily on JavaScript.
7747 <term><emphasis>js-events</emphasis></term>
7750 This is a very radical measure. It removes virtually all JavaScript event bindings, which
7751 means that scripts can not react to user actions such as mouse movements or clicks, window
7752 resizing etc, anymore. Use with caution!
7755 We <emphasis>strongly discourage</emphasis> using this filter as a default since it breaks
7756 many legitimate scripts. It is meant for use only on extra-nasty sites (should you really
7763 <term><emphasis>html-annoyances</emphasis></term>
7766 This filter will undo many common instances of HTML based abuse.
7769 The <literal>BLINK</literal> and <literal>MARQUEE</literal> tags
7770 are neutralized (yeah baby!), and browser windows will be created as
7771 resizeable (as of course they should be!), and will have location,
7772 scroll and menu bars -- even if specified otherwise.
7778 <term><emphasis>content-cookies</emphasis></term>
7781 Most cookies are set in the HTTP dialog, where they can be intercepted
7783 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>
7784 and <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>
7785 actions. But web sites increasingly make use of HTML meta tags and JavaScript
7786 to sneak cookies to the browser on the content level.
7789 This filter disables most HTML and JavaScript code that reads or sets
7790 cookies. It cannot detect all clever uses of these types of code, so it
7791 should not be relied on as an absolute fix. Use it wherever you would also
7792 use the cookie crunch actions.
7798 <term><emphasis>refresh tags</emphasis></term>
7801 Disable any refresh tags if the interval is greater than nine seconds (so
7802 that redirections done via refresh tags are not destroyed). This is useful
7803 for dial-on-demand setups, or for those who find this HTML feature
7810 <term><emphasis>unsolicited-popups</emphasis></term>
7813 This filter attempts to prevent only <quote>unsolicited</quote> pop-up
7814 windows from opening, yet still allow pop-up windows that the user
7815 has explicitly chosen to open. It was added in version 3.0.1,
7816 as an improvement over earlier such filters.
7819 Technical note: The filter works by redefining the window.open JavaScript
7820 function to a dummy function, <literal>PrivoxyWindowOpen()</literal>,
7821 during the loading and rendering phase of each HTML page access, and
7822 restoring the function afterward.
7825 This is recommended only for browsers that cannot perform this function
7826 reliably themselves. And be aware that some sites require such windows
7827 in order to function normally. Use with caution.
7833 <term><emphasis>all-popups</emphasis></term>
7836 Attempt to prevent <emphasis>all</emphasis> pop-up windows from opening.
7837 Note this should be used with even more discretion than the above, since
7838 it is more likely to break some sites that require pop-ups for normal
7839 usage. Use with caution.
7845 <term><emphasis>img-reorder</emphasis></term>
7848 This is a helper filter that has no value if used alone. It makes the
7849 <literal>banners-by-size</literal> and <literal>banners-by-link</literal>
7850 (see below) filters more effective and should be enabled together with them.
7856 <term><emphasis>banners-by-size</emphasis></term>
7859 This filter removes image tags purely based on what size they are. Fortunately
7860 for us, many ads and banner images tend to conform to certain standardized
7861 sizes, which makes this filter quite effective for ad stripping purposes.
7864 Occasionally this filter will cause false positives on images that are not ads,
7865 but just happen to be of one of the standard banner sizes.
7868 Recommended only for those who require extreme ad blocking. The default
7869 block rules should catch 95+% of all ads <emphasis>without</emphasis> this filter enabled.
7875 <term><emphasis>banners-by-link</emphasis></term>
7878 This is an experimental filter that attempts to kill any banners if
7879 their URLs seem to point to known or suspected click trackers. It is currently
7880 not of much value and is not recommended for use by default.
7886 <term><emphasis>webbugs</emphasis></term>
7889 Webbugs are small, invisible images (technically 1X1 GIF images), that
7890 are used to track users across websites, and collect information on them.
7891 As an HTML page is loaded by the browser, an embedded image tag causes the
7892 browser to contact a third-party site, disclosing the tracking information
7893 through the requested URL and/or cookies for that third-party domain, without
7894 the user ever becoming aware of the interaction with the third-party site.
7895 HTML-ized spam also uses a similar technique to verify email addresses.
7898 This filter removes the HTML code that loads such <quote>webbugs</quote>.
7904 <term><emphasis>tiny-textforms</emphasis></term>
7907 A rather special-purpose filter that can be used to enlarge textareas (those
7908 multi-line text boxes in web forms) and turn off hard word wrap in them.
7909 It was written for the sourceforge.net tracker system where such boxes are
7910 a nuisance, but it can be handy on other sites, too.
7913 It is not recommended to use this filter as a default.
7919 <term><emphasis>jumping-windows</emphasis></term>
7922 Many consider windows that move, or resize themselves to be abusive. This filter
7923 neutralizes the related JavaScript code. Note that some sites might not display
7924 or behave as intended when using this filter. Use with caution.
7930 <term><emphasis>frameset-borders</emphasis></term>
7933 Some web designers seem to assume that everyone in the world will view their
7934 web sites using the same browser brand and version, screen resolution etc,
7935 because only that assumption could explain why they'd use static frame sizes,
7936 yet prevent their frames from being resized by the user, should they be too
7937 small to show their whole content.
7940 This filter removes the related HTML code. It should only be applied to sites
7947 <term><emphasis>demoronizer</emphasis></term>
7950 Many Microsoft products that generate HTML use non-standard extensions (read:
7951 violations) of the ISO 8859-1 aka Latin-1 character set. This can cause those
7952 HTML documents to display with errors on standard-compliant platforms.
7955 This filter translates the MS-only characters into Latin-1 equivalents.
7956 It is not necessary when using MS products, and will cause corruption of
7957 all documents that use 8-bit character sets other than Latin-1. It's mostly
7958 worthwhile for Europeans on non-MS platforms, if weird garbage characters
7959 sometimes appear on some pages, or user agents that don't correct for this on
7962 My version of Mozilla (ancient) shows litte square boxes for quote
7963 characters, and apostrophes on moronized pages. So many pages have this, I
7964 can read them fine now. HB 08/27/06
7971 <term><emphasis>shockwave-flash</emphasis></term>
7974 A filter for shockwave haters. As the name suggests, this filter strips code
7975 out of web pages that is used to embed shockwave flash objects.
7983 <term><emphasis>quicktime-kioskmode</emphasis></term>
7986 Change HTML code that embeds Quicktime objects so that kioskmode, which
7987 prevents saving, is disabled.
7993 <term><emphasis>fun</emphasis></term>
7996 Text replacements for subversive browsing fun. Make fun of your favorite
7997 Monopolist or play buzzword bingo.
8003 <term><emphasis>crude-parental</emphasis></term>
8006 A demonstration-only filter that shows how <application>Privoxy</application>
8007 can be used to delete web content on a keyword basis.
8013 <term><emphasis>ie-exploits</emphasis></term>
8016 An experimental collection of text replacements to disable malicious HTML and JavaScript
8017 code that exploits known security holes in Internet Explorer.
8020 Presently, it only protects against Nimda and a cross-site scripting bug, and
8021 would need active maintenance to provide more substantial protection.
8027 <term><emphasis>site-specifics</emphasis></term>
8030 Some web sites have very specific problems, the cure for which doesn't apply
8031 anywhere else, or could even cause damage on other sites.
8034 This is a collection of such site-specific cures which should only be applied
8035 to the sites they were intended for, which is what the supplied
8036 <filename>default.action</filename> file does. Users shouldn't need to change
8037 anything regarding this filter.
8043 <term><emphasis>google</emphasis></term>
8046 A CSS based block for Google text ads. Also removes a width limitation
8047 and the toolbar advertisement.
8053 <term><emphasis>yahoo</emphasis></term>
8056 Another CSS based block, this time for Yahoo text ads. And removes
8057 a width limitation as well.
8063 <term><emphasis>msn</emphasis></term>
8066 Another CSS based block, this time for MSN text ads. And removes
8067 tracking URLs, as well as a width limitation.
8073 <term><emphasis>blogspot</emphasis></term>
8076 Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this one!
8079 This filter also intentionally removes some navigation stuff and sets the
8080 page width to 100%. As a result, some rounded <quote>corners</quote> would
8081 appear to early or not at all and as fixing this would require a browser
8082 that understands background-size (CSS3), they are removed instead.
8088 <term><emphasis>xml-to-html</emphasis></term>
8091 Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from xml to html.
8097 <term><emphasis>html-to-xml</emphasis></term>
8100 Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from html to xml.
8106 <term><emphasis>no-ping</emphasis></term>
8109 Removes the non-standard <literal>ping</literal> attribute from
8110 anchor and area HTML tags.
8116 <term><emphasis>hide-tor-exit-notation</emphasis></term>
8119 Client-header filter to remove the <command>Tor</command> exit node notation
8120 found in Host and Referer headers.
8123 If &my-app; and <command>Tor</command> are chained and &my-app;
8124 is configured to use socks4a, one can use <quote>http://www.example.org.foobar.exit/</quote>
8125 to access the host <quote>www.example.org</quote> through the
8126 <command>Tor</command> exit node <quote>foobar</quote>.
8129 As the HTTP client isn't aware of this notation, it treats the
8130 whole string <quote>www.example.org.foobar.exit</quote> as host and uses it
8131 for the <quote>Host</quote> and <quote>Referer</quote> headers. From the
8132 server's point of view the resulting headers are invalid and can cause problems.
8135 An invalid <quote>Referer</quote> header can trigger <quote>hot-linking</quote>
8136 protections, an invalid <quote>Host</quote> header will make it impossible for
8137 the server to find the right vhost (several domains hosted on the same IP address).
8140 This client-header filter removes the <quote>foo.exit</quote> part in those headers
8141 to prevent the mentioned problems. Note that it only modifies
8142 the HTTP headers, it doesn't make it impossible for the server
8143 to detect your <command>Tor</command> exit node based on the IP address
8144 the request is coming from.
8151 <term><emphasis> </emphasis></term>
8165 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
8169 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8171 <sect1 id="templates">
8172 <title>Privoxy's Template Files</title>
8174 All <application>Privoxy</application> built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
8175 <ulink url="http://show-the-404-error.page"><quote>404 - No Such Domain</quote>
8176 error page</ulink>, the <ulink
8177 url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
8179 and all pages of its <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
8180 user interface</ulink>, are generated from <emphasis>templates</emphasis>.
8181 (<application>Privoxy</application> must be running for the above links to work as
8186 These templates are stored in a subdirectory of the <link linkend="confdir">configuration
8187 directory</link> called <filename>templates</filename>. On Unixish platforms,
8189 <ulink url="file:///etc/privoxy/templates/"><filename>/etc/privoxy/templates/</filename></ulink>.
8193 The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols
8194 or exports), which <application>Privoxy</application> fills at run time. It
8195 is possible to edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want
8196 to customize them. (<emphasis>Not recommended for the casual
8197 user</emphasis>). Should you create your own custom templates, you should use
8198 the <filename>config</filename> setting <link linkend="templdir">templdir</link>
8199 to specify an alternate location, so your templates do not get overwritten
8203 Note that just like in configuration files, lines starting
8204 with <literal>#</literal> are ignored when the templates are filled in.
8208 The place-holders are of the form <literal>@name@</literal>, and you will
8209 find a list of available symbols, which vary from template to template,
8210 in the comments at the start of each file. Note that these comments are not
8211 always accurate, and that it's probably best to look at the existing HTML
8212 code to find out which symbols are supported and what they are filled in with.
8216 A special application of this substitution mechanism is to make whole
8217 blocks of HTML code disappear when a specific symbol is set. We use this
8218 for many purposes, one of them being to include the beta warning in all
8219 our user interface (CGI) pages when <application>Privoxy</application>
8220 is in an alpha or beta development stage:
8225 <!-- @if-unstable-start -->
8227 ... beta warning HTML code goes here ...
8229 <!-- if-unstable-end@ --></screen>
8233 If the "unstable" symbol is set, everything in between and including
8234 <literal>@if-unstable-start</literal> and <literal>if-unstable-end@</literal>
8235 will disappear, leaving nothing but an empty comment:
8239 <screen><!-- --></screen>
8243 There's also an if-then-else construct and an <literal>#include</literal>
8244 mechanism, but you'll sure find out if you are inclined to edit the
8249 All templates refer to a style located at
8250 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet"><literal>http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet</literal></ulink>.
8251 This is, of course, locally served by <application>Privoxy</application>
8252 and the source for it can be found and edited in the
8253 <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> template.
8258 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
8262 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8264 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
8267 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
8269 <!-- end boilerplate -->
8273 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
8276 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8277 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Privoxy Copyright, License and History</title>
8279 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
8281 <!-- end copyright -->
8283 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8284 <sect2><title>License</title>
8285 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
8287 <!-- end copyright -->
8289 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
8292 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8294 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
8295 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
8297 <!-- end history -->
8300 <sect2 id="authors"><title>Authors</title>
8301 <!-- Include p-authors.sgml: -->
8303 <!-- end authors -->
8308 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
8311 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8312 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
8313 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
8315 <!-- end seealso -->
8320 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8321 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
8324 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8326 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
8328 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl-style <quote>regular
8329 expressions</quote> in its <link linkend="actions-file">actions
8330 files</link> and <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>,
8331 through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> and
8334 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/">PCRS</ulink> libraries.
8336 <application>PCRS</application> libraries.
8340 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
8341 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
8342 introduction only. A full explanation would require a <ulink
8343 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/">book</ulink> ;-)
8347 Regular expressions provide a language to describe patterns that can be
8348 run against strings of characters (letter, numbers, etc), to see if they
8349 match the string or not. The patterns are themselves (sometimes complex)
8350 strings of literal characters, combined with wild-cards, and other special
8351 characters, called meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have
8352 special meanings and are used to build complex patterns to be matched against.
8353 Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are an especially convenient
8354 <quote>dialect</quote> of the regular expression language.
8358 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
8359 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
8360 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
8361 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
8362 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
8363 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
8364 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
8365 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
8369 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
8370 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
8371 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
8372 and then some examples:
8377 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
8378 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
8380 </simplelist></para>
8384 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
8387 </simplelist></para>
8391 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
8394 </simplelist></para>
8398 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
8401 </simplelist></para>
8405 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
8406 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
8407 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
8408 not as a special meta-character. Example: <quote>example\.com</quote>, makes
8409 sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
8410 meta-character meaning of any single character).
8412 </simplelist></para>
8416 <emphasis>[ ]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
8417 any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, <quote>[0-9]</quote>
8418 matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
8419 this with <quote>+</quote> to match any digit one of more times: <quote>[0-9]+</quote>.
8421 </simplelist></para>
8425 <emphasis>( )</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
8426 or multiple sub-expressions.
8428 </simplelist></para>
8432 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
8433 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
8434 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches. As an example:
8435 <quote>/(this|that) example/</quote> uses grouping and the bar character
8436 and would match either <quote>this example</quote> or <quote>that
8437 example</quote>, and nothing else.
8439 </simplelist></para>
8442 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
8443 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
8444 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
8445 be more illuminating:
8449 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
8450 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
8451 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
8452 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
8453 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
8454 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
8455 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
8456 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
8457 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
8458 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
8459 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
8460 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
8461 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
8462 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
8467 And now something a little more complex:
8471 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
8472 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
8473 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
8474 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
8475 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
8476 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
8477 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
8482 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
8483 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
8484 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
8485 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
8486 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
8487 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
8488 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
8489 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
8490 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
8491 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
8492 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
8493 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
8494 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
8495 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
8496 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
8497 changing our regular expression to:
8498 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
8503 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
8504 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
8505 <quote>[ ]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
8506 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
8507 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
8508 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
8509 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
8510 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
8511 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
8512 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
8513 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
8514 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
8515 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
8516 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
8517 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
8518 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
8519 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
8520 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
8521 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
8522 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
8523 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
8524 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
8525 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
8526 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
8527 in the expression anywhere).
8531 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
8532 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
8533 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
8534 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
8535 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
8540 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
8541 <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html</ulink>
8545 For information on regular expression based substitutions and their applications
8546 in filters, please see the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file tutorial</link>
8551 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
8554 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8556 <title>Privoxy's Internal Pages</title>
8559 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
8560 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
8561 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
8562 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
8563 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
8564 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
8565 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
8571 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
8572 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
8573 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
8574 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
8587 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
8591 There is a shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> (But it
8592 doesn't provide a fall-back to a real page, in case the request is not
8593 sent through <application>Privoxy</application>)
8599 Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
8600 editing of actions files:
8604 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
8611 Show the source code version numbers:
8615 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
8622 Show the browser's request headers:
8626 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
8633 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
8637 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
8644 Toggle Privoxy on or off. This feature can be turned off/on in the main
8645 <filename>config</filename> file. When toggled <quote>off</quote>, <quote>Privoxy</quote>
8646 continues to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking
8651 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
8655 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
8659 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
8664 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
8673 These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
8677 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
8678 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
8680 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
8681 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
8682 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
8683 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
8684 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
8685 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
8688 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
8689 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
8690 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
8691 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
8692 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
8693 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
8702 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=enabled','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Enable</ulink>
8709 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=disabled','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Disable</ulink>
8716 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=toggle','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Toggle Privoxy</ulink> (Toggles between enabled and disabled)
8723 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y','ijbstatus','width=250,height=2,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy- View Status</ulink>
8729 <ulink url="javascript:w=Math.floor(screen.width/2);h=Math.floor(screen.height*0.9);void(window.open('http://www.privoxy.org/actions/index.php?url='+escape(location.href),'Feedback','screenx='+w+',width='+w+',height='+h+',scrollbars=yes,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Submit Actions File Feedback</ulink>
8735 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info?url='+escape(location.href),'Why').focus());">Privoxy - Why?</ulink>
8742 Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
8743 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com/">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
8744 have more information about bookmarklets.
8753 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8755 <title>Chain of Events</title>
8757 Let's take a quick look at how some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
8758 core features are triggered, and the ensuing sequence of events when a web
8759 page is requested by your browser:
8766 First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
8767 the request to <application>Privoxy</application>, which will in turn,
8768 relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
8774 <application>Privoxy</application> traps any request for its own internal CGI
8775 pages (e.g <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
8780 Next, <application>Privoxy</application> checks to see if the URL
8782 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link> patterns. If
8783 so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
8784 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>
8786 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-EMPTY-DOCUMENT"><quote>+handle-as-empty-document</quote></link>
8787 are then checked, and if there is no match, an
8788 HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page is sent back to the browser. Otherwise, if
8789 it does match, an image is returned for the former, and an empty text
8790 document for the latter. The type of image would depend on the setting of
8791 <link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></link>
8792 (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
8797 Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
8798 <filename>trust</filename> file, then that is done.
8803 If the URL pattern matches the <link
8804 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link> action,
8805 it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
8810 Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
8811 of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. <link
8812 linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT"><quote>+hide-user-agent</quote></link>,
8813 etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
8819 Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web
8825 First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
8826 things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
8827 filtered as determined by the
8828 <link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES"><quote>+crunch-incoming-cookies</quote></link>,
8829 <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>,
8830 and <link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION"><quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote></link>
8836 If any <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
8838 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
8839 action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
8840 read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from
8841 <filename>default.filter</filename> and any other filter files) are
8842 processed against the buffered content. Filters are applied in the order
8843 they are specified in one of the filter files. Animated GIFs, if present,
8844 are reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
8845 setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
8846 <application>Privoxy</application> back to your browser.
8849 If neither a <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
8851 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
8852 matches, then <application>Privoxy</application> passes the raw data through
8853 to the client browser as it becomes available.
8858 As the browser receives the now (possibly filtered) page content, it
8859 reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
8860 source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
8861 frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a
8862 separate request (this is easily viewable in <application>Privoxy's</application>
8863 logs). And each such request is in turn processed just as above. Note that a
8864 complex web page will have many, many such embedded URLs. If these
8865 secondary requests are to a different server, then quite possibly a very
8866 differing set of actions is triggered.
8873 NOTE: This is somewhat of a simplistic overview of what happens with each URL
8874 request. For the sake of brevity and simplicity, we have focused on
8875 <application>Privoxy's</application> core features only.
8881 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8882 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
8883 <title>Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</title>
8886 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies
8887 <link linkend="ACTIONS">actions</link> and <link linkend="FILTER">filters</link>
8888 to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
8889 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
8890 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
8891 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
8892 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
8893 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
8894 <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> whose consequences are not
8899 One quick test to see if <application>Privoxy</application> is causing a problem
8900 or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
8901 step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
8902 and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!). Looking at the
8903 logs is a good idea too. (Note that both the toggle feature and logging are
8904 enabled via <filename>config</filename> file settings, and may need to be
8905 turned <quote>on</quote>.)
8908 Another easy troubleshooting step to try is if you have done any
8909 customization of your installation, revert back to the installed
8910 defaults and see if that helps. There are times the developers get complaints
8911 about one thing or another, and the problem is more related to a customized
8912 configuration issue.
8916 <application>Privoxy</application> also provides the
8917 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
8918 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
8919 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
8923 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
8924 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
8925 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
8926 help with filtering effects (i.e. the <link
8927 linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action) from
8928 one of the filter files since this is handled very
8929 differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other
8930 URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images
8931 such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So
8932 you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area
8933 -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you
8934 will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View
8935 Page Source</quote> option for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the
8940 Let's try an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
8941 and look at it one section at a time in a sample configuration (your real
8942 configuration may vary):
8947 Matches for http://www.google.com:
8949 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8951 {+change-x-forwarded-for{block}
8952 +deanimate-gifs {last}
8953 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
8954 +filter {refresh-tags}
8955 +filter {img-reorder}
8956 +filter {banners-by-size}
8958 +filter {jumping-windows}
8959 +filter {ie-exploits}
8960 +hide-from-header {block}
8961 +hide-referrer {forge}
8962 +session-cookies-only
8963 +set-image-blocker {pattern}
8966 { -session-cookies-only }
8972 In file: user.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8973 (no matches in this file)
8978 This is telling us how we have defined our
8979 <link linkend="ACTIONS"><quote>actions</quote></link>, and
8980 which ones match for our test case, <quote>google.com</quote>.
8981 Displayed is all the actions that are available to us. Remember,
8982 the <literal>+</literal> sign denotes <quote>on</quote>. <literal>-</literal>
8983 denotes <quote>off</quote>. So some are <quote>on</quote> here, but many
8984 are <quote>off</quote>. Each example we try may provide a slightly different
8985 end result, depending on our configuration directives.
8989 is for our <filename>default.action</filename> file. The large, multi-line
8990 listing, is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default
8991 settings. If you look at your <quote>actions</quote> file, this would be the
8992 section just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section near the top. This
8993 will apply to all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end
8994 of the listing -- <quote> / </quote>.
8998 But we have defined additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
8999 rules, and then we list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions
9000 would apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit
9001 matches for <quote>.google.com</quote>. The first is negating our previous
9002 cookie setting, which was for <link
9003 linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>
9004 (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google, at
9005 least that is how it is in this example. The second turns
9006 <emphasis>off</emphasis> any <link
9007 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link>
9008 action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading
9009 dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will match any hosts and
9010 sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
9011 <quote>www.google.com</quote> or <quote>mail.google.com</quote>. But it would not
9012 match <quote>www.google.de</quote>! So, apparently, we have these two actions
9013 defined as exceptions to the general rules at the top somewhere in the lower
9014 part of our <filename>default.action</filename> file, and
9015 <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced somewhere in these latter sections.
9019 Then, for our <filename>user.action</filename> file, we again have no hits.
9020 So there is nothing google-specific that we might have added to our own, local
9021 configuration. If there was, those actions would over-rule any actions from
9022 previously processed files, such as <filename>default.action</filename>.
9023 <filename>user.action</filename> typically has the last word. This is the
9024 best place to put hard and fast exceptions,
9028 And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
9029 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
9030 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
9041 +change-x-forwarded-for{block}
9042 -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
9043 -content-type-overwrite
9044 -crunch-client-header
9045 -crunch-if-none-match
9046 -crunch-incoming-cookies
9047 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
9048 -crunch-server-header
9049 +deanimate-gifs {last}
9050 -downgrade-http-version
9053 -filter {content-cookies}
9054 -filter {all-popups}
9055 -filter {banners-by-link}
9056 -filter {tiny-textforms}
9057 -filter {frameset-borders}
9058 -filter {demoronizer}
9059 -filter {shockwave-flash}
9060 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
9062 -filter {crude-parental}
9063 -filter {site-specifics}
9064 -filter {js-annoyances}
9065 -filter {html-annoyances}
9066 +filter {refresh-tags}
9067 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
9068 +filter {img-reorder}
9069 +filter {banners-by-size}
9071 +filter {jumping-windows}
9072 +filter {ie-exploits}
9079 -handle-as-empty-document
9081 -hide-accept-language
9082 -hide-content-disposition
9083 +hide-from-header {block}
9084 -hide-if-modified-since
9085 +hide-referrer {forge}
9088 -overwrite-last-modified
9089 -prevent-compression
9091 -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
9092 -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
9093 -session-cookies-only
9094 +set-image-blocker {pattern} </screen>
9098 Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
9099 <quote>fast-redirects</quote> and <quote>session-cookies-only</quote>,
9100 which are activated specifically for this site in our configuration,
9101 and thus show in the <quote>Final Results</quote>.
9105 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
9111 { +block{Domains starts with "ad"} }
9114 { +block{Domain contains "ad"} }
9117 { +block{Doubleclick banner server} +handle-as-image }
9118 .[a-vx-z]*.doubleclick.net
9123 We'll just show the interesting part here - the explicit matches. It is
9124 matched three different times. Two <quote>+block{}</quote> sections,
9125 and a <quote>+block{} +handle-as-image</quote>,
9126 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
9127 <quote>+block-as-image</quote>. (<link
9128 linkend="ALIASES"><quote>Aliases</quote></link> are defined in
9129 the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
9134 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
9135 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
9136 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
9137 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
9138 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
9139 is done here -- as both a <link
9140 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block{}</quote></link>
9141 <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
9142 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>.
9143 The custom alias <quote><literal>+block-as-image</literal></quote> just
9144 simplifies the process and make it more readable.
9148 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
9149 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm ...
9155 Matches for http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
9157 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
9161 +change-x-forwarded-for{block}
9162 -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
9163 -content-type-overwrite
9164 -crunch-client-header
9165 -crunch-if-none-match
9166 -crunch-incoming-cookies
9167 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
9168 -crunch-server-header
9170 -downgrade-http-version
9171 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
9173 -filter {content-cookies}
9174 -filter {all-popups}
9175 -filter {banners-by-link}
9176 -filter {tiny-textforms}
9177 -filter {frameset-borders}
9178 -filter {demoronizer}
9179 -filter {shockwave-flash}
9180 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
9182 -filter {crude-parental}
9183 -filter {site-specifics}
9184 -filter {js-annoyances}
9185 -filter {html-annoyances}
9186 +filter {refresh-tags}
9187 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
9188 +filter {img-reorder}
9189 +filter {banners-by-size}
9191 +filter {jumping-windows}
9192 +filter {ie-exploits}
9199 -handle-as-empty-document
9201 -hide-accept-language
9202 -hide-content-disposition
9203 +hide-from-header{block}
9204 +hide-referer{forge}
9206 -overwrite-last-modified
9207 +prevent-compression
9209 -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
9210 -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
9211 +session-cookies-only
9212 +set-image-blocker{blank} }
9215 { +block{Path contains "ads".} +handle-as-image }
9221 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote> in our
9222 configuration! But we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the
9223 blank page. It is actually triggering two different actions here, and
9224 the effects are aggregated so that the URL is blocked, and &my-app; is told
9225 to treat the block as if it were an image. But this is, of course, all wrong.
9226 We could now add a new action below this (or better in our own
9227 <filename>user.action</filename> file) that explicitly
9228 <emphasis>un</emphasis> blocks (
9229 <link linkend="BLOCK"><quote>{-block}</quote></link>) paths with
9230 <quote>adsl</quote> in them (remember, last match in the configuration
9231 wins). There are various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
9243 Now the page displays ;-)
9244 Remember to flush your browser's caches when making these kinds of changes to
9245 your configuration to insure that you get a freshly delivered page! Or, try
9246 using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
9250 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
9257 { +block{Path starts with "ads".} +handle-as-image }
9263 That actually was very helpful and pointed us quickly to where the problem
9264 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
9265 rules in the first section of <filename>default.action</filename> is causing
9266 the problem. This would require some guesswork, and maybe a little trial and
9267 error to isolate the offending rule. One likely cause would be one of the
9268 <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> actions.
9269 These tend to be harder to troubleshoot.
9270 Try adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off
9271 <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>:
9279 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
9287 <quote><literal>{ shop }</literal></quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
9288 <quote><literal>{ -filter -session-cookies-only }</literal></quote>.
9289 Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
9297 # Disable ALL filter actions for sites in this section
9305 This would turn off all filtering for these sites. This is best
9306 put in <filename>user.action</filename>, for local site
9307 exceptions. Note that when a simple domain pattern is used by itself (without
9308 the subsequent path portion), all sub-pages within that domain are included
9309 automatically in the scope of the action.
9313 Images that are inexplicably being blocked, may well be hitting the
9314 <link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE"><quote>+filter{banners-by-size}</quote></link>
9316 that images of certain sizes are ad banners (works well
9317 <emphasis>most of the time</emphasis> since these tend to be standardized).
9321 <quote><literal>{ fragile }</literal></quote> is an alias that disables most
9322 actions that are the most likely to cause trouble. This can be used as a
9323 last resort for problem sites.
9329 # Handle with care: easy to break
9331 mybank.example.com</screen>
9336 <emphasis>Remember to flush caches!</emphasis> Note that the
9337 <literal>mail.google</literal> reference lacks the TLD portion (e.g.
9338 <quote>.com</quote>). This will effectively match any TLD with
9339 <literal>google</literal> in it, such as <literal>mail.google.de.</literal>,
9343 If this still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining
9344 actions one by one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
9353 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
9354 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
9355 Public License as published by the Free Software
9356 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
9357 your option) any later version.
9359 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
9360 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
9361 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
9362 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
9363 License for more details.
9365 The GNU General Public License should be included with
9366 this file. If not, you can view it at
9367 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
9368 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
9369 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301,
9372 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
9373 Revision 2.140 2011/11/19 15:18:02 fabiankeil
9376 Revision 2.139 2011/11/18 16:49:29 fabiankeil
9379 Revision 2.138 2011/11/13 17:03:54 fabiankeil
9380 Bump entities for 3.0.18 stable
9382 Revision 2.137 2011/11/13 17:02:59 fabiankeil
9383 Import the first ChangeLog draft for 3.0.18 stable
9385 Revision 2.136 2011/10/14 16:53:10 fabiankeil
9386 Clarify the effect of compiling Privoxy with zlib support
9388 Suggested by dg1727 in #3423782.
9390 zlib support has been available for years now,
9391 so drop the reference to Privoxy 3.0.7
9393 Revision 2.135 2011/09/04 11:10:12 fabiankeil
9394 Ditch trailing whitespace
9396 Revision 2.134 2011/08/18 11:45:02 fabiankeil
9397 Don't use unspecified MSN sites as examples for User-Agent-based descrimination
9399 Without knowing the URLs, nobody can easily verify it and it could
9400 be mistaken as FUD. I also assume that it's no longer an issue anyway.
9402 Revision 2.133 2011/08/18 11:42:50 fabiankeil
9403 Bump some more documentation copyright ranges.
9405 Revision 2.132 2011/08/17 10:40:07 fabiankeil
9406 Update the entities.
9408 This commit is chronological out of order.
9410 Revision 2.131 2011/04/19 13:14:10 fabiankeil
9411 Fix spelling errors in the documentation. Found with codespell.
9413 Revision 2.130 2010/12/01 19:28:28 fabiankeil
9414 Hopefully unbreak the dok target when using some kind of jade.
9418 Revision 2.129 2010/11/13 20:17:11 fabiankeil
9419 Merge ChangeLog updates
9421 Revision 2.128 2010/11/10 22:00:13 fabiankeil
9422 Update the first paragraph of the 'What's New' section.
9424 Revision 2.127 2010/11/10 21:48:54 fabiankeil
9425 Update the "What's New" section.
9427 Revision 2.126 2010/11/06 12:55:48 fabiankeil
9428 Set p-version to 3.0.17
9430 Revision 2.125 2010/09/03 17:39:37 fabiankeil
9431 Slightly improve the explanation of why filtering may appear slower than it is.
9433 Revision 2.124 2010/05/01 18:21:30 fabiankeil
9434 Explicitly mention how to match any URL.
9436 Revision 2.123 2010/02/19 16:00:38 fabiankeil
9439 Revision 2.122 2010/02/19 15:22:47 fabiankeil
9442 Revision 2.121 2010/02/15 15:30:13 fabiankeil
9443 Mention the use of the no-such-domain template for DNS problems with FEATURE_IPV6_SUPPORT enabled.
9445 Revision 2.120 2010/02/13 17:38:39 fabiankeil
9446 Update entities for 3.0.16 stable.
9448 Revision 2.119 2010/02/13 16:37:37 fabiankeil
9449 Update 'What's new?' section.
9451 Revision 2.118 2010/02/11 13:59:48 fabiankeil
9452 Mention that the headers added by the add-header action aren't modified by other actions.
9454 Revision 2.117 2010/01/11 12:56:04 fabiankeil
9455 Bump copyright range as p-config.sgml's copyright line is only used in the config file.
9457 Revision 2.116 2009/11/15 14:24:12 fabiankeil
9458 Prepare to generate docs for 3.0.16 UNRELEASED.
9460 Revision 2.115 2009/10/10 06:19:34 fabiankeil
9461 Ditch a duplicated 'since'.
9463 Revision 2.114 2009/10/10 05:51:48 fabiankeil
9464 Update "What's new" section.
9466 Revision 2.113 2009/10/10 05:48:55 fabiankeil
9467 Prepare for 3.0.15 beta.
9469 Revision 2.112 2009/07/24 12:20:30 fabiankeil
9470 Remove duplicated period.
9472 Revision 2.111 2009/07/18 18:11:11 fabiankeil
9473 Don't claim that NTLM should work when there are multiple reports that it doesn't.
9475 Revision 2.110 2009/07/18 16:25:17 fabiankeil
9476 Fix trailing whitespace.
9478 Revision 2.109 2009/07/18 16:24:39 fabiankeil
9479 Bump entities for 3.0.14 beta.
9481 Revision 2.108 2009/07/18 15:49:23 fabiankeil
9482 Add most of the changes in 3.0.14 to the "What's New" section.
9484 Revision 2.107 2009/06/12 14:30:58 fabiankeil
9485 Update entities for 3.0.13 beta.
9487 Revision 2.106 2009/06/12 11:04:13 fabiankeil
9488 Import ChangeLog for 3.0.13 beta.
9490 Revision 2.105 2009/04/17 11:32:57 fabiankeil
9491 Grammar and spelling fixes.
9493 Revision 2.104 2009/04/17 11:27:49 fabiankeil
9494 Petr Pisar's privoxy-3.0.12-ipv6-3.diff.
9496 Revision 2.103 2009/03/21 10:49:05 fabiankeil
9497 Merge updated ChangeLog.
9499 Revision 2.102 2009/03/15 19:31:36 fabiankeil
9500 Update "What's New in this Release" section.
9502 Revision 2.101 2009/02/25 19:01:56 fabiankeil
9505 Revision 2.100 2009/02/19 17:14:11 fabiankeil
9506 - Copy the release cycle description from announce.txt into
9507 the "What's New" section.
9508 - Stop referring to the ChangeLog for a "complete list of changes".
9509 The "What's New" section already contains the complete list.
9511 Revision 2.99 2009/02/19 02:20:22 hal9
9512 Make some links in seealso conditional. Man page is now privoxy only links.
9514 Revision 2.98 2009/02/16 17:10:33 fabiankeil
9515 Fix entry about shortened log messages. Noticed by Lee.
9517 Revision 2.97 2009/02/14 18:01:00 fabiankeil
9520 Revision 2.96 2009/02/14 13:14:03 fabiankeil
9523 Revision 2.95 2009/02/14 12:51:26 fabiankeil
9524 Mention match-all.action in the "Actions Files Tutorial" section.
9526 Revision 2.94 2009/02/14 11:50:31 fabiankeil
9527 Some indentation fixes.
9529 Revision 2.93 2009/02/14 10:14:42 fabiankeil
9530 Mention match-all.action in the action file descriptions.
9532 Revision 2.92 2009/02/12 16:08:26 fabiankeil
9533 Declare the code stable.
9535 Revision 2.91 2009/01/13 16:50:35 fabiankeil
9536 The standard.action file is gone.
9538 Revision 2.90 2008/09/26 16:53:09 fabiankeil
9539 Update "What's new" section.
9541 Revision 2.89 2008/09/21 15:38:56 fabiankeil
9542 Fix Portage tree sync instructions in Gentoo section.
9543 Anonymously reported at ijbswa-developers@.
9545 Revision 2.88 2008/09/21 14:42:52 fabiankeil
9546 Add documentation for change-x-forwarded-for{},
9547 remove documentation for hide-forwarded-for-headers.
9549 Revision 2.87 2008/08/30 15:37:35 fabiankeil
9552 Revision 2.86 2008/08/16 10:12:23 fabiankeil
9553 Merge two sentences and move the URL to the end of the item.
9555 Revision 2.85 2008/08/16 10:04:59 fabiankeil
9556 Some more syntax fixes. This version actually builds.
9558 Revision 2.84 2008/08/16 09:42:45 fabiankeil
9559 Turns out building docs works better if the syntax is valid.
9561 Revision 2.83 2008/08/16 09:32:02 fabiankeil
9562 Mention changes since 3.0.9 beta.
9564 Revision 2.82 2008/08/16 09:00:52 fabiankeil
9565 Fix example URL pattern (once more with feeling).
9567 Revision 2.81 2008/08/16 08:51:28 fabiankeil
9568 Update version-related entities.
9570 Revision 2.80 2008/07/18 16:54:30 fabiankeil
9571 Remove erroneous whitespace in documentation link.
9572 Reported by John Chronister in #2021611.
9574 Revision 2.79 2008/06/27 18:00:53 markm68k
9575 remove outdated startup information for mac os x
9577 Revision 2.78 2008/06/21 17:03:03 fabiankeil
9580 Revision 2.77 2008/06/14 13:45:22 fabiankeil
9581 Re-add a colon I unintentionally removed a few revisions ago.
9583 Revision 2.76 2008/06/14 13:21:28 fabiankeil
9584 Prepare for the upcoming 3.0.9 beta release.
9586 Revision 2.75 2008/06/13 16:06:48 fabiankeil
9587 Update the "What's New in this Release" section with
9588 the ChangeLog entries changelog2doc.pl could handle.
9590 Revision 2.74 2008/05/26 15:55:46 fabiankeil
9591 - Update "default profiles" table.
9592 - Add some more pcrs redirect examples and note that
9593 enabling debug 128 helps to get redirects working.
9595 Revision 2.73 2008/05/23 14:43:18 fabiankeil
9596 Remove previously out-commented block that caused syntax problems.
9598 Revision 2.72 2008/05/12 10:26:14 fabiankeil
9599 Synchronize content filter descriptions with the ones in default.filter.
9601 Revision 2.71 2008/04/10 17:37:16 fabiankeil
9602 Actually we use "modern" POSIX 1003.2 regular
9603 expressions in path patterns, not PCRE.
9605 Revision 2.70 2008/04/10 15:59:12 fabiankeil
9606 Add another section to the client-header-tagger example that shows
9607 how to actually change the action settings once the tag is created.
9609 Revision 2.69 2008/03/29 12:14:25 fabiankeil
9610 Remove send-wafer and send-vanilla-wafer actions.
9612 Revision 2.68 2008/03/28 15:13:43 fabiankeil
9613 Remove inspect-jpegs action.
9615 Revision 2.67 2008/03/27 18:31:21 fabiankeil
9616 Remove kill-popups action.
9618 Revision 2.66 2008/03/06 16:33:47 fabiankeil
9619 If limit-connect isn't used, don't limit CONNECT requests to port 443.
9621 Revision 2.65 2008/03/04 18:30:40 fabiankeil
9622 Remove the treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks action. We now
9623 use the "blocked" page for forbidden CONNECT requests by default.
9625 Revision 2.64 2008/03/01 14:10:28 fabiankeil
9626 Use new block syntax. Still needs some polishing.
9628 Revision 2.63 2008/02/22 05:50:37 markm68k
9631 Revision 2.62 2008/02/11 11:52:23 hal9
9632 Fix entity ... s/&/&
9634 Revision 2.61 2008/02/11 03:41:47 markm68k
9635 more updates for mac os x
9637 Revision 2.60 2008/02/11 03:40:25 markm68k
9638 more updates for mac os x
9640 Revision 2.59 2008/02/11 00:52:34 markm68k
9641 reflect new changes for mac os x
9643 Revision 2.58 2008/02/03 21:37:40 hal9
9644 Apply patch from Mark: s/OSX/OS X/
9646 Revision 2.57 2008/02/03 19:10:14 fabiankeil
9647 Mention forward-socks5.
9649 Revision 2.56 2008/01/31 19:11:35 fabiankeil
9650 Let the +client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation} example apply
9651 to all requests as "tainted" Referers aren't limited to exit TLDs.
9653 Revision 2.55 2008/01/19 21:26:37 hal9
9654 Add IE7 to configuration section per Gerry.
9656 Revision 2.54 2008/01/19 17:52:39 hal9
9657 Re-commit to fix various minor issues for new release.
9659 Revision 2.53 2008/01/19 15:03:05 hal9
9660 Doc sources tagged for 3.0.8 release.
9662 Revision 2.52 2008/01/17 01:49:51 hal9
9663 Change copyright notice for docs s/2007/2008/. All these will be rebuilt soon
9666 Revision 2.51 2007/12/23 16:48:24 fabiankeil
9667 Use more precise example descriptions for the mysterious domain patterns.
9669 Revision 2.50 2007/12/08 12:44:36 fabiankeil
9670 - Remove already commented out pre-3.0.7 changes.
9671 - Update the "new log defaults" paragraph.
9673 Revision 2.49 2007/12/06 18:21:55 fabiankeil
9674 Update hide-forwarded-for-headers description.
9676 Revision 2.48 2007/11/24 19:07:17 fabiankeil
9677 - Mention request rewriting.
9678 - Enable the conditional-forge paragraph.
9681 Revision 2.47 2007/11/18 14:59:47 fabiankeil
9682 A few "Note to Upgraders" updates.
9684 Revision 2.46 2007/11/17 17:24:44 fabiankeil
9685 - Use new action defaults.
9686 - Minor fixes and rewordings.
9688 Revision 2.45 2007/11/16 11:48:46 hal9
9689 Fix one typo, and add a couple of small refinements.
9691 Revision 2.44 2007/11/15 03:30:20 hal9
9692 Results of spell check.
9694 Revision 2.43 2007/11/14 18:45:39 fabiankeil
9695 - Mention some more contributors in the "New in this Release" list.
9698 Revision 2.42 2007/11/12 03:32:40 hal9
9699 Updates for "What's New" and "Notes to Upgraders". Various other changes in
9700 preparation for new release. User Manual is almost ready.
9702 Revision 2.41 2007/11/11 16:32:11 hal9
9703 This is primarily syncing What's New and Note to Upgraders sections with the many
9704 new features and changes (gleaned from memory but mostly from ChangeLog).
9706 Revision 2.40 2007/11/10 17:10:59 fabiankeil
9707 In the first third of the file, mention several times that
9708 the action editor is disabled by default in 3.0.7 beta and later.
9710 Revision 2.39 2007/11/05 02:34:49 hal9
9711 Various changes in preparation for the upcoming release. Much yet to be done.
9713 Revision 2.38 2007/09/22 16:01:42 fabiankeil
9714 Update embedded show-url-info output.
9716 Revision 2.37 2007/08/27 16:09:55 fabiankeil
9717 Fix pre-chroot-nslookup description which I failed to
9718 copy and paste properly. Reported by Stephen Gildea.
9720 Revision 2.36 2007/08/26 16:47:14 fabiankeil
9721 Add Stephen Gildea's pre-chroot-nslookup patch [#1276666],
9722 extensive comments moved to user manual.
9724 Revision 2.35 2007/08/26 14:59:49 fabiankeil
9725 Minor rewordings and fixes.
9727 Revision 2.34 2007/08/05 15:19:50 fabiankeil
9728 - Don't claim HTTP/1.1 compliance.
9729 - Use $ in some of the path pattern examples.
9730 - Use a hide-user-agent example argument without
9731 leading and trailing space.
9732 - Make it clear that the cookie actions work with
9734 - Rephrase the inspect-jpegs text to underline
9735 that it's only meant to protect against a single
9738 Revision 2.33 2007/07/27 10:57:35 hal9
9739 Add references for user-agent strings for hide-user-agenet
9741 Revision 2.32 2007/06/07 12:36:22 fabiankeil
9742 Apply Roland's 29_usermanual.dpatch to fix a bunch
9743 of syntax errors I collected over the last months.
9745 Revision 2.31 2007/06/02 14:01:37 fabiankeil
9746 Start to document forward-override{}.
9748 Revision 2.30 2007/04/25 15:10:36 fabiankeil
9749 - Describe installation for FreeBSD.
9750 - Start to document taggers and tag patterns.
9751 - Don't confuse devils and daemons.
9753 Revision 2.29 2007/04/05 11:47:51 fabiankeil
9754 Some updates regarding header filtering,
9755 handling of compressed content and redirect's
9756 support for pcrs commands.
9758 Revision 2.28 2006/12/10 23:42:48 hal9
9759 Fix various typos reported by Adam P. Thanks.
9761 Revision 2.27 2006/11/14 01:57:47 hal9
9762 Dump all docs prior to 3.0.6 release. Various minor changes to faq and user
9765 Revision 2.26 2006/10/24 11:16:44 hal9
9768 Revision 2.25 2006/10/18 10:50:33 hal9
9769 Add note that since filters are off in Cautious, compression is ON. Turn off
9770 compression to make filters work on all sites.
9772 Revision 2.24 2006/10/03 11:13:54 hal9
9773 More references to the new filters. Include html this time around.
9775 Revision 2.23 2006/10/02 22:43:53 hal9
9776 Contains new filter definitions from Fabian, and few other miscellaneous
9779 Revision 2.22 2006/09/22 01:27:55 hal9
9780 Final commit of probably various minor changes here and there. Unless
9781 something changes this should be ready for pending release.
9783 Revision 2.21 2006/09/20 03:21:36 david__schmidt
9784 Just the tiniest tweak. Wafer thin!
9786 Revision 2.20 2006/09/10 14:53:54 hal9
9787 Results of spell check. User manual has some updates to standard.actions file
9790 Revision 2.19 2006/09/08 12:19:02 fabiankeil
9791 Adjust hide-if-modified-since example values
9792 to reflect the recent changes.
9794 Revision 2.18 2006/09/08 02:38:57 hal9
9796 -Fix a number of broken links.
9797 -Migrate the new Windows service command line options, and reference as
9799 -Rebuild so that can be used with the new "user-manual" config capabilities.
9802 Revision 2.17 2006/09/05 13:25:12 david__schmidt
9803 Add Windows service invocation stuff (duplicated) in FAQ and in user manual under Windows startup. One probably ought to reference the other.
9805 Revision 2.16 2006/09/02 12:49:37 hal9
9806 Various small updates for new actions, filterfiles, etc.
9808 Revision 2.15 2006/08/30 11:15:22 hal9
9809 More work on the new actions, especially filter-*-headers, and What's New
9810 section. User Manual is close to final form for 3.0.4 release. Some tinkering
9811 and proof reading left to do.
9813 Revision 2.14 2006/08/29 10:59:36 hal9
9814 Add a "Whats New in this release" Section. Further work on multiple filter
9815 files, and assorted other minor changes.
9817 Revision 2.13 2006/08/22 11:04:59 hal9
9818 Silence warnings and errors. This should build now. New filters were only
9819 stubbed in. More to be done.
9821 Revision 2.12 2006/08/14 08:40:39 fabiankeil
9822 Documented new actions that were part of
9823 the "minor Privoxy improvements".
9825 Revision 2.11 2006/07/18 14:48:51 david__schmidt
9826 Reorganizing the repository: swapping out what was HEAD (the old 3.1 branch)
9827 with what was really the latest development (the v_3_0_branch branch)
9829 Revision 1.123.2.43 2005/05/23 09:59:10 hal9
9832 Revision 1.123.2.42 2004/12/04 14:39:57 hal9
9833 Fix two minor typos per bug SF report.
9835 Revision 1.123.2.41 2004/03/23 12:58:42 oes
9838 Revision 1.123.2.40 2004/02/27 12:48:49 hal9
9839 Add comment re: redirecting to local file system for set-image-blocker may
9840 is dependent on browser.
9842 Revision 1.123.2.39 2004/01/30 22:31:40 oes
9843 Added a hint re bookmarklets to Quickstart section
9845 Revision 1.123.2.38 2004/01/30 16:47:51 oes
9846 Some minor clarifications
9848 Revision 1.123.2.37 2004/01/29 22:36:11 hal9
9849 Updates for no longer filtering text/plain, and demoronizer default settings,
9850 and copyright notice dates.
9852 Revision 1.123.2.36 2003/12/10 02:26:26 hal9
9853 Changed the demoronizer filter description.
9855 Revision 1.123.2.35 2003/11/06 13:36:37 oes
9856 Updated link to nightly CVS tarball
9858 Revision 1.123.2.34 2003/06/26 23:50:16 hal9
9859 Add a small bit on filtering and problems re: source code being corrupted.
9861 Revision 1.123.2.33 2003/05/08 18:17:33 roro
9862 Use apt-get instead of dpkg to install Debian package, which is more
9863 solid, uses the correct and most recent Debian version automatically.
9865 Revision 1.123.2.32 2003/04/11 03:13:57 hal9
9866 Add small note about only one filterfile (as opposed to multiple actions
9869 Revision 1.123.2.31 2003/03/26 02:03:43 oes
9870 Updated hard-coded copyright dates
9872 Revision 1.123.2.30 2003/03/24 12:58:56 hal9
9873 Add new section on Predefined Filters.
9875 Revision 1.123.2.29 2003/03/20 02:45:29 hal9
9876 More problems with \-\-chroot causing markup problems :(
9878 Revision 1.123.2.28 2003/03/19 00:35:24 hal9
9879 Manual edit of revision log because 'chroot' (even inside a comment) was
9880 causing Docbook to hang here (due to double hyphen and the processor thinking
9883 Revision 1.123.2.27 2003/03/18 19:37:14 oes
9884 s/Advanced|Radical/Adventuresome/g to avoid complaints re fun filter
9886 Revision 1.123.2.26 2003/03/17 16:50:53 oes
9887 Added documentation for new chroot option
9889 Revision 1.123.2.25 2003/03/15 18:36:55 oes
9890 Adapted to the new filters
9892 Revision 1.123.2.24 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9
9893 Move default profiles table from FAQ to U-M, and other minor related changes.
9896 Revision 1.123.2.23 2002/10/21 02:32:01 hal9
9897 Updates to the user.action examples section. A few new ones.
9899 Revision 1.123.2.22 2002/10/12 00:51:53 hal9
9900 Add demoronizer to filter section.
9902 Revision 1.123.2.21 2002/10/10 04:09:35 hal9
9903 s/Advanced/Radical/ and added very brief note.
9905 Revision 1.123.2.20 2002/10/10 03:49:21 hal9
9906 Add notes to session-cookies-only and Quickstart about pre-existing
9907 cookies. Also, note content-cookies work differently.
9909 Revision 1.123.2.19 2002/09/26 01:25:36 hal9
9910 More explanation on Privoxy patterns, more on content-cookies and SSL.
9912 Revision 1.123.2.18 2002/08/22 23:47:58 hal9
9913 Add 'Documentation' to Privoxy Menu shot in Configuration section to match
9916 Revision 1.123.2.17 2002/08/18 01:13:05 hal9
9917 Spell checked (only one typo this time!).
9919 Revision 1.123.2.16 2002/08/09 19:20:54 david__schmidt
9920 Update to Mac OS X startup script name
9922 Revision 1.123.2.15 2002/08/07 17:32:11 oes
9923 Converted some internal links from ulink to link for PDF creation; no content changed
9925 Revision 1.123.2.14 2002/08/06 09:16:13 oes
9926 Nits re: actions file download
9928 Revision 1.123.2.13 2002/08/02 18:23:19 g_sauthoff
9929 Just 2 small corrections to the Gentoo sections
9931 Revision 1.123.2.12 2002/08/02 18:17:21 g_sauthoff
9932 Added 2 Gentoo sections
9934 Revision 1.123.2.11 2002/07/26 15:20:31 oes
9935 - Added version info to title
9936 - Added info on new filters
9937 - Revised parts of the filter file tutorial
9938 - Added info on where to get updated actions files
9940 Revision 1.123.2.10 2002/07/25 21:42:29 hal9
9941 Add brief notes on not proxying non-HTTP protocols.
9943 Revision 1.123.2.9 2002/07/11 03:40:28 david__schmidt
9945 Updated Mac OS X sections due to installation location change
9947 Revision 1.123.2.8 2002/06/09 16:36:32 hal9
9948 Clarifications on filtering and MIME. Hardcode 'latest release' in index.html.
9950 Revision 1.123.2.7 2002/06/09 00:29:34 hal9
9951 Touch ups on filtering, in actions section and Anatomy.
9953 Revision 1.123.2.6 2002/06/06 23:11:03 hal9
9954 Fix broken link. Linkchecked all docs.
9956 Revision 1.123.2.5 2002/05/29 02:01:02 hal9
9957 This is break out of the entire config section from u-m, so it can
9958 eventually be used to generate the comments, etc in the main config file
9959 so that these are in sync with each other.
9961 Revision 1.123.2.4 2002/05/27 03:28:45 hal9
9962 Ooops missed something from David.
9964 Revision 1.123.2.3 2002/05/27 03:23:17 hal9
9965 Fix FIXMEs for OS2 and Mac OS X startup. Fix Redhat typos (should be Red Hat).
9966 That's a wrap, I think.
9968 Revision 1.123.2.2 2002/05/26 19:02:09 hal9
9969 Move Amiga stuff around to take of FIXME in start up section.
9971 Revision 1.123.2.1 2002/05/26 17:04:25 hal9
9972 -Spellcheck, very minor edits, and sync across branches
9974 Revision 1.123 2002/05/24 23:19:23 hal9
9975 Include new image (Proxy setup). More fun with guibutton.
9976 Minor corrections/clarifications here and there.
9978 Revision 1.122 2002/05/24 13:24:08 oes
9979 Added Bookmarklet for one-click pre-filled access to show-url-info
9981 Revision 1.121 2002/05/23 23:20:17 oes
9982 - Changed more (all?) references to actions to the
9983 <literal><link> style.
9984 - Small fixes in the actions chapter
9985 - Small clarifications in the quickstart to ad blocking
9986 - Removed <emphasis> from <title>s since the new doc CSS
9987 renders them red (bad in TOC).
9989 Revision 1.120 2002/05/23 19:16:43 roro
9990 Correct Debian specials (installation and startup).
9992 Revision 1.119 2002/05/22 17:17:05 oes
9995 Revision 1.118 2002/05/21 04:54:55 hal9
9996 -New Section: Quickstart to Ad Blocking
9997 -Reformat Actions Anatomy to match new CGI layout
9999 Revision 1.117 2002/05/17 13:56:16 oes
10000 - Reworked & extended Templates chapter
10001 - Small changes to Regex appendix
10002 - #included authors.sgml into (C) and hist chapter
10004 Revision 1.116 2002/05/17 03:23:46 hal9
10005 Fixing merge conflict in Quickstart section.
10007 Revision 1.115 2002/05/16 16:25:00 oes
10008 Extended the Filter File chapter & minor fixes
10010 Revision 1.114 2002/05/16 09:42:50 oes
10011 More ulink->link, added some hints to Quickstart section
10013 Revision 1.113 2002/05/15 21:07:25 oes
10014 Extended and further commented the example actions files
10016 Revision 1.112 2002/05/15 03:57:14 hal9
10017 Spell check. A few minor edits here and there for better syntax and
10020 Revision 1.111 2002/05/14 23:01:36 oes
10023 Revision 1.110 2002/05/14 19:10:45 oes
10024 Restored alphabetical order of actions
10026 Revision 1.109 2002/05/14 17:23:11 oes
10027 Renamed the prevent-*-cookies actions, extended aliases section and moved it before the example AFs
10029 Revision 1.108 2002/05/14 15:29:12 oes
10030 Completed proofreading the actions chapter
10032 Revision 1.107 2002/05/12 03:20:41 hal9
10033 Small clarifications for 127.0.0.1 vs localhost for listen-address since this
10034 apparently an important distinction for some OS's.
10036 Revision 1.106 2002/05/10 01:48:20 hal9
10037 This is mostly proposed copyright/licensing additions and changes. Docs
10038 are still GPL, but licensing and copyright are more visible. Also, copyright
10039 changed in doc header comments (eliminate references to JB except FAQ).
10041 Revision 1.105 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
10042 Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
10044 Revision 1.104 2002/05/04 08:44:45 swa
10047 Revision 1.103 2002/05/04 00:40:53 hal9
10048 -Remove the TOC first page kludge. It's fixed proper now in ldp.dsl.in.
10049 -Some minor additions to Quickstart.
10051 Revision 1.102 2002/05/03 17:46:00 oes
10052 Further proofread & reactivated short build instructions
10054 Revision 1.101 2002/05/03 03:58:30 hal9
10055 Move the user-manual config directive to top of section. Add note about
10056 Privoxy needing read permissions for configs, and write for logs.
10058 Revision 1.100 2002/04/29 03:05:55 hal9
10059 Add clarification on differences of new actions files.
10061 Revision 1.99 2002/04/28 16:59:05 swa
10062 more structure in starting section
10064 Revision 1.98 2002/04/28 05:43:59 hal9
10065 This is the break up of configuration.html into multiple files. This
10066 will probably break links elsewhere :(
10068 Revision 1.97 2002/04/27 21:04:42 hal9
10069 -Rewrite of Actions File example.
10070 -Add section for user-manual directive in config.
10072 Revision 1.96 2002/04/27 05:32:00 hal9
10073 -Add short section to Filter Files to tie in with +filter action.
10074 -Start rewrite of examples in Actions Examples (not finished).
10076 Revision 1.95 2002/04/26 17:23:29 swa
10077 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
10079 Revision 1.94 2002/04/26 05:24:36 hal9
10080 -Add most of Andreas suggestions to Chain of Events section.
10081 -A few other minor corrections and touch up.
10083 Revision 1.92 2002/04/25 18:55:13 hal9
10084 More catchups on new actions files, and new actions names.
10085 Other assorted cleanups, and minor modifications.
10087 Revision 1.91 2002/04/24 02:39:31 hal9
10088 Add 'Chain of Events' section.
10090 Revision 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 hal9
10091 Linuxconf is deprecated on RH, substitute chkconfig.
10093 Revision 1.89 2002/04/23 21:05:28 oes
10094 Added hint for startup on Red Hat
10096 Revision 1.88 2002/04/23 05:37:54 hal9
10097 Add AmigaOS install stuff.
10099 Revision 1.87 2002/04/23 02:53:15 david__schmidt
10100 Updated Mac OS X installation section
10101 Added a few English tweaks here an there
10103 Revision 1.86 2002/04/21 01:46:32 hal9
10104 Re-write actions section.
10106 Revision 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9
10107 Fix ugly typo (mine).
10109 Revision 1.84 2002/04/18 21:17:13 hal9
10110 Spell Redhat correctly (ie Red Hat). A few minor grammar corrections.
10112 Revision 1.83 2002/04/18 18:21:12 oes
10113 Added RPM install detail
10115 Revision 1.82 2002/04/18 12:04:50 oes
10118 Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
10119 Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
10121 Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
10122 Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
10124 Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
10125 Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
10127 Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
10128 Proofreading part 2
10130 Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
10131 Proofreading, part one
10133 Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
10134 -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
10135 -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
10137 Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
10138 Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
10140 Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
10141 Add small section on submitting actions.
10143 Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
10146 Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
10147 Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
10149 Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
10150 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
10152 Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
10155 Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
10156 -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
10157 -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
10158 -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
10159 -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
10161 Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
10162 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
10164 Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
10165 more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
10167 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
10168 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
10169 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
10170 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
10171 eventually be set by Makefile.
10172 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
10174 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
10175 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
10177 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
10178 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
10180 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
10181 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
10183 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
10184 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
10185 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
10186 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
10188 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
10191 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
10192 Added more to Anatomy section.
10194 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
10195 Touch up intro for new name.
10197 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
10198 we have a new homepage!
10200 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
10201 A few minor catch ups with name change.
10203 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
10204 configure needs to be generated.
10206 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
10207 we are too lazy to make a block-built
10208 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
10210 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
10211 name change related issue.
10213 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
10214 name change. changed filenames.
10216 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
10219 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
10220 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
10221 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
10222 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
10223 comments and remarks to history untouched.
10225 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
10228 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
10229 New section in Appendix.
10231 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
10232 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
10234 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
10235 correct feedback channels
10237 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
10238 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
10240 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
10243 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
10244 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
10246 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
10247 Added imageblock{pattern}.
10249 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
10252 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
10253 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
10255 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
10256 provide correct feedback channels
10258 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
10259 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
10261 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
10262 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
10264 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
10265 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
10267 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
10268 Add new - - user option.
10270 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
10271 Added section on command line options.
10273 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
10274 Changed default port to 8118
10276 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
10277 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
10279 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
10280 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
10281 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
10284 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
10287 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
10288 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
10290 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
10291 Update OS/2 build section
10293 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
10294 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
10295 will work - no other changes are needed.
10297 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
10298 Added a very short section on Templates
10300 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
10301 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
10303 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
10304 Touch ups for *.action files.
10306 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
10309 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
10310 Updates for recent changes.
10312 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
10313 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
10315 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
10316 Correct 2 minor errors
10318 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
10319 *** empty log message ***
10321 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
10322 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
10324 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
10325 wrong url in documentation
10327 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
10328 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
10330 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
10331 Very minor changes.
10333 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
10336 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
10339 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
10340 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
10342 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
10343 Some additions, and re-arranging.
10345 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
10348 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
10349 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
10351 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
10354 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
10355 source files for junkbuster documentation
10357 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
10358 first proposal of a structure.
10360 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
10361 docs should have an author.
10363 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
10364 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.