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 "3.0.6">
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 my-app "<application>Privoxy</application>">
30 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
33 This file belongs into
34 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
36 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.27 2006/11/14 01:57:47 hal9 Exp $
38 Copyright (C) 2001- 2006 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org
41 ========================================================================
42 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
43 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
44 ========================================================================
51 <title>Privoxy &p-version; User Manual</title>
55 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
56 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
57 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001 - 2006 by
58 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
62 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.27 2006/11/14 01:57:47 hal9 Exp $</pubdate>
66 Note: the following should generate a separate page, and a live link to it,
67 all nicely done. But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave
68 commented unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the
69 copyright/license declarations will be in their own sgml.
82 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
83 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
84 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
90 The <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> gives users information on how to
91 install, configure and use <ulink
92 url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy</ulink>.
95 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
97 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
100 You can find the latest version of the <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> at <ulink
101 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
102 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> on how to
103 contact the developers.
107 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
113 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
114 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
116 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
117 <application>Privoxy</application>, v.&p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
118 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
119 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
120 configuration files. Development of a new version is currently nearing
121 completion, and includes significant changes and enhancements over
122 earlier versions. ]]>.
125 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
128 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
129 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
130 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
135 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
136 <sect2 id="features"><title>Features</title>
138 In addition to the core
139 features of ad blocking and
140 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookie</ulink> management,
141 <application>Privoxy</application> provides many supplemental
142 features<![%p-not-stable;[, some of them currently under development]]>,
143 that give the end-user more control, more privacy and more freedom:
145 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
147 <!-- end boilerplate -->
152 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
155 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
156 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
159 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
160 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
161 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
162 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project
168 On some platforms, the installer may remove previously installed versions, if
169 found. (See below for your platform). In any case <emphasis>be sure to backup
170 your old configuration if it is valuable to you.</emphasis> See the <link
171 linkend="upgradersnote">note to upgraders</link> section below.
174 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
175 <sect2 id="installation-packages"><title>Binary Packages</title>
177 How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
180 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
181 <sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Red Hat and Fedora RPMs</title>
184 RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm</literal>,
185 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location
186 of configuration files.
190 Note that on Red Hat, <application>Privoxy</application> will
191 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be automatically started on system boot. You will
192 need to enable that using <command>chkconfig</command>,
193 <command>ntsysv</command>, or similar methods.
197 If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM:
198 <literal>rpm --rebuild privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm</literal>. This
199 will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.
203 Also note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
204 on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
205 Otherwise, RPM will try to remove <application>Junkbuster</application>
206 automatically if found, before installing <application>Privoxy</application>.
210 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
211 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian</title>
213 DEBs can be installed with <literal>apt-get install privoxy</literal>,
214 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location of
219 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
220 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
223 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
224 the installation process. You will find the configuration files
225 in the same directory as you installed <application>Privoxy</application> in.
228 Version 3.0.4 introduced full <application>Windows</application> service
229 functionality. On Windows only, the <application>Privoxy</application>
230 program has two new command line arguments to install and uninstall
231 <application>Privoxy</application> as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>.
235 <term>Arguments:</term>
238 <replaceable class="parameter">--install</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
241 <replaceable class="parameter">--uninstall</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
247 After invoking <application>Privoxy</application> with
248 <command>--install</command>, you will need to bring up the
249 <application>Windows</application> service console to assign the user you
250 want <application>Privoxy</application> to run under, and whether or not you
251 want it to run whenever the system starts. You can start the
252 <application>Windows</application> services console with the following
253 command: <command>services.msc</command>. If you do not take the manual step
254 of modifying <application>Privoxy's</application> service settings, it will
255 not start. Note too that you will need to give Privoxy a user account that
256 actually exists, or it will not be permitted to
257 write to its log and configuration files.
262 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
263 <sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX</title>
266 Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
267 untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
268 things go. <!-- FIXME, more info needed? -->
272 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
273 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
276 First, make sure that no previous installations of
277 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
278 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
279 system. Check that no <application>Junkbuster</application>
280 or <application>Privoxy</application> objects are in
286 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
287 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
288 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
289 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
293 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
294 into will contain all of the configuration files.
298 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
299 <sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Mac OSX</title>
301 Unzip the downloaded file (you can either double-click on the file
302 from the finder, or from the desktop if you downloaded it there).
303 Then, double-click on the package installer icon named
304 <literal>Privoxy.pkg</literal>
305 and follow the installation process.
306 <application>Privoxy</application> will be installed in the folder
307 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal>.
308 It will start automatically whenever you start up. To prevent it from
309 starting automatically, remove or rename the folder
310 <literal>/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal>.
313 To start Privoxy by hand, double-click on
314 <literal>StartPrivoxy.command</literal> in the
315 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal> folder.
316 Or, type this command in the Terminal:
320 /Library/Privoxy/StartPrivoxy.command
324 You will be prompted for the administrator password.
328 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
329 <sect3 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
331 Copy and then unpack the <filename>lha</filename> archive to a suitable location.
332 All necessary files will be installed into <application>Privoxy</application>
333 directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just
334 remove this directory.
338 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
339 <sect3 id="installattion-gentoo"><title>Gentoo</title>
341 Gentoo source packages (Ebuilds) for <application>Privoxy</application> are
342 contained in the Gentoo Portage Tree (they are not on the download page,
343 but there is a Gentoo section, where you can see when a new
344 <application>Privoxy</application> Version is added to the Portage Tree).
347 Before installing <application>Privoxy</application> under Gentoo just do
348 first <literal>emerge rsync</literal> to get the latest changes from the
349 Portage tree. With <literal>emerge privoxy</literal> you install the latest
353 Configuration files are in <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename>, the
354 documentation is in <filename>/usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;</filename>
355 and the Log directory is in <filename>/var/log/privoxy</filename>.
361 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
362 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
365 The most convenient way to obtain the <application>Privoxy</application> sources
366 is to download the source tarball from our
367 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&package_id=10571">project download
372 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
373 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
374 version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
375 CVS repository</ulink>.
377 deprecated...out of business.
378 or simply download <ulink
379 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.bz2">the nightly CVS
384 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
386 <!-- end boilerplate -->
389 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
390 <sect2 id="installation-keepupdated"><title>Keeping your Installation Up-to-Date</title>
392 As user feedback comes in and development continues, we will make updated versions
393 of both the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link> (as a <ulink
394 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&release_id=103670">separate
395 package</ulink>) and the software itself (including the actions file) available for
400 If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
401 <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
402 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce/">subscribe
403 to our announce mailing list</ulink>, ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
407 In order not to lose your personal changes and adjustments when updating
408 to the latest <literal>default.action</literal> file we <emphasis>strongly
409 recommend</emphasis> that you use <literal>user.action</literal> and
410 <literal>user.filter</literal> for your local
411 customizations of <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
412 linkend="actions-file">Chapter on actions files</link> for details.
420 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
422 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
423 <sect1 id="whatsnew">
424 <title>What's New in this Release</title>
426 There are many improvements and new features since <application>Privoxy 3.0.3</application>, the last stable release:
433 Multiple <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link> can now be specified in <filename>config</filename>. This allows for
434 locally defined filters that can be maintained separately from the filters as
435 supplied by the developers, i.e. <filename>default.filter</filename>.
441 There are a number of new <link linkend="actions-file">actions</link>:
449 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite</link></literal>
454 <literal><link linkend="crunch-client-header">crunch-client-header</link></literal>
459 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>
464 <literal><link linkend="crunch-server-header">crunch-server-header</link></literal>
469 <literal><link linkend="filter-client-headers">filter-client-headers</link></literal>
474 <literal><link linkend="filter-server-headers">filter-server-headers</link></literal>
479 <literal><link linkend="force-text-mode">force-text-mode</link></literal>
484 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal>
489 <literal><link linkend="hide-accept-language">hide-accept-language</link></literal>
494 <literal><link linkend="hide-content-disposition">hide-content-disposition</link></literal>
499 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hide-if-modified-since</link></literal>
504 <literal><link linkend="inspect-jpegs">inspect-jpegs</link></literal>
509 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>
514 <literal><link linkend="redirect">redirect</link></literal>
519 <literal><link linkend="treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks">treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks</link></literal>
526 In addition, <literal><link linkend="fast-redirects">fast-redirects</link></literal>
527 has been significantly improved with enhanced syntax.
530 And <literal><link linkend="hide-referrer">hide-referrer</link></literal>
531 has a new option, <literal>conditional block</literal>.
538 <application>MS-Windows</application> versions can now be
540 linkend="installation-pack-win">installed and
541 started as a <emphasis>Windows service</emphasis></link>.
547 <filename>config</filename> has two new options:
549 linkend="enable-remote-http-toggle">enable-remote-http-toggle</link>,
551 linkend="forwarded-connect-retries">forwarded-connect-retries</link>.
554 And there is improved handling of the <link
555 linkend="user-manual">user-manual</link>
556 option, for placing documentation and help files on the local system.
562 There are six new <link linkend="FILTER">filters</link>.
568 Actions files problems and suggestions are now being directed to:
569 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=460288">http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=460288</ulink>.
570 Please use this to report such configuration related problems as missed
571 ads, sites that don't function properly due to one action or another,
572 innocent images being blocked, etc.
578 In addition, there are numerous bug fixes and significant enhancements,
579 including error pages should no longer be cached if the problem is fixed,
580 much better DNS error handling, various logging improvements, and
581 configuration updates for better ad blocking and junk elimination.
589 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
591 <sect2 id="upgradersnote">
592 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
595 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading from earlier
596 versions of <application>Privoxy</application>:
604 Some installers may remove earlier versions completely, including
605 configuration files. Save any important configuration files!
610 On the other hand, other installers may not overwrite any existing configuration
611 files, thinking you will want to do that. You may want to manually check
612 your saved files against the newer versions to see if the improvements have
613 merit, or whether there are new options that you may want to consider.
614 There are a number of new features, but most won't be available unless
615 these features are incorporated into your configuration somehow.
620 See the full documentation on
621 <literal><link linkend="fast-redirects">fast-redirects</link></literal>
622 which has changed syntax, and will require adjustments to local configs,
623 such as <filename>user.action</filename>. You must reference the new
628 { +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} }
637 The <filename>jarfile</filename>,
638 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookie</ulink> logger, is off by default now.
644 What constitutes a <quote>default</quote> configuration has changed,
645 and you may want to review which actions are <quote>on</quote> by
646 default. This is primarily a matter of emphasis, but some features
647 you may have been used to, may now be <quote>off</quote> by default.
648 There are also a number of new actions and filters you may want to
649 consider, most of which are not fully incorporated into the default
650 settings as yet (see above).
656 The default actions setting is now <literal>Cautious</literal>. Previous
657 releases had a default setting of <literal>Medium</literal>. Experienced
658 users may want to adjust this, as it is fairly conservative by &my-app;
659 standards and past practices. See <ulink
660 url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default">
661 http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default</ulink>. New users
662 should try the default settings for a while before turning up the volume.
668 The default setting has filtering turned <emphasis>off</emphasis>, which
669 subsequently means that compression is <emphasis>on</emphasis>. Remember
670 that filtering does not work on compressed pages, so if you use, or want to
671 use, filtering, you will need to force compression off. Example:
675 { +<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{google} +<link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link> }
679 Or if you use a number of filters, or filter many sites, you may just want
680 to turn off compression for all sites in
681 <filename>default.action</filename> (or
682 <filename>user.action</filename>).
689 Also, <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> is
690 off by default now. If you've liked this feature in the past, you may want
691 to turn it back on in <filename>user.action</filename> now.
698 <!-- I think it is best to keep this somewhat vague, in case -->
699 <!-- the situation changes under our feet. -->
700 Some installers may not automatically start
701 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
711 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
712 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using Privoxy</title>
718 Install <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
719 linkend="installation">Installation Section</link> below for platform specific
726 Advanced users and those who want to offer <application>Privoxy</application>
727 service to more than just their local machine should check the <link
728 linkend="config">main config file</link>, especially the <link
729 linkend="access-control">security-relevant</link> options. These are
736 Start <application>Privoxy</application>, if the installation program has
737 not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
738 <link linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link>.
744 Set your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application> as HTTP and
745 HTTPS (SSL) <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>
746 by setting the proxy configuration for address of
747 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> and port <literal>8118</literal>.
748 <emphasis>DO NOT</emphasis> activate proxying for <literal>FTP</literal> or
749 any protocols besides HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)! It won't work!
755 Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
756 If using <application>Privoxy</application> to manage
757 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
758 you should remove any currently stored cookies too.
764 A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
765 most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
766 configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
767 to no initial configuration is required in most cases.
770 See the <link linkend="configuration">Configuration section</link> for more
771 configuration options, and how to customize your installation.
772 You might also want to look at the <link
773 linkend="quickstart-ad-blocking">next section</link> for a quick
774 introduction to how <application>Privoxy</application> blocks ads and
781 If you experience ads that slip through, innocent images that are
782 blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
783 <application>Privoxy's</application> behavior, take a look at the <link
784 linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>. As a quick start, you might
785 find the <link linkend="act-examples">richly commented examples</link>
786 helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the <ulink
787 url="http://config.privoxy.org">web-based user interface</ulink>. The
788 Appendix <quote><link linkend="actionsanat">Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an
789 Action</link></quote> has hints on how to understand and debug actions that
790 <quote>misbehave</quote>.
796 For easy access to &my-app;'s most important controls, drag the provided
797 <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklets</link> into your browser's
804 Please see the section <link linkend="contact">Contacting the
805 Developers</link> on how to report bugs, problems with websites or to get
812 Now enjoy surfing with enhanced control, comfort and privacy!
820 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
822 <sect2 id="quickstart-ad-blocking">
823 <title>Quickstart to Ad Blocking</title>
825 NOTE: This section is deliberately redundant for those that don't
826 want to read the whole thing (which is getting lengthy).
829 Ad blocking is but one of <application>Privoxy's</application>
830 array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
831 user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody.
834 This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
835 you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive
836 information provided below, though this is highly recommended.
839 First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
840 more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
841 things that were not intended. And the more likely that some things
842 may not work as intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
843 extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
844 <quote>problem</quote> sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
845 configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
846 not an easy way to eliminate <emphasis>all</emphasis> ads. Either take
847 the easy way and settle for <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads blocked with the
848 default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing
849 habits and preferences.
852 Secondly, a brief explanation of <application>Privoxy's </application>
853 <quote>actions</quote>. <quote>Actions</quote> in this context, are
854 the directives we use to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to perform
855 some task relating to WWW transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell
856 <application>Privoxy</application> to take some <quote>action</quote>. Each
857 action has a unique name and function. While there are many potential
858 <application>actions</application> in <application>Privoxy's</application>
859 arsenal, only a few are used for ad blocking. <link
860 linkend="actions">Actions</link>, and <link linkend="actions-file">action
861 configuration files</link>, are explained in depth below.
864 Actions are specified in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
865 followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
866 can actually be URL type <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> that use
867 wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs. The
868 actions, together with the URL patterns are called a section.
871 When you connect to a website, the full URL will either match one or more
872 of the sections as defined in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
873 or not. If so, then <application>Privoxy</application> will perform the
874 respective actions. If not, then nothing special happens. Furthermore, web
875 pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your web browser will
876 use to load additional components of the page, as it parses the
877 original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just an URL
878 embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server,
879 or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many
880 such embedded URLs. &my-app; can deal with each URL individually, so, for
881 instance, the main page text is not touched, but images from such-and-such
886 The most important actions for basic ad blocking are: <literal><link
887 linkend="block">block</link></literal>, <literal><link
888 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
890 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal>,and
891 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>:
899 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> - this is perhaps
900 the single most used action, and is particularly important for ad blocking.
901 This action stops any contact between your browser and any URL patterns
902 that match this action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads,
903 but also anything that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply
904 stops any communication with the remote server and sends
905 <application>Privoxy</application>'s own built-in BLOCKED page instead to
906 let you now what has happened (with some exceptions, see below).
912 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> -
913 tells <application>Privoxy</application> to treat this URL as an image.
914 <application>Privoxy</application>'s default configuration already does this
915 for all common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this
916 is not so easy to determine. So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly
917 important for ad blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of
918 some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the
919 <application>Privoxy</application> BLOCKED page (which would only result in
920 a <quote>broken image</quote> icon). There are some limitations to this
921 though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an image substitution for
922 an entire HTML page in most situations.
928 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> -
929 sends an empty document instead of <application>Privoxy's</application>
930 normal BLOCKED HTML page. This is useful for file types that are neither
931 HTML nor images, such as blocking JavaScript files.
938 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> - tells
939 <application>Privoxy</application> what to display in place of an ad image that
940 has hit a block rule. For this to come into play, the URL must match a
941 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action somewhere in the
942 configuration, <emphasis>and</emphasis>, it must also match an
943 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action.
946 The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are:
950 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad
951 replacement is obvious. This is the default.
956 <emphasis>blank</emphasis> - A very small empty GIF image is displayed.
957 This is the so-called <quote>invisible</quote> configuration option.
962 <emphasis>http://<URL></emphasis> - A redirect to any image anywhere
963 of the user's choosing (advanced usage).
972 The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
973 the special <application>Privoxy</application> editor at <ulink
974 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
975 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>). This
976 is an internal page, and does not require Internet access. Select the
977 appropriate <quote>actions</quote> file, and click
978 <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>. It is best to put personal or
979 local preferences in <filename>user.action</filename> since this is not
980 meant to be overwritten during upgrades, and will over-ride the settings in
981 other files. Here you can insert new <quote>actions</quote>, and URLs for ad
982 blocking or other purposes, and make other adjustments to the configuration.
983 <application>Privoxy</application> will detect these changes automatically.
987 A quick and simple step by step example:
995 Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
996 <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote> from the
1004 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1009 Find <filename>user.action</filename> in the top section, and click
1010 on <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>:
1013 <!-- image of editor and actions files selections -->
1015 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Actions Files in Use</title>
1018 <imagedata fileref="files-in-use.jpg" format="jpg">
1021 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ]</phrase>
1030 You should have a section with only
1031 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> listed under
1032 <quote>Actions:</quote>.
1033 If not, click a <quote><guibutton>Insert new section below</guibutton></quote>
1034 button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the
1035 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button right under the word <quote>Actions:</quote>.
1036 This will bring up a list of all actions. Find
1037 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> near the top, and click
1038 in the <quote>Enabled</quote> column, then <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote>
1039 just below the list.
1044 Now, in the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> actions section,
1045 click the <quote><guibutton>Add</guibutton></quote> button, and paste the URL the
1046 browser got from <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote>.
1047 Remove the <literal>http://</literal> at the beginning of the URL. Then, click
1048 <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote> (or
1049 <quote><guibutton>OK</guibutton></quote> if in a pop-up window).
1054 Now go back to the original page, and press <keycap>SHIFT-Reload</keycap>
1055 (or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now.
1063 This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
1064 wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same
1065 site. For a more extensive explanation of <quote>patterns</quote>, and
1066 the entire actions concept, see <link linkend="actions-file">the Actions
1071 For advanced users who want to hand edit their config files, you might want
1072 to now go to the <link linkend="act-examples">Actions Files Tutorial</link>.
1073 The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor.
1076 There are also various
1077 <link linkend="filter">filters</link> that can be used for ad blocking
1078 (filters are a special subset of actions). These
1079 fall into the <quote>advanced</quote> usage category, and are explained in
1080 depth in later sections.
1087 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1090 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1091 <sect1 id="startup">
1092 <title>Starting Privoxy</title>
1094 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
1095 will want to configure your browser(s) to use
1096 <application>Privoxy</application> as a HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)
1097 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>. The default is
1098 127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions
1099 used port 8000). This is the one configuration step <emphasis>that must be done
1103 Please note that <application>Privoxy</application> can only proxy HTTP and
1104 HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols.
1107 <!-- image of Mozilla Proxy configuration -->
1109 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
1110 Mozilla/Netscape HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) Settings</title>
1113 <imagedata fileref="proxy_setup.jpg" format="jpg">
1116 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
1124 With <application>Firefox</application>, this is typically set under:
1128 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>General</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connection Settings</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Manual Proxy Configuration</guibutton>
1133 Or optionally on some platforms:
1137 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>General</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connection Settings</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Manual Proxy Configuration</guibutton>
1143 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
1144 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under:
1149 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
1150 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
1151 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Proxies</guibutton> -> <guibutton>HTTP Proxy</guibutton>
1156 For <application>Internet Explorer v.5-6</application>:
1160 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Internet Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connections</guibutton> -> <guibutton>LAN Settings</guibutton>
1164 Then, check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info
1165 (Address: 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include HTTPS (SSL), if you want HTTPS
1166 proxy support too (sometimes labeled <quote>Secure</quote>). Make sure any
1167 checkboxes like <quote>Use the same proxy server for all protocols</quote> is
1168 <emphasis>UNCHECKED</emphasis>. You want only HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)!
1171 <!-- image of IE Proxy configuration -->
1173 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
1174 Internet Explorer HTTP and HTTPS (Secure) Settings</title>
1177 <imagedata fileref="proxy2.jpg" format="jpg">
1180 <phrase>[ Screenshot of IE Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
1188 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
1189 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. Remove
1190 any <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
1191 if you want <application>Privoxy</application> to manage that. You are now
1192 ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
1193 <application>Privoxy</application>!
1197 <application>Privoxy</application> itself is typically started by specifying the
1198 main configuration file to be used on the command line. If no configuration
1199 file is specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application>
1200 will look for a file named <filename>config</filename> in the current
1201 directory. Except on Win32 where it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>.
1204 <sect2 id="start-redhat">
1205 <title>Red Hat and Fedora</title>
1207 A default Red Hat installation may not start &my-app; upon boot. It will use
1208 the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
1213 # /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
1221 # service privoxy start
1226 <sect2 id="start-debian">
1227 <title>Debian</title>
1229 We use a script. Note that Debian typically starts &my-app; upon booting per
1230 default. It will use the file
1231 <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
1236 # /etc/init.d/privoxy start
1242 omitting 10/31/06 HB
1244 <sect2 id="start-suse">
1247 We use a script. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename>
1248 as its main configuration file. Note that SuSE starts Privoxy upon booting
1258 <sect2 id="start-windows">
1259 <title>Windows</title>
1261 Click on the &my-app; Icon to start <application>Privoxy</application>. If no configuration file is
1262 specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application> will look
1263 for a file named <filename>config.txt</filename>. Note that Windows will
1264 automatically start &my-app; when the system starts if you chose that option
1268 <application>Privoxy</application> can run with full Windows service functionality.
1269 On Windows only, the &my-app; program has two new command line arguments
1270 to install and uninstall &my-app; as a service. See the
1271 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Windows Installation
1272 instructions</link> for details.
1276 <sect2 id="start-unices">
1277 <title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others</title>
1279 Example Unix startup command:
1283 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
1288 <sect2 id="start-os2">
1291 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
1292 start automatically when the system restarts. You can start it manually by
1293 double-clicking on the <application>Privoxy</application> icon in the
1294 <application>Privoxy</application> folder.
1298 <sect2 id="start-macosx">
1299 <title>Mac OSX</title>
1301 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
1302 start automatically when the system restarts. To start &my-app; manually,
1303 double-click on the <literal>StartPrivoxy.command</literal> icon in the
1304 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal> folder. Or, type this command
1309 /Library/Privoxy/StartPrivoxy.command
1313 You will be prompted for the administrator password.
1318 <sect2 id="start-amigaos">
1319 <title>AmigaOS</title>
1321 Start <application>Privoxy</application> (with RUN <>NIL:) in your
1322 <filename>startnet</filename> script (AmiTCP), in
1323 <filename>s:user-startup</filename> (RoadShow), as startup program in your
1324 startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
1325 <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically quit when you quit your
1326 TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that
1327 <application>Privoxy</application> is still running).
1331 <sect2 id="start-gentoo">
1332 <title>Gentoo</title>
1334 A script is again used. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config
1335 </filename> as its main configuration file.
1339 /etc/init.d/privoxy start
1343 Note that <application>Privoxy</application> is not automatically started at
1344 boot time by default. You can change this with the <literal>rc-update</literal>
1349 rc-update add privoxy default
1357 See the section <link linkend="cmdoptions">Command line options</link> for
1361 must find a better place for this paragraph
1364 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
1365 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
1366 <ulink url="actions-file.html"><quote>actions</quote></ulink> files. These are
1367 where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking, and other
1368 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several
1369 such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
1373 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites for which you may prefer
1374 persistent cookies, and add these to your actions configuration as needed. By
1375 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
1376 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), unless you add them to the
1377 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
1378 to edit <filename>user.action</filename> (or through the web based interface)
1379 and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser, it would make
1380 more sense to let <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which
1381 case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
1385 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
1386 sites is the popup-killing (through the <ulink
1387 url="actions-file.html#KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></ulink> and
1389 url="actions-file.html#FILTER-POPUPS"><quote>+filter{popups}</quote></ulink>
1390 actions), because your favorite shopping, banking, or leisure site may need
1391 popups (explained below).
1395 <application>Privoxy</application> is HTTP/1.1 compliant, but not all of
1396 the optional 1.1 features are as yet supported. In the unlikely event that
1397 you experience inexplicable problems with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
1398 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
1399 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
1400 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
1401 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote> config option in
1402 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
1403 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
1407 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
1408 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
1409 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
1410 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote>
1411 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
1412 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1413 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1414 and then follow the link to <quote>View & Change the Current Configuration</quote>.
1415 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
1419 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
1420 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
1421 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
1422 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
1423 to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
1424 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
1425 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
1429 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
1430 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
1431 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
1432 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
1433 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
1434 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
1439 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <link
1440 linkend="actions-file">read more about the actions concept</link>
1441 or even dive deep into the <link linkend="actionsanat">Appendix
1446 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
1447 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
1448 section <link linkend="contact"><quote>Contacting the
1449 Developers</quote></link> below.
1454 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1455 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
1456 <title>Command Line Options</title>
1458 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
1459 command-line options:
1467 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
1470 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
1475 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
1478 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
1483 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
1486 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
1487 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
1492 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
1496 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
1497 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
1498 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
1499 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
1504 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
1508 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
1509 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
1510 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
1515 <emphasis>--chroot</emphasis>
1519 Before changing to the user ID given in the <emphasis>--user</emphasis> option,
1520 chroot to that user's home directory, i.e. make the kernel pretend to the &my-app;
1521 process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit
1522 the impact of possible vulnerabilities in &my-app; to the files contained in that hierarchy.
1528 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
1531 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
1532 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
1533 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
1534 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
1535 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
1536 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
1544 On <application>MS Windows</application> only there are two additional
1545 command-line options to allow <application>Privoxy</application> to install and
1546 run as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>. See the
1547 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Window Installation section</link>
1555 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1558 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1559 <sect1 id="configuration"><title>Privoxy Configuration</title>
1561 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
1562 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
1563 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
1564 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
1568 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1571 <title>Controlling Privoxy with Your Web Browser</title>
1573 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
1574 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1575 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1576 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
1577 You will see the following section:
1581 <!-- Needs to be put in a table and colorized -->
1584 <bridgehead renderas="sect2"> Privoxy Menu</bridgehead>
1588 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View & change the current configuration</ulink>
1591 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">View the source code version numbers</ulink>
1594 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">View the request headers.</ulink>
1597 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">Look up which actions apply to a URL and why</ulink>
1600 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">Toggle Privoxy on or off</ulink>
1603 ▪ <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/
1604 &p-version;/user-manual/">Documentation</ulink>
1612 This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the
1613 <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, which is where the ad, banner,
1614 cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
1615 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
1616 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
1617 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
1621 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
1622 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
1623 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
1624 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
1625 to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e.
1626 <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There
1627 is even a toggle <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklet</link> offered, so
1628 that you can toggle <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from
1634 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1639 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1641 <sect2 id="confoverview">
1642 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
1644 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
1645 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
1646 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
1647 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
1648 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
1649 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
1653 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
1654 some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
1655 principle configuration files are:
1663 The <link linkend="config">main configuration file</link> is named <filename>config</filename>
1664 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
1665 on Windows. This is a required file.
1671 <filename>default.action</filename> (the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>)
1672 is used to define which <quote>actions</quote> relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups,
1673 content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default. It also defines many
1674 exceptions (both positive and negative) from this default set of actions that enable
1675 <application>Privoxy</application> to selectively eliminate the junk, and only the junk, on
1676 as many websites as possible.
1679 Multiple actions files may be defined in <filename>config</filename>. These
1680 are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
1681 preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
1682 <filename>default.action</filename> (which you will most probably want
1683 to define sooner or later) are probably best applied in
1684 <filename>user.action</filename>, where you can preserve them across
1685 upgrades. <filename>standard.action</filename> is only for
1686 <application>Privoxy's</application> internal use.
1689 There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
1691 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1693 url="http://p.p/show-status">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>) for the
1694 various actions files.
1700 <quote>Filter files</quote> (the <link linkend="filter-file">filter
1701 file</link>) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
1702 viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
1703 lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
1704 whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
1705 <filename>default.filter</filename> includes various filters made
1706 available for use by the developers. Some are much more intrusive than
1707 others, and all should be used with caution. You may define additional
1708 filter files in <filename>config</filename> as you can with
1709 actions files. We suggest <filename>user.filter</filename> for any
1710 locally defined filters or customizations.
1718 The syntax of all configuration files has remained the same throughout the
1719 3.x series. There have been enhancements, but no changes that would preclude
1720 the use of any configuration file from one version to the next. (There is
1721 one exception: <link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">+fast-redirects</link> which
1722 has enhanced syntax and will require updating any local configs from earlier
1727 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
1728 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
1729 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
1730 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
1731 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
1732 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
1733 out" that line. Blank lines are ignored.
1737 The actions files and filter files
1738 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
1739 maximum flexibility.
1743 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
1744 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
1745 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
1746 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
1747 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
1748 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
1749 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
1754 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
1755 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
1756 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
1757 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
1763 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1766 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1768 <!-- **************************************************** -->
1769 <!-- Include config.sgml here -->
1770 <!-- This is where the entire config file is detailed. -->
1772 <!-- end include -->
1775 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1779 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1781 <sect1 id="actions-file"><title>Actions Files</title>
1784 The actions files are used to define what <emphasis>actions</emphasis>
1785 <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which URLs, and thus determines
1786 how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
1787 transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof).
1788 There are a number of such actions, with a wide range of functionality.
1789 Each action does something a little different.
1790 These actions give us a veritable arsenal of tools with which to exert
1791 our control, preferences and independence. Actions can be combined so that
1792 their effects are aggregated when applied against a given set of URLs.
1796 are three action files included with <application>Privoxy</application> with
1804 <filename>default.action</filename> - is the primary action file
1805 that sets the initial values for all actions. It is intended to
1806 provide a base level of functionality for
1807 <application>Privoxy's</application> array of features. So it is
1808 a set of broad rules that should work reasonably well as-is for most users.
1809 This is the file that the developers are keeping updated, and <link
1810 linkend="installation-keepupdated">making available to users</link>.
1811 The user's preferences as set in <filename>standard.action</filename>,
1812 e.g. either <literal>Cautious</literal> (the default),
1813 <literal>Medium</literal>, or <literal>Advanced</literal> (see
1819 <filename>user.action</filename> - is intended to be for local site
1820 preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank
1821 has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
1822 thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded.
1827 <filename>standard.action</filename> - is used only by the web based editor
1828 at <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default">
1829 http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default</ulink>,
1830 to set various pre-defined sets of rules for the default actions section
1831 in <filename>default.action</filename>.
1834 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Cautious</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Medium</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Advanced</guibutton>
1837 These have increasing levels of aggressiveness <emphasis>and have no
1838 influence on your browsing unless you select them explicitly in the
1839 editor</emphasis>. A default installation should be pre-set to
1840 <literal>Cautious</literal> (versions prior to 3.0.5 were set to
1841 <literal>Medium</literal>). New users should try this for a while before
1842 adjusting the settings to more aggressive levels. The more aggressive
1843 the settings, then the more likelihood there is of problems such as sites
1844 not working as they should.
1847 The <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button allows you to turn each
1848 action on/off individually for fine-tuning. The <guibutton>Cautious</guibutton>
1849 button changes the actions list to low/safe settings which will activate
1850 ad blocking and a minimal set of &my-app;'s features, and subsequently
1851 there will be less of a chance for accidental problems. The
1852 <guibutton>Medium</guibutton> button sets the list to a medium level of
1853 other features and a low level set of privacy features. The
1854 <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> button sets the list to a high level of
1855 ad blocking and medium level of privacy. See the chart below. The latter
1856 three buttons over-ride any changes via with the
1857 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button. More fine-tuning can be done in the
1858 lower sections of this internal page.
1861 It is not recommend to edit the <filename>standard.action</filename> file
1865 The default profiles, and their associated actions, as pre-defined in
1866 <filename>standard.action</filename> are:
1869 <table frame=all><title>Default Configurations</title>
1870 <tgroup cols=4 align=left colsep=1 rowsep=1>
1871 <colspec colname=c1>
1872 <colspec colname=c2>
1873 <colspec colname=c3>
1874 <colspec colname=c4>
1877 <entry>Feature</entry>
1878 <entry>Cautious</entry>
1879 <entry>Medium</entry>
1880 <entry>Advanced</entry>
1885 <!-- <entry>f1</entry> -->
1886 <!-- <entry>f2</entry> -->
1887 <!-- <entry>f3</entry> -->
1888 <!-- <entry>f4</entry> -->
1894 <entry>Ad-blocking Aggressiveness</entry>
1895 <entry>medium</entry>
1901 <entry>Ad-filtering by size</entry>
1908 <entry>Ad-filtering by link</entry>
1914 <entry>Pop-up killing</entry>
1915 <entry>blocks only</entry>
1916 <entry>blocks only</entry>
1917 <entry>blocks only</entry>
1921 <entry>Privacy Features</entry>
1923 <entry>medium</entry>
1924 <entry>medium/high</entry>
1928 <entry>Cookie handling</entry>
1930 <entry>session-only</entry>
1935 <entry>Referer forging</entry>
1943 <entry>GIF de-animation</entry>
1951 <entry>Fast redirects</entry>
1958 <entry>HTML taming</entry>
1965 <entry>JavaScript taming</entry>
1972 <entry>Web-bug killing</entry>
1979 <entry>Image tag reordering</entry>
1995 The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
1996 file, and are processed in the order they are defined (e.g.
1997 <filename>default.action</filename> is typically process before
1998 <filename>user.action</filename>). The content of these can all be viewed and
2000 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
2001 The over-riding principle when applying actions, is that the last action that
2002 matches a given URL, wins. The broadest, most general rules go first
2003 (defined in <filename>default.action</filename>),
2004 followed by any exceptions (typically also in
2005 <filename>default.action</filename>), which are then followed lastly by any
2006 local preferences (typically in <emphasis>user</emphasis><filename>.action</filename>).
2007 Generally, <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word.
2011 An actions file typically has multiple sections. If you want to use
2012 <quote>aliases</quote> in an actions file, you have to place the (optional)
2013 <link linkend="aliases">alias section</link> at the top of that file.
2014 Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all
2015 sites and pages (be <emphasis>very careful</emphasis> with using such a
2016 universal set in <filename>user.action</filename> or any other actions file after
2017 <filename>default.action</filename>, because it will override the result
2018 from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
2019 exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
2020 <filename>user.action</filename> as an appendix to <filename>default.action</filename>,
2021 with the advantage that is a separate file, which makes preserving your
2022 personal settings across <application>Privoxy</application> upgrades easier.
2026 Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
2027 just some obnoxious URL that you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
2028 or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
2029 written to disk), content can be modified, JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking
2030 fooled, and much more. See below for a <link linkend="actions">complete list
2034 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2036 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
2038 Note that some <link linkend="actions">actions</link>, like cookie suppression
2039 or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these
2040 techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and
2041 certainly a matter of personal taste. And, things can always change, requiring
2042 refinements in the configuration. In general, it can be said that the more
2043 <quote>aggressive</quote> your default settings (in the top section of the
2044 actions file) are, the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you
2045 will have to make later. If, for example, you want to crunch all cookies per
2046 default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you
2047 regularly use and that require cookies for actually useful purposes, like maybe
2048 your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
2052 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
2053 distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
2054 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
2055 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :).
2059 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2061 <title>How to Edit</title>
2063 The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by
2064 using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from <ulink
2065 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
2066 The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single feature on a
2067 per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults like
2068 <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> or <quote>Advanced</quote>.
2069 Warning: the <quote>Advanced</quote> setting is more aggressive, and
2070 will be more likely to cause problems for some sites. Experienced users only!
2074 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
2075 the actions files with your favorite text editor. Look at
2076 <filename>default.action</filename> which is richly commented with many
2082 <sect2 id="actions-apply">
2083 <title>How Actions are Applied to URLs</title>
2085 Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections,
2086 like the <quote><link linkend="aliases">alias</link></quote> sections which will
2087 be discussed later. For now let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a
2088 heading line (often split up to multiple lines for readability) which consist
2089 of a list of actions, separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces.
2090 Below that, there is a list of URL patterns, each on a separate line.
2094 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
2095 compared to all patterns in each <quote>action file</quote> file. Every time it matches, the list of
2096 applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated, using the heading
2097 of the section in which the pattern is located. If multiple matches for
2098 the same URL set the same action differently, the last match wins. If not,
2099 the effects are aggregated. E.g. a URL might match a regular section with
2100 a heading line of <literal>{
2101 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link> }</literal>,
2102 then later another one with just <literal>{
2103 +<link linkend="block">block</link> }</literal>, resulting
2104 in <emphasis>both</emphasis> actions to apply. And there may well be
2105 cases where you will want to combine actions together. Such a section then
2111 { +<literal>handle-as-image</literal> +<literal>block</literal> }
2112 # Block these as if they were images. Send no block page.
2114 media.example.com/.*banners
2115 .example.com/images/ads/</screen>
2119 You can trace this process for any given URL by visiting <ulink
2120 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
2124 Examples and more detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
2125 Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</link> section.
2129 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2130 <sect2 id="af-patterns">
2131 <title>Patterns</title>
2133 As mentioned, <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>patterns</quote>
2134 to determine what <emphasis>actions</emphasis> might apply to which sites and
2135 pages your browser attempts to access. These <quote>patterns</quote> use wild
2136 card type <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> matching to achieve a high degree of
2137 flexibility. This allows one expression to be expanded and potentially match
2138 against many similar patterns.
2142 Generally, a <application>Privoxy</application> pattern has the form
2143 <literal><domain>/<path></literal>, where both the
2144 <literal><domain></literal> and <literal><path></literal> are
2145 optional. (This is why the special <literal>/</literal> pattern matches all
2146 URLs). Note that the protocol portion of the URL pattern (e.g.
2147 <literal>http://</literal>) should <emphasis>not</emphasis> be included in
2148 the pattern. This is assumed already!
2151 The pattern matching syntax is different for the domain and path parts of
2152 the URL. The domain part uses a simple globbing type matching technique,
2153 while the path part uses a more flexible
2154 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2155 Expressions (PCRE)</quote></ulink> based syntax.
2160 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
2163 is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2164 regardless of which document on that server is requested. So ALL pages in
2165 this domain would be covered by the scope of this action. Note that a
2166 simple <literal>example.com</literal> is different and would NOT match.
2171 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
2174 means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
2180 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
2183 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
2184 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
2189 <term><literal>/index.html</literal></term>
2192 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
2193 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server anywhere.
2198 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
2201 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
2202 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>. So its
2210 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2211 <sect3><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
2214 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
2215 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
2221 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
2224 matches any domain that <emphasis>ENDS</emphasis> in
2225 <literal>.example.com</literal>
2230 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
2233 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
2234 <literal>www.</literal>
2239 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
2242 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>.
2243 And, by the way, also included would be any files or documents that exist
2244 within that domain since no path limitations are specified. (Correctly
2245 speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as
2246 a domain.) This might be <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2247 <literal>news.example.de</literal>, or
2248 <literal>www.example.net/cgi/testing.pl</literal> for instance. All these
2256 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
2257 themselves. These work similarly to shell globbing type wild-cards:
2258 <quote>*</quote> represents zero or more arbitrary characters (this is
2260 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2261 Expression</quote></ulink> based syntax of <quote>.*</quote>),
2262 <quote>?</quote> represents any single character (this is equivalent to the
2263 regular expression syntax of a simple <quote>.</quote>), and you can define
2264 <quote>character classes</quote> in square brackets which is similar to
2265 the same regular expression technique. All of this can be freely mixed:
2270 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2273 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
2274 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
2279 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2282 matches all of the above, and then some.
2287 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
2290 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
2291 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
2296 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
2299 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
2300 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
2301 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
2302 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
2309 While flexible, this is not the sophistication of full regular expression based syntax.
2314 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2317 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2318 <sect3><title>The Path Pattern</title>
2321 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl compatible (PCRE)
2322 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2323 Expression</quote></ulink> based syntax
2324 (through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> library) for
2325 matching the path portion (after the slash), and is thus more flexible.
2329 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
2330 expressions, and full (very technical) documentation on PCRE regex syntax is available on-line
2331 at <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/man.txt">http://www.pcre.org/man.txt</ulink>.
2332 You might also find the Perl man page on regular expressions (<literal>man perlre</literal>)
2333 useful, which is available on-line at <ulink
2334 url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html</ulink>.
2338 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
2339 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote> (regular expression speak
2340 for the beginning of a line).
2344 Please also note that matching in the path is <emphasis>CASE INSENSITIVE</emphasis>
2345 by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
2346 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch: <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match
2347 only documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
2348 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
2353 <term><literal>.example.com/.*</literal></term>
2356 Is equivalent to just <quote>.example.com</quote>, since any documents
2357 within that domain are matched with or without the <quote>.*</quote>
2358 regular expression. This is redundant
2363 <term><literal>.example.com/.*/index.html</literal></term>
2366 Will match any page in the domain of <quote>example.com</quote> that is
2367 named <quote>index.html</quote>, and that is part of some path. For
2368 example, it matches <quote>www.example.com/testing/index.html</quote> but
2369 NOT <quote>www.example.com/index.html</quote> because the regular
2370 expression called for at least two <quote>/'s</quote>, thus the path
2371 requirement. It also would match
2372 <quote>www.example.com/testing/index_html</quote>, because of the
2373 special meta-character <quote>.</quote>.
2378 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)?index\.html</literal></term>
2381 This regular expression is conditional so it will match any page
2382 named <quote>index.html</quote> regardless of path which in this case can
2383 have one or more <quote>/'s</quote>. And this one must contain exactly
2384 <quote>.html</quote> (but does not have to end with that!).
2389 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)</literal></term>
2392 This regular expression will match any path of <quote>example.com</quote>
2393 that contains any of the words <quote>ads</quote>, <quote>banner</quote>,
2394 <quote>banners</quote> (because of the <quote>?</quote>) or <quote>junk</quote>.
2395 The path does not have to end in these words, just contain them.
2400 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)/.*\.(jpe?g|gif|png)$</literal></term>
2403 This is very much the same as above, except now it must end in either
2404 <quote>.jpg</quote>, <quote>.jpeg</quote>, <quote>.gif</quote> or <quote>.png</quote>. So this
2405 one is limited to common image formats.
2412 There are many, many good examples to be found in <filename>default.action</filename>,
2413 and more tutorials below in <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>.
2420 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2423 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2425 <sect2 id="actions">
2426 <title>Actions</title>
2428 All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
2429 somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
2430 <quote>+</quote>, and turned off if preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. So a
2431 <literal>+action</literal> means <quote>do that action</quote>, e.g.
2432 <literal>+block</literal> means <quote>please block URLs that match the
2433 following patterns</quote>, and <literal>-block</literal> means <quote>don't
2434 block URLs that match the following patterns, even if <literal>+block</literal>
2435 previously applied.</quote>
2440 Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
2441 separated by whitespace, like in
2442 <literal>{+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}}</literal>,
2443 followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
2444 Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
2445 of the actions file.
2449 Actions fall into three categories:
2456 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>enabled</quote> or
2457 <quote>disabled</quote>. Syntax:
2461 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # enable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>
2462 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable></screen>
2465 Example: <literal>+block</literal>
2472 Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
2477 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and set parameter to <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>,
2478 # overwriting parameter from previous match if necessary
2479 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action. The parameter can be omitted</screen>
2482 Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action,
2483 the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
2486 Example: <literal>+hide-user-agent{ Mozilla 1.0 }</literal>
2492 Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions,
2493 but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the
2494 same URL, but with different parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> the parameters
2495 from <emphasis>all</emphasis> matches are remembered. This is used for actions
2496 that can be executed for the same request repeatedly, like adding multiple
2497 headers, or filtering through multiple filters. Syntax:
2501 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and add <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> to the list of parameters
2502 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # remove the parameter <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> from the list of parameters
2503 # If it was the last one left, disable the action.
2504 <replaceable class="parameter">-name</replaceable> # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list</screen>
2507 Examples: <literal>+add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text}</literal> and
2508 <literal>+filter{html-annoyances}</literal>
2516 If nothing is specified in any actions file, no <quote>actions</quote> are
2517 taken. So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
2518 normal, non-blocking, non-anonymizing proxy. You must specifically enable the
2519 privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions
2520 files will give a good starting point).
2524 Later defined actions always over-ride earlier ones. So exceptions
2525 to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
2526 in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files such
2527 as <filename>user.action</filename>). For multi-valued actions, the actions
2528 are applied in the order they are specified. Actions files are processed in
2529 the order they are defined in <filename>config</filename> (the default
2530 installation has three actions files). It also quite possible for any given
2531 URL to match more than one <quote>pattern</quote> (because of wildcards and
2532 regular expressions), and thus to trigger more than one set of actions! Last
2536 <!-- start actions listing -->
2538 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> actions are:
2542 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2543 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
2544 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
2546 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2549 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2551 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="add-header">
2552 <title>add-header</title>
2556 <term>Typical use:</term>
2558 <para>Confuse log analysis, custom applications</para>
2563 <term>Effect:</term>
2566 Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
2573 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2575 <para>Multi-value.</para>
2580 <term>Parameter:</term>
2583 Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
2584 It is recommended that you use the <quote><literal>X-</literal></quote> prefix
2594 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
2595 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
2596 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
2603 <term>Example usage:</term>
2606 <screen>+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}</screen>
2614 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2615 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="block">
2616 <title>block</title>
2620 <term>Typical use:</term>
2622 <para>Block ads or other unwanted content</para>
2627 <term>Effect:</term>
2630 Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the
2631 requests are trapped by &my-app; and the requested URL is never retrieved,
2632 but is answered locally with a substitute page or image, as determined by
2634 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
2636 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>, and
2638 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> actions.
2646 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2648 <para>Boolean.</para>
2653 <term>Parameter:</term>
2663 <application>Privoxy</application> sends a special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page
2664 for requests to blocked pages. This page contains links to find out why the request
2665 was blocked, and a click-through to the blocked content (the latter only if compiled with the
2666 force feature enabled). The <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page adapts to the available
2667 screen space -- it displays full-blown if space allows, or miniaturized and text-only
2668 if loaded into a small frame or window. If you are using <application>Privoxy</application>
2669 right now, you can take a look at the
2670 <ulink url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
2674 A very important exception occurs if <emphasis>both</emphasis>
2675 <literal>block</literal> and <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
2676 apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If
2677 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
2678 (see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter,
2679 if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent.
2682 It is important to understand this process, in order
2683 to understand how <application>Privoxy</application> deals with
2684 ads and other unwanted content. Blocking is a core feature, and one
2685 upon which various other features depend.
2688 The <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
2689 action can perform a very similar task, by <quote>blocking</quote>
2690 banner images and other content through rewriting the relevant URLs in the
2691 document's HTML source, so they don't get requested in the first place.
2692 Note that this is a totally different technique, and it's easy to confuse the two.
2698 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2702 # Block and replace with "blocked" page
2703 .nasty-stuff.example.com
2705 {+block +handle-as-image}
2706 # Block and replace with image
2710 {+block +handle-as-empty-document}
2711 # Block and then ignore
2712 adserver.exampleclick.net/.*\.js$</screen>
2722 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2723 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="content-type-overwrite">
2727 <title>content-type-overwrite</title>
2731 <term>Typical use:</term>
2733 <para>Stop useless download menus from popping up, or change the browser's rendering mode</para>
2738 <term>Effect:</term>
2741 Replaces the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header.
2748 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2750 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2755 <term>Parameter:</term>
2767 The <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header is used by the
2768 browser to decide what to do with the document. The value of this
2769 header can cause the browser to open a download menu instead of
2770 displaying the document by itself, even if the document's format is
2771 supported by the browser.
2774 The declared content type can also affect which rendering mode
2775 the browser chooses. If XHTML is delivered as <quote>text/html</quote>,
2776 many browsers treat it as yet another broken HTML document.
2777 If it is send as <quote>application/xml</quote>, browsers with
2778 XHTML support will only display it, if the syntax is correct.
2781 If you see a web site that proudly uses XHTML buttons, but sets
2782 <quote>Content-Type: text/html</quote>, you can use &my-app;
2783 to overwrite it with <quote>application/xml</quote> and validate
2784 the web master's claim inside your XHTML-supporting browser.
2785 If the syntax is incorrect, the browser will complain loudly.
2788 You can also go the opposite direction: if your browser prints
2789 error messages instead of rendering a document falsely declared
2790 as XHTML, you can overwrite the content type with
2791 <quote>text/html</quote> and have it rendered as broken HTML document.
2794 By default <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal> only replaces
2795 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> headers that look like some kind of text.
2796 If you want to overwrite it unconditionally, you have to combine it with
2797 <literal><link linkend="force-text-mode">force-text-mode</link></literal>.
2798 This limitation exists for a reason, think twice before circumventing it.
2801 Most of the time it's easier to enable
2802 <literal><link linkend="filter-server-headers">filter-server-headers</link></literal>
2803 and replace this action with a custom regular expression. It allows you
2804 to activate it for every document of a certain site and it will still
2805 only replace the content types you aimed at.
2808 Of course you can apply <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal>
2809 to a whole site and then make URL based exceptions, but it's a lot
2810 more work to get the same precision.
2816 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
2819 <screen># Check if www.example.net/ really uses valid XHTML
2820 { +content-type-overwrite{application/xml} }
2823 # but leave the content type unmodified if the URL looks like a style sheet
2824 {-content-type-overwrite}
2825 www.example.net/.*\.css$
2826 www.example.net/.*style
2835 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2836 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-client-header">
2840 <title>crunch-client-header</title>
2844 <term>Typical use:</term>
2846 <para>Remove a client header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
2851 <term>Effect:</term>
2854 Deletes every header sent by the client that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
2861 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2863 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2868 <term>Parameter:</term>
2880 This action allows you to block client headers for which no dedicated
2881 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists.
2882 <application>Privoxy</application> will remove every client header that
2883 contains the string you supplied as parameter.
2886 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
2887 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
2888 they contain the same string.
2891 <literal>crunch-client-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
2892 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
2893 parts of them, you should enable
2894 <literal><link linkend="filter-client-headers">filter-client-headers</link></literal>
2895 and create your own filter.
2899 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
2906 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2909 <screen># Block the non-existent "Privacy-Violation:" client header
2910 { +crunch-client-header{Privacy-Violation:} }
2920 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2921 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-if-none-match">
2922 <title>crunch-if-none-match</title>
2928 <term>Typical use:</term>
2930 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
2935 <term>Effect:</term>
2938 Deletes the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header.
2945 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2947 <para>Boolean.</para>
2952 <term>Parameter:</term>
2964 Removing the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header
2965 is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
2966 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote> which
2967 would cause the browser to use a cached copy of the page.
2970 It is also useful to make sure the header isn't used as a cookie
2974 Blocking the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> header shouldn't cause any
2975 caching problems, as long as the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> header
2976 isn't blocked as well.
2979 It is recommended to use this action together with
2980 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hide-if-modified-since</link></literal>
2982 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>.
2988 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2991 <screen># Let the browser revalidate cached documents without being tracked across sessions
2992 { +hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
2993 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
2994 +crunch-if-none-match}
3003 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3004 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-incoming-cookies">
3005 <title>crunch-incoming-cookies</title>
3009 <term>Typical use:</term>
3012 Prevent the web server from setting any cookies on your system
3018 <term>Effect:</term>
3021 Deletes any <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from server replies.
3028 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3030 <para>Boolean.</para>
3035 <term>Parameter:</term>
3047 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> cookies. For
3048 <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> cookies, use
3049 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>.
3050 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable cookies completely.
3053 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3054 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3055 since it would prevent the session cookies from being set. See also
3056 <literal><link linkend="filter-content-cookies">filter-content-cookies</link></literal>.
3062 <term>Example usage:</term>
3065 <screen>+crunch-incoming-cookies</screen>
3073 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3074 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-server-header">
3075 <title>crunch-server-header</title>
3081 <term>Typical use:</term>
3083 <para>Remove a server header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
3088 <term>Effect:</term>
3091 Deletes every header sent by the server that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
3098 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3100 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3105 <term>Parameter:</term>
3117 This action allows you to block server headers for which no dedicated
3118 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists. <application>Privoxy</application>
3119 will remove every server header that contains the string you supplied as parameter.
3122 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
3123 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
3124 they contain the same string.
3127 <literal>crunch-server-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
3128 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
3129 parts of them, you should enable
3130 <literal><link linkend="filter-server-headers">filter-server-headers</link></literal>
3131 and create your own filter.
3135 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
3142 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3145 <screen># Crunch server headers that try to prevent caching
3146 { +crunch-server-header{no-cache} }
3155 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3156 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-outgoing-cookies">
3157 <title>crunch-outgoing-cookies</title>
3161 <term>Typical use:</term>
3164 Prevent the web server from reading any cookies from your system
3170 <term>Effect:</term>
3173 Deletes any <quote>Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from client requests.
3180 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3182 <para>Boolean.</para>
3187 <term>Parameter:</term>
3199 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> cookies. For
3200 <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> cookies, use
3201 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>.
3202 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable cookies completely.
3205 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3206 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3207 since it would prevent the session cookies from being read.
3213 <term>Example usage:</term>
3216 <screen>+crunch-outgoing-cookies</screen>
3225 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3226 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="deanimate-gifs">
3227 <title>deanimate-gifs</title>
3231 <term>Typical use:</term>
3233 <para>Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.</para>
3238 <term>Effect:</term>
3241 De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image.
3248 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3250 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3255 <term>Parameter:</term>
3258 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
3267 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
3268 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
3269 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
3270 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
3271 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
3272 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
3275 You can safely use this action with patterns that will also match non-GIF
3276 objects, because no attempt will be made at anything that doesn't look like
3283 <term>Example usage:</term>
3286 <screen>+deanimate-gifs{last}</screen>
3293 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3294 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="downgrade-http-version">
3295 <title>downgrade-http-version</title>
3299 <term>Typical use:</term>
3301 <para>Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1</para>
3306 <term>Effect:</term>
3309 Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0.
3316 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3318 <para>Boolean.</para>
3323 <term>Parameter:</term>
3335 This is a left-over from the time when <application>Privoxy</application>
3336 didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
3337 unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server
3338 out there. Not all (optional) HTTP/1.1 features are supported yet, so there
3339 is a chance you might need this action.
3345 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3348 <screen>{+downgrade-http-version}
3349 problem-host.example.com</screen>
3357 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3358 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="fast-redirects">
3359 <title>fast-redirects</title>
3363 <term>Typical use:</term>
3365 <para>Fool some click-tracking scripts and speed up indirect links.</para>
3370 <term>Effect:</term>
3373 Detects redirection URLs and redirects the browser without contacting
3374 the redirection server first.
3381 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3383 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3388 <term>Parameter:</term>
3393 <quote>simple-check</quote> to just search for the string <quote>http://</quote>
3394 to detect redirection URLs.
3399 <quote>check-decoded-url</quote> to decode URLs (if necessary) before searching
3400 for redirection URLs.
3411 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
3412 will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a
3413 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
3414 resulting from this scheme typically look like:
3415 <quote>http://www.example.org/click-tracker.cgi?target=http%3a//www.example.net/</quote>.
3418 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
3419 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
3420 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go
3421 to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your
3422 browser asks the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds
3426 This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement.
3427 If it is enabled by default, you will have to create some exceptions to
3428 this action. It can lead to failures in several ways:
3431 Not every URLs with other URLs as parameters is evil.
3432 Some sites offer a real service that requires this information to work.
3433 For example a validation service needs to know, which document to validate.
3434 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> assumes that every URL parameter that
3435 looks like another URL is a redirection target, and will always redirect to
3436 the last one. Most of the time the assumption is correct, but if it isn't,
3437 the user gets redirected anyway.
3440 Another failure occurs if the URL contains other parameters after the URL parameter.
3442 <quote>http://www.example.org/?redirect=http%3a//www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
3443 contains the redirection URL <quote>http://www.example.net/</quote>,
3444 followed by another parameter. <literal>fast-redirects</literal> doesn't know that
3445 and will cause a redirect to <quote>http://www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
3446 Depending on the target server configuration, the parameter will be silently ignored
3447 or lead to a <quote>page not found</quote> error. It is possible to fix these redirected
3448 requests with <literal><link linkend="filter-client-headers">filter-client-headers</link></literal>
3449 but it requires a little effort.
3452 To detect a redirection URL, <literal>fast-redirects</literal> only
3453 looks for the string <quote>http://</quote>, either in plain text
3454 (invalid but often used) or encoded as <quote>http%3a//</quote>.
3455 Some sites use their own URL encoding scheme, encrypt the address
3456 of the target server or replace it with a database id. In theses cases
3457 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> is fooled and the request reaches the
3458 redirection server where it probably gets logged.
3464 <term>Example usage:</term>
3468 { +fast-redirects{simple-check} }
3471 { +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} }
3472 another.example.com/testing</screen>
3481 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3482 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter">
3483 <title>filter</title>
3487 <term>Typical use:</term>
3489 <para>Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size),
3490 do fun text replacements, add personalized effects, etc.</para>
3495 <term>Effect:</term>
3498 All files of text-based type, most notably HTML and
3499 JavaScript, to which this action applies, can be filtered on-the-fly
3500 through the specified regular expression based substitutions. (Note: as of
3501 version 3.0.3 plain text documents are exempted from filtering, because
3502 web servers often use the <literal>text/plain</literal> MIME type for all
3503 files whose type they don't know.) By default, filtering works only on the
3504 raw document content itself (that which can be seen with <literal>View
3513 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3515 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3520 <term>Parameter:</term>
3523 The name of a filter, as defined in the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>.
3524 Filters can be defined in one or more files as defined by the
3525 <literal><link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal>
3526 option in the <link linkend="config">config file</link>.
3527 <filename>default.filter</filename> is the collection of filters
3528 supplied by the developers. Locally defined filters should go
3529 in their own file, such as <filename>user.filter</filename>.
3532 When used in its negative form,
3533 and without parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> filtering is completely disabled.
3542 For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available
3543 in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the examples below for
3547 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
3548 slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
3549 passed the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way
3550 since the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more
3551 noticeable on slower connections.
3554 <quote>Rolling your own</quote>
3555 filters requires a knowledge of
3556 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
3557 Expressions</quote></ulink> and
3558 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html"><quote>HTML</quote></ulink>.
3559 This is very powerful feature, and potentially very intrusive.
3560 Filters should be used with caution, and where an equivalent
3561 <quote>action</quote> is not available.
3564 The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the
3565 <literal><link linkend="buffer-limit">buffer-limit</link></literal>
3566 option in the main <link linkend="config">config file</link>. The
3567 default is 4096 KB (4 Megs). Once this limit is exceeded, the buffered
3568 data, and all pending data, is passed through unfiltered.
3571 Inappropriate MIME types, such as zipped files, are not filtered at all.
3572 (Again, only text-based types except plain text). Encrypted SSL data
3573 (from HTTPS servers) cannot be filtered either, since this would violate
3574 the integrity of the secure transaction. In some situations it might
3575 be necessary to protect certain text, like source code, from filtering
3576 by defining appropriate <literal>-filter</literal> exceptions.
3579 At this time, <application>Privoxy</application> cannot uncompress compressed
3580 documents. If you want filtering to work on all documents, even those that
3581 would normally be sent compressed, you must use the
3582 <literal><link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link></literal>
3583 action in conjunction with <literal>filter</literal>.
3586 Filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
3587 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
3588 action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism
3589 works quite differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners
3590 based on their size (see below), since many of these seem to be somewhat
3594 <link linkend="contact">Feedback</link> with suggestions for new or
3595 improved filters is particularly welcome!
3598 The below list has only the names and a one-line description of each
3599 predefined filter. There are <link linkend="predefined-filters">more
3600 verbose explanations</link> of what these filters do in the <link
3601 linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>.
3607 <term>Example usage (with filters from the distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file).
3608 See <link linkend="PREDEFINED-FILTERS">the Predefined Filters section</link> for
3609 more explanation on each:</term>
3612 <anchor id="filter-js-annoyances">
3613 <screen>+filter{js-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse</screen>
3616 <anchor id="filter-js-events">
3617 <screen>+filter{js-events} # Kill all JS event bindings (Radically destructive! Only for extra nasty sites)</screen>
3620 <anchor id="filter-html-annoyances">
3621 <screen>+filter{html-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse</screen>
3624 <anchor id="filter-content-cookies">
3625 <screen>+filter{content-cookies} # Kill cookies that come in the HTML or JS content</screen>
3628 <anchor id="filter-refresh-tags">
3629 <screen>+filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups)</screen>
3632 <anchor id="filter-unsolicited-popups">
3633 <screen>+filter{unsolicited-popups} # Disable only unsolicited pop-up windows. Useful if your browser lacks this ability.</screen>
3636 <anchor id="filter-all-popups">
3637 <screen>+filter{all-popups} # Kill all popups in JavaScript and HTML. Useful if your browser lacks this ability.</screen>
3640 <anchor id="filter-img-reorder">
3641 <screen>+filter{img-reorder} # Reorder attributes in <img> tags to make the banners-by-* filters more effective</screen>
3644 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-size">
3645 <screen>+filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners by size</screen>
3648 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-link">
3649 <screen>+filter{banners-by-link} # Kill banners by their links to known clicktrackers</screen>
3652 <anchor id="filter-webbugs">
3653 <screen>+filter{webbugs} # Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)</screen>
3656 <anchor id="filter-tiny-textforms">
3657 <screen>+filter{tiny-textforms} # Extend those tiny textareas up to 40x80 and kill the hard wrap</screen>
3660 <anchor id="filter-jumping-windows">
3661 <screen>+filter{jumping-windows} # Prevent windows from resizing and moving themselves</screen>
3664 <anchor id="filter-frameset-borders">
3665 <screen>+filter{frameset-borders} # Give frames a border and make them resizeable</screen>
3668 <anchor id="filter-demoronizer">
3669 <screen>+filter{demoronizer} # Fix MS's non-standard use of standard charsets</screen>
3672 <anchor id="filter-shockwave-flash">
3673 <screen>+filter{shockwave-flash} # Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects</screen>
3676 <anchor id="filter-quicktime-kioskmode">
3677 <screen>+filter{quicktime-kioskmode} # Make Quicktime movies savable</screen>
3680 <anchor id="filter-fun">
3681 <screen>+filter{fun} # Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!</screen>
3684 <anchor id="filter-crude-parental">
3685 <screen>+filter{crude-parental} # Crude parental filtering (demo only)</screen>
3688 <anchor id="filter-ie-exploits">
3689 <screen>+filter{ie-exploits} # Disable some known Internet Explorer bug exploits</screen>
3692 <anchor id="filter-site-specifics">
3693 <screen>+filter{site-specifics} # Custom filters for specific site related problems</screen>
3696 <anchor id="filter-google">
3697 <screen>+filter{google} # Removes text ads and other Google specific improvements</screen>
3700 <anchor id="filter-yahoo">
3701 <screen>+filter{yahoo} # Removes text ads and other Yahoo specific improvements</screen>
3704 <anchor id="filter-msn">
3705 <screen>+filter{msn} # Removes text ads and other MSN specific improvements</screen>
3708 <anchor id="filter-blogspot">
3709 <screen>+filter{blogspot} # Cleans up Blogspot blogs</screen>
3712 <anchor id="filter-html-to-xml">
3713 <screen>+filter{html-to-xml} # Header filter to change the Content-Type from html to xml</screen>
3716 <anchor id="filter-xml-to-html">
3717 <screen>+filter{xml-to-html} # Header filter to change the Content-Type from xml to html</screen>
3720 <anchor id="filter-no-ping">
3721 <screen>+filter{no-ping} # Removes non-standard ping attributes from anchor and area tags</screen>
3724 <anchor id="filter-hide-tor-exit-notation">
3725 <screen>+filter{hide-tor-exit-notation} # Header filter to remove the Tor exit node notation in Host and Referer headers</screen>
3733 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3734 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter-client-headers">
3735 <title>filter-client-headers</title>
3739 <term>Typical use:</term>
3742 To apply filtering to the client's (browser's) headers
3748 <term>Effect:</term>
3751 By default, <application>Privoxy's</application> filters only apply
3752 to the document content itself. This will extend those filters to
3753 include the client's headers as well.
3760 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3762 <para>Boolean.</para>
3767 <term>Parameter:</term>
3779 Regular expressions can be used to filter headers as well. Check your
3780 filters closely before activating this action, as it can easily lead to broken
3784 These filters are applied to each header on its own, not to them
3785 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
3786 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is
3790 The filters are used after the other header actions have finished and can
3791 use their output as input.
3795 Whenever possible one should specify <literal>^</literal>,
3796 <literal>$</literal>, the whole header name and the colon, to make sure
3797 the filter doesn't cause havoc to other headers or the
3798 page itself. For example if you want to transform
3799 <application>Galeon</application> User-Agents to
3800 <application>Firefox</application> User-Agents you
3805 s@Galeon/\d\.\d\.\d @@
3811 s@^(User-Agent:.*) Galeon/\d\.\d\.\d (Firefox/\d\.\d\.\d\.\d)$@$1 $2@
3818 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3822 {+filter-client-headers +filter{test_filter}}
3823 problem-host.example.com
3833 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3834 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter-server-headers">
3835 <title>filter-server-headers</title>
3839 <term>Typical use:</term>
3842 To apply filtering to the server's headers
3848 <term>Effect:</term>
3851 By default, <application>Privoxy's</application> filters only apply
3852 to the document content itself. This will extend those filters to
3853 include the server's headers as well.
3860 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3862 <para>Boolean.</para>
3867 <term>Parameter:</term>
3879 Similar to <literal>filter-client-headers</literal>, but works on
3880 the server instead. To filter both server and client, use both.
3883 As with <literal>filter-client-headers</literal>, check your
3884 filters before activating this action, as it can easily lead to broken
3888 These filters are applied to each header on its own, not to them
3889 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
3890 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is
3894 The filters are used after the other header actions have finished and can
3895 use their output as input.
3898 Remember too, whenever possible one should specify <literal>^</literal>,
3899 <literal>$</literal>, the whole header name and the colon, to make sure
3900 the filter doesn't cause havoc to other headers or the
3901 page itself. See above for example.
3908 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3912 {+filter-server-headers +filter{test_filter}}
3913 problem-host.example.com
3923 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3924 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="force-text-mode">
3925 <title>force-text-mode</title>
3931 <term>Typical use:</term>
3933 <para>Force <application>Privoxy</application> to treat a document as if it was in some kind of <emphasis>text</emphasis> format. </para>
3938 <term>Effect:</term>
3941 Declares a document as text, even if the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> isn't detected as such.
3948 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3950 <para>Boolean.</para>
3955 <term>Parameter:</term>
3967 As explained <literal><link linkend="filter">above</link></literal>,
3968 <application>Privoxy</application> tries to only filter files that are
3969 in some kind of text format. The same restrictions apply to
3970 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite</link></literal>.
3971 <literal>force-text-mode</literal> declares a document as text,
3972 without looking at the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> first.
3976 Think twice before activating this action. Filtering binary data
3977 with regular expressions can cause file damage.
3984 <term>Example usage:</term>
3997 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3998 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-empty-document">
3999 <title>handle-as-empty-document</title>
4005 <term>Typical use:</term>
4007 <para>Mark URLs that should be replaced by empty documents <emphasis>if they get blocked</emphasis></para>
4012 <term>Effect:</term>
4015 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs.
4016 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
4017 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote>
4018 page, or an empty document will be sent to the client as a substitute for the blocked content.
4019 The <emphasis>empty</emphasis> document isn't literally empty, but actually contains a single space.
4026 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4028 <para>Boolean.</para>
4033 <term>Parameter:</term>
4045 Some browsers complain about syntax errors if JavaScript documents
4046 are blocked with <application>Privoxy's</application>
4047 default HTML page; this option can be used to silence them.
4048 And of course this action can also be used to eliminate the &my-app;
4049 BLOCKED message in frames.
4052 The content type for the empty document can be specified with
4053 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite{}</link></literal>,
4054 but usually this isn't necessary.
4060 <term>Example usage:</term>
4063 <screen># Block all documents on example.org that end with ".js",
4064 # but send an empty document instead of the usual HTML message.
4065 {+block +handle-as-empty-document}
4075 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4076 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-image">
4077 <title>handle-as-image</title>
4081 <term>Typical use:</term>
4083 <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>
4088 <term>Effect:</term>
4091 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs as images.
4092 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
4093 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>blocked</quote>
4094 page, or a replacement image (as determined by the <literal><link
4095 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> action) will be sent to the
4096 client as a substitute for the blocked content.
4103 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4105 <para>Boolean.</para>
4110 <term>Parameter:</term>
4122 The below generic example section is actually part of <filename>default.action</filename>.
4123 It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should
4127 Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with
4128 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>, to block sources of banners, whose URLs don't
4129 reflect the file type, like in the second example section.
4132 Note that you cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, (in-line) ad
4133 frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they won't display properly.
4134 Forcing <literal>handle-as-image</literal> in this situation will not replace the
4135 ad frame with an image, but lead to error messages.
4141 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
4144 <screen># Generic image extensions:
4147 /.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)$
4149 # These don't look like images, but they're banners and should be
4150 # blocked as images:
4152 {+block +handle-as-image}
4153 some.nasty-banner-server.com/junk.cgi?output=trash
4155 # Banner source! Who cares if they also have non-image content?
4165 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4166 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-accept-language">
4167 <title>hide-accept-language</title>
4173 <term>Typical use:</term>
4175 <para>Pretend to use different language settings.</para>
4180 <term>Effect:</term>
4183 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> HTTP header in client requests.
4190 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4192 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4197 <term>Parameter:</term>
4200 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4209 Faking the browser's language settings can be useful to make a
4210 foreign User-Agent set with
4211 <literal><link linkend="hide-user-agent">hide-user-agent</link></literal>
4215 However some sites with content in different languages check the
4216 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> to decide which one to take by default.
4217 Sometimes it isn't possible to later switch to another language without
4218 changing the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header first.
4221 Therefore it's a good idea to either only change the
4222 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header to languages you understand,
4223 or to languages that aren't wide spread.
4226 Before setting the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header
4227 to a rare language, you should consider that it helps to
4228 make your requests unique and thus easier to trace.
4229 If you don't plan to change this header frequently,
4230 you should stick to a common language.
4236 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4239 <screen># Pretend to use Canadian language settings.
4240 {+hide-accept-language{en-ca} \
4241 +hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; OpenBSD i386; en-CA; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060628 Firefox/1.5.0.4} \
4251 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4252 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-content-disposition">
4253 <title>hide-content-disposition</title>
4259 <term>Typical use:</term>
4261 <para>Prevent download menus for content you prefer to view inside the browser.</para>
4266 <term>Effect:</term>
4269 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header set by some servers.
4276 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4278 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4283 <term>Parameter:</term>
4286 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4295 Some servers set the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header for
4296 documents they assume you want to save locally before viewing them.
4297 The <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header contains the file name
4298 the browser is supposed to use by default.
4301 In most browsers that understand this header, it makes it impossible to
4302 <emphasis>just view</emphasis> the document, without downloading it first,
4303 even if it's just a simple text file or an image.
4306 Removing the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header helps
4307 to prevent this annoyance, but some browsers additionally check the
4308 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> header, before they decide if they can
4309 display a document without saving it first. In these cases, you have
4310 to change this header as well, before the browser stops displaying
4314 It is also possible to change the server's file name suggestion
4315 to another one, but in most cases it isn't worth the time to set
4322 <term>Example usage:</term>
4325 <screen># Disarm the download link in Sourceforge's patch tracker
4327 +content-type-overwrite{text/plain}\
4328 +hide-content-disposition{block} }
4329 .sourceforge.net/tracker/download\.php</screen>
4337 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4338 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-if-modified-since">
4339 <title>hide-if-modified-since</title>
4345 <term>Typical use:</term>
4347 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
4352 <term>Effect:</term>
4355 Deletes the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> HTTP client header or modifies its value.
4362 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4364 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4369 <term>Parameter:</term>
4372 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or a user defined value that specifies a range of hours.
4381 Removing this header is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
4382 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the
4383 browser to use a cached copy of the page.
4386 Instead of removing the header, <literal>hide-if-modified-since</literal> can
4387 also add or subtract a random amount of time to/from the header's value.
4388 You specify a range of minutes where the random factor should be chosen from and
4389 <application>Privoxy</application> does the rest. A negative value means
4390 subtracting, a positive value adding.
4393 Randomizing the value of the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> makes
4394 sure it isn't used as a cookie replacement, but you will run into
4395 caching problems if the random range is too high.
4398 It is a good idea to only use a small negative value and let
4399 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>
4400 handle the greater changes.
4403 It is also recommended to use this action together with
4404 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>.
4410 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4413 <screen># Let the browser revalidate without being tracked across sessions
4414 { +hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
4415 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
4416 +crunch-if-none-match}
4425 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4426 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-forwarded-for-headers">
4427 <title>hide-forwarded-for-headers</title>
4433 <term>Typical use:</term>
4435 <para>Improve privacy by hiding the true source of the request</para>
4440 <term>Effect:</term>
4443 Deletes any existing <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> HTTP header from client requests,
4444 and prevents adding a new one.
4451 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4453 <para>Boolean.</para>
4458 <term>Parameter:</term>
4470 It is fairly safe to leave this on.
4473 This action is scheduled for improvement: It should be able to generate forged
4474 <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> headers using random IP addresses from a specified network,
4475 to make successive requests from the same client look like requests from a pool of different
4476 users sharing the same proxy.
4482 <term>Example usage:</term>
4485 <screen>+hide-forwarded-for-headers</screen>
4493 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4494 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-from-header">
4495 <title>hide-from-header</title>
4499 <term>Typical use:</term>
4501 <para>Keep your (old and ill) browser from telling web servers your email address</para>
4506 <term>Effect:</term>
4509 Deletes any existing <quote>From:</quote> HTTP header, or replaces it with the
4517 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4519 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4524 <term>Parameter:</term>
4527 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4536 The keyword <quote>block</quote> will completely remove the header
4537 (not to be confused with the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
4541 Alternately, you can specify any value you prefer to be sent to the web
4542 server. If you do, it is a matter of fairness not to use any address that
4543 is actually used by a real person.
4546 This action is rarely needed, as modern web browsers don't send
4547 <quote>From:</quote> headers anymore.
4553 <term>Example usage:</term>
4556 <screen>+hide-from-header{block}</screen> or
4557 <screen>+hide-from-header{spam-me-senseless@sittingduck.example.com}</screen>
4565 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4566 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-referrer">
4567 <title>hide-referrer</title>
4568 <anchor id="hide-referer">
4571 <term>Typical use:</term>
4573 <para>Conceal which link you followed to get to a particular site</para>
4578 <term>Effect:</term>
4581 Deletes the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) HTTP header from the client request,
4582 or replaces it with a forged one.
4589 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4591 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4596 <term>Parameter:</term>
4600 <para><quote>conditional-block</quote> to delete the header completely if the host has changed.</para>
4603 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header unconditionally.</para>
4606 <para><quote>forge</quote> to pretend to be coming from the homepage of the server we are talking to.</para>
4609 <para>Any other string to set a user defined referrer.</para>
4619 <literal>conditional-block</literal> is the only parameter,
4620 that isn't easily detected in the server's log file. If it blocks the
4621 referrer, the request will look like the visitor used a bookmark or
4622 typed in the address directly.
4625 Leaving the referrer unmodified for requests on the same host
4626 allows the server owner to see the visitor's <quote>click path</quote>,
4627 but in most cases she could also get that information by comparing
4628 other parts of the log file: for example the User-Agent if it isn't
4629 a very common one, or the user's IP address if it doesn't change between
4633 Always blocking the referrer, or using a custom one, can lead to
4634 failures on servers that check the referrer before they answer any
4635 requests, in an attempt to prevent their valuable content from being
4636 embedded or linked to elsewhere.
4639 Both <literal>conditional-block</literal> and <literal>forge</literal>
4640 will work with referrer checks, as long as content and valid referring page
4641 are on the same host. Most of the time that's the case.
4644 <literal>hide-referer</literal> is an alternate spelling of
4645 <literal>hide-referrer</literal> and the two can be can be freely
4646 substituted with each other. (<quote>referrer</quote> is the
4647 correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
4648 requires it to be spelled as <quote>referer</quote>.)
4654 <term>Example usage:</term>
4657 <screen>+hide-referrer{forge}</screen> or
4658 <screen>+hide-referrer{http://www.yahoo.com/}</screen>
4666 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4667 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-user-agent">
4668 <title>hide-user-agent</title>
4672 <term>Typical use:</term>
4674 <para>Conceal your type of browser and client operating system</para>
4679 <term>Effect:</term>
4682 Replaces the value of the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> HTTP header
4683 in client requests with the specified value.
4690 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4692 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4697 <term>Parameter:</term>
4700 Any user-defined string.
4710 This can lead to problems on web sites that depend on looking at this header in
4711 order to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the
4712 way, is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the right thing to do: good web sites
4713 work browser-independently).
4715 <ulink url="http://www.javascriptkit.com/javaindex.shtml">smart way to do
4721 Using this action in multi-user setups or wherever different types of
4722 browsers will access the same <application>Privoxy</application> is
4723 <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>. In single-user, single-browser
4724 setups, you might use it to delete your OS version information from
4725 the headers, because it is an invitation to exploit known bugs for your
4726 OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
4727 sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
4728 reason in some cases). Example of this: some MSN sites will not
4729 let <application>Mozilla</application> enter, yet forging to a
4730 <application>Netscape 6.1</application> user-agent works just fine.
4731 (Must be just a silly MS goof, I'm sure :-).
4734 This action is scheduled for improvement.
4740 <term>Example usage:</term>
4743 <screen>+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}</screen>
4751 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4752 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="inspect-jpegs">
4753 <title>inspect-jpegs</title>
4759 <term>Typical use:</term>
4761 <para>To protect against the MS buffer over-run in JPEG processing</para>
4766 <term>Effect:</term>
4769 Protect against a known exploit
4776 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4778 <para>Boolean.</para>
4783 <term>Parameter:</term>
4795 See Microsoft Security Bulletin MS04-028. JPEG images are one of the most
4796 common image types found across the Internet. The exploit as described can
4797 allow execution of code on the target system, giving an attacker access
4798 to the system in question by merely planting an altered JPEG image, which
4799 would have no obvious indications of what lurks inside. This action
4800 prevents unwanted intrusion.
4807 <term>Example usage:</term>
4809 <para><screen>+inspect-jpegs</screen></para>
4818 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4819 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="kill-popups">
4820 <title>kill-popups<anchor id="kill-popup"></title>
4824 <term>Typical use:</term>
4826 <para>Eliminate those annoying pop-up windows (deprecated)</para>
4831 <term>Effect:</term>
4834 While loading the document, replace JavaScript code that opens
4835 pop-up windows with (syntactically neutral) dummy code on the fly.
4842 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4844 <para>Boolean.</para>
4849 <term>Parameter:</term>
4861 This action is basically a built-in, hardwired special-purpose filter
4862 action, but there are important differences: For <literal>kill-popups</literal>,
4863 the document need not be buffered, so it can be incrementally rendered while
4864 downloading. But <literal>kill-popups</literal> doesn't catch as many pop-ups as
4866 linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>all-popups</replaceable>}</link></literal>
4867 does and is not as smart as <literal><link
4868 linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>unsolicited-popups</replaceable>}</link>
4872 Think of it as a fast and efficient replacement for a filter that you
4873 can use if you don't want any filtering at all. Note that it doesn't make
4874 sense to combine it with any <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> action,
4875 since as soon as one <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> applies,
4876 the whole document needs to be buffered anyway, which destroys the advantage of
4877 the <literal>kill-popups</literal> action over its filter equivalent.
4880 Killing all pop-ups unconditionally is problematic. Many shops and banks rely on
4881 pop-ups to display forms, shopping carts etc, and the <literal><link
4882 linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>unsolicited-popups</replaceable>}</link>
4883 </literal> does a better job of catching only the unwanted ones.
4886 If the only kind of pop-ups that you want to kill are exit consoles (those
4887 <emphasis>really nasty</emphasis> windows that appear when you close an other
4888 one), you might want to use
4890 linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>js-annoyances</replaceable>}</literal>
4894 This action is most appropriate for browsers that don't have any controls
4895 for unwanted pop-ups. Not recommended for general usage.
4900 An alternate spelling is <literal>+kill-popup</literal>, which is
4908 <term>Example usage:</term>
4910 <para><screen>+kill-popups</screen></para>
4917 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4918 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="limit-connect">
4919 <title>limit-connect</title>
4923 <term>Typical use:</term>
4925 <para>Prevent abuse of <application>Privoxy</application> as a TCP proxy relay or disable SSL for untrusted sites</para>
4930 <term>Effect:</term>
4933 Specifies to which ports HTTP CONNECT requests are allowable.
4940 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4942 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4947 <term>Parameter:</term>
4950 A comma-separated list of ports or port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum
4951 defaulting to 0 and the maximum to 65K).
4960 By default, i.e. if no <literal>limit-connect</literal> action applies,
4961 <application>Privoxy</application> only allows HTTP CONNECT
4962 requests to port 443 (the standard, secure HTTPS port). Use
4963 <literal>limit-connect</literal> if more fine-grained control is desired
4964 for some or all destinations.
4967 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
4968 (<quote>https://</quote> URLs) through proxies. It works very simply:
4969 the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then
4970 short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote server.
4971 This can be a big security hole, since CONNECT-enabled proxies can be
4972 abused as TCP relays very easily.
4975 <application>Privoxy</application> relays HTTPS traffic without seeing
4976 the decoded content. Websites can leverage this limitation to circumvent &my-app;'s
4977 filters. By specifying an invalid port range you can disable HTTPS entirely.
4978 If you plan to disable SSL by default, consider enabling
4979 <literal><link linkend="treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks ">treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks</link></literal>
4980 as well, to be able to quickly create exceptions.
4986 <term>Example usages:</term>
4988 <!-- I had trouble getting the spacing to look right in my browser -->
4989 <!-- I probably have the wrong font setup, bollocks. -->
4990 <!-- Apparently the emphasis tag uses a proportional font no matter what -->
4992 <screen>+limit-connect{443} # This is the default and need not be specified.
4993 +limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
4994 +limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Ports less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
4995 +limit-connect{-} # All ports are OK
4996 +limit-connect{,} # No HTTPS/SSL traffic is allowed</screen>
5003 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5004 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="prevent-compression">
5005 <title>prevent-compression</title>
5009 <term>Typical use:</term>
5012 Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be
5013 passed through <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>s.
5019 <term>Effect:</term>
5022 Removes the Accept-Encoding header which can be used to ask for compressed transfer.
5029 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5031 <para>Boolean.</para>
5036 <term>Parameter:</term>
5048 More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which
5049 is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But for the <literal><link
5050 linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>, <literal><link linkend="deanimate-gifs">deanimate-gifs</link></literal>
5051 and <literal><link linkend="kill-popups">kill-popups</link></literal> actions to work,
5052 <application>Privoxy</application> needs access to the uncompressed data.
5053 Unfortunately, <application>Privoxy</application> can't yet(!) uncompress, filter, and
5054 re-compress the content on the fly. So if you want to ensure that all websites, including
5055 those that normally compress, can be filtered, you need to use this action.
5058 This will slow down transfers from those websites, though. If you use any of the above-mentioned
5059 actions, you will typically want to use <literal>prevent-compression</literal> in conjunction
5063 Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed
5064 documents correctly (they send an empty document body). If you use <literal>prevent-compression</literal>
5065 per default, you'll have to add exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
5071 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
5075 # Selectively turn off compression, and enable a filter
5077 { +filter{tiny-textforms} +prevent-compression }
5078 # Match only these sites
5083 # Or instead, we could set a universal default:
5085 { +prevent-compression }
5088 # Then maybe make exceptions for ill-behaved sites:
5090 { -prevent-compression }
5092 www.pclinuxonline.com</screen>
5101 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5102 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="overwrite-last-modified">
5103 <title>overwrite-last-modified</title>
5109 <term>Typical use:</term>
5111 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
5116 <term>Effect:</term>
5119 Deletes the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> HTTP server header or modifies its value.
5126 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5128 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5133 <term>Parameter:</term>
5136 One of the keywords: <quote>block</quote>, <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote>
5137 and <quote>randomize</quote>
5146 Removing the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header is useful for filter
5147 testing, where you want to force a real reload instead of getting status
5148 code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the browser to reuse the old
5149 version of the page.
5152 The <quote>randomize</quote> option overwrites the value of the
5153 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with a randomly chosen time
5154 between the original value and the current time. In theory the server
5155 could send each document with a different <quote>Last-Modified:</quote>
5156 header to track visits without using cookies. <quote>Randomize</quote>
5157 makes it impossible and the browser can still revalidate cached documents.
5160 <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote> overwrites the value of the
5161 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with the current time. You could use
5162 this option together with
5163 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hided-if-modified-since</link></literal>
5164 to further customize your random range.
5167 The preferred parameter here is <quote>randomize</quote>. It is safe
5168 to use, as long as the time settings are more or less correct.
5169 If the server sets the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header to the time
5170 of the request, the random range becomes zero and the value stays the same.
5171 Therefore you should later randomize it a second time with
5172 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hided-if-modified-since</link></literal>,
5176 It is also recommended to use this action together with
5177 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>.
5183 <term>Example usage:</term>
5186 <screen># Let the browser revalidate without being tracked across sessions
5187 { +hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
5188 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
5189 +crunch-if-none-match}
5198 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5199 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="redirect">
5200 <title>redirect</title>
5206 <term>Typical use:</term>
5209 Redirect requests to other sites.
5215 <term>Effect:</term>
5218 Convinces the browser that the requested document has been moved
5219 to another location and the browser should get it from there.
5226 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5228 <para>Parameterized</para>
5233 <term>Parameter:</term>
5245 This action is useful to replace whole documents with ones of your
5246 choosing. This can be used to enforce safe surfing, or just as a simple
5250 You can do the same by combining the actions
5251 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>,
5252 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> and
5253 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker{URL}</link></literal>.
5254 It doesn't sound right for non-image documents, and that's why this action
5258 This action will be ignored if you use it together with
5259 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>.
5265 <term>Example usages:</term>
5268 <screen># Replace example.com's style sheet with another one
5269 { +redirect{http://localhost/css-replacements/example.com.css} }
5270 example.com/stylesheet\.css
5272 # Create a short, easy to remember nickname for a favorite site
5273 { +redirect{http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/actions-file.html} }
5283 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5284 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-vanilla-wafer">
5285 <title>send-vanilla-wafer</title>
5289 <term>Typical use:</term>
5292 Feed log analysis scripts with useless data.
5298 <term>Effect:</term>
5301 Sends a cookie with each request stating that you do not accept any copyright
5302 on cookies sent to you, and asking the site operator not to track you.
5309 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5311 <para>Boolean.</para>
5316 <term>Parameter:</term>
5328 The vanilla wafer is a (relatively) unique header and could conceivably be used to track you.
5331 This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
5337 <term>Example usage:</term>
5340 <screen>+send-vanilla-wafer</screen>
5349 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5350 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-wafer">
5351 <title>send-wafer</title>
5355 <term>Typical use:</term>
5358 Send custom cookies or feed log analysis scripts with even more useless data.
5364 <term>Effect:</term>
5367 Sends a custom, user-defined cookie with each request.
5374 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5376 <para>Multi-value.</para>
5381 <term>Parameter:</term>
5384 A string of the form <quote><replaceable class="option">name</replaceable>=<replaceable
5385 class="parameter">value</replaceable></quote>.
5394 Being multi-valued, multiple instances of this action can apply to the same request,
5395 resulting in multiple cookies being sent.
5398 This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
5403 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5406 <screen>{+send-wafer{UsingPrivoxy=true}}
5407 my-internal-testing-server.void</screen>
5415 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5416 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="session-cookies-only">
5417 <title>session-cookies-only</title>
5421 <term>Typical use:</term>
5424 Allow only temporary <quote>session</quote> cookies (for the current
5425 browser session <emphasis>only</emphasis>).
5431 <term>Effect:</term>
5434 Deletes the <quote>expires</quote> field from <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote>
5435 server headers. Most browsers will not store such cookies permanently and
5436 forget them in between sessions.
5443 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5445 <para>Boolean.</para>
5450 <term>Parameter:</term>
5462 This is less strict than <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> /
5463 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal> and allows you to browse
5464 websites that insist or rely on setting cookies, without compromising your privacy too badly.
5467 Most browsers will not permanently store cookies that have been processed by
5468 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal> and will forget about them between sessions.
5469 This makes profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
5470 that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
5471 sites, and is the recommended setting.
5474 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>
5475 together with <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> or
5476 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>. If you do, cookies
5477 will be plainly killed.
5480 Note that it is up to the browser how it handles such cookies without an <quote>expires</quote>
5481 field. If you use an exotic browser, you might want to try it out to be sure.
5484 This setting also has no effect on cookies that may have been stored
5485 previously by the browser before starting <application>Privoxy</application>.
5486 These would have to be removed manually.
5489 <application>Privoxy</application> also uses
5490 the <link linkend="filter-content-cookies">content-cookies filter</link>
5491 to block some types of cookies. Content cookies are not effected by
5492 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>.
5498 <term>Example usage:</term>
5501 <screen>+session-cookies-only</screen>
5509 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5510 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="set-image-blocker">
5511 <title>set-image-blocker</title>
5515 <term>Typical use:</term>
5517 <para>Choose the replacement for blocked images</para>
5522 <term>Effect:</term>
5525 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. If <emphasis>both</emphasis>
5526 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><link
5527 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> <emphasis>also</emphasis>
5528 apply, i.e. if the request is to be blocked as an image,
5529 <emphasis>then</emphasis> the parameter of this action decides what will be
5530 sent as a replacement.
5537 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5539 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5544 <term>Parameter:</term>
5549 <quote>pattern</quote> to send a built-in checkerboard pattern image. The image is visually
5550 decent, scales very well, and makes it obvious where banners were busted.
5555 <quote>blank</quote> to send a built-in transparent image. This makes banners disappear
5556 completely, but makes it hard to detect where <application>Privoxy</application> has blocked
5557 images on a given page and complicates troubleshooting if <application>Privoxy</application>
5558 has blocked innocent images, like navigation icons.
5563 <quote><replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable></quote> to
5564 send a redirect to <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>. You can redirect
5565 to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem via <quote>file:///</quote> URL.
5566 (But note that not all browsers support redirecting to a local file system).
5569 A good application of redirects is to use special <application>Privoxy</application>-built-in
5570 URLs, which send the built-in images, as <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>.
5571 This has the same visual effect as specifying <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote> in
5572 the first place, but enables your browser to cache the replacement image, instead of requesting
5573 it over and over again.
5584 The URLs for the built-in images are <quote>http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=<replaceable
5585 class="parameter">type</replaceable></quote>, where <replaceable class="parameter">type</replaceable> is
5586 either <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote>.
5589 There is a third (advanced) type, called <quote>auto</quote>. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> to be
5590 used in <literal>set-image-blocker</literal>, but meant for use from <link linkend="filter-file">filters</link>.
5591 Auto will select the type of image that would have applied to the referring page, had it been an image.
5597 <term>Example usage:</term>
5603 <screen>+set-image-blocker{pattern}</screen>
5606 Redirect to the BSD devil:
5609 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://www.freebsd.org/gifs/dae_up3.gif}</screen>
5612 Redirect to the built-in pattern for better caching:
5615 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=pattern}</screen>
5623 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5624 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks">
5625 <title>treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks</title>
5631 <term>Typical use:</term>
5633 <para>Block forbidden connects with an easy to find error message.</para>
5638 <term>Effect:</term>
5641 If this action is enabled, <application>Privoxy</application> no longer
5642 makes a difference between forbidden connects and ordinary blocks.
5649 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5651 <para>Boolean</para>
5656 <term>Parameter:</term>
5666 By default <application>Privoxy</application> answers
5667 <link linkend="limit-connect">forbidden <quote>Connect</quote> requests</link>
5668 with a short error message inside the headers. If the browser doesn't display
5669 headers (most don't), you just see an empty page.
5672 With this action enabled, <application>Privoxy</application> displays
5673 the message that is used for ordinary blocks instead. If you decide
5674 to make an exception for the page in question, you can do so by
5675 following the <quote>See why</quote> link.
5678 For <quote>Connect</quote> requests the clients tell
5679 <application>Privoxy</application> which host they are interested
5680 in, but not which document they plan to get later. As a result, the
5681 <quote>Go there anyway</quote> link becomes rather useless:
5682 it lets the client request the home page of the forbidden host
5683 through unencrypted HTTP, still using the port of the last request.
5686 If you previously configured <application>Privoxy</application> to do the
5687 request through a SSL tunnel, everything will work. Most likely you haven't
5688 and the server will respond with an error message because it is expecting
5695 <term>Example usage:</term>
5698 <screen>+treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks</screen>
5706 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5708 <title>Summary</title>
5710 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
5711 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
5712 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
5713 content, and other criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard
5714 and fast rules for all sites. See the <link
5715 linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link> for a brief example on troubleshooting
5721 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5722 <sect2 id="aliases">
5723 <title>Aliases</title>
5725 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
5726 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other actions.
5727 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in actions.
5728 Currently, an alias name can contain any character except space, tab,
5730 <quote>{</quote> and <quote>}</quote>, but we <emphasis>strongly
5731 recommend</emphasis> that you only use <quote>a</quote> to <quote>z</quote>,
5732 <quote>0</quote> to <quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and <quote>-</quote>.
5733 Alias names are not case sensitive, and are not required to start with a
5734 <quote>+</quote> or <quote>-</quote> sign, since they are merely textually
5738 Aliases can be used throughout the actions file, but they <emphasis>must be
5739 defined in a special section at the top of the file!</emphasis>
5740 And there can only be one such section per actions file. Each actions file may
5741 have its own alias section, and the aliases defined in it are only visible
5745 There are two main reasons to use aliases: One is to save typing for frequently
5746 used combinations of actions, the other one is a gain in flexibility: If you
5747 decide once how you want to handle shops by defining an alias called
5748 <quote>shop</quote>, you can later change your policy on shops in
5749 <emphasis>one</emphasis> place, and your changes will take effect everywhere
5750 in the actions file where the <quote>shop</quote> alias is used. Calling aliases
5751 by their purpose also makes your actions files more readable.
5754 Currently, there is one big drawback to using aliases, though:
5755 <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in web-based action file
5756 editor honors aliases when reading the actions files, but it expands
5757 them before writing. So the effects of your aliases are of course preserved,
5758 but the aliases themselves are lost when you edit sections that use aliases
5763 Now let's define some aliases...
5768 # Useful custom aliases we can use later.
5770 # Note the (required!) section header line and that this section
5771 # must be at the top of the actions file!
5775 # These aliases just save typing later:
5776 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
5778 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
5779 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
5780 +block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
5781 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
5783 # These aliases define combinations of actions
5784 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
5786 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="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> -<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link>
5788 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link>
5790 # Short names for other aliases, for really lazy people ;-)
5792 c0 = +crunch-all-cookies
5793 c1 = -crunch-all-cookies</screen>
5797 ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
5798 actions file and define exceptions to the default actions (as specified further
5799 up for the <quote>/</quote> pattern):
5804 # These sites are either very complex or very keen on
5805 # user data and require minimal interference to work:
5808 .office.microsoft.com
5809 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
5810 # Gmail is really mail.google.com, not gmail.com
5814 # Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data)
5818 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
5821 # These shops require pop-ups:
5823 {-kill-popups -filter{all-popups} -filter{unsolicited-popups}}
5825 .overclockers.co.uk</screen>
5829 Aliases like <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> are typically used for
5830 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require more than one action to be disabled
5831 in order to function properly.
5837 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5838 <sect2 id="act-examples">
5839 <title>Actions Files Tutorial</title>
5841 The above chapters have shown <link linkend="actions-file">which actions files
5842 there are and how they are organized</link>, how actions are <link
5843 linkend="actions">specified</link> and <link linkend="actions-apply">applied
5844 to URLs</link>, how <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> work, and how to
5845 define and use <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link>. Now, let's look at an
5846 example <filename>default.action</filename> and <filename>user.action</filename>
5847 file and see how all these pieces come together:
5850 <sect3><title>default.action</title>
5853 Every config file should start with a short comment stating its purpose:
5857 <screen># Sample default.action file <ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net></screen>
5861 Then, since this is the <filename>default.action</filename> file, the
5862 first section is a special section for internal use that you needn't
5863 change or worry about:
5868 ##########################################################################
5869 # Settings -- Don't change! For internal Privoxy use ONLY.
5870 ##########################################################################
5873 for-privoxy-version=3.0</screen>
5877 After that comes the (optional) alias section. We'll use the example
5878 section from the above <link linkend="aliases">chapter on aliases</link>,
5879 that also explains why and how aliases are used:
5884 ##########################################################################
5886 ##########################################################################
5889 # These aliases just save typing later:
5890 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
5892 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
5893 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
5894 +block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
5895 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
5897 # These aliases define combinations of actions
5898 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
5900 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="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link>
5901 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link></screen>
5905 Now come the regular sections, i.e. sets of actions, accompanied
5906 by URL patterns to which they apply. Remember <emphasis>all actions
5907 are disabled when matching starts</emphasis>, so we have to explicitly
5908 enable the ones we want.
5912 The first regular section is probably the most important. It has only
5913 one pattern, <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, but this pattern
5914 <link linkend="af-patterns">matches all URLs</link>. Therefore, the
5915 set of actions used in this <quote>default</quote> section <emphasis>will
5916 be applied to all requests as a start</emphasis>. It can be partly or
5917 wholly overridden by later matches further down this file, or in user.action,
5918 but it will still be largely responsible for your overall browsing
5923 Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is
5924 no real need to disable any actions here, but we will do that nonetheless,
5925 to have a complete listing for your reference. (Remember: a <quote>+</quote>
5926 preceding the action name enables the action, a <quote>-</quote> disables!).
5927 Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into
5928 multiple lines with line continuation.
5933 ##########################################################################
5934 # "Defaults" section:
5935 ##########################################################################
5937 -<link linkend="ADD-HEADER">add-header</link> \
5938 -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> \
5939 -<link linkend="CONTENT-TYPE-OVERWRITE">content-type-overwrite</link> \
5940 -<link linkend="CRUNCH-CLIENT-HEADER">crunch-client-header</link> \
5941 -<link linkend="CRUNCH-IF-NONE-MATCH">crunch-if-none-match</link> \
5942 -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> \
5943 -<link linkend="CRUNCH-SERVER-HEADER">crunch-server-header</link> \
5944 -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link> \
5945 +<link linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</link> \
5946 -<link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION">downgrade-http-version</link> \
5947 -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects{check-decoded-url}</link> \
5948 -<link linkend="FILTER-JS-ANNOYANCES">filter{js-annoyances}</link> \
5949 -<link linkend="FILTER-JS-EVENTS">filter{js-events}</link> \
5950 +<link linkend="FILTER-HTML-ANNOYANCES">filter{html-annoyances}</link> \
5951 -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link> \
5952 +<link linkend="FILTER-REFRESH-TAGS">filter{refresh-tags}</link> \
5953 -<link linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{unsolicited-popups}</link> \
5954 -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> \
5955 -<link linkend="FILTER-IMG-REORDER">filter{img-reorder}</link> \
5956 -<link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE">filter{banners-by-size}</link> \
5957 -<link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-LINK">filter{banners-by-link}</link> \
5958 +<link linkend="FILTER-WEBBUGS">filter{webbugs}</link> \
5959 -<link linkend="FILTER-TINY-TEXTFORMS">filter{tiny-textforms}</link> \
5960 -<link linkend="FILTER-JUMPING-WINDOWS">filter{jumping-windows}</link> \
5961 -<link linkend="FILTER-FRAMESET-BORDERS">filter{frameset-borders}</link> \
5962 -<link linkend="FILTER-DEMORONIZER">filter{demoronizer}</link> \
5963 -<link linkend="FILTER-SHOCKWAVE-FLASH">filter{shockwave-flash}</link> \
5964 -<link linkend="FILTER-QUICKTIME-KIOSKMODE">filter{quicktime-kioskmode}</link> \
5965 -<link linkend="FILTER-FUN">filter{fun}</link> \
5966 -<link linkend="FILTER-CRUDE-PARENTAL">filter{crude-parental}</link> \
5967 +<link linkend="FILTER-IE-EXPLOITS">filter{ie-exploits}</link> \
5968 -<link linkend="FILTER-CLIENT-HEADERS">filter-client-headers</link> \
5969 -<link linkend="FILTER-SERVER-HEADERS">filter-server-headers</link> \
5970 -<link linkend="FILTER-GOOGLE">filter-google</link> \
5971 -<link linkend="FILTER-YAHOO">filter-yahoo</link> \
5972 -<link linkend="FILTER-MSN">filter-msn</link> \
5973 -<link linkend="FILTER-BLOGSPOT">filter-blogspot</link> \
5974 -<link linkend="FILTER-XML-TO-HTML">filter-xml-to-html</link> \
5975 -<link linkend="FILTER-HTML-TO-XML">filter-html-to-xml</link> \
5976 -<link linkend="FILTER-NO-PING">filter-no-ping</link> \
5977 -<link linkend="FILTER-HIDE-TOR-EXIT-NOTATION">filter-hide-tor-exit-notation</link> \
5978 -<link linkend="FORCE-TEXT-MODE">force-text-mode</link> \
5979 -<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-EMPTY-DOCUMENT">handle-as-empty-document</link> \
5980 -<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> \
5981 -<link linkend="HIDE-ACCEPT-LANGUAGE">hide-accept-language</link> \
5982 -<link linkend="HIDE-CONTENT-DISPOSITION">hide-content-disposition</link> \
5983 -<link linkend="HIDE-IF-MODIFIED-SINCE">hide-if-modified-since</link> \
5984 +<link linkend="HIDE-FORWARDED-FOR-HEADERS">hide-forwarded-for-headers</link> \
5985 +<link linkend="HIDE-FROM-HEADER">hide-from-header{block}</link> \
5986 +<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer{forge}</link> \
5987 -<link linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT">hide-user-agent</link> \
5988 -<link linkend="INSPECT-JPEGS">inspect-jpegs</link> \
5989 -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> \
5990 -<link linkend="LIMIT-CONNECT">limit-connect</link> \
5991 +<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link> \
5992 -<link linkend="OVERWRITE-LAST-MODIFIED">overwrite-last-modified</link> \
5993 -<link linkend="REDIRECT">redirect</link> \
5994 -<link linkend="SEND-VANILLA-WAFER">send-vanilla-wafer</link> \
5995 -<link linkend="SEND-WAFER">send-wafer</link> \
5996 +<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> \
5997 +<link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER">set-image-blocker{pattern}</link> \
5998 -<link linkend="TREAT-FORBIDDEN-CONNECTS-LIKE-BLOCKS">treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks</link> \
6000 / # forward slash will match *all* potential URL patterns.</screen>
6004 The default behavior is now set. Note that some actions, like not hiding
6005 the user agent, are part of a <quote>general policy</quote> that applies
6006 universally and won't get any exceptions defined later. Other choices,
6007 like not blocking (which is <emphasis>understandably</emphasis> the
6008 default!) need exceptions, i.e. we need to specify explicitly what we
6009 want to block in later sections.
6013 The first of our specialized sections is concerned with <quote>fragile</quote>
6014 sites, i.e. sites that require minimum interference, because they are either
6015 very complex or very keen on tracking you (and have mechanisms in place that
6016 make them unusable for people who avoid being tracked). We will simply use
6017 our pre-defined <literal>fragile</literal> alias instead of stating the list
6018 of actions explicitly:
6023 ##########################################################################
6024 # Exceptions for sites that'll break under the default action set:
6025 ##########################################################################
6027 # "Fragile" Use a minimum set of actions for these sites (see alias above):
6030 .office.microsoft.com # surprise, surprise!
6031 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
6032 mail.google.com</screen>
6036 Shopping sites are not as fragile, but they typically
6037 require cookies to log in, and pop-up windows for shopping
6038 carts or item details. Again, we'll use a pre-defined alias:
6047 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
6049 .scan.co.uk</screen>
6052 <!-- No longer needed BEGIN OF COMMENTED OUT BLOCK
6055 Then, there are sites which rely on pop-up windows (yuck!) to work.
6056 Since we made pop-up-killing our default above, we need to make exceptions
6057 now. <ulink url="http://www.mozilla.org/">Mozilla</ulink> users, who
6058 can turn on smart handling of unwanted pop-ups in their browsers, can
6060 -<literal><link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link></literal> (and
6061 -<literal><link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link></literal>) above
6062 and hence don't need this section. Anyway, disabling an already disabled
6063 action doesn't hurt, so we'll define our exceptions regardless of what was
6064 chosen in the defaults section:
6069 # These sites require pop-ups too :(
6071 { -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link> }
6074 .deutsche-bank-24.de</screen>
6077 END OF COMMENTED OUT BLOCK -->
6080 The <literal><link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link></literal>
6081 action, which we enabled per default above, breaks some sites. So disable
6082 it for popular sites where we know it misbehaves:
6087 { -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> }
6091 .altavista.com/.*(like|url|link):http
6092 .altavista.com/trans.*urltext=http
6093 .nytimes.com</screen>
6097 It is important that <application>Privoxy</application> knows which
6098 URLs belong to images, so that <emphasis>if</emphasis> they are to
6099 be blocked, a substitute image can be sent, rather than an HTML page.
6100 Contacting the remote site to find out is not an option, since it
6101 would destroy the loading time advantage of banner blocking, and it
6102 would feed the advertisers (in terms of money <emphasis>and</emphasis>
6103 information). We can mark any URL as an image with the <literal><link
6104 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action,
6105 and marking all URLs that end in a known image file extension is a
6111 ##########################################################################
6113 ##########################################################################
6115 # Define which file types will be treated as images, in case they get
6116 # blocked further down this file:
6118 { +<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> }
6119 /.*\.(gif|jpe?g|png|bmp|ico)$</screen>
6123 And then there are known banner sources. They often use scripts to
6124 generate the banners, so it won't be visible from the URL that the
6125 request is for an image. Hence we block them <emphasis>and</emphasis>
6126 mark them as images in one go, with the help of our
6127 <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above. (We could of
6128 course just as well use <literal>+<link linkend="block">block</link>
6129 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> here.)
6130 Remember that the type of the replacement image is chosen by the
6131 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
6132 action. Since all URLs have matched the default section with its
6133 <literal>+<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link>{pattern}</literal>
6134 action before, it still applies and needn't be repeated:
6139 # Known ad generators:
6144 .ad.*.doubleclick.net
6145 .a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
6146 .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
6152 One of the most important jobs of <application>Privoxy</application>
6153 is to block banners. Many of these can be <quote>blocked</quote>
6154 by the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{banners-by-size}</literal>
6155 action, which we enabled above, and which deletes the references to banner
6156 images from the pages while they are loaded, so the browser doesn't request
6157 them anymore, and hence they don't need to be blocked here. But this naturally
6158 doesn't catch all banners, and some people choose not to use filters, so we
6159 need a comprehensive list of patterns for banner URLs here, and apply the
6160 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action to them.
6163 First comes many generic patterns, which do most of the work, by
6164 matching typical domain and path name components of banners. Then comes
6165 a list of individual patterns for specific sites, which is omitted here
6166 to keep the example short:
6171 ##########################################################################
6172 # Block these fine banners:
6173 ##########################################################################
6174 { <link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link> }
6182 /.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?)
6183 /(?:.*/)?(publicite|werbung|rekla(ma|me|am)|annonse|maino(kset|nta|s)?)/
6185 # Site-specific patterns (abbreviated):
6187 .hitbox.com</screen>
6191 It's quite remarkable how many advertisers actually call their banner
6192 servers ads.<replaceable>company</replaceable>.com, or call the directory
6193 in which the banners are stored simply <quote>banners</quote>. So the above
6194 generic patterns are surprisingly effective.
6197 But being very generic, they necessarily also catch URLs that we don't want
6198 to block. The pattern <literal>.*ads.</literal> e.g. catches
6199 <quote>nasty-<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.nasty-corp.com</quote> as intended,
6200 but also <quote>downlo<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.sourcefroge.net</quote> or
6201 <quote><emphasis>ads</emphasis>l.some-provider.net.</quote> So here come some
6202 well-known exceptions to the <literal>+<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
6206 Note that these are exceptions to exceptions from the default! Consider the URL
6207 <quote>downloads.sourcefroge.net</quote>: Initially, all actions are deactivated,
6208 so it wouldn't get blocked. Then comes the defaults section, which matches the
6209 URL, but just deactivates the <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
6210 action once again. Then it matches <literal>.*ads.</literal>, an exception to the
6211 general non-blocking policy, and suddenly
6212 <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link></literal> applies. And now, it'll match
6213 <literal>.*loads.</literal>, where <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">-block</link></literal>
6214 applies, so (unless it matches <emphasis>again</emphasis> further down) it ends up
6215 with no <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal> action applying.
6220 ##########################################################################
6221 # Save some innocent victims of the above generic block patterns:
6222 ##########################################################################
6226 { -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
6227 adv[io]*. # (for advogato.org and advice.*)
6228 adsl. # (has nothing to do with ads)
6229 adobe. # (has nothing to do with ads either)
6230 ad[ud]*. # (adult.* and add.*)
6231 .edu # (universities don't host banners (yet!))
6232 .*loads. # (downloads, uploads etc)
6240 www.globalintersec.com/adv # (adv = advanced)
6241 www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv</screen>
6245 Filtering source code can have nasty side effects,
6246 so make an exception for our friends at sourceforge.net,
6247 and all paths with <quote>cvs</quote> in them. Note that
6248 <literal>-<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link></literal>
6249 disables <emphasis>all</emphasis> filters in one fell swoop!
6254 # Don't filter code!
6256 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
6261 .sourceforge.net</screen>
6265 The actual <filename>default.action</filename> is of course much more
6266 comprehensive, but we hope this example made clear how it works.
6271 <sect3><title>user.action</title>
6274 So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies,
6275 which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
6276 you might want to be more specific and have customized rules that
6277 are more suitable to your personal habits and preferences. These would
6278 be for narrowly defined situations like your ISP or your bank, and should
6279 be placed in <filename>user.action</filename>, which is parsed after all other
6280 actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding any previously
6281 defined actions. <filename>user.action</filename> is also a
6282 <emphasis>safe</emphasis> place for your personal settings, since
6283 <filename>default.action</filename> is actively maintained by the
6284 <application>Privoxy</application> developers and you'll probably want
6285 to install updated versions from time to time.
6289 So let's look at a few examples of things that one might typically do in
6290 <filename>user.action</filename>:
6294 <!-- brief sample user.action here -->
6298 # My user.action file. <fred@foobar.com></screen>
6302 As <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link> are local to the actions
6303 file that they are defined in, you can't use the ones from
6304 <filename>default.action</filename>, unless you repeat them here:
6309 # Aliases are local to the file they are defined in.
6310 # (Re-)define aliases for this file:
6314 # These aliases just save typing later, and the alias names should
6315 # be self explanatory.
6317 +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
6318 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
6319 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
6320 allow-popups = -filter{all-popups} -kill-popups
6321 +block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
6322 -block-as-image = -block
6324 # These aliases define combinations of actions that are useful for
6325 # certain types of sites:
6327 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referrer -kill-popups
6328 shop = -crunch-all-cookies allow-popups
6330 # Allow ads for selected useful free sites:
6332 allow-ads = -block -filter{banners-by-size} -filter{banners-by-link}
6334 # Alias for specific file types that are text, but might have conflicting
6335 # MIME types. We want the browser to force these to be text documents.
6336 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>
6341 Say you have accounts on some sites that you visit regularly, and
6342 you don't want to have to log in manually each time. So you'd like
6343 to allow persistent cookies for these sites. The
6344 <literal>allow-all-cookies</literal> alias defined above does exactly
6345 that, i.e. it disables crunching of cookies in any direction, and the
6346 processing of cookies to make them only temporary.
6351 { allow-all-cookies }
6355 .redhat.com</screen>
6359 Your bank is allergic to some filter, but you don't know which, so you disable them all:
6364 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
6365 .your-home-banking-site.com</screen>
6369 Some file types you may not want to filter for various reasons:
6374 # Technical documentation is likely to contain strings that might
6375 # erroneously get altered by the JavaScript-oriented filters:
6380 # And this stupid host sends streaming video with a wrong MIME type,
6381 # so that Privoxy thinks it is getting HTML and starts filtering:
6383 stupid-server.example.com/</screen>
6387 Example of a simple <link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> action. Say you've
6388 seen an ad on your favourite page on example.com that you want to get rid of.
6389 You have right-clicked the image, selected <quote>copy image location</quote>
6390 and pasted the URL below while removing the leading http://, into a
6391 <literal>{ +block }</literal> section. Note that <literal>{ +handle-as-image
6392 }</literal> need not be specified, since all URLs ending in
6393 <literal>.gif</literal> will be tagged as images by the general rules as set
6394 in default.action anyway:
6399 { +<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
6400 www.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor\.gif
6401 another.popular.site.net/more/junk/here/</screen>
6405 The URLs of dynamically generated banners, especially from large banner
6406 farms, often don't use the well-known image file name extensions, which
6407 makes it impossible for <application>Privoxy</application> to guess
6408 the file type just by looking at the URL.
6409 You can use the <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above for
6411 Note that objects which match this rule but then turn out NOT to be an
6412 image are typically rendered as a <quote>broken image</quote> icon by the
6413 browser. Use cautiously.
6422 ar.atwola.com/</screen>
6426 Now you noticed that the default configuration breaks Forbes Magazine,
6427 but you were too lazy to find out which action is the culprit, and you
6428 were again too lazy to give <link linkend="contact">feedback</link>, so
6429 you just used the <literal>fragile</literal> alias on the site, and
6430 -- <emphasis>whoa!</emphasis> -- it worked. The <literal>fragile</literal>
6431 aliases disables those actions that are most likely to break a site. Also,
6432 good for testing purposes to see if it is <application>Privoxy</application>
6433 that is causing the problem or not. We later find other regular sites
6434 that misbehave, and add those to our personalized list of troublemakers:
6442 .mybank.com</screen>
6446 You like the <quote>fun</quote> text replacements in <filename>default.filter</filename>,
6447 but it is disabled in the distributed actions file. (My colleagues on the team just
6448 don't have a sense of humour, that's why! ;-). So you'd like to turn it on in your private,
6449 update-safe config, once and for all:
6454 { +<link linkend="filter-fun">filter{fun}</link> }
6455 / # For ALL sites!</screen>
6459 Note that the above is not really a good idea: There are exceptions
6460 to the filters in <filename>default.action</filename> for things that
6461 really shouldn't be filtered, like code on CVS->Web interfaces. Since
6462 <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word, these exceptions
6463 won't be valid for the <quote>fun</quote> filtering specified here.
6467 You might also worry about how your favourite free websites are
6468 funded, and find that they rely on displaying banner advertisements
6469 to survive. So you might want to specifically allow banners for those
6470 sites that you feel provide value to you:
6482 Note that <literal>allow-ads</literal> has been aliased to
6483 <literal>-<link linkend="block">block</link></literal>,
6484 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-size">filter{banners-by-size}</link></literal>, and
6485 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-link">filter{banners-by-link}</link></literal> above.
6489 Invoke another alias here to force an over-ride of the MIME type <literal>
6490 application/x-sh</literal> which typically would open a download type
6491 dialog. In my case, I want to look at the shell script, and then I can save
6492 it should I choose to.
6502 <filename>user.action</filename> is generally the best place to define
6503 exceptions and additions to the default policies of
6504 <filename>default.action</filename>. Some actions are safe to have their
6505 default policies set here though. So let's set a default policy to have a
6506 <quote>blank</quote> image as opposed to the checkerboard pattern for
6507 <emphasis>ALL</emphasis> sites. <quote>/</quote> of course matches all URL
6513 { +<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker{blank}</link> }
6514 / # ALL sites</screen>
6520 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6524 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6526 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
6528 <sect1 id="filter-file">
6529 <title>Filter Files</title>
6532 On-the-fly text substitutions that can be invoked through the
6533 <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> action need
6534 to be defined in a <quote>filter file</quote>. Once defined, they
6535 can then be invoked as an <quote>action</quote>. Multiple filter files can be
6536 defined through the <literal> <link
6537 linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal> config directive. The filters
6538 as supplied by the developers will be found in
6539 <filename>default.filter</filename>. It is recommended that any locally
6540 defined or modified filters go in a separately defined file such as
6541 <filename>user.filter</filename>.
6546 Typical reasons for doing these kinds of substitutions are to eliminate
6547 common annoyances in HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows,
6548 exit consoles, crippled windows without navigation tools, the
6549 infamous <BLINK> tag etc, to suppress images with certain
6550 width and height attributes (standard banner sizes or web-bugs),
6551 or just to have fun. The possibilities are endless.
6555 Filtering works on any text-based document type, including
6556 HTML, JavaScript, CSS etc. (all <literal>text/*</literal>
6557 MIME types, <emphasis>except</emphasis> <literal>text/plain</literal>).
6558 Substitutions are made at the source level, so if you want to <quote>roll
6559 your own</quote> filters, you should first be familiar with HTML syntax,
6560 and, of course, regular expressions. By default, filters are only applied
6561 to the raw document content, but can be extended to the HTTP headers with
6562 the supplemental actions:
6563 <link linkend="filter-client-headers">filter-client-headers</link> and
6564 <link linkend="filter-server-headers">filter-server-headers</link>.
6568 Just like the <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, the
6569 filter file is organized in sections, which are called <emphasis>filters</emphasis>
6570 here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with the
6571 <emphasis>keyword</emphasis> <literal>FILTER:</literal>, followed by
6572 the filter's <emphasis>name</emphasis>, and a short (one line)
6573 <emphasis>description</emphasis> of what it does. Below that line
6574 come the <emphasis>jobs</emphasis>, i.e. lines that define the actual
6575 text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter
6576 should describe what the filter <emphasis>eliminates</emphasis>. The
6577 comment is used in the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
6578 user interface</ulink>.
6582 Once a filter called <replaceable>name</replaceable> has been defined
6583 in the filter file, it can be invoked by using an action of the form
6584 +<literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>name</replaceable>}</literal>
6585 in any <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>.
6589 A filter header line for a filter called <quote>foo</quote> could look
6594 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"</screen>
6598 Below that line, and up to the next header line, come the jobs that
6599 define what text replacements the filter executes. They are specified
6600 in a syntax that imitates <ulink url="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</ulink>'s
6601 <literal>s///</literal> operator. If you are familiar with Perl, you
6602 will find this to be quite intuitive, and may want to look at the
6603 PCRS documentation for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour. Most
6604 notably, the non-standard option letter <literal>U</literal> is supported,
6605 which turns the default to ungreedy matching.
6610 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
6611 Expressions</quote></ulink>, you might want to take a look at
6612 the <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>, and
6613 see the <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">Perl
6615 <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlop.html">the
6616 <literal>s///</literal> operator's syntax</ulink> and <ulink
6617 url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">Perl-style regular
6618 expressions</ulink> in general.
6619 The below examples might also help to get you started.
6623 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
6625 <sect2><title>Filter File Tutorial</title>
6627 Now, let's complete our <quote>foo</quote> filter. We have already defined
6628 the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace
6629 <quote>foo</quote> with <quote>bar</quote>, there is only one (trivial) job
6634 <screen>s/foo/bar/</screen>
6638 But wait! Didn't the comment say that <emphasis>all</emphasis> occurrences
6639 of <quote>foo</quote> should be replaced? Our current job will only take
6640 care of the first <quote>foo</quote> on each page. For global substitution,
6641 we'll need to add the <literal>g</literal> option:
6645 <screen>s/foo/bar/g</screen>
6649 Our complete filter now looks like this:
6652 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"
6653 s/foo/bar/g</screen>
6657 Let's look at some real filters for more interesting examples. Here you see
6658 a filter that protects against some common annoyances that arise from JavaScript
6659 abuse. Let's look at its jobs one after the other:
6665 FILTER: js-annoyances Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
6667 # Get rid of JavaScript referrer tracking. Test page: http://www.randomoddness.com/untitled.htm
6669 s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|Usg</screen>
6673 Following the header line and a comment, you see the job. Note that it uses
6674 <literal>|</literal> as the delimiter instead of <literal>/</literal>, because
6675 the pattern contains a forward slash, which would otherwise have to be escaped
6676 by a backslash (<literal>\</literal>).
6680 Now, let's examine the pattern: it starts with the text <literal><script.*</literal>
6681 enclosed in parentheses. Since the dot matches any character, and <literal>*</literal>
6682 means: <quote>Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself</quote>, this
6683 matches <quote><script</quote>, followed by <emphasis>any</emphasis> text, i.e.
6684 it matches the whole page, from the start of the first <script> tag.
6688 That's more than we want, but the pattern continues: <literal>document\.referrer</literal>
6689 matches only the exact string <quote>document.referrer</quote>. The dot needed to
6690 be <emphasis>escaped</emphasis>, i.e. preceded by a backslash, to take away its
6691 special meaning as a joker, and make it just a regular dot. So far, the meaning is:
6692 Match from the start of the first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including,
6693 the text <quote>document.referrer</quote>, if <emphasis>both</emphasis> are present
6694 in the page (and appear in that order).
6698 But there's still more pattern to go. The next element, again enclosed in parentheses,
6699 is <literal>.*</script></literal>. You already know what <literal>.*</literal>
6700 means, so the whole pattern translates to: Match from the start of the first <script>
6701 tag in a page to the end of the last <script> tag, provided that the text
6702 <quote>document.referrer</quote> appears somewhere in between.
6706 This is still not the whole story, since we have ignored the options and the parentheses:
6707 The portions of the page matched by sub-patterns that are enclosed in parentheses, will be
6708 remembered and be available through the variables <literal>$1, $2, ...</literal> in
6709 the substitute. The <literal>U</literal> option switches to ungreedy matching, which means
6710 that the first <literal>.*</literal> in the pattern will only <quote>eat up</quote> all
6711 text in between <quote><script</quote> and the <emphasis>first</emphasis> occurrence
6712 of <quote>document.referrer</quote>, and that the second <literal>.*</literal> will
6713 only span the text up to the <emphasis>first</emphasis> <quote></script></quote>
6714 tag. Furthermore, the <literal>s</literal> option says that the match may span
6715 multiple lines in the page, and the <literal>g</literal> option again means that the
6716 substitution is global.
6720 So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text
6721 <quote>document.referrer</quote>. Remember the parts of the script from
6722 (and including) the start tag up to (and excluding) the string
6723 <quote>document.referrer</quote> as <literal>$1</literal>, and the part following
6724 that string, up to and including the closing tag, as <literal>$2</literal>.
6728 Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So
6729 lets look at the substitute: <literal>$1"Not Your Business!"$2</literal> is
6730 easy to read: The text remembered as <literal>$1</literal>, followed by
6731 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> (<emphasis>including</emphasis>
6732 the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as <literal>$2</literal>.
6733 This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part
6734 (the <quote>document.referrer</quote>) replaced by <literal>"Not Your
6735 Business!"</literal>.
6739 The whole job now reads: Replace <quote>document.referrer</quote> by
6740 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> wherever it appears inside a
6741 <script> tag. Note that this job won't break JavaScript syntax,
6742 since both the original and the replacement are syntactically valid
6743 string objects. The script just won't have access to the referrer
6744 information anymore.
6748 We'll show you two other jobs from the JavaScript taming department, but
6749 this time only point out the constructs of special interest:
6754 # The status bar is for displaying link targets, not pointless blahblah
6756 s/window\.status\s*=\s*(['"]).*?\1/dUmMy=1/ig</screen>
6760 <literal>\s</literal> stands for whitespace characters (space, tab, newline,
6761 carriage return, form feed), so that <literal>\s*</literal> means: <quote>zero
6762 or more whitespace</quote>. The <literal>?</literal> in <literal>.*?</literal>
6763 makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the <literal>U</literal>
6764 option is not set). The <literal>['"]</literal> construct means: <quote>a single
6765 <emphasis>or</emphasis> a double quote</quote>. Finally, <literal>\1</literal> is
6766 a back-reference to the first parenthesis just like <literal>$1</literal> above,
6767 with the difference that in the <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>, a backslash indicates
6768 a back-reference, whereas in the <emphasis>substitute</emphasis>, it's the dollar.
6772 So what does this job do? It replaces assignments of single- or double-quoted
6773 strings to the <quote>window.status</quote> object with a dummy assignment
6774 (using a variable name that is hopefully odd enough not to conflict with
6775 real variables in scripts). Thus, it catches many cases where e.g. pointless
6776 descriptions are displayed in the status bar instead of the link target when
6777 you move your mouse over links.
6782 # Kill OnUnload popups. Yummy. Test: http://www.zdnet.com/zdsubs/yahoo/tree/yfs.html
6784 s/(<body [^>]*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU</screen>
6789 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">OnUnload
6790 event binding</ulink> in the HTML DOM was a <emphasis>CRIME</emphasis>.
6791 When I close a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta.
6792 This job replaces the <quote>onunload</quote> attribute in
6793 <quote><body></quote> tags with the dummy word <literal>never</literal>.
6794 Note that the <literal>i</literal> option makes the pattern matching
6795 case-insensitive. Also note that ungreedy matching alone doesn't always guarantee
6796 a minimal match: In the first parenthesis, we had to use <literal>[^>]*</literal>
6797 instead of <literal>.*</literal> to prevent the match from exceeding the
6798 <body> tag if it doesn't contain <quote>OnUnload</quote>, but the page's
6803 The last example is from the fun department:
6808 FILTER: fun Fun text replacements
6810 # Spice the daily news:
6812 s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig</screen>
6816 Note the <literal>(?!\.com)</literal> part (a so-called negative lookahead)
6817 in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
6818 <quote>.com</quote> appears directly following <quote>microsoft</quote>
6819 in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being trashed, while
6820 still replacing the word everywhere else.
6825 # Buzzword Bingo (example for extended regex syntax)
6827 s* industry[ -]leading \
6829 | customer[ -]focused \
6830 | market[ -]driven \
6831 | award[ -]winning # Comments are OK, too! \
6832 | high[ -]performance \
6833 | solutions[ -]based \
6837 *<font color="red"><b>BINGO!</b></font> \
6842 The <literal>x</literal> option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for
6843 e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
6851 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
6853 <sect2 id="predefined-filters"><title>The Pre-defined Filters</title>
6857 Note each filter is also listed in the +filter action section above. Please
6858 keep these listings in sync.
6863 The distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file contains a selection of
6864 pre-defined filters for your convenience:
6869 <term><emphasis>js-annoyances</emphasis></term>
6872 The purpose of this filter is to get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse.
6877 replaces JavaScript references to the browser's referrer information
6878 with the string "Not Your Business!". This compliments the <literal><link
6879 linkend="hide-referrer">hide-referrer</link></literal> action on the content level.
6884 removes the bindings to the DOM's
6885 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">unload
6886 event</ulink> which we feel has no right to exist and is responsible for most <quote>exit consoles</quote>, i.e.
6887 nasty windows that pop up when you close another one.
6892 removes code that causes new windows to be opened with undesired properties, such as being
6893 full-screen, non-resizeable, without location, status or menu bar etc.
6899 Use with caution. This is an aggressive filter, and can break sites that
6900 rely heavily on JavaScript.
6906 <term><emphasis>js-events</emphasis></term>
6909 This is a very radical measure. It removes virtually all JavaScript event bindings, which
6910 means that scripts can not react to user actions such as mouse movements or clicks, window
6911 resizing etc, anymore. Use with caution!
6914 We <emphasis>strongly discourage</emphasis> using this filter as a default since it breaks
6915 many legitimate scripts. It is meant for use only on extra-nasty sites (should you really
6922 <term><emphasis>html-annoyances</emphasis></term>
6925 This filter will undo many common instances of HTML based abuse.
6928 The <literal>BLINK</literal> and <literal>MARQUEE</literal> tags
6929 are neutralized (yeah baby!), and browser windows will be created as
6930 resizeable (as of course they should be!), and will have location,
6931 scroll and menu bars -- even if specified otherwise.
6937 <term><emphasis>content-cookies</emphasis></term>
6940 Most cookies are set in the HTTP dialog, where they can be intercepted
6942 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>
6943 and <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>
6944 actions. But web sites increasingly make use of HTML meta tags and JavaScript
6945 to sneak cookies to the browser on the content level.
6948 This filter disables most HTML and JavaScript code that reads or sets
6949 cookies. It cannot detect all clever uses of these types of code, so it
6950 should not be relied on as an absolute fix. Use it wherever you would also
6951 use the cookie crunch actions.
6957 <term><emphasis>refresh tags</emphasis></term>
6960 Disable any refresh tags if the interval is greater than nine seconds (so
6961 that redirections done via refresh tags are not destroyed). This is useful
6962 for dial-on-demand setups, or for those who find this HTML feature
6969 <term><emphasis>unsolicited-popups</emphasis></term>
6972 This filter attempts to prevent only <quote>unsolicited</quote> pop-up
6973 windows from opening, yet still allow pop-up windows that the user
6974 has explicitly chosen to open. It was added in version 3.0.1,
6975 as an improvement over earlier such filters.
6978 Technical note: The filter works by redefining the window.open JavaScript
6979 function to a dummy function, <literal>PrivoxyWindowOpen()</literal>,
6980 during the loading and rendering phase of each HTML page access, and
6981 restoring the function afterward.
6984 This is recommended only for browsers that cannot perform this function
6985 reliably themselves. And be aware that some sites require such windows
6986 in order to function normally. Use with caution.
6992 <term><emphasis>all-popups</emphasis></term>
6995 Attempt to prevent <emphasis>all</emphasis> pop-up windows from opening.
6996 Note this should be used with even more discretion than the above, since
6997 it is more likely to break some sites that require pop-ups for normal
6998 usage. Use with caution.
7004 <term><emphasis>img-reorder</emphasis></term>
7007 This is a helper filter that has no value if used alone. It makes the
7008 <literal>banners-by-size</literal> and <literal>banners-by-link</literal>
7009 (see below) filters more effective and should be enabled together with them.
7015 <term><emphasis>banners-by-size</emphasis></term>
7018 This filter removes image tags purely based on what size they are. Fortunately
7019 for us, many ads and banner images tend to conform to certain standardized
7020 sizes, which makes this filter quite effective for ad stripping purposes.
7023 Occasionally this filter will cause false positives on images that are not ads,
7024 but just happen to be of one of the standard banner sizes.
7027 Recommended only for those who require extreme ad blocking. The default
7028 block rules should catch 95+% of all ads <emphasis>without</emphasis> this filter enabled.
7034 <term><emphasis>banners-by-link</emphasis></term>
7037 This is an experimental filter that attempts to kill any banners if
7038 their URLs seem to point to known or suspected click trackers. It is currently
7039 not of much value and is not recommended for use by default.
7045 <term><emphasis>webbugs</emphasis></term>
7048 Webbugs are small, invisible images (technically 1X1 GIF images), that
7049 are used to track users across websites, and collect information on them.
7050 As an HTML page is loaded by the browser, an embedded image tag causes the
7051 browser to contact a third-party site, disclosing the tracking information
7052 through the requested URL and/or cookies for that third-party domain, without
7053 the user ever becoming aware of the interaction with the third-party site.
7054 HTML-ized spam also uses a similar technique to verify email addresses.
7057 This filter removes the HTML code that loads such <quote>webbugs</quote>.
7063 <term><emphasis>tiny-textforms</emphasis></term>
7066 A rather special-purpose filter that can be used to enlarge textareas (those
7067 multi-line text boxes in web forms) and turn off hard word wrap in them.
7068 It was written for the sourceforge.net tracker system where such boxes are
7069 a nuisance, but it can be handy on other sites, too.
7072 It is not recommended to use this filter as a default.
7078 <term><emphasis>jumping-windows</emphasis></term>
7081 Many consider windows that move, or resize themselves to be abusive. This filter
7082 neutralizes the related JavaScript code. Note that some sites might not display
7083 or behave as intended when using this filter. Use with caution.
7089 <term><emphasis>frameset-borders</emphasis></term>
7092 Some web designers seem to assume that everyone in the world will view their
7093 web sites using the same browser brand and version, screen resolution etc,
7094 because only that assumption could explain why they'd use static frame sizes,
7095 yet prevent their frames from being resized by the user, should they be too
7096 small to show their whole content.
7099 This filter removes the related HTML code. It should only be applied to sites
7106 <term><emphasis>demoronizer</emphasis></term>
7109 Many Microsoft products that generate HTML use non-standard extensions (read:
7110 violations) of the ISO 8859-1 aka Latin-1 character set. This can cause those
7111 HTML documents to display with errors on standard-compliant platforms.
7114 This filter translates the MS-only characters into Latin-1 equivalents.
7115 It is not necessary when using MS products, and will cause corruption of
7116 all documents that use 8-bit character sets other than Latin-1. It's mostly
7117 worthwhile for Europeans on non-MS platforms, if weird garbage characters
7118 sometimes appear on some pages, or user agents that don't correct for this on
7121 My version of Mozilla (ancient) shows litte square boxes for quote
7122 characters, and apostrophes on moronized pages. So many pages have this, I
7123 can read them fine now. HB 08/27/06
7130 <term><emphasis>shockwave-flash</emphasis></term>
7133 A filter for shockwave haters. As the name suggests, this filter strips code
7134 out of web pages that is used to embed shockwave flash objects.
7142 <term><emphasis>quicktime-kioskmode</emphasis></term>
7145 Change HTML code that embeds Quicktime objects so that kioskmode, which
7146 prevents saving, is disabled.
7152 <term><emphasis>fun</emphasis></term>
7155 Text replacements for subversive browsing fun. Make fun of your favorite
7156 Monopolist or play buzzword bingo.
7162 <term><emphasis>crude-parental</emphasis></term>
7165 A demonstration-only filter that shows how <application>Privoxy</application>
7166 can be used to delete web content on a keyword basis.
7172 <term><emphasis>ie-exploits</emphasis></term>
7175 An experimental collection of text replacements to disable malicious HTML and JavaScript
7176 code that exploits known security holes in Internet Explorer.
7179 Presently, it only protects against Nimda and a cross-site scripting bug, and
7180 would need active maintenance to provide more substantial protection.
7186 <term><emphasis>site-specifics</emphasis></term>
7189 Some web sites have very specific problems, the cure for which doesn't apply
7190 anywhere else, or could even cause damage on other sites.
7193 This is a collection of such site-specific cures which should only be applied
7194 to the sites they were intended for, which is what the supplied
7195 <filename>default.action</filename> file does. Users shouldn't need to change
7196 anything regarding this filter.
7202 <term><emphasis>google</emphasis></term>
7205 A CSS based block for Google text ads. Also removes a width limitation
7206 and the toolbar advertisement.
7212 <term><emphasis>yahoo</emphasis></term>
7215 Another CSS based block, this time for Yahoo text ads. And removes
7216 a width limitation as well.
7222 <term><emphasis>msn</emphasis></term>
7225 Another CSS based block, this time for MSN text ads. And removes
7226 tracking URLs, as well as a width limitation.
7232 <term><emphasis>blogspot</emphasis></term>
7235 Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this one!
7238 This filter also intentionally removes some navigation stuff and sets the
7239 page width to 100%. As a result, some rounded <quote>corners</quote> would
7240 appear to early or not at all and as fixing this would require a browser
7241 that understands background-size (CSS3), they are removed instead.
7247 <term><emphasis>xml-to-html</emphasis></term>
7250 Header filter to change the Content-Type from xml to html.
7256 <term><emphasis>html-to-xml</emphasis></term>
7259 Header filter to change the Content-Type from html to xml.
7265 <term><emphasis>no-ping</emphasis></term>
7268 Removes the non-standard <literal>ping</literal> attribute from
7269 anchor and area HTML tags.
7275 <term><emphasis>hide-tor-exit-notation</emphasis></term>
7278 Header filter to remove the <command>Tor</command> exit node notation
7279 found in Host and Referer headers.
7286 <term><emphasis> </emphasis></term>
7300 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7304 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7306 <sect1 id="templates">
7307 <title>Privoxy's Template Files</title>
7309 All <application>Privoxy</application> built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
7310 <ulink url="http://show-the-404-error.page"><quote>404 - No Such Domain</quote>
7311 error page</ulink>, the <ulink
7312 url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
7314 and all pages of its <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
7315 user interface</ulink>, are generated from <emphasis>templates</emphasis>.
7316 (<application>Privoxy</application> must be running for the above links to work as
7321 These templates are stored in a subdirectory of the <link linkend="confdir">configuration
7322 directory</link> called <filename>templates</filename>. On Unixish platforms,
7324 <ulink url="file:///etc/privoxy/templates/"><filename>/etc/privoxy/templates/</filename></ulink>.
7328 The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols
7329 or exports), which <application>Privoxy</application> fills at run time. You can
7330 edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want to customize them.
7331 (<emphasis>Not recommended for the casual user</emphasis>). Note that
7332 just like in configuration files, lines starting with <literal>#</literal> are
7333 ignored when the templates are filled in.
7337 The place-holders are of the form <literal>@name@</literal>, and you will
7338 find a list of available symbols, which vary from template to template,
7339 in the comments at the start of each file. Note that these comments are not
7340 always accurate, and that it's probably best to look at the existing HTML
7341 code to find out which symbols are supported and what they are filled in with.
7345 A special application of this substitution mechanism is to make whole
7346 blocks of HTML code disappear when a specific symbol is set. We use this
7347 for many purposes, one of them being to include the beta warning in all
7348 our user interface (CGI) pages when <application>Privoxy</application>
7349 is in an alpha or beta development stage:
7354 <!-- @if-unstable-start -->
7356 ... beta warning HTML code goes here ...
7358 <!-- if-unstable-end@ --></screen>
7362 If the "unstable" symbol is set, everything in between and including
7363 <literal>@if-unstable-start</literal> and <literal>if-unstable-end@</literal>
7364 will disappear, leaving nothing but an empty comment:
7368 <screen><!-- --></screen>
7372 There's also an if-then-else construct and an <literal>#include</literal>
7373 mechanism, but you'll sure find out if you are inclined to edit the
7378 All templates refer to a style located at
7379 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet"><literal>http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet</literal></ulink>.
7380 This is, of course, locally served by <application>Privoxy</application>
7381 and the source for it can be found and edited in the
7382 <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> template.
7387 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7391 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7393 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
7396 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
7398 <!-- end boilerplate -->
7402 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7405 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7406 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Privoxy Copyright, License and History</title>
7408 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
7410 <!-- end copyright -->
7412 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7413 <sect2><title>License</title>
7414 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
7416 <!-- end copyright -->
7418 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7421 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7423 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
7424 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
7426 <!-- end history -->
7429 <sect2 id="authors"><title>Authors</title>
7430 <!-- Include p-authors.sgml: -->
7432 <!-- end authors -->
7437 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7440 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7441 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
7442 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
7444 <!-- end seealso -->
7449 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7450 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
7453 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7455 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
7457 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl-style <quote>regular
7458 expressions</quote> in its <link linkend="actions-file">actions
7459 files</link> and <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>,
7460 through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> and
7463 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/">PCRS</ulink> libraries.
7465 <application>PCRS</application> libraries.
7469 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
7470 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
7471 introduction only. A full explanation would require a <ulink
7472 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/">book</ulink> ;-)
7476 Regular expressions provide a language to describe patterns that can be
7477 run against strings of characters (letter, numbers, etc), to see if they
7478 match the string or not. The patterns are themselves (sometimes complex)
7479 strings of literal characters, combined with wild-cards, and other special
7480 characters, called meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have
7481 special meanings and are used to build complex patterns to be matched against.
7482 Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are an especially convenient
7483 <quote>dialect</quote> of the regular expression language.
7487 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
7488 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
7489 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
7490 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
7491 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
7492 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
7493 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
7494 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
7498 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
7499 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
7500 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
7501 and then some examples:
7506 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
7507 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
7509 </simplelist></para>
7513 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
7516 </simplelist></para>
7520 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
7523 </simplelist></para>
7527 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
7530 </simplelist></para>
7534 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
7535 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
7536 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
7537 not as a special meta-character. Example: <quote>example\.com</quote>, makes
7538 sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
7539 meta-character meaning of any single character).
7541 </simplelist></para>
7545 <emphasis>[ ]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
7546 any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, <quote>[0-9]</quote>
7547 matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
7548 this with <quote>+</quote> to match any digit one of more times: <quote>[0-9]+</quote>.
7550 </simplelist></para>
7554 <emphasis>( )</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
7555 or multiple sub-expressions.
7557 </simplelist></para>
7561 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
7562 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
7563 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches. As an example:
7564 <quote>/(this|that) example/</quote> uses grouping and the bar character
7565 and would match either <quote>this example</quote> or <quote>that
7566 example</quote>, and nothing else.
7568 </simplelist></para>
7571 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
7572 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
7573 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
7574 be more illuminating:
7578 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
7579 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
7580 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
7581 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
7582 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
7583 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
7584 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
7585 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
7586 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
7587 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
7588 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
7589 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
7590 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
7591 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
7596 And now something a little more complex:
7600 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
7601 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
7602 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
7603 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
7604 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
7605 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
7606 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
7611 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
7612 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
7613 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
7614 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
7615 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
7616 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
7617 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
7618 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
7619 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
7620 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
7621 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
7622 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
7623 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
7624 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
7625 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
7626 changing our regular expression to:
7627 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
7632 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
7633 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
7634 <quote>[ ]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
7635 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
7636 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
7637 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
7638 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
7639 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
7640 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
7641 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
7642 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
7643 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
7644 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
7645 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
7646 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
7647 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
7648 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
7649 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
7650 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
7651 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
7652 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
7653 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
7654 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
7655 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
7656 in the expression anywhere).
7660 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
7661 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
7662 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
7663 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
7664 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
7669 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
7670 <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html</ulink>
7674 For information on regular expression based substitutions and their applications
7675 in filters, please see the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file tutorial</link>
7680 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7683 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7685 <title>Privoxy's Internal Pages</title>
7688 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
7689 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
7690 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
7691 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
7692 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
7693 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
7694 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
7700 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
7701 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
7702 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
7703 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
7716 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
7720 There is a shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> (But it
7721 doesn't provide a fall-back to a real page, in case the request is not
7722 sent through <application>Privoxy</application>)
7728 Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
7729 editing of actions files:
7733 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
7740 Show the source code version numbers:
7744 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
7751 Show the browser's request headers:
7755 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
7762 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
7766 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
7773 Toggle Privoxy on or off. In this case, <quote>Privoxy</quote> continues
7774 to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking place:
7778 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
7782 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
7786 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
7791 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
7800 These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
7804 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
7805 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
7807 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
7808 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
7809 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
7810 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
7811 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
7812 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
7815 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
7816 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
7817 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
7818 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
7819 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
7820 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
7829 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>
7836 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>
7843 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)
7850 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>
7856 <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>
7862 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info?url='+escape(location.href),'Why').focus());">Privoxy - Why?</ulink>
7869 Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
7870 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com/">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
7871 have more information about bookmarklets.
7880 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7882 <title>Chain of Events</title>
7884 Let's take a quick look at how some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
7885 core features are triggered, and the ensuing sequence of events when a web
7886 page is requested by your browser:
7893 First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
7894 the request to <application>Privoxy</application>, which will in turn,
7895 relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
7901 <application>Privoxy</application> traps any request for its own internal CGI
7902 pages (e.g <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
7907 Next, <application>Privoxy</application> checks to see if the URL
7909 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link> patterns. If
7910 so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
7911 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>
7913 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-EMPTY-DOCUMENT"><quote>+handle-as-empty-document</quote></link>
7914 are then checked, and if there is no match, an
7915 HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page is sent back to the browser. Otherwise, if
7916 it does match, an image is returned for the former, and an empty text
7917 document for the latter. The type of image would depend on the setting of
7918 <link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></link>
7919 (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
7924 Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
7925 <filename>trust</filename> file, then that is done.
7930 If the URL pattern matches the <link
7931 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link> action,
7932 it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
7937 Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
7938 of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. <link
7939 linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT"><quote>+hide-user-agent</quote></link>,
7940 etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
7946 Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web
7952 First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
7953 things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
7954 filtered as determined by the
7955 <link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES"><quote>+crunch-incoming-cookies</quote></link>,
7956 <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>,
7957 and <link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION"><quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote></link>
7963 If the <link linkend="KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></link>
7964 action applies, and it is an HTML or JavaScript document, the popup-code in the
7965 response is filtered on-the-fly as it is received.
7970 If any <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
7972 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
7973 action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
7974 read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from
7975 <filename>default.filter</filename> and any other filter files) are
7976 processed against the buffered content. Filters are applied in the order
7977 they are specified in one of the filter files. Animated GIFs, if present,
7978 are reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
7979 setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
7980 <application>Privoxy</application> back to your browser.
7983 If neither a <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
7985 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
7986 matches, then <application>Privoxy</application> passes the raw data through
7987 to the client browser as it becomes available.
7992 As the browser receives the now (possibly filtered) page content, it
7993 reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
7994 source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
7995 frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a
7996 separate request (this is easily viewable in <application>Privoxy's</application>
7997 logs). And each such request is in turn processed just as above. Note that a
7998 complex web page will have many, many such embedded URLs. If these
7999 secondary requests are to a different server, then quite possibly a very
8000 differing set of actions is triggered.
8007 NOTE: This is somewhat of a simplistic overview of what happens with each URL
8008 request. For the sake of brevity and simplicity, we have focused on
8009 <application>Privoxy's</application> core features only.
8015 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8016 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
8017 <title>Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</title>
8020 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies
8021 <link linkend="ACTIONS">actions</link> and <link linkend="FILTER">filters</link>
8022 to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
8023 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
8024 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
8025 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
8026 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
8027 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
8028 <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> whose consequences are not
8033 One quick test to see if <application>Privoxy</application> is causing a problem
8034 or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
8035 step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
8036 and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!). Looking at the
8037 logs is a good idea too.
8040 Another easy troubleshooting step to try is if you have done any
8041 customization of your installation, revert back to the installed
8042 defaults and see if that helps. There are times the developers get complaints
8043 about one thing or another, and the problem is more related to a customized
8044 configuration issue.
8048 <application>Privoxy</application> also provides the
8049 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
8050 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
8051 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
8055 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
8056 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
8057 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
8058 help with filtering effects (i.e. the <link
8059 linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action) from
8060 one of the filter files since this is handled very
8061 differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other
8062 URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images
8063 such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So
8064 you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area
8065 -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you
8066 will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View
8067 Page Source</quote> option for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the
8072 Let's try an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
8073 and look at it one section at a time in a sample configuration (your real
8074 configuration may vary):
8079 Matches for http://google.com:
8081 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8085 -content-type-overwrite
8086 -crunch-client-header
8087 -crunch-if-none-match
8088 -crunch-incoming-cookies
8089 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
8090 -crunch-server-header
8091 +deanimate-gifs {last}
8092 -downgrade-http-version
8093 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
8095 -filter {content-cookies}
8096 -filter {all-popups}
8097 -filter {banners-by-link}
8098 -filter {tiny-textforms}
8099 -filter {frameset-borders}
8100 -filter {demoronizer}
8101 -filter {shockwave-flash}
8102 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
8104 -filter {crude-parental}
8105 -filter {site-specifics}
8106 -filter {js-annoyances}
8107 -filter {html-annoyances}
8108 +filter {refresh-tags}
8109 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
8110 +filter {img-reorder}
8111 +filter {banners-by-size}
8113 +filter {jumping-windows}
8114 +filter {ie-exploits}
8119 -filter {xml-to-html}
8120 -filter {html-to-xml}
8122 -filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
8123 -filter-client-headers
8124 -filter-server-headers
8126 -handle-as-empty-document
8128 -hide-accept-language
8129 -hide-content-disposition
8130 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
8131 +hide-from-header {block}
8132 -hide-if-modified-since
8133 +hide-referrer {forge}
8138 -overwrite-last-modified
8139 +prevent-compression
8143 +session-cookies-only
8144 +set-image-blocker {pattern}
8145 -treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks }
8148 { -session-cookies-only }
8154 In file: user.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8155 (no matches in this file)
8160 This is telling us how we have defined our
8161 <link linkend="ACTIONS"><quote>actions</quote></link>, and
8162 which ones match for our test case, <quote>google.com</quote>.
8163 Displayed is all the actions that are available to us. Remember,
8164 the <literal>+</literal> sign denotes <quote>on</quote>. <literal>-</literal>
8165 denotes <quote>off</quote>. So some are <quote>on</quote> here, but many
8166 are <quote>off</quote>. Each example we try may provide a slightly different
8167 end result, depending on our configuration directives.
8171 is for our <filename>default.action</filename> file. The large, multi-line
8172 listing, is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default
8173 settings. If you look at your <quote>actions</quote> file, this would be the
8174 section just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section near the top. This
8175 will apply to all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end
8176 of the listing -- <quote> / </quote>.
8180 But we have defined additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
8181 rules, and then we list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions
8182 would apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit
8183 matches for <quote>.google.com</quote>. The first is negating our previous
8184 cookie setting, which was for <link
8185 linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>
8186 (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google, at
8187 least that is how it is in this example. The second turns
8188 <emphasis>off</emphasis> any <link
8189 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link>
8190 action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading
8191 dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will match any hosts and
8192 sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
8193 <quote>www.google.com</quote> or <quote>mail.google.com</quote>. But it would not
8194 match <quote>www.google.de</quote>! So, apparently, we have these two actions
8195 defined as exceptions to the general rules at the top somewhere in the lower
8196 part of our <filename>default.action</filename> file, and
8197 <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced somewhere in these latter sections.
8201 Then, for our <filename>user.action</filename> file, we again have no hits.
8202 So there is nothing google-specific that we might have added to our own, local
8203 configuration. If there was, those actions would over-rule any actions from
8204 previously processed files, such as <filename>default.action</filename>.
8205 <filename>user.action</filename> typically has the last word. This is the
8206 best place to put hard and fast exceptions,
8210 And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
8211 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
8212 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
8223 -content-type-overwrite
8224 -crunch-client-header
8225 -crunch-if-none-match
8226 -crunch-incoming-cookies
8227 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
8228 -crunch-server-header
8229 +deanimate-gifs {last}
8230 -downgrade-http-version
8231 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
8233 -filter {content-cookies}
8234 -filter {all-popups}
8235 -filter {banners-by-link}
8236 -filter {tiny-textforms}
8237 -filter {frameset-borders}
8238 -filter {demoronizer}
8239 -filter {shockwave-flash}
8240 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
8242 -filter {crude-parental}
8243 -filter {site-specifics}
8244 -filter {js-annoyances}
8245 -filter {html-annoyances}
8246 +filter {refresh-tags}
8247 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
8248 +filter {img-reorder}
8249 +filter {banners-by-size}
8251 +filter {jumping-windows}
8252 +filter {ie-exploits}
8257 -filter {xml-to-html}
8258 -filter {html-to-xml}
8260 -filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
8261 -filter-client-headers
8262 -filter-server-headers
8264 -handle-as-empty-document
8266 -hide-accept-language
8267 -hide-content-disposition
8268 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
8269 +hide-from-header {block}
8270 -hide-if-modified-since
8271 +hide-referrer {forge}
8276 -overwrite-last-modified
8277 +prevent-compression
8281 -session-cookies-only
8282 +set-image-blocker {pattern}
8283 -treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks </screen>
8287 Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
8288 <quote>fast-redirects</quote> and <quote>session-cookies-only</quote>,
8289 which are activated specifically for this site in our configuration,
8290 and thus show in the <quote>Final Results</quote>.
8294 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
8306 { +block +handle-as-image }
8307 .[a-vx-z]*.doubleclick.net
8312 We'll just show the interesting part here - the explicit matches. It is
8313 matched three different times. Two <quote>+block</quote> sections,
8314 and a <quote>+block +handle-as-image</quote>,
8315 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
8316 <quote>+block-as-image</quote>. (<link
8317 linkend="ALIASES"><quote>Aliases</quote></link> are defined in
8318 the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
8323 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
8324 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
8325 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
8326 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
8327 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
8328 is done here -- as both a <link
8329 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link>
8330 <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
8331 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>.
8332 The custom alias <quote><literal>+block-as-image</literal></quote> just
8333 simplifies the process and make it more readable.
8337 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
8338 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm ...
8344 Matches for http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
8346 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8350 -content-type-overwrite
8351 -crunch-client-header
8352 -crunch-if-none-match
8353 -crunch-incoming-cookies
8354 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
8355 -crunch-server-header
8357 -downgrade-http-version
8358 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
8360 -filter {content-cookies}
8361 -filter {all-popups}
8362 -filter {banners-by-link}
8363 -filter {tiny-textforms}
8364 -filter {frameset-borders}
8365 -filter {demoronizer}
8366 -filter {shockwave-flash}
8367 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
8369 -filter {crude-parental}
8370 -filter {site-specifics}
8371 -filter {js-annoyances}
8372 -filter {html-annoyances}
8373 +filter {refresh-tags}
8374 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
8375 +filter {img-reorder}
8376 +filter {banners-by-size}
8378 +filter {jumping-windows}
8379 +filter {ie-exploits}
8384 -filter {xml-to-html}
8385 -filter {html-to-xml}
8387 -filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
8388 -filter-client-headers
8389 -filter-server-headers
8391 -handle-as-empty-document
8393 -hide-accept-language
8394 -hide-content-disposition
8395 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
8396 +hide-from-header{block}
8397 +hide-referer{forge}
8401 -overwrite-last-modified
8402 +prevent-compression
8406 +session-cookies-only
8407 +set-image-blocker{blank}
8408 -treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks }
8411 { +block +handle-as-image }
8417 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote> in our
8418 configuration! But we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the
8419 blank page. It is actually triggering two different actions here, and
8420 the effects are aggregated so that the URL is blocked, and &my-app; is told
8421 to treat the block as if it were an image. But this is, of course, all wrong.
8422 We could now add a new action below this (or better in our own
8423 <filename>user.action</filename> file) that explicitly
8424 <emphasis>un</emphasis> blocks (
8425 <link linkend="BLOCK"><quote>{-block}</quote></link>) paths with
8426 <quote>adsl</quote> in them (remember, last match in the configuration
8427 wins). There are various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
8439 Now the page displays ;-)
8440 Remember to flush your browser's caches when making these kinds of changes to
8441 your configuration to insure that you get a freshly delivered page! Or, try
8442 using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
8446 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
8453 { +block +handle-as-image }
8459 That actually was very helpful and pointed us quickly to where the problem
8460 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
8461 rules in the first section of <filename>default.action</filename> is causing
8462 the problem. This would require some guesswork, and maybe a little trial and
8463 error to isolate the offending rule. One likely cause would be one of the
8464 <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> actions.
8465 These tend to be harder to troubleshoot.
8466 Try adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off
8467 <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>:
8475 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
8483 <quote><literal>{ shop }</literal></quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
8484 <quote><literal>{ -filter -session-cookies-only }</literal></quote>.
8485 Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
8493 # Disable ALL filter actions for sites in this section
8501 This would turn off all filtering for these sites. This is best
8502 put in <filename>user.action</filename>, for local site
8503 exceptions. Note that when a simple domain pattern is used by itself (without
8504 the subsequent path portion), all sub-pages within that domain are included
8505 automatically in the scope of the action.
8509 Images that are inexplicably being blocked, may well be hitting the
8510 <link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE"><quote>+filter{banners-by-size}</quote></link>
8512 that images of certain sizes are ad banners (works well
8513 <emphasis>most of the time</emphasis> since these tend to be standardized).
8517 <quote><literal>{ fragile }</literal></quote> is an alias that disables most
8518 actions that are the most likely to cause trouble. This can be used as a
8519 last resort for problem sites.
8525 # Handle with care: easy to break
8527 mybank.example.com</screen>
8532 <emphasis>Remember to flush caches!</emphasis> Note that the
8533 <literal>mail.google</literal> reference lacks the TLD portion (e.g.
8534 <quote>.com</quote>. This will effectively match any TLD with
8535 <literal>google</literal> in it, such as <literal>mail.google.de</literal>,
8539 If this still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining
8540 actions one by one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
8549 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
8550 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
8551 Public License as published by the Free Software
8552 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
8553 your option) any later version.
8555 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
8556 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
8557 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
8558 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
8559 License for more details.
8561 The GNU General Public License should be included with
8562 this file. If not, you can view it at
8563 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
8564 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
8565 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301,
8568 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
8569 Revision 2.27 2006/11/14 01:57:47 hal9
8570 Dump all docs prior to 3.0.6 release. Various minor changes to faq and user
8573 Revision 2.26 2006/10/24 11:16:44 hal9
8576 Revision 2.25 2006/10/18 10:50:33 hal9
8577 Add note that since filters are off in Cautious, compression is ON. Turn off
8578 compression to make filters work on all sites.
8580 Revision 2.24 2006/10/03 11:13:54 hal9
8581 More references to the new filters. Include html this time around.
8583 Revision 2.23 2006/10/02 22:43:53 hal9
8584 Contains new filter definitions from Fabian, and few other miscellaneous
8587 Revision 2.22 2006/09/22 01:27:55 hal9
8588 Final commit of probably various minor changes here and there. Unless
8589 something changes this should be ready for pending release.
8591 Revision 2.21 2006/09/20 03:21:36 david__schmidt
8592 Just the tiniest tweak. Wafer thin!
8594 Revision 2.20 2006/09/10 14:53:54 hal9
8595 Results of spell check. User manual has some updates to standard.actions file
8598 Revision 2.19 2006/09/08 12:19:02 fabiankeil
8599 Adjust hide-if-modified-since example values
8600 to reflect the recent changes.
8602 Revision 2.18 2006/09/08 02:38:57 hal9
8604 -Fix a number of broken links.
8605 -Migrate the new Windows service command line options, and reference as
8607 -Rebuild so that can be used with the new "user-manual" config capabilities.
8610 Revision 2.17 2006/09/05 13:25:12 david__schmidt
8611 Add Windows service invocation stuff (duplicated) in FAQ and in user manual under Windows startup. One probably ought to reference the other.
8613 Revision 2.16 2006/09/02 12:49:37 hal9
8614 Various small updates for new actions, filterfiles, etc.
8616 Revision 2.15 2006/08/30 11:15:22 hal9
8617 More work on the new actions, especially filter-*-headers, and What's New
8618 section. User Manual is close to final form for 3.0.4 release. Some tinkering
8619 and proof reading left to do.
8621 Revision 2.14 2006/08/29 10:59:36 hal9
8622 Add a "Whats New in this release" Section. Further work on multiple filter
8623 files, and assorted other minor changes.
8625 Revision 2.13 2006/08/22 11:04:59 hal9
8626 Silence warnings and errors. This should build now. New filters were only
8627 stubbed in. More to be done.
8629 Revision 2.12 2006/08/14 08:40:39 fabiankeil
8630 Documented new actions that were part of
8631 the "minor Privoxy improvements".
8633 Revision 2.11 2006/07/18 14:48:51 david__schmidt
8634 Reorganizing the repository: swapping out what was HEAD (the old 3.1 branch)
8635 with what was really the latest development (the v_3_0_branch branch)
8637 Revision 1.123.2.43 2005/05/23 09:59:10 hal9
8640 Revision 1.123.2.42 2004/12/04 14:39:57 hal9
8641 Fix two minor typos per bug SF report.
8643 Revision 1.123.2.41 2004/03/23 12:58:42 oes
8646 Revision 1.123.2.40 2004/02/27 12:48:49 hal9
8647 Add comment re: redirecting to local file system for set-image-blocker may
8648 is dependent on browser.
8650 Revision 1.123.2.39 2004/01/30 22:31:40 oes
8651 Added a hint re bookmarklets to Quickstart section
8653 Revision 1.123.2.38 2004/01/30 16:47:51 oes
8654 Some minor clarifications
8656 Revision 1.123.2.37 2004/01/29 22:36:11 hal9
8657 Updates for no longer filtering text/plain, and demoronizer default settings,
8658 and copyright notice dates.
8660 Revision 1.123.2.36 2003/12/10 02:26:26 hal9
8661 Changed the demoronizer filter description.
8663 Revision 1.123.2.35 2003/11/06 13:36:37 oes
8664 Updated link to nightly CVS tarball
8666 Revision 1.123.2.34 2003/06/26 23:50:16 hal9
8667 Add a small bit on filtering and problems re: source code being corrupted.
8669 Revision 1.123.2.33 2003/05/08 18:17:33 roro
8670 Use apt-get instead of dpkg to install Debian package, which is more
8671 solid, uses the correct and most recent Debian version automatically.
8673 Revision 1.123.2.32 2003/04/11 03:13:57 hal9
8674 Add small note about only one filterfile (as opposed to multiple actions
8677 Revision 1.123.2.31 2003/03/26 02:03:43 oes
8678 Updated hard-coded copyright dates
8680 Revision 1.123.2.30 2003/03/24 12:58:56 hal9
8681 Add new section on Predefined Filters.
8683 Revision 1.123.2.29 2003/03/20 02:45:29 hal9
8684 More problems with \-\-chroot causing markup problems :(
8686 Revision 1.123.2.28 2003/03/19 00:35:24 hal9
8687 Manual edit of revision log because 'chroot' (even inside a comment) was
8688 causing Docbook to hang here (due to double hyphen and the processor thinking
8691 Revision 1.123.2.27 2003/03/18 19:37:14 oes
8692 s/Advanced|Radical/Adventuresome/g to avoid complaints re fun filter
8694 Revision 1.123.2.26 2003/03/17 16:50:53 oes
8695 Added documentation for new chroot option
8697 Revision 1.123.2.25 2003/03/15 18:36:55 oes
8698 Adapted to the new filters
8700 Revision 1.123.2.24 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9
8701 Move default profiles table from FAQ to U-M, and other minor related changes.
8704 Revision 1.123.2.23 2002/10/21 02:32:01 hal9
8705 Updates to the user.action examples section. A few new ones.
8707 Revision 1.123.2.22 2002/10/12 00:51:53 hal9
8708 Add demoronizer to filter section.
8710 Revision 1.123.2.21 2002/10/10 04:09:35 hal9
8711 s/Advanced/Radical/ and added very brief note.
8713 Revision 1.123.2.20 2002/10/10 03:49:21 hal9
8714 Add notes to session-cookies-only and Quickstart about pre-existing
8715 cookies. Also, note content-cookies work differently.
8717 Revision 1.123.2.19 2002/09/26 01:25:36 hal9
8718 More explanation on Privoxy patterns, more on content-cookies and SSL.
8720 Revision 1.123.2.18 2002/08/22 23:47:58 hal9
8721 Add 'Documentation' to Privoxy Menu shot in Configuration section to match
8724 Revision 1.123.2.17 2002/08/18 01:13:05 hal9
8725 Spell checked (only one typo this time!).
8727 Revision 1.123.2.16 2002/08/09 19:20:54 david__schmidt
8728 Update to Mac OSX startup script name
8730 Revision 1.123.2.15 2002/08/07 17:32:11 oes
8731 Converted some internal links from ulink to link for PDF creation; no content changed
8733 Revision 1.123.2.14 2002/08/06 09:16:13 oes
8734 Nits re: actions file download
8736 Revision 1.123.2.13 2002/08/02 18:23:19 g_sauthoff
8737 Just 2 small corrections to the Gentoo sections
8739 Revision 1.123.2.12 2002/08/02 18:17:21 g_sauthoff
8740 Added 2 Gentoo sections
8742 Revision 1.123.2.11 2002/07/26 15:20:31 oes
8743 - Added version info to title
8744 - Added info on new filters
8745 - Revised parts of the filter file tutorial
8746 - Added info on where to get updated actions files
8748 Revision 1.123.2.10 2002/07/25 21:42:29 hal9
8749 Add brief notes on not proxying non-HTTP protocols.
8751 Revision 1.123.2.9 2002/07/11 03:40:28 david__schmidt
8753 Updated Mac OSX sections due to installation location change
8755 Revision 1.123.2.8 2002/06/09 16:36:32 hal9
8756 Clarifications on filtering and MIME. Hardcode 'latest release' in index.html.
8758 Revision 1.123.2.7 2002/06/09 00:29:34 hal9
8759 Touch ups on filtering, in actions section and Anatomy.
8761 Revision 1.123.2.6 2002/06/06 23:11:03 hal9
8762 Fix broken link. Linkchecked all docs.
8764 Revision 1.123.2.5 2002/05/29 02:01:02 hal9
8765 This is break out of the entire config section from u-m, so it can
8766 eventually be used to generate the comments, etc in the main config file
8767 so that these are in sync with each other.
8769 Revision 1.123.2.4 2002/05/27 03:28:45 hal9
8770 Ooops missed something from David.
8772 Revision 1.123.2.3 2002/05/27 03:23:17 hal9
8773 Fix FIXMEs for OS2 and OSX startup. Fix Redhat typos (should be Red Hat).
8774 That's a wrap, I think.
8776 Revision 1.123.2.2 2002/05/26 19:02:09 hal9
8777 Move Amiga stuff around to take of FIXME in start up section.
8779 Revision 1.123.2.1 2002/05/26 17:04:25 hal9
8780 -Spellcheck, very minor edits, and sync across branches
8782 Revision 1.123 2002/05/24 23:19:23 hal9
8783 Include new image (Proxy setup). More fun with guibutton.
8784 Minor corrections/clarifications here and there.
8786 Revision 1.122 2002/05/24 13:24:08 oes
8787 Added Bookmarklet for one-click pre-filled access to show-url-info
8789 Revision 1.121 2002/05/23 23:20:17 oes
8790 - Changed more (all?) references to actions to the
8791 <literal><link> style.
8792 - Small fixes in the actions chapter
8793 - Small clarifications in the quickstart to ad blocking
8794 - Removed <emphasis> from <title>s since the new doc CSS
8795 renders them red (bad in TOC).
8797 Revision 1.120 2002/05/23 19:16:43 roro
8798 Correct Debian specials (installation and startup).
8800 Revision 1.119 2002/05/22 17:17:05 oes
8803 Revision 1.118 2002/05/21 04:54:55 hal9
8804 -New Section: Quickstart to Ad Blocking
8805 -Reformat Actions Anatomy to match new CGI layout
8807 Revision 1.117 2002/05/17 13:56:16 oes
8808 - Reworked & extended Templates chapter
8809 - Small changes to Regex appendix
8810 - #included authors.sgml into (C) and hist chapter
8812 Revision 1.116 2002/05/17 03:23:46 hal9
8813 Fixing merge conflict in Quickstart section.
8815 Revision 1.115 2002/05/16 16:25:00 oes
8816 Extended the Filter File chapter & minor fixes
8818 Revision 1.114 2002/05/16 09:42:50 oes
8819 More ulink->link, added some hints to Quickstart section
8821 Revision 1.113 2002/05/15 21:07:25 oes
8822 Extended and further commented the example actions files
8824 Revision 1.112 2002/05/15 03:57:14 hal9
8825 Spell check. A few minor edits here and there for better syntax and
8828 Revision 1.111 2002/05/14 23:01:36 oes
8831 Revision 1.110 2002/05/14 19:10:45 oes
8832 Restored alphabetical order of actions
8834 Revision 1.109 2002/05/14 17:23:11 oes
8835 Renamed the prevent-*-cookies actions, extended aliases section and moved it before the example AFs
8837 Revision 1.108 2002/05/14 15:29:12 oes
8838 Completed proofreading the actions chapter
8840 Revision 1.107 2002/05/12 03:20:41 hal9
8841 Small clarifications for 127.0.0.1 vs localhost for listen-address since this
8842 apparently an important distinction for some OS's.
8844 Revision 1.106 2002/05/10 01:48:20 hal9
8845 This is mostly proposed copyright/licensing additions and changes. Docs
8846 are still GPL, but licensing and copyright are more visible. Also, copyright
8847 changed in doc header comments (eliminate references to JB except FAQ).
8849 Revision 1.105 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
8850 Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
8852 Revision 1.104 2002/05/04 08:44:45 swa
8855 Revision 1.103 2002/05/04 00:40:53 hal9
8856 -Remove the TOC first page kludge. It's fixed proper now in ldp.dsl.in.
8857 -Some minor additions to Quickstart.
8859 Revision 1.102 2002/05/03 17:46:00 oes
8860 Further proofread & reactivated short build instructions
8862 Revision 1.101 2002/05/03 03:58:30 hal9
8863 Move the user-manual config directive to top of section. Add note about
8864 Privoxy needing read permissions for configs, and write for logs.
8866 Revision 1.100 2002/04/29 03:05:55 hal9
8867 Add clarification on differences of new actions files.
8869 Revision 1.99 2002/04/28 16:59:05 swa
8870 more structure in starting section
8872 Revision 1.98 2002/04/28 05:43:59 hal9
8873 This is the break up of configuration.html into multiple files. This
8874 will probably break links elsewhere :(
8876 Revision 1.97 2002/04/27 21:04:42 hal9
8877 -Rewrite of Actions File example.
8878 -Add section for user-manual directive in config.
8880 Revision 1.96 2002/04/27 05:32:00 hal9
8881 -Add short section to Filter Files to tie in with +filter action.
8882 -Start rewrite of examples in Actions Examples (not finished).
8884 Revision 1.95 2002/04/26 17:23:29 swa
8885 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
8887 Revision 1.94 2002/04/26 05:24:36 hal9
8888 -Add most of Andreas suggestions to Chain of Events section.
8889 -A few other minor corrections and touch up.
8891 Revision 1.92 2002/04/25 18:55:13 hal9
8892 More catchups on new actions files, and new actions names.
8893 Other assorted cleanups, and minor modifications.
8895 Revision 1.91 2002/04/24 02:39:31 hal9
8896 Add 'Chain of Events' section.
8898 Revision 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 hal9
8899 Linuxconf is deprecated on RH, substitute chkconfig.
8901 Revision 1.89 2002/04/23 21:05:28 oes
8902 Added hint for startup on Red Hat
8904 Revision 1.88 2002/04/23 05:37:54 hal9
8905 Add AmigaOS install stuff.
8907 Revision 1.87 2002/04/23 02:53:15 david__schmidt
8908 Updated OSX installation section
8909 Added a few English tweaks here an there
8911 Revision 1.86 2002/04/21 01:46:32 hal9
8912 Re-write actions section.
8914 Revision 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9
8915 Fix ugly typo (mine).
8917 Revision 1.84 2002/04/18 21:17:13 hal9
8918 Spell Redhat correctly (ie Red Hat). A few minor grammar corrections.
8920 Revision 1.83 2002/04/18 18:21:12 oes
8921 Added RPM install detail
8923 Revision 1.82 2002/04/18 12:04:50 oes
8926 Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
8927 Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
8929 Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
8930 Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
8932 Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
8933 Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
8935 Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
8938 Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
8939 Proofreading, part one
8941 Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
8942 -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
8943 -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
8945 Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
8946 Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
8948 Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
8949 Add small section on submitting actions.
8951 Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
8954 Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
8955 Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
8957 Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
8958 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
8960 Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
8963 Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
8964 -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
8965 -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
8966 -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
8967 -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
8969 Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
8970 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
8972 Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
8973 more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
8975 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
8976 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
8977 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
8978 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
8979 eventually be set by Makefile.
8980 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
8982 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
8983 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
8985 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
8986 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
8988 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
8989 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
8991 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
8992 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
8993 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
8994 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
8996 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
8999 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
9000 Added more to Anatomy section.
9002 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
9003 Touch up intro for new name.
9005 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
9006 we have a new homepage!
9008 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
9009 A few minor catch ups with name change.
9011 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
9012 configure needs to be generated.
9014 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
9015 we are too lazy to make a block-built
9016 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
9018 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
9019 name change related issue.
9021 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
9022 name change. changed filenames.
9024 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
9027 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
9028 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
9029 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
9030 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
9031 comments and remarks to history untouched.
9033 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
9036 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
9037 New section in Appendix.
9039 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
9040 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
9042 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
9043 correct feedback channels
9045 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
9046 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
9048 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
9051 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
9052 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
9054 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
9055 Added imageblock{pattern}.
9057 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
9060 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
9061 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
9063 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
9064 provide correct feedback channels
9066 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
9067 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
9069 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
9070 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
9072 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
9073 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
9075 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
9076 Add new - - user option.
9078 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
9079 Added section on command line options.
9081 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
9082 Changed default port to 8118
9084 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
9085 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
9087 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
9088 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
9089 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
9092 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
9095 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
9096 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
9098 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
9099 Update OS/2 build section
9101 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
9102 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
9103 will work - no other changes are needed.
9105 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
9106 Added a very short section on Templates
9108 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
9109 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
9111 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
9112 Touch ups for *.action files.
9114 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
9117 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
9118 Updates for recent changes.
9120 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
9121 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
9123 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
9124 Correct 2 minor errors
9126 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
9127 *** empty log message ***
9129 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
9130 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
9132 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
9133 wrong url in documentation
9135 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
9136 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
9138 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
9141 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
9144 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
9147 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
9148 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
9150 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
9151 Some additions, and re-arranging.
9153 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
9156 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
9157 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
9159 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
9162 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
9163 source files for junkbuster documentation
9165 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
9166 first proposal of a structure.
9168 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
9169 docs should have an author.
9171 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
9172 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.