X-Git-Url: http://www.privoxy.org/gitweb/?a=blobdiff_plain;f=doc%2Fsource%2Fuser-manual.sgml;h=5df5080cafe3944529099504f556b3fb31bcf22c;hb=ddd75639bb6111a5ab287cbd1868cc4a169eba24;hp=7c4ffd4b96899fe76eafdfb375d8c5a305dee3a9;hpb=77c34097a03865e0d6c2f2ffb23d4a32d81cfeba;p=privoxy.git diff --git a/doc/source/user-manual.sgml b/doc/source/user-manual.sgml index 7c4ffd4b..5df5080c 100644 --- a/doc/source/user-manual.sgml +++ b/doc/source/user-manual.sgml @@ -11,11 +11,11 @@ - - + + - + @@ -24,6 +24,8 @@ + +Privoxy"> ]> - Copyright &my-copy; 2001, 2002 by + Copyright &my-copy; 2001-2010 by Privoxy Developers -$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.5 2002/10/10 03:50:38 hal9 Exp $ +$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.130 2010/12/01 19:28:28 fabiankeil Exp $ @@ -97,9 +88,9 @@ Hal. ]]> - The User Manual gives users information on how to + The Privoxy User Manual gives users information on how to install, configure and use Privoxy. + url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy. @@ -107,7 +98,7 @@ Hal. - You can find the latest version of the User Manual at Privoxy User Manual at http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/. Please see the Contact section on how to contact the developers. @@ -124,10 +115,11 @@ Hal. Introduction This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of - Privoxy, v.&p-version;Privoxy, v.&p-version;. @@ -137,17 +129,19 @@ Hal. Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with CVS sources). And there may be bugs, though hopefully - not many! Please find them! + not many! ]]> Features - In addition to Internet Junkbuster's traditional - features of ad and banner blocking and cookie management, - Privoxy provides new features: + In addition to the core + features of ad blocking and + cookie management, + Privoxy provides many supplemental + features, + that give the end-user more control, more privacy and more freedom: &newfeatures; @@ -171,13 +165,11 @@ Hal. - Note: If you have a previous Junkbuster or - Privoxy installation on your system, you - will need to remove it. On some platforms, this may be done for you as part - of their installation procedure. (See below for your platform). In any case - be sure to backup your old configuration if it is valuable to - you. See the note to - upgraders section below. + Note: + On some platforms, the installer may remove previously installed versions, if + found. (See below for your platform). In any case be sure to backup + your old configuration if it is valuable to you. See the note to upgraders section below. @@ -186,8 +178,10 @@ Hal. How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system: + + -Red Hat, SuSE and Conectiva RPMs +Red Hat and Fedora RPMs RPMs can be installed with rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm, @@ -199,8 +193,7 @@ How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system: Note that on Red Hat, Privoxy will not be automatically started on system boot. You will need to enable that using chkconfig, - ntsysv, or similar methods. Note that SuSE will -automatically start Privoxy in the boot process. + ntsysv, or similar methods. @@ -213,17 +206,16 @@ automatically start Privoxy in the boot process. Also note that if you have a Junkbuster RPM installed on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict. Otherwise, RPM will try to remove Junkbuster - automatically, before installing Privoxy. + automatically if found, before installing Privoxy. -Debian +Debian and Ubuntu - DEBs can be installed with dpkg -i - privoxy_&p-version;-1.deb, and will use - /etc/privoxy for the location of configuration - files. + DEBs can be installed with apt-get install privoxy, + and will use /etc/privoxy for the location of + configuration files. @@ -233,13 +225,45 @@ automatically start Privoxy in the boot process. Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through the installation process. You will find the configuration files - in the same directory as you installed Privoxy in. We do not - use the registry of Windows. + in the same directory as you installed Privoxy in. + + + Version 3.0.5 beta introduced full Windows service + functionality. On Windows only, the Privoxy + program has two new command line arguments to install and uninstall + Privoxy as a service. + + + + Arguments: + + + --install[:service_name] + + + --uninstall[:service_name] + + + + + + After invoking Privoxy with + --install, you will need to bring up the + Windows service console to assign the user you + want Privoxy to run under, and whether or not you + want it to run whenever the system starts. You can start the + Windows services console with the following + command: services.msc. If you do not take the manual step + of modifying Privoxy's service settings, it will + not start. Note too that you will need to give Privoxy a user account that + actually exists, or it will not be permitted to + write to its log and configuration files. + -Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX +Solaris <!--, NetBSD, HP-UX--> Create a new directory, cd to it, then unzip and @@ -275,32 +299,24 @@ automatically start Privoxy in the boot process. -Mac OSX - - Unzip the downloaded file (you can either double-click on the file - from the finder, or from the desktop if you downloaded it there). - Then, double-click on the package installer icon named - Privoxy.pkg - and follow the installation process. - Privoxy will be installed in the folder - /Library/Privoxy. - It will start automatically whenever you start up. To prevent it from - starting automatically, remove or rename the folder - /Library/StartupItems/Privoxy. - +Mac OS X - To start Privoxy by hand, double-click on - StartPrivoxy.command in the - /Library/Privoxy folder. - Or, type this command in the Terminal: + Unzip the downloaded file (you can either double-click on the zip file + icon from the Finder, or from the desktop if you downloaded it there). + Then, double-click on the package installer icon and follow the + installation process. - - /Library/Privoxy/StartPrivoxy.command - + The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful + installation (in addition to every time your computer starts up). To + prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your + computer starts up, remove or rename the folder named + /Library/StartupItems/Privoxy. - You will be prompted for the administrator password. + To manually start or stop the privoxy service, use the Privoxy Utility + for Mac OS X. This application controls the privoxy service (e.g. + starting and stopping the service as well as uninstalling the software). @@ -314,6 +330,25 @@ automatically start Privoxy in the boot process. + +FreeBSD + + + Privoxy is part of FreeBSD's Ports Collection, you can build and install + it with cd /usr/ports/www/privoxy; make install clean. + + + If you don't use the ports, you can fetch and install + the package with pkg_add -r privoxy. + + + The port skeleton and the package can also be downloaded from the + File Release + Page, but there's no reason to use them unless you're interested in the + beta releases which are only available there. + + + Gentoo @@ -324,7 +359,7 @@ automatically start Privoxy in the boot process. Before installing Privoxy under Gentoo just do - first emerge rsync to get the latest changes from the + first emerge --sync to get the latest changes from the Portage tree. With emerge privoxy you install the latest version. @@ -342,7 +377,8 @@ automatically start Privoxy in the boot process. The most convenient way to obtain the Privoxy sources - is to download the source tarball from our project + is to download the source tarball from our + project download page. @@ -350,9 +386,13 @@ automatically start Privoxy in the boot process. If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute version directly from the - CVS repository or simply download the nightly CVS + CVS repository. + @@ -378,10 +418,11 @@ automatically start Privoxy in the boot process. - In order not to loose your personal changes and adjustments when updating + In order not to lose your personal changes and adjustments when updating to the latest default.action file we strongly - recommend that you use user.action for your - customization of Privoxy. See the that you use user.action and + user.filter for your local + customizations of Privoxy. See the Chapter on actions files for details. @@ -393,312 +434,911 @@ automatically start Privoxy in the boot process. - -Note to Upgraders - - There are very significant changes from earlier - Junkbuster versions to the current - Privoxy. The number, names, syntax, and - purposes of configuration files have substantially changed. - Junkbuster 2.0.x configuration - files will not migrate, Junkbuster 2.9.x - and Privoxy configurations will need to be - ported. The functionalities of the old blockfile, - cookiefile and imagelist - are now combined into the actions - files. - default.action, is the main actions file. Local - exceptions should best be put into user.action. - + +What's New in this Release - A filter file (typically - default.filter) is new as of Privoxy - 2.9.x, and provides some of the new sophistication (explained - below). config is much the same as before. - - - If upgrading from a 2.0.x version, you will have to use the new config - files, and possibly adapt any personal rules from your older files. - When porting personal rules over from the old blockfile - to the new actions files, please note that even the pattern syntax has - changed. If upgrading from 2.9.x development versions, it is still - recommended to use the new configuration files. - - - A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading: + Privoxy 3.0.17 is a stable release. + The changes since 3.0.16 stable are: - - - - The default listening port is now 8118 due to a conflict with another - service (NAS). - - - - - Some installers may remove earlier versions completely. Save any - important configuration files! - - - - - Privoxy is controllable with a web browser - at the special URL: http://config.privoxy.org/ - (Shortcut: http://p.p/). Many - aspects of configuration can be done here, including temporarily disabling - Privoxy. - - - - - The primary configuration files for cookie management, ad and banner - blocking, and many other aspects of Privoxy - configuration are the actions - files. It is strongly recommended to become familiar with the new - actions concept below, before modifying these files. Locally defined rules - should go into user.action. - - - - - - Some installers may not automatically start - Privoxy after installation. - - - - - - - - -Quickstart to Using <application>Privoxy</application> - - - - - - If upgrading, from versions before 2.9.16, please back up any configuration - files. See the Note to Upgraders Section. - - - - - - Install Privoxy. See the Installation Section below for platform specific - information. - - - - - - Advanced users and those who want to offer Privoxy - service to more than just their local machine should check the main config file, especially the security-relevant options. These are - off by default. - - - - - - Start Privoxy, if the installation program has - not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section - Starting Privoxy. - - - - - - Set your browser to use Privoxy as HTTP and - HTTPS (SSL) proxy by setting the proxy configuration for address of - 127.0.0.1 and port 8118. - (Junkbuster and earlier versions of - Privoxy used port 8000.) See the section Starting Privoxy below - for more details on this. - - - - - - Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images. - If using Privoxy to manage cookies, you should - remove any currently stored cookies too. - - - - - - A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for - most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the - configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little - to no initial configuration is required in most cases. - - - See the Configuration section for more - configuration options, and how to customize your installation. - next section for a quick - introduction to how Privoxy blocks ads and - banners.]]> - - - - - - If you experience ads that slipped through, innocent images that are - blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune - Privoxy's behaviour, take a look at the actions files. As a quick start, you might - find the richly commented examples - helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the web-based user interface. The - Appendix Anatomy of an - Action has hints how to debug actions that - misbehave. - - - - - - Please see the section Contacting the - Developers on how to report bugs or problems with websites or to get - help. - - - - - - Now enjoy surfing with enhanced comfort and privacy! - - - - - - - - - - -Quickstart to Ad Blocking - - - Ad blocking is but one of Privoxy's - array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced - user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody. - - - This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so - you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive - information provided below, though this is highly recommended. - - - First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the - more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block - things that were not intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want - extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more - problem sites, and to spend more time adjusting the - configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is - not an easy way to eliminate all ads. Either take - the easy way and settle for most ads blocked with the - default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing - habits and preferences. - - - Secondly, a brief explanation of Privoxy's - actions. Actions in this context, are - the directives we use to tell Privoxy to perform - some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell - Privoxy to take some action. Each - action has a unique name and function. While there are many potential - actions in Privoxy's - arsenal, only a few are used for ad blocking. Actions, and action - configuration files, are explained in depth below. - - - Actions are specified in Privoxy's configuration, - followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs - can actually be URL type patterns that use - wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs. The - actions, together with the URL patterns are called a section. - - - When you connect to a website, the full URL will either match one or more - of the sections as defined in Privoxy's configuration, - or not. If so, then Privoxy will perform the - respective actions. If not, then nothing special happens. Furthermore, web - pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your web browser will - use to load additional components of the page, as it parses the - original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just an URL - embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server, - or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many - such embedded URLs. - - - - The actions we need to know about for ad blocking are: block, handle-as-image, and - set-image-blocker: - - - - - - - - block - this action stops - any contact between your browser and any URL patterns that match this - action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads, but also anything - that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply stops any - communication with the remote server and sends Privoxy's - own built-in BLOCKED page instead to let you now what has happened. - - - - - - handle-as-image - - tells Privoxy to treat this URL as an image. - Privoxy's default configuration already does this - for all common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this - is not so easy to determine. So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly - important for ad blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of - some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the - Privoxy BLOCKED page (which would only result in - a broken image icon). There are some limitations to this - though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an image substitution for - an entire HTML page in most situations. - - - - - - set-image-blocker - tells - Privoxy what to display in place of an ad image that - has hit a block rule. For this to come into play, the URL must match a - block action somewhere in the - configuration, and, it must also match an - handle-as-image action. - - - The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are: - - - -    pattern - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad + + Fixed last-chunk-detection for responses where the content was small + enough to be read with the body, causing Privoxy to wait for the + end of the content until the server closed the connection or the + request timed out. Reported by "Karsten" in #3028326. + + + + + Responses with status code 204 weren't properly detected as body-less + like RFC2616 mandates. Like the previous bug, this caused Privoxy to + wait for the end of the content until the server closed the connection + or the request timed out. Fixes #3022042 and #3025553, reported by a + user with no visible name. Most likely also fixes a bunch of other + AJAX-related problem reports that got closed in the past due to + insufficient information and lack of feedback. + + + + + Fixed an ACL bug that made it impossible to build a blacklist. + Usually the ACL directives are used in a whitelist, which worked + as expected, but blacklisting is still useful for public proxies + where one only needs to deny known abusers access. + + + + + Added LOG_LEVEL_RECEIVED to log the not-yet-parsed data read from the + network. This should make debugging various parsing issues a lot easier. + + + + + The IPv6 code is enabled by default on Windows versions that support it. + Patch submitted by oCameLo in #2942729. + + + + + In mingw32 versions, the user.filter file is reachable through the + GUI, just like default.filter is. Feature request 3040263. + + + + + Added the configure option --enable-large-file-support to set a few + defines that are required by platforms like GNU/Linux to support files + larger then 2GB. Mainly interesting for users without proper logfile + management. + + + + + Logging with "debug 16" no longer stops at the first nul byte which is + pretty useless. Non-printable characters are replaced with their hex value + so the result can't span multiple lines making parsing them harder then + necessary. + + + + + Privoxy logs when reading an action, filter or trust file. + + + + + Fixed incorrect regression test markup which caused a test in + 3.0.16 to fail while Privoxy itself was working correctly. + While Privoxy accepts hide-referer, too, the action name is actually + hide-referrer which is also the name used one the final results page, + where the test expected the alias. + + + + + CGI interface improvements: + + + + In finish_http_response(), continue to add the 'Connection: close' + header if the client connection will not be kept alive. + Anonymously pointed out in #2987454. + + + + + Apostrophes in block messages no longer cause parse errors + when the blocked page is viewed with JavaScript enabled. + Reported by dg1727 in #3062296. + + + + + Fix a bunch of anchors that used underscores instead of dashes. + + + + + Allow to keep the client connection alive after crunching the previous request. + Already opened server connections can be kept alive, too. + + + + + In cgi_show_url_info(), don't forget to prefix URLs that only contain + http:// or https:// in the path. Fixes #2975765 reported by Adam Piggott. + + + + + Show the 404 CGI page if cgi_send_user_manual() is called while + local user manual delivery is disabled. + + + + + + + + Action file improvements: + + + + Enable user.filter by default. Suggested by David White in #3001830. + + + + + Block .sitestat.com/. Reported by johnd16 in #3002725. + + + + + Block .atemda.com/. Reported by johnd16 in #3002723. + + + + + Block js.adlink.net/. Reported by johnd16 in #3002720. + + + + + Block .analytics.yahoo.com/. Reported by johnd16 in #3002713. + + + + + Block sb.scorecardresearch.com, too. Reported by dg1727 in #2992652. + + + + + Fix problems noticed on Yahoo mail and news pages. + + + + + Remove the too broad yahoo section, only keeping the + fast-redirects exception as discussed on ijbswa-devel@. + + + + + Don't block adesklets.sourceforge.net. Reported in #2974204. + + + + + Block chartbeat ping tracking. Reported in #2975895. + + + + + Tag CSS and image requests with cautious and medium settings, too. + + + + + Don't handle view.atdmt.com as image. It's used for click-throughs + so users should be able to "go there anyway". + Reported by Adam Piggott in #2975927. + + + + + Also let the refresh-tags filter remove invalid refresh tags where + the 'url=' part is missing. Anonymously reported in #2986382. + While at it, update the description to mention the fact that only + refresh tags with refresh times above 9 seconds are covered. + + + + + javascript needs to be blocked with +handle-as-empty-document to + work around Firefox bug 492459. So move .js blockers from + +block{Might be a web-bug.} -handle-as-empty-document to + +block{Might be a web-bug.} +handle-as-empty-document. + + + + + ijbswa-Feature Requests-3006719 - Block 160x578 Banners. + + + + + Block another omniture tracking domain. + + + + + Added a range-requests tagger. + + + + + Added two sections to get Flickr's Ajax interface working with + default pre-settings. If you change the configuration to block + cookies by default, you'll need additional exceptions. + Reported by Mathias Homann in #3101419 and by Patrick on ijbswa-users@. + + + + + + + + Documentation improvements: + + + + Explicitly mention how to match all URLs. + + + + + Consistently recommend socks5 in the Tor FAQ entry and mention + its advantage compared to socks4a. Reported by David in #2960129. + + + + + Slightly improve the explanation of why filtering may appear + slower than it is. + + + + + Grammar fixes for the ACL section. + + + + + Fixed a link to the 'intercepting' entry and add another one. + + + + + Rename the 'Other' section to 'Mailing Lists' and reword it + to make it clear that nobody is forced to use the trackers + + + + + Note that 'anonymously' posting on the trackers may not always + be possible. + + + + + Suggest to enable debug 32768 when suspecting parsing problems. + + + + + + + + Privoxy-Log-Parser improvements: + + + + Gather statistics for ressources, methods, and HTTP versions + used by the client. + + + + + Also gather statistics for blocked and redirected requests. + + + + + Provide the percentage of keep-alive offers the client accepted. + + + + + Add a --url-statistics-threshold option. + + + + + Add a --host-statistics-threshold option to also gather + statistics about how many request where made per host. + + + + + Fix a bug in handle_loglevel_header() where a 'scan: ' got lost. + + + + + Add a --shorten-thread-ids option to replace the thread id with + a decimal number. + + + + + Accept and ignore: Looks like we got the last chunk together + with the server headers. We better stop reading. + + + + + Accept and ignore: Continue hack in da house. + + + + + Accept and higlight: Rejecting connection from 10.0.0.2. + Maximum number of connections reached. + + + + + Accept and highlight: Loading actions file: /usr/local/etc/privoxy/default.action + + + + + Accept and highlight: Loading filter file: /usr/local/etc/privoxy/default.filter + + + + + Accept and highlight: Killed all-caps Host header line: HOST: bestproxydb.com + + + + + Accept and highlight: Reducing expected bytes to 0. Marking + the server socket tainted after throwing 4 bytes away. + + + + + Accept: Merged multiple header lines to: 'X-FORWARDED-PROTO: http X-HOST: 127.0.0.1' + + + + + + + + Code cleanups: + + + + Remove the next member from the client_state struct. Only the main + thread needs access to all client states so give it its own struct. + + + + + Garbage-collect request_contains_null_bytes(). + + + + + Ditch redundant code in unload_configfile(). + + + + + Ditch LogGetURLUnderCursor() which doesn't seem to be used anywhere. + + + + + In write_socket(), remove the write-only variable write_len in + an ifdef __OS2__ block. Spotted by cppcheck. + + + + + In connect_to(), don't declare the variable 'flags' on OS/2 where + it isn't used. Spotted by cppcheck. + + + + + Limit the scope of various variables. Spotted by cppcheck. + + + + + In add_to_iob(), turn an interestingly looking for loop into a + boring while loop. + + + + + Code cleanup in preparation for external filters. + + + + + In listen_loop(), mention the socket on which we accepted the + connection, not just the source IP address. + + + + + In write_socket(), also log the socket we're writing to. + + + + + In log_error(), assert that escaped characters get logged + completely or not at all. + + + + + In log_error(), assert that ival and sval have reasonable values. + There's no reason not to abort() if they don't. + + + + + Remove an incorrect cgi_error_unknown() call in a + cannot-happen-situation in send_crunch_response(). + + + + + Clean up white-space in http_response definition and + move the crunch_reason to the beginning. + + + + + Turn http_response.reason into an enum and rename it + to http_response.crunch_reason. + + + + + Silence a 'gcc (Debian 4.3.2-1.1) 4.3.2' warning on i686 GNU/Linux. + + + + + Fix white-space in a log message in remove_chunked_transfer_coding(). + While at it, add a note that the message doesn't seem to + be entirely correct and should be improved later on. + + + + + + + + GNUmakefile improvements: + + + + Use $(SSH) instead of ssh, so one only needs to specify a username once. + + + + + Removed references to the action feedback thingy that hasn't been + working for years. + + + + + Consistently use shell.sourceforge.net instead of shell.sf.net so + one doesn't need to check server fingerprints twice. + + + + + Removed GNUisms in the webserver and webactions targets so they + work with standard tar. + + + + + + + + + + + + +Note to Upgraders + + + A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading from earlier + versions of Privoxy: + + + + + + + + The recommended way to upgrade &my-app; is to backup your old + configuration files, install the new ones, verify that &my-app; + is working correctly and finally merge back your changes using + diff and maybe patch. + + + There are a number of new features in each &my-app; release and + most of them have to be explicitly enabled in the configuration + files. Old configuration files obviously don't do that and due + to syntax changes using old configuration files with a new + &my-app; isn't always possible anyway. + + + + + Note that some installers remove earlier versions completely, + including configuration files, therefore you should really save + any important configuration files! + + + + + On the other hand, other installers don't overwrite existing configuration + files, thinking you will want to do that yourself. + + + + + standard.action has been merged into + the default.action file. + + + + + In the default configuration only fatal errors are logged now. + You can change that in the debug section + of the configuration file. You may also want to enable more verbose + logging until you verified that the new &my-app; version is working + as expected. + + + + + + Three other config file settings are now off by default: + enable-remote-toggle, + enable-remote-http-toggle, + and enable-edit-actions. + If you use or want these, you will need to explicitly enable them, and + be aware of the security issues involved. + + + + + + + + + + + + + +Quickstart to Using Privoxy + + + + + + Install Privoxy. See the Installation Section below for platform specific + information. + + + + + + Advanced users and those who want to offer Privoxy + service to more than just their local machine should check the main config file, especially the security-relevant options. These are + off by default. + + + + + + Start Privoxy, if the installation program has + not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section + Starting Privoxy. + + + + + + Set your browser to use Privoxy as HTTP and + HTTPS (SSL) proxy + by setting the proxy configuration for address of + 127.0.0.1 and port 8118. + DO NOT activate proxying for FTP or + any protocols besides HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) unless you intend to prevent your + browser from using these protocols. + + + + + + Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images. + If using Privoxy to manage + cookies, + you should remove any currently stored cookies too. + + + + + + A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for + most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the + configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little + to no initial configuration is required in most cases, you may want + to enable the + web-based action editor though. + Be sure to read the warnings first. + + + See the Configuration section for more + configuration options, and how to customize your installation. + You might also want to look at the next section for a quick + introduction to how Privoxy blocks ads and + banners. + + + + + + If you experience ads that slip through, innocent images that are + blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune + Privoxy's behavior, take a look at the actions files. As a quick start, you might + find the richly commented examples + helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the web-based user interface. The + Appendix Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an + Action has hints on how to understand and debug actions that + misbehave. + + + + + + + + Please see the section Contacting the + Developers on how to report bugs, problems with websites or to get + help. + + + + + + Now enjoy surfing with enhanced control, comfort and privacy! + + + + + + + + + + +Quickstart to Ad Blocking + + + Ad blocking is but one of Privoxy's + array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced + user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody. + + + This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so + you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive + information provided below, though this is highly recommended. + + + First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the + more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block + things that were not intended. And the more likely that some things + may not work as intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want + extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more + problem sites, and to spend more time adjusting the + configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is + not an easy way to eliminate all ads. Either take + the easy way and settle for most ads blocked with the + default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing + habits and preferences. + + + Secondly, a brief explanation of Privoxy's + actions. Actions in this context, are + the directives we use to tell Privoxy to perform + some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell + Privoxy to take some action. Each + action has a unique name and function. While there are many potential + actions in Privoxy's + arsenal, only a few are used for ad blocking. Actions, and action + configuration files, are explained in depth below. + + + Actions are specified in Privoxy's configuration, + followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs + can actually be URL type patterns that use + wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs. The + actions, together with the URL patterns are called a section. + + + When you connect to a website, the full URL will either match one or more + of the sections as defined in Privoxy's configuration, + or not. If so, then Privoxy will perform the + respective actions. If not, then nothing special happens. Furthermore, web + pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your web browser will + use to load additional components of the page, as it parses the + original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just an URL + embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server, + or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many + such embedded URLs. &my-app; can deal with each URL individually, so, for + instance, the main page text is not touched, but images from such-and-such + server are blocked. + + + + The most important actions for basic ad blocking are: block, handle-as-image, + handle-as-empty-document,and + set-image-blocker: + + + + + + + + block - this is perhaps + the single most used action, and is particularly important for ad blocking. + This action stops any contact between your browser and any URL patterns + that match this action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads, + but also anything that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply + stops any communication with the remote server and sends + Privoxy's own built-in BLOCKED page instead to + let you now what has happened (with some exceptions, see below). + + + + + + handle-as-image - + tells Privoxy to treat this URL as an image. + Privoxy's default configuration already does this + for all common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this + is not so easy to determine. So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly + important for ad blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of + some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the + Privoxy BLOCKED page (which would only result in + a broken image icon). There are some limitations to this + though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an image substitution for + an entire HTML page in most situations. + + + + + + handle-as-empty-document - + sends an empty document instead of Privoxy's + normal BLOCKED HTML page. This is useful for file types that are neither + HTML nor images, such as blocking JavaScript files. + + + + + + set-image-blocker - tells + Privoxy what to display in place of an ad image that + has hit a block rule. For this to come into play, the URL must match a + block action somewhere in the + configuration, and, it must also match an + handle-as-image action. + + + The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are: + + + +    pattern - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad replacement is obvious. This is the default. @@ -716,1221 +1356,2732 @@ automatically start Privoxy in the boot process. - + + + + + Advanced users will eventually want to explore &my-app; + filters as well. Filters + are very different from blocks. + A block blocks a site, page, or unwanted contented. Filters + are a way of filtering or modifying what is actually on the page. An example + filter usage: a text replacement of no-no for + nasty-word. That is a very simple example. This process can be + used for ad blocking, but it is more in the realm of advanced usage and has + some pitfalls to be wary off. + + + + The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through + the special Privoxy editor at http://config.privoxy.org/show-status + (shortcut: http://p.p/show-status). This + is an internal page, and does not require Internet access. + + + + Note that as of Privoxy 3.0.7 beta the + action editor is disabled by default. Check the + enable-edit-actions + section in the configuration file to learn why and in which + cases it's safe to enable again. + + + + If you decided to enable the action editor, select the appropriate + actions file, and click + Edit. It is best to put personal or + local preferences in user.action since this is not + meant to be overwritten during upgrades, and will over-ride the settings in + other files. Here you can insert new actions, and URLs for ad + blocking or other purposes, and make other adjustments to the configuration. + Privoxy will detect these changes automatically. + + + + A quick and simple step by step example: + + + + + + + + Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select + Copy Link Location from the + pop-up menu. + + + + + Set your browser to + http://config.privoxy.org/show-status + + + + + Find user.action in the top section, and click + on Edit: + + + + +
Actions Files in Use + + + + + + [ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ] + + +
+ + + + + + You should have a section with only + block listed under + Actions:. + If not, click a Insert new section below + button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the + Edit button right under the word Actions:. + This will bring up a list of all actions. Find + block near the top, and click + in the Enabled column, then Submit + just below the list. + + + + + Now, in the block actions section, + click the Add button, and paste the URL the + browser got from Copy Link Location. + Remove the http:// at the beginning of the URL. Then, click + Submit (or + OK if in a pop-up window). + + + + + Now go back to the original page, and press SHIFT-Reload + (or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now. + + + + + + + + This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a + wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same + site. For a more extensive explanation of patterns, and + the entire actions concept, see the Actions + section. + + + + For advanced users who want to hand edit their config files, you might want + to now go to the Actions Files Tutorial. + The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor. + + + There are also various + filters that can be used for ad blocking + (filters are a special subset of actions). These + fall into the advanced usage category, and are explained in + depth in later sections. + + + + + + + + + + + +Starting Privoxy + + Before launching Privoxy for the first time, you + will want to configure your browser(s) to use + Privoxy as a HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) + proxy. The default is + 127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions + used port 8000). This is the one configuration step that must be done +! + + + Please note that Privoxy can only proxy HTTP and + HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols. + + + + +
Proxy Configuration Showing + Mozilla/Netscape HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) Settings + + + + + + [ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ] + + +
+ + + + + With Firefox, this is typically set under: + + + + Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> Network ->Connection -> Settings + + + + + Or optionally on some platforms: + + + + Edit -> Preferences -> General -> Connection Settings -> Manual Proxy Configuration + + + + + + With Netscape (and + Mozilla), this can be set under: + + + + + + + Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Proxies -> HTTP Proxy + + + + + For Internet Explorer v.5-7: + + + + Tools -> Internet Options -> Connections -> LAN Settings + + + + Then, check Use Proxy and fill in the appropriate info + (Address: 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include HTTPS (SSL), if you want HTTPS + proxy support too (sometimes labeled Secure). Make sure any + checkboxes like Use the same proxy server for all protocols is + UNCHECKED. You want only HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)! + + + + +
Proxy Configuration Showing + Internet Explorer HTTP and HTTPS (Secure) Settings + + + + + + [ Screenshot of IE Proxy Configuration ] + + +
+ + + + + After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a + re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. Remove + any cookies, + if you want Privoxy to manage that. You are now + ready to start enjoying the benefits of using + Privoxy! + + + + Privoxy itself is typically started by specifying the + main configuration file to be used on the command line. If no configuration + file is specified on the command line, Privoxy + will look for a file named config in the current + directory. Except on Win32 where it will try config.txt. + + + +Red Hat and Fedora + + A default Red Hat installation may not start &my-app; upon boot. It will use + the file /etc/privoxy/config as its main configuration + file. + + + + # /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start + + + + Or ... + + + + # service privoxy start + + + + + +Debian + + We use a script. Note that Debian typically starts &my-app; upon booting per + default. It will use the file + /etc/privoxy/config as its main configuration + file. + + + + # /etc/init.d/privoxy start + + + + + +Windows + +Click on the &my-app; Icon to start Privoxy. If no configuration file is + specified on the command line, Privoxy will look + for a file named config.txt. Note that Windows will + automatically start &my-app; when the system starts if you chose that option + when installing. + + + Privoxy can run with full Windows service functionality. + On Windows only, the &my-app; program has two new command line arguments + to install and uninstall &my-app; as a service. See the + Windows Installation + instructions for details. + + + + +Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others + +Example Unix startup command: + + + + # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config + + + + + +OS/2 + + During installation, Privoxy is configured to + start automatically when the system restarts. You can start it manually by + double-clicking on the Privoxy icon in the + Privoxy folder. + + + + +Mac OS X + + After downloading the privoxy software, unzip the downloaded file by + double-clicking on the zip file icon. Then, double-click on the + installer package icon and follow the installation process. + + + The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful + installation. In addition, the privoxy service will automatically + start every time your computer starts up. + + + To prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your + computer starts up, remove or rename the folder named + /Library/StartupItems/Privoxy. + + + A simple application named Privoxy Utility has been created which + enables administrators to easily start and stop the privoxy service. + + + In addition, the Privoxy Utility presents a simple way for + administrators to edit the various privoxy config files. A method + to uninstall the software is also available. + + + An administrator username and password must be supplied in order for + the Privoxy Utility to perform any of the tasks. + + + + + +AmigaOS + + Start Privoxy (with RUN <>NIL:) in your + startnet script (AmiTCP), in + s:user-startup (RoadShow), as startup program in your + startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx). + Privoxy will automatically quit when you quit your + TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that + Privoxy is still running). + + + + +Gentoo + + A script is again used. It will use the file /etc/privoxy/config + as its main configuration file. + + + + /etc/init.d/privoxy start + + + + Note that Privoxy is not automatically started at + boot time by default. You can change this with the rc-update + command. + + + + rc-update add privoxy default + + + + + + + + +Command Line Options + + Privoxy may be invoked with the following + command-line options: + + + + + + + + --version + + + Print version info and exit. Unix only. + + + + + --help + + + Print short usage info and exit. Unix only. + + + + + --no-daemon + + + Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group + leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only. + + + + + --pidfile FILE + + + On startup, write the process ID to FILE. Delete the + FILE on exit. Failure to create or delete the + FILE is non-fatal. If no FILE + option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only. + + + + + --user USER[.GROUP] + + + After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of + USER, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the + privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only. + + + + + --chroot + + + Before changing to the user ID given in the --user option, + chroot to that user's home directory, i.e. make the kernel pretend to the &my-app; + process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit + the impact of possible vulnerabilities in &my-app; to the files contained in that hierarchy. + Unix only. + + + + + --pre-chroot-nslookup hostname + + + Specifies a hostname to look up before doing a chroot. On some systems, initializing the + resolver library involves reading config files from /etc and/or loading additional shared + libraries from /lib. On these systems, doing a hostname lookup before the chroot reduces + the number of files that must be copied into the chroot tree. + + + For fastest startup speed, a good value is a hostname that is not in /etc/hosts but that + your local name server (listed in /etc/resolv.conf) can resolve without recursion + (that is, without having to ask any other name servers). The hostname need not exist, + but if it doesn't, an error message (which can be ignored) will be output. + + + + + + configfile + + + If no configfile is included on the command line, + Privoxy will look for a file named + config in the current directory (except on Win32 + where it will look for config.txt instead). Specify + full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found, + Privoxy will fail to start. + + + + + + + + On MS Windows only there are two additional + command-line options to allow Privoxy to install and + run as a service. See the +Window Installation section +for details. + + + + + + + + + + +Privoxy Configuration + + All Privoxy configuration is stored + in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor. + Many important aspects of Privoxy can + also be controlled easily with a web browser. + + + + + + +Controlling Privoxy with Your Web Browser + + Privoxy's user interface can be reached through the special + URL http://config.privoxy.org/ + (shortcut: http://p.p/), + which is a built-in page and works without Internet access. + You will see the following section: + + + + + + +     Privoxy Menu + + + +         ▪  View & change the current configuration + + +         ▪  View the source code version numbers + + +         ▪  View the request headers. + + +         ▪  Look up which actions apply to a URL and why + + +         ▪  Toggle Privoxy on or off + + +         ▪  Documentation + + + + + + + + This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the + actions files, which is where the ad, banner, + cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of + Privoxy. This is an easy way to adjust various + aspects of Privoxy configuration. The actions + file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below. + + + + Toggle Privoxy On or Off is handy for sites that might + have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use + it as a test to see whether it is Privoxy + causing the problem or not. Privoxy continues + to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e. + Privoxy acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There + is even a toggle Bookmarklet offered, so + that you can toggle Privoxy with one click from + your browser. + + + + Note that several of the features described above are disabled by default + in Privoxy 3.0.7 beta and later. + Check the + configuration file to learn why + and in which cases it's safe to enable them again. + + + + + + + + + + + + +Configuration Files Overview + + For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in + /etc/privoxy/ by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and + AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the + Privoxy executable. + + + + The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though + some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the + principle configuration files are: + + + + + + + + The main configuration file is named config + on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and config.txt + on Windows. This is a required file. + + + + + + match-all.action is used to define which actions + relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups, content modification, cookie handling + etc should be applied by default. It should be the first actions file loaded. + + + default.action defines many exceptions (both positive and negative) + from the default set of actions that's configured in match-all.action. + It should be the second actions file loaded and shouldn't be edited by the user. + + + Multiple actions files may be defined in config. These + are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally + preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in + match-all.action (which you will most probably want + to define sooner or later) are best applied in user.action, + where you can preserve them across upgrades. The file isn't installed by all + installers, but you can easily create it yourself with a text editor. + + + There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from + http://config.privoxy.org/show-status + (Shortcut: http://p.p/show-status) for the + various actions files. + + + + + + Filter files (the filter + file) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including + viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else + lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here; + whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files. + default.filter includes various filters made + available for use by the developers. Some are much more intrusive than + others, and all should be used with caution. You may define additional + filter files in config as you can with + actions files. We suggest user.filter for any + locally defined filters or customizations. + + + + + + + + The syntax of the configuration and filter files may change between different + Privoxy versions, unfortunately some enhancements cost backwards compatibility. + + + + + All files use the # character to denote a + comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation + through placing a backslash ("\") as the very last character + in a line. If the # is preceded by a backslash, it looses + its special function. Placing a # in front of an otherwise + valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting + out" that line. Blank lines are ignored. + + + + The actions files and filter files + can use Perl style regular expressions for + maximum flexibility. + + + + After making any changes, there is no need to restart + Privoxy in order for the changes to take + effect. Privoxy detects such changes + automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional + requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address + of Privoxy, these wake up requests + must obviously be sent to the old listening address. + + + + While under development, the configuration content is subject to change. + The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this. + Also, what constitutes a default setting, may change, so + please check all your configuration files on important issues. + +]]> + + + + + + + + + + + + &config; + + + + + + + + + +Actions Files + + + + + The actions files are used to define what actions + Privoxy takes for which URLs, and thus determines + how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and + transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof). + There are a number of such actions, with a wide range of functionality. + Each action does something a little different. + These actions give us a veritable arsenal of tools with which to exert + our control, preferences and independence. Actions can be combined so that + their effects are aggregated when applied against a given set of URLs. + + + There + are three action files included with Privoxy with + differing purposes: + + + + + + match-all.action - is used to define which + actions relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups, + content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default. + It should be the first actions file loaded + + + + + default.action - defines many exceptions (both + positive and negative) from the default set of actions that's configured + in match-all.action. It is a set of rules that should + work reasonably well as-is for most users. This file is only supposed to + be edited by the developers. It should be the second actions file loaded. + + + + + user.action - is intended to be for local site + preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank + has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of + thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded. + + + + + Edit Set to Cautious Set to Medium Set to Advanced + + + These have increasing levels of aggressiveness and have no + influence on your browsing unless you select them explicitly in the + editor. A default installation should be pre-set to + Cautious. New users should try this for a while before + adjusting the settings to more aggressive levels. The more aggressive + the settings, then the more likelihood there is of problems such as sites + not working as they should. + + + The Edit button allows you to turn each + action on/off individually for fine-tuning. The Cautious + button changes the actions list to low/safe settings which will activate + ad blocking and a minimal set of &my-app;'s features, and subsequently + there will be less of a chance for accidental problems. The + Medium button sets the list to a medium level of + other features and a low level set of privacy features. The + Advanced button sets the list to a high level of + ad blocking and medium level of privacy. See the chart below. The latter + three buttons over-ride any changes via with the + Edit button. More fine-tuning can be done in the + lower sections of this internal page. + + + While the actions file editor allows to enable these settings in all + actions files, they are only supposed to be enabled in the first one + to make sure you don't unintentionally overrule earlier rules. + + + The default profiles, and their associated actions, as pre-defined in + default.action are: + + + Default Configurations + + + + + + + + Feature + Cautious + Medium + Advanced + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Ad-blocking Aggressiveness + medium + high + high + + + + Ad-filtering by size + no + yes + yes + + + + Ad-filtering by link + no + no + yes + + + Pop-up killing + blocks only + blocks only + blocks only + + + + Privacy Features + low + medium + medium/high + + + + Cookie handling + none + session-only + kill + + + + Referer forging + no + yes + yes + + + + GIF de-animation + no + yes + yes + + + + Fast redirects + no + no + yes + + + + HTML taming + no + no + yes + + + + JavaScript taming + no + no + yes + + + + Web-bug killing + no + yes + yes + + + + Image tag reordering + no + yes + yes + + + + +
+ + + + + + + + The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration + file, and are processed in the order they are defined (e.g. + default.action is typically processed before + user.action). The content of these can all be viewed and + edited from http://config.privoxy.org/show-status. + The over-riding principle when applying actions, is that the last action that + matches a given URL wins. The broadest, most general rules go first + (defined in default.action), + followed by any exceptions (typically also in + default.action), which are then followed lastly by any + local preferences (typically in user.action). + Generally, user.action has the last word. + + + + An actions file typically has multiple sections. If you want to use + aliases in an actions file, you have to place the (optional) + alias section at the top of that file. + Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all + sites and pages (be very careful with using such a + universal set in user.action or any other actions file after + default.action, because it will override the result + from consulting any previous file). And then below that, + exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard + user.action as an appendix to default.action, + with the advantage that it is a separate file, which makes preserving your + personal settings across Privoxy upgrades easier. + + + + Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or + just some obnoxious URL whose content you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted + or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not + written to disk), content can be modified, some JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking + fooled, and much more. See below for a complete list + of actions. + + +Finding the Right Mix - The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through - the special Privoxy editor at http://config.privoxy.org/show-status - (shortcut: http://p.p/show-status). This - is an internal page, and does not require Internet access. Select the - appropriate actions file, and click - Edit. It is best to put personal or - local preferences in user.action since this is not - meant to be overwritten during upgrades, and will over-ride the settings in - other files. Here you can insert new actions, and URLs for ad - blocking or other purposes, and make other adjustments to the configuration. - Privoxy will detect these changes automatically. + Note that some actions, like cookie suppression + or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these + techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and + certainly a matter of personal taste. And, things can always change, requiring + refinements in the configuration. In general, it can be said that the more + aggressive your default settings (in the top section of the + actions file) are, the more exceptions for trusted sites you + will have to make later. If, for example, you want to crunch all cookies per + default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you + regularly use and that require cookies for actually useful purposes, like maybe + your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper. - A quick and simple step by step example: + We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the + distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these + things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing. + Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :). + + + +How to Edit - + The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by + using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from http://config.privoxy.org/show-status. + Note: the config file option enable-edit-actions must be enabled for + this to work. The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single + feature on a per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults + like Cautious, Medium or + Advanced. Warning: the Advanced setting is more + aggressive, and will be more likely to cause problems for some sites. + Experienced users only! + + + + If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the + the actions files with your favorite text editor. Look at + default.action which is richly commented with many + good examples. + + + + +How Actions are Applied to Requests + + Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections, + like the alias sections which will + be discussed later. For now let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a + heading line (often split up to multiple lines for readability) which consist + of a list of actions, separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces. + Below that, there is a list of URL and tag patterns, each on a separate line. + + + + To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is + compared to all URL patterns in each action file. + Every time it matches, the list of applicable actions for the request is + incrementally updated, using the heading of the section in which the + pattern is located. The same is done again for tags and tag patterns later on. + + + + If multiple applying sections set the same action differently, + the last match wins. If not, the effects are aggregated. + E.g. a URL might match a regular section with a heading line of { + +handle-as-image }, + then later another one with just { + +block }, resulting + in both actions to apply. And there may well be + cases where you will want to combine actions together. Such a section then + might look like: + + + + + { +handle-as-image +block{Banner ads.} } + # Block these as if they were images. Send no block page. + banners.example.com + media.example.com/.*banners + .example.com/images/ads/ + + + + You can trace this process for URL patterns and any given URL by visiting http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info. + + + + Examples and more detail on this is provided in the Appendix, + Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action section. + + + + + +Patterns + + As mentioned, Privoxy uses patterns + to determine what actions might apply to which sites and + pages your browser attempts to access. These patterns use wild + card type pattern matching to achieve a high degree of + flexibility. This allows one expression to be expanded and potentially match + against many similar patterns. + + + + Generally, an URL pattern has the form + <domain><port>/<path>, where the + <domain>, the <port> + and the <path> are optional. (This is why the special + / pattern matches all URLs). Note that the protocol + portion of the URL pattern (e.g. http://) should + not be included in the pattern. This is assumed already! + + + The pattern matching syntax is different for the domain and path parts of + the URL. The domain part uses a simple globbing type matching technique, + while the path part uses more flexible + Regular + Expressions (POSIX 1003.2). + + + The port part of a pattern is a decimal port number preceded by a colon + (:). If the domain part contains a numerical IPv6 address, + it has to be put into angle brackets + (<, >). + + + + + www.example.com/ - Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select - Copy Link Location from the - pop-up menu. + is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to www.example.com, + regardless of which document on that server is requested. So ALL pages in + this domain would be covered by the scope of this action. Note that a + simple example.com is different and would NOT match. - + + + + www.example.com - Set your browser to - http://config.privoxy.org/show-status + means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing / may + be omitted. - + + + + www.example.com/index.html - Find user.action in the top section, and click - on Edit: + matches all the documents on www.example.com + whose name starts with /index.html. + + + + + www.example.com/index.html$ + + + matches only the single document /index.html + on www.example.com. + + + + + /index.html$ + + + matches the document /index.html, regardless of the domain, + i.e. on any web server anywhere. + + + + + / + + + Matches any URL because there's no requirement for either the + domain or the path to match anything. + + + + + :8000/ + + + Matches any URL pointing to TCP port 8000. + + + + + <2001:db8::1>/ + + + Matches any URL with the host address 2001:db8::1. + (Note that the real URL uses plain brackets, not angle brackets.) + + + + + index.html + + + matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and + there is no top-level domain called .html. So its + a mistake. + + + - - -
Actions Files in Use - - - - - - [ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ] - - -
- - - - - - You should have a section with only - block listed under - Actions:. - If not, click a Insert new section below - button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the - Edit button right under the word Actions:. - This will bring up a list of all actions. Find - block near the top, and click - in the Enabled column, then Submit - just below the list. - - - - - Now, in the block actions section, - click the Add button, and paste the URL the - browser got from Copy Link Location. - Remove the http:// at the beginning of the URL. Then, click - Submit (or - OK if in a pop-up window). - - - - - Now go back to the original page, and press SHIFT-Reload - (or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now. - - - - + + +The Domain Pattern + + + The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the + domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end. + For example: + + + .example.com + + + matches any domain with first-level domain com + and second-level domain example. + For example www.example.com, + example.com and foo.bar.baz.example.com. + Note that it wouldn't match if the second-level domain was another-example. + + + + + www. + + + matches any domain that STARTS with + www. (It also matches the domain + www but most of the time that doesn't matter.) + + + + + .example. + + + matches any domain that CONTAINS .example.. + And, by the way, also included would be any files or documents that exist + within that domain since no path limitations are specified. (Correctly + speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains example as + a domain.) This might be www.example.com, + news.example.de, or + www.example.net/cgi/testing.pl for instance. All these + cases are matched. + + + + + - This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a - wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same - site. For a more extensive explanation of patterns, and - the entire actions concept, see the Actions - section. + Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names + themselves. These work similarly to shell globbing type wild-cards: + * represents zero or more arbitrary characters (this is + equivalent to the + Regular + Expression based syntax of .*), + ? represents any single character (this is equivalent to the + regular expression syntax of a simple .), and you can define + character classes in square brackets which is similar to + the same regular expression technique. All of this can be freely mixed: + + + ad*.example.com + + + matches adserver.example.com, + ads.example.com, etc but not sfads.example.com + + + + + *ad*.example.com + + + matches all of the above, and then some. + + + + + .?pix.com + + + matches www.ipix.com, + pictures.epix.com, a.b.c.d.e.upix.com etc. + + + + + www[1-9a-ez].example.c* + + + matches www1.example.com, + www4.example.cc, wwwd.example.cy, + wwwz.example.com etc., but not + wwww.example.com. + + + + + - For advanced users who want to hand edit their config files, you might want - to now go to the Actions Files Tutorial. - The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor. + While flexible, this is not the sophistication of full regular expression based syntax. - - - + - -Starting <application>Privoxy</application> +The Path Pattern + - Before launching Privoxy for the first time, you - will want to configure your browser(s) to use - Privoxy as a HTTP and HTTPS proxy. The default is - 127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions - used port 8000). This is the one configuration step that must be done! + Privoxy uses modern POSIX 1003.2 + Regular + Expressions for matching the path portion (after the slash), + and is thus more flexible. + - Please note that Privoxy can only proxy HTTP and - HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols. + There is an Appendix with a brief quick-start into regular + expressions, you also might want to have a look at your operating system's documentation + on regular expressions (try man re_format). - - -
Proxy Configuration (Mozilla) - - - - - - [ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ] - - -
- - - - With Netscape (and - Mozilla), this can be set under: + + Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the /, + i.e. it matches as if it would start with a ^ (regular expression speak + for the beginning of a line). - - - - - Edit - |_ - Preferences - |_ - Advanced - |_ - Proxies - |_ - HTTP Proxy - - For Internet Explorer: + Please also note that matching in the path is CASE INSENSITIVE + by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the + (?-i) switch: www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.* will match + only documents whose path starts with PaTtErN in + exactly this capitalization. - - - - Tools - |_ - Internet Properties - |_ - Connections - |_ - LAN Settings - + + + .example.com/.* + + + Is equivalent to just .example.com, since any documents + within that domain are matched with or without the .* + regular expression. This is redundant + + + + + .example.com/.*/index.html$ + + + Will match any page in the domain of example.com that is + named index.html, and that is part of some path. For + example, it matches www.example.com/testing/index.html but + NOT www.example.com/index.html because the regular + expression called for at least two /'s, thus the path + requirement. It also would match + www.example.com/testing/index_html, because of the + special meta-character .. + + + + + .example.com/(.*/)?index\.html$ + + + This regular expression is conditional so it will match any page + named index.html regardless of path which in this case can + have one or more /'s. And this one must contain exactly + .html (but does not have to end with that!). + + + + + .example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk) + + + This regular expression will match any path of example.com + that contains any of the words ads, banner, + banners (because of the ?) or junk. + The path does not have to end in these words, just contain them. + + + + + .example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)/.*\.(jpe?g|gif|png)$ + + + This is very much the same as above, except now it must end in either + .jpg, .jpeg, .gif or .png. So this + one is limited to common image formats. + + + + - Then, check Use Proxy and fill in the appropriate info - (Address: 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include HTTPS (SSL), if you want HTTPS - proxy support too. + There are many, many good examples to be found in default.action, + and more tutorials below in Appendix on regular expressions. - - After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a - re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. You - are now ready to start enjoying the benefits of using - Privoxy! - + + + + + + +The Tag Pattern - Privoxy is typically started by specifying the - main configuration file to be used on the command line. If no configuration - file is specified on the command line, Privoxy - will look for a file named config in the current - directory. Except on Win32 where it will try config.txt. + Tag patterns are used to change the applying actions based on the + request's tags. Tags can be created with either the + client-header-tagger + or the server-header-tagger action. - -Red Hat and Conectiva - We use a script. Note that Red Hat does not start Privoxy upon booting per - default. It will use the file /etc/privoxy/config as - its main configuration file. + Tag patterns have to start with TAG:, so &my-app; + can tell them apart from URL patterns. Everything after the colon + including white space, is interpreted as a regular expression with + path pattern syntax, except that tag patterns aren't left-anchored + automatically (&my-app; doesn't silently add a ^, + you have to do it yourself if you need it). + - - # /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start - + To match all requests that are tagged with foo + your pattern line should be TAG:^foo$, + TAG:foo would work as well, but it would also + match requests whose tags contain foo somewhere. + TAG: foo wouldn't work as it requires white space. - - -Debian - We use a script. Note that Debian starts Privoxy upon booting per - default. It will use the file - /etc/privoxy/config as its main configuration - file. + Sections can contain URL and tag patterns at the same time, + but tag patterns are checked after the URL patterns and thus + always overrule them, even if they are located before the URL patterns. + - - # /etc/init.d/privoxy start - + Once a new tag is added, Privoxy checks right away if it's matched by one + of the tag patterns and updates the action settings accordingly. As a result + tags can be used to activate other tagger actions, as long as these other + taggers look for headers that haven't already be parsed. - - -SuSE -We use a script. It will use the file /etc/privoxy/config -as its main configuration file. Note that SuSE starts Privoxy upon booting -your PC. + For example you could tag client requests which use the + POST method, + then use this tag to activate another tagger that adds a tag if cookies + are sent, and then use a block action based on the cookie tag. This allows + the outcome of one action, to be input into a subsequent action. However if + you'd reverse the position of the described taggers, and activated the + method tagger based on the cookie tagger, no method tags would be created. + The method tagger would look for the request line, but at the time + the cookie tag is created, the request line has already been parsed. + - - # rcprivoxy start - + While this is a limitation you should be aware of, this kind of + indirection is seldom needed anyway and even the example doesn't + make too much sense. + + + - -Windows + + + + + + +Actions -Click on the Privoxy Icon to start Privoxy. If no configuration file is - specified on the command line, Privoxy will look - for a file named config.txt. Note that Windows will - automatically start Privoxy upon booting you PC. + All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled + somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a + +, and turned off if preceded with a -. So a + +action means do that action, e.g. + +block means please block URLs that match the + following patterns, and -block means don't + block URLs that match the following patterns, even if +block + previously applied. + - - -Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others - -Example Unix startup command: + + Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and + separated by whitespace, like in + {+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}}, + followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply. + Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section + of the actions file. - - - # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config - + + + Actions fall into three categories: - - -OS/2 - - During installation, Privoxy is configured to - start automatically when the system restarts. You can start it manually by - double-clicking on the Privoxy icon in the - Privoxy folder. + + + + + Boolean, i.e the action can only be enabled or + disabled. Syntax: + + + + +name # enable action name + -name # disable action name + + + Example: +handle-as-image + + + + + + + Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action. + Syntax: + + + + +name{param} # enable action and set parameter to param, + # overwriting parameter from previous match if necessary + -name # disable action. The parameter can be omitted + + + Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action, + the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored. + + + Example: +hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070602 Firefox/2.0.0.4} + + + + + + Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions, + but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the + same URL, but with different parameters, all the parameters + from all matches are remembered. This is used for actions + that can be executed for the same request repeatedly, like adding multiple + headers, or filtering through multiple filters. Syntax: + + + + +name{param} # enable action and add param to the list of parameters + -name{param} # remove the parameter param from the list of parameters + # If it was the last one left, disable the action. + -name # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list + + + Examples: +add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text} and + +filter{html-annoyances} + + + + - - -Mac OSX - - During installation, Privoxy is configured to - start automatically when the system restarts. To start Privoxy by hand, - double-click on the StartPrivoxy.command icon in the - /Library/Privoxy folder. Or, type this command - in the Terminal: - - - - /Library/Privoxy/StartPrivoxy.command - - - You will be prompted for the administrator password. + If nothing is specified in any actions file, no actions are + taken. So in this case Privoxy would just be a + normal, non-blocking, non-filtering proxy. You must specifically enable the + privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions + files will give a good starting point). - - - -AmigaOS - Start Privoxy (with RUN <>NIL:) in your - startnet script (AmiTCP), in - s:user-startup (RoadShow), as startup program in your - startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx). - Privoxy will automatically quit when you quit your - TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that - Privoxy is still running). + Later defined action sections always over-ride earlier ones of the same type. + So exceptions to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or + in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files such + as user.action). For multi-valued actions, the actions + are applied in the order they are specified. Actions files are processed in + the order they are defined in config (the default + installation has three actions files). It also quite possible for any given + URL to match more than one pattern (because of wildcards and + regular expressions), and thus to trigger more than one set of actions! Last + match wins. - - -Gentoo - - A script is again used. It will use the file /etc/privoxy/config - as its main configuration file. - - - - /etc/init.d/privoxy start - - + - Note that Privoxy is not automatically started at - boot time by default. You can change this with the rc-update - command. - - - - rc-update add privoxy default - + The list of valid Privoxy actions are: - - + + + + -must find a better place for this paragraph - - The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting - point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the - actions files. These are - where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking, and other - aspects of Privoxy configuration. There are several - such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness. - + - - You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites for which you may prefer - persistent cookies, and add these to your actions configuration as needed. By - default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser - session (aka session cookies), unless you add them to the - configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need - to edit user.action (or through the web based interface) - and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser, it would make - more sense to let Privoxy handle this. In which - case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies. - + +add-header - - Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted - sites is the popup-killing (through the +kill-popups and - +filter{popups} - actions), because your favorite shopping, banking, or leisure site may need - popups (explained below). - + + + Typical use: + + Confuse log analysis, custom applications + + - - Privoxy is HTTP/1.1 compliant, but not all of - the optional 1.1 features are as yet supported. In the unlikely event that - you experience inexplicable problems with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default - (like Mozilla or recent versions of I.E.), you might - try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under Edit -> - Preferences -> Debug -> Networking. - Alternatively, set the +downgrade-http-version config option in - default.action which will downgrade your browser's HTTP - requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them. - + + Effect: + + + Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server. + + + - - After running Privoxy for a while, you can - start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site, - preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can - be customized. Actions - can be adjusted by pointing your browser to - http://config.privoxy.org/ - (shortcut: http://p.p/), - and then follow the link to View & Change the Current Configuration. - (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.) - + + Type: + + + Multi-value. + + + + + Parameter: + + + Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked. + It is recommended that you use the X- prefix + for custom headers. + + + + + + Notes: + + + This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple + headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what + HTTP headers are, you definitely don't need to worry about this + one. + + + Headers added by this action are not modified by other actions. + + + - - In fact, various aspects of Privoxy - configuration can be viewed from this page, including - current configuration parameters, source code version numbers, - the browser's request headers, and actions that apply - to a given URL. In addition to the actions file - editor mentioned above, Privoxy can also - be turned on and off (toggled) from this page. - + + Example usage: + + + +add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks} + + + + + - - If you encounter problems, try loading the page without - Privoxy. If that helps, enter the URL where - you have the problems into the browser - based rule tracing utility. See which rules apply and why, and - then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem - is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on - again. - - - If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to read more about the actions concept - or even dive deep into the Appendix - on actions. - + + +block - - If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in - Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the - section Contacting the - Developers below. - + + + Typical use: + + Block ads or other unwanted content + + ---> + + Effect: + + + Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the + requests are trapped by &my-app; and the requested URL is never retrieved, + but is answered locally with a substitute page or image, as determined by + the handle-as-image, + set-image-blocker, and + handle-as-empty-document actions. + + + + - - -Command Line Options - - Privoxy may be invoked with the following - command-line options: - + + Type: + + + Parameterized. + + + + + Parameter: + + A block reason that should be given to the user. + + + + + Notes: + + + Privoxy sends a special BLOCKED page + for requests to blocked pages. This page contains the block reason given as + parameter, a link to find out why the block action applies, and a click-through + to the blocked content (the latter only if the force feature is available and + enabled). + + + A very important exception occurs if both + block and handle-as-image, + apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If + set-image-blocker + (see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter, + if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent. + + + It is important to understand this process, in order + to understand how Privoxy deals with + ads and other unwanted content. Blocking is a core feature, and one + upon which various other features depend. + + + The filter + action can perform a very similar task, by blocking + banner images and other content through rewriting the relevant URLs in the + document's HTML source, so they don't get requested in the first place. + Note that this is a totally different technique, and it's easy to confuse the two. + + + - - + + Example usage (section): + + + {+block{No nasty stuff for you.}} +# Block and replace with "blocked" page + .nasty-stuff.example.com + +{+block{Doubleclick banners.} +handle-as-image} +# Block and replace with image + .ad.doubleclick.net + .ads.r.us/banners/ + +{+block{Layered ads.} +handle-as-empty-document} +# Block and then ignore + adserver.example.net/.*\.js$ + + + - - - --version - - - Print version info and exit. Unix only. - - - - - --help - - - Print short usage info and exit. Unix only. - - - - - --no-daemon - - - Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group - leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only. - - - - - --pidfile FILE - - - - On startup, write the process ID to FILE. Delete the - FILE on exit. Failure to create or delete the - FILE is non-fatal. If no FILE - option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only. - - - - - --user USER[.GROUP] - - - - After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of - USER, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the - privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only. - - - - - configfile - - - If no configfile is included on the command line, - Privoxy will look for a file named - config in the current directory (except on Win32 - where it will look for config.txt instead). Specify - full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found, - Privoxy will fail to start. - - - - + + - - + + +change-x-forwarded-for - + + + Typical use: + + Improve privacy by not forwarding the source of the request in the HTTP headers. + + + + Effect: + + + Deletes the X-Forwarded-For: HTTP header from the client request, + or adds a new one. + + + - -<application>Privoxy</application> Configuration - - All Privoxy configuration is stored - in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor. - Many important aspects of Privoxy can - also be controlled easily with a web browser. - + + Type: + + + Parameterized. + + + + Parameter: + + + + block to delete the header. + + + + add to create the header (or append + the client's IP address to an already existing one). + + + + + + + + Notes: + + + It is safe and recommended to use block. + + + Forwarding the source address of the request may make + sense in some multi-user setups but is also a privacy risk. + + + + + Example usage: + + + +change-x-forwarded-for{block} + + + + + + +client-header-filter - -Controlling <application>Privoxy</application> with Your Web Browser - - Privoxy's user interface can be reached through the special - URL http://config.privoxy.org/ - (shortcut: http://p.p/), - which is a built-in page and works without Internet access. - You will see the following section: - - + + + Typical use: + + + Rewrite or remove single client headers. + + + - - - -     Privoxy Menu + + Effect: + + + All client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through + the specified regular expression based substitutions. + + + - - -         ▪  View & change the current configuration - - -         ▪  View the source code version numbers - - -         ▪  View the request headers. - - -         ▪  Look up which actions apply to a URL and why - - -         ▪  Toggle Privoxy on or off - - -         ▪  Documentation - - - - + + Type: + + + Parameterized. + + + + Parameter: + + + The name of a client-header filter, as defined in one of the + filter files. + + + + + + Notes: + + + Client-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to + all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside + you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z. + You can do that by using tags though. + + + Client-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished + and use their output as input. + + + If the request URL gets changed, &my-app; will detect that and use the new + one. This can be used to rewrite the request destination behind the client's + back, for example to specify a Tor exit relay for certain requests. + + + Please refer to the filter file chapter + to learn which client-header filters are available by default, and how to + create your own. + - - This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the - actions files, which is where the ad, banner, - cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of - Privoxy. This is an easy way to adjust various - aspects of Privoxy configuration. The actions - file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below. - + + - - Toggle Privoxy On or Off is handy for sites that might - have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use - it as a test to see whether it is Privoxy - causing the problem or not. Privoxy continues - to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e. - Privoxy acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There - is even a toggle Bookmarklet offered, so - that you can toggle Privoxy with one click from - your browser. - + + Example usage (section): + + + +# Hide Tor exit notation in Host and Referer Headers +{+client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}} +/ + + + + - + + - + + +client-header-tagger + + + Typical use: + + + Block requests based on their headers. + + + + + Effect: + + + Client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through + the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as + tag. + + + - + + Type: + + + Parameterized. + + - -Configuration Files Overview - - For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in - /etc/privoxy/ by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and - AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the - Privoxy executable. - + + Parameter: + + + The name of a client-header tagger, as defined in one of the + filter files. + + + + + + Notes: + + + Client-header taggers are applied to each header on its own, + and as the header isn't modified, each tagger sees + the original. + + + Client-header taggers are the first actions that are executed + and their tags can be used to control every other action. + + + - - The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though - some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the - principle configuration files are: - + + Example usage (section): + + + +# Tag every request with the User-Agent header +{+client-header-tagger{user-agent}} +/ - - +# Tagging itself doesn't change the action +# settings, sections with TAG patterns do: +# +# If it's a download agent, use a different forwarding proxy, +# show the real User-Agent and make sure resume works. +{+forward-override{forward-socks5 10.0.0.2:2222 .} \ + -hide-if-modified-since \ + -overwrite-last-modified \ + -hide-user-agent \ + -filter \ + -deanimate-gifs \ +} +TAG:^User-Agent: NetBSD-ftp/ +TAG:^User-Agent: Novell ZYPP Installer +TAG:^User-Agent: RPM APT-HTTP/ +TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/ +TAG:^User-Agent: Ubuntu APT-HTTP/ +TAG:^User-Agent: MPlayer/ + + + + + + + + + + + +content-type-overwrite + + + + Typical use: + + Stop useless download menus from popping up, or change the browser's rendering mode + + + + Effect: - The main configuration file is named config - on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and config.txt - on Windows. This is a required file. + Replaces the Content-Type: HTTP server header. - + + + + + Type: + + + Parameterized. + + + + Parameter: + + + Any string. + + + + + + Notes: - default.action (the main actions file) - is used to define which actions relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups, - content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default. It also defines many - exceptions (both positive and negative) from this default set of actions that enable - Privoxy to selectively eliminate the junk, and only the junk, on - as many websites as possible. + The Content-Type: HTTP server header is used by the + browser to decide what to do with the document. The value of this + header can cause the browser to open a download menu instead of + displaying the document by itself, even if the document's format is + supported by the browser. - Multiple actions files may be defined in config. These - are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally - preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in - default.action (which you will most probably want - to define sooner or later) are probably best applied in - user.action, where you can preserve them across - upgrades. standard.action is for - Privoxy's internal use. + The declared content type can also affect which rendering mode + the browser chooses. If XHTML is delivered as text/html, + many browsers treat it as yet another broken HTML document. + If it is send as application/xml, browsers with + XHTML support will only display it, if the syntax is correct. - - There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from - http://config.privoxy.org/show-status - (Shortcut: http://p.p/show-status) for the - various actions files. + + If you see a web site that proudly uses XHTML buttons, but sets + Content-Type: text/html, you can use &my-app; + to overwrite it with application/xml and validate + the web master's claim inside your XHTML-supporting browser. + If the syntax is incorrect, the browser will complain loudly. - + + You can also go the opposite direction: if your browser prints + error messages instead of rendering a document falsely declared + as XHTML, you can overwrite the content type with + text/html and have it rendered as broken HTML document. + + + By default content-type-overwrite only replaces + Content-Type: headers that look like some kind of text. + If you want to overwrite it unconditionally, you have to combine it with + force-text-mode. + This limitation exists for a reason, think twice before circumventing it. + + + Most of the time it's easier to replace this action with a custom + server-header filter. + It allows you to activate it for every document of a certain site and it will still + only replace the content types you aimed at. + + + Of course you can apply content-type-overwrite + to a whole site and then make URL based exceptions, but it's a lot + more work to get the same precision. + + + + + Example usage (sections): - - default.filter (the filter - file) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including - viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else - lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here; - whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files. + + # Check if www.example.net/ really uses valid XHTML +{ +content-type-overwrite{application/xml} } +www.example.net/ + +# but leave the content type unmodified if the URL looks like a style sheet +{-content-type-overwrite} +www.example.net/.*\.css$ +www.example.net/.*style + - + + + + - - - - All files use the # character to denote a - comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation - through placing a backslash ("\") as the very last character - in a line. If the # is preceded by a backslash, it looses - its special function. Placing a # in front of an otherwise - valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting - out" that line. - + + + +crunch-client-header - - The actions files and default.filter - can use Perl style regular expressions for - maximum flexibility. - + + + Typical use: + + Remove a client header Privoxy has no dedicated action for. + + - - After making any changes, there is no need to restart - Privoxy in order for the changes to take - effect. Privoxy detects such changes - automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional - requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address - of Privoxy, these wake up requests - must obviously be sent to the old listening address. - + + Effect: + + + Deletes every header sent by the client that contains the string the user supplied as parameter. + + + - - While under development, the configuration content is subject to change. - The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this. - Also, what constitutes a default setting, may change, so - please check all your configuration files on important issues. - -]]> + + Type: + + + Parameterized. + + - - - + + Parameter: + + + Any string. + + + + + + Notes: + + + This action allows you to block client headers for which no dedicated + Privoxy action exists. + Privoxy will remove every client header that + contains the string you supplied as parameter. + + + Regular expressions are not supported and you can't + use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless + they contain the same string. + + + crunch-client-header is only meant for quick tests. + If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify + parts of them, you should use a + client-header filter. + + + + Don't block any header without understanding the consequences. + + + + + + Example usage (section): + + + # Block the non-existent "Privacy-Violation:" client header +{ +crunch-client-header{Privacy-Violation:} } +/ + + + + + + - - - - - &config; - + + +crunch-if-none-match + + + + Typical use: + + Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions. + + + + Effect: + + + Deletes the If-None-Match: HTTP client header. + + + - + + Type: + + + Boolean. + + + + Parameter: + + + N/A + + + + + + Notes: + + + Removing the If-None-Match: HTTP client header + is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real + reload instead of getting status code 304 which + would cause the browser to use a cached copy of the page. + + + It is also useful to make sure the header isn't used as a cookie + replacement (unlikely but possible). + + + Blocking the If-None-Match: header shouldn't cause any + caching problems, as long as the If-Modified-Since: header + isn't blocked or missing as well. + + + It is recommended to use this action together with + hide-if-modified-since + and + overwrite-last-modified. + + + + + Example usage (section): + + + # Let the browser revalidate cached documents but don't +# allow the server to use the revalidation headers for user tracking. +{+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \ + +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \ + +crunch-if-none-match} +/ + + + + + - -Actions Files + + +crunch-incoming-cookies - - The actions files are used to define what actions - Privoxy takes for which URLs, and thus determine - how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and - transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof). There - are three such files included with Privoxy, with - differing purposes: - - - - - - - default.action - is the primary action file - that sets the initial values for all actions. It is intended to - provide a base level of functionality for - Privoxy's array of features. So it is - a set of broad rules that should work reasonably well for users everywhere. - This is the file that the developers are keeping updated, and making available to users. - - - - - user.action - is intended to be for local site - preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank - has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of - thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded. - - - - - standard.action - is used by the web based editor, - to set various pre-defined sets of rules for the default actions section - in default.action. These have increasing levels of - aggressiveness and have no influence on your browsing unless - you select them explicitly in the editor. It is not recommend - to edit this file. - - - - + + + Typical use: + + + Prevent the web server from setting HTTP cookies on your system + + + - - The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration - file, and are processed in the order they are defined. The content of these - can all be viewed and edited from http://config.privoxy.org/show-status. - + + Effect: + + + Deletes any Set-Cookie: HTTP headers from server replies. + + + - - An actions file typically has multiple sections. If you want to use - aliases in an actions file, you have to place the (optional) - alias section at the top of that file. - Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all - sites and pages (be very careful with using such a - universal set in user.action or any other actions file after - default.action, because it will override the result - from consulting any previous file). And then below that, - exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard - user.action as an appendix to default.action, - with the advantage that is a separate file, which makes preserving your - personal settings across Privoxy upgrades easier. - + + Type: + + + Boolean. + + - - Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or - just some obnoxious URL that you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted - or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not - written to disk), content can be modified, JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking - fooled, and much more. See below for a complete list - of actions. - + + Parameter: + + + N/A + + + + + + Notes: + + + This action is only concerned with incoming HTTP cookies. For + outgoing HTTP cookies, use + crunch-outgoing-cookies. + Use both to disable HTTP cookies completely. + + + It makes no sense at all to use this action in conjunction + with the session-cookies-only action, + since it would prevent the session cookies from being set. See also + filter-content-cookies. + + + - - -Finding the Right Mix - - Note that some actions, like cookie suppression - or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these - techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and - certainly a matter of personal taste. In general, it can be said that the more - aggressive your default settings (in the top section of the - actions file) are, the more exceptions for trusted sites you - will have to make later. If, for example, you want to kill popup windows per - default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you - regularly use and that require popups for actually useful content, like maybe - your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper. - + + Example usage: + + + +crunch-incoming-cookies + + + + + - - We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the - distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these - things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing. - Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :). - - - -How to Edit - - The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by - using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from http://config.privoxy.org/show-status. - The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single feature on a - per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults like - Cautious, Medium or Radical. - Warning: the Radical setting is not only more aggressive, - but includes settings that are fun and subversive, and which some may find of - dubious merit! - - - - If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the - the actions files. Look at default.action which is richly - commented. - - + +crunch-server-header + + + + Typical use: + + Remove a server header Privoxy has no dedicated action for. + + + + Effect: + + + Deletes every header sent by the server that contains the string the user supplied as parameter. + + + - -How Actions are Applied to URLs - - Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections, - like the alias sections which will - be discussed later. For now let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a - heading line (often split up to multiple lines for readability) which consist - of a list of actions, separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces. - Below that, there is a list of URL patterns, each on a separate line. - + + Type: + + + Parameterized. + + - - To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is - compared to all patterns in each action file file. Every time it matches, the list of - applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated, using the heading - of the section in which the pattern is located. If multiple matches for - the same URL set the same action differently, the last match wins. If not, - the effects are aggregated. E.g. a URL might match a regular section with - a heading line of { - +handle-as-image }, - then later another one with just { - +block }, resulting - in both actions to apply. - + + Parameter: + + + Any string. + + + + + + Notes: + + + This action allows you to block server headers for which no dedicated + Privoxy action exists. Privoxy + will remove every server header that contains the string you supplied as parameter. + + + Regular expressions are not supported and you can't + use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless + they contain the same string. + + + crunch-server-header is only meant for quick tests. + If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify + parts of them, you should use a custom + server-header filter. + + + + Don't block any header without understanding the consequences. + + + + - - You can trace this process for any given URL by visiting http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info. - + + Example usage (section): + + + # Crunch server headers that try to prevent caching +{ +crunch-server-header{no-cache} } +/ + + + + + - - More detail on this is provided in the Appendix, - Anatomy of an Action. - - - -Patterns - - As mentioned, Privoxy uses patterns - to determine what actions might apply to which sites and pages your browser - attempts to access. These patterns use wild card type - pattern matching to achieve a high degree of - flexibility. This allows one expression to be expanded and potentially match - against many similar patterns. - - - - Generally, a Privoxy pattern has the form - <domain>/<path>, where both the - <domain> and <path> are - optional. (This is why the special / pattern matches all - URLs). Note that the protocol portion of the URL pattern (e.g. - http://) should not be included in - the pattern. This is assumed already! - + +crunch-outgoing-cookies - www.example.com/ + Typical use: + + + Prevent the web server from reading any HTTP cookies from your system + + + + + + Effect: - is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to www.example.com, - regardless of which document on that server is requested. + Deletes any Cookie: HTTP headers from client requests. + - www.example.com + Type: + - - means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing / may - be omitted. - + Boolean. + - www.example.com/index.html + Parameter: - matches only the single document /index.html - on www.example.com. + N/A + - /index.html + Notes: - matches the document /index.html, regardless of the domain, - i.e. on any web server. + This action is only concerned with outgoing HTTP cookies. For + incoming HTTP cookies, use + crunch-incoming-cookies. + Use both to disable HTTP cookies completely. + + + It makes no sense at all to use this action in conjunction + with the session-cookies-only action, + since it would prevent the session cookies from being read. + - index.html + Example usage: - matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and - there is no top-level domain called .html. + +crunch-outgoing-cookies + + -The Domain Pattern - - - The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the - domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end. - For example: - + +deanimate-gifs - .example.com + Typical use: - - matches any domain that ENDS in - .example.com (e.g. www.example.com) - + Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images. + - www. + Effect: - matches any domain that STARTS with - www. + De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image. + - .example. + Type: + - - matches any domain that CONTAINS .example. - (Correctly speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains example as a domain.) - + Parameterized. - - - - Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names - themselves. They work pretty similar to shell wild-cards: * - stands for zero or more arbitrary characters, ? stands for - any single character, you can define character classes in square - brackets and all of that can be freely mixed: - - - ad*.example.com + Parameter: - matches adserver.example.com, - ads.example.com, etc but not sfads.example.com + last or first + - *ad*.example.com + Notes: - matches all of the above, and then some. + This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If + the option first is given, the first frame of the animation + is used as the replacement. If last is given, the last + frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for + most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire + last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame). - - - - .?pix.com - - matches www.ipix.com, - pictures.epix.com, a.b.c.d.e.upix.com etc. + You can safely use this action with patterns that will also match non-GIF + objects, because no attempt will be made at anything that doesn't look like + a GIF. + - www[1-9a-ez].example.c* + Example usage: - - matches www1.example.com, - www4.example.cc, wwwd.example.cy, - wwwz.example.com etc., but not - wwww.example.com. - + + +deanimate-gifs{last} + - - - - - - - -The Path Pattern - - - Privoxy uses Perl compatible regular expressions - (through the PCRE library) for - matching the path. - - - - There is an Appendix with a brief quick-start into regular - expressions, and full (very technical) documentation on PCRE regex syntax is available on-line - at http://www.pcre.org/man.txt. - You might also find the Perl man page on regular expressions (man perlre) - useful, which is available on-line at http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html. - - - - Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the /, - i.e. it matches as if it would start with a ^ (regular expression speak - for the beginning of a line). - - - - Please also note that matching in the path is CASE INSENSITIVE - by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the - (?-i) switch: www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.* will match - only documents whose path starts with PaTtErN in - exactly this capitalization. - - - - - - - - - -Actions - - All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled - somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a - +, and turned off if preceded with a -. So a - +action means do that action, e.g. - +block means please block URLs that match the - following patterns, and -block means don't - block URLs that match the following patterns, even if +block - previously applied. - - - - - Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and - separated by whitespace, like in - {+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}}, - followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply. - Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section - of the actions file. - - - - There are three classes of actions: - - - - - - - Boolean, i.e the action can only be enabled or - disabled. Syntax: - - - - +name # enable action name - -name # disable action name - - - Example: +block - - - - - - - Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action. - Syntax: - - - - +name{param} # enable action and set parameter to param, - # overwriting parameter from previous match if necessary - -name # disable action. The parameter can be omitted - - - Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action, - the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored. - - - Example: +hide-user-agent{ Mozilla 1.0 } - - - - - - Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions, - but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the - same URL, but with different parameters, all the parameters - from all matches are remembered. This is used for actions - that can be executed for the same request repeatedly, like adding multiple - headers, or filtering through multiple filters. Syntax: - - - - +name{param} # enable action and add param to the list of parameters - -name{param} # remove the parameter param from the list of parameters - # If it was the last one left, disable the action. - -name # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list - - - Examples: +add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text} and - +filter{html-annoyances} - - - - - - - - If nothing is specified in any actions file, no actions are - taken. So in this case Privoxy would just be a - normal, non-blocking, non-anonymizing proxy. You must specifically enable the - privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions - files will give a good starting point). - - - - Later defined actions always over-ride earlier ones. So exceptions - to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or - in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files). For - multi-valued actions, the actions are applied in the order they are specified. - Actions files are processed in the order they are defined in - config (the default installation has three actions - files). It also quite possible for any given URL pattern to match more than - one pattern and thus more than one set of actions! - - - - - The list of valid Privoxy actions are: - - - - - - - - - - - - -add-header + +downgrade-http-version Typical use: - Confuse log analysis, custom applications + Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1 @@ -1938,7 +4089,7 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph Effect: - Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server. + Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0. @@ -1947,17 +4098,15 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph Type: - Multi-value. + Boolean. - + Parameter: - Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked. - It is recommended that you use the X- prefix - for custom headers. + N/A @@ -1966,35 +4115,37 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph Notes: - This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple - headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what - HTTP headers are, you definitely don't need to worry about this - one. + This is a left-over from the time when Privoxy + didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the + unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server + out there. Not all HTTP/1.1 features and requirements are supported yet, + so there is a chance you might need this action. - Example usage: + Example usage (section): - +add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks} - + {+downgrade-http-version} +problem-host.example.com + + - - -block + +fast-redirects Typical use: - Block ads or other obnoxious content + Fool some click-tracking scripts and speed up indirect links. @@ -2002,10 +4153,8 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph Effect: - Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the requests are not - forwarded to the remote server, but answered locally with a substitute page or image, - as determined by the handle-as-image - and set-image-blocker actions. + Detects redirection URLs and redirects the browser without contacting + the redirection server first. @@ -2014,83 +4163,114 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph Type: - Boolean. + Parameterized. Parameter: - N/A + + + + simple-check to just search for the string http:// + to detect redirection URLs. + + + + + check-decoded-url to decode URLs (if necessary) before searching + for redirection URLs. + + + - - + + Notes: + + Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they + will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a + parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs + resulting from this scheme typically look like: + http://www.example.org/click-tracker.cgi?target=http%3a//www.example.net/. + - Privoxy sends a special BLOCKED page - for requests to blocked pages. This page contains links to find out why the request - was blocked, and a click-through to the blocked content (the latter only if compiled with the - force feature enabled). The BLOCKED page adapts to the available - screen space -- it displays full-blown if space allows, or miniaturized and text-only - if loaded into a small frame or window. If you are using Privoxy - right now, you can take a look at the - BLOCKED - page. + Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the + URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable, + since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go + to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your + browser asks the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds + the advertisers. - - A very important exception occurs if both - block and handle-as-image, - apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If - set-image-blocker - (see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter, - if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent. + + This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement. + If it is enabled by default, you will have to create some exceptions to + this action. It can lead to failures in several ways: - It is important to understand this process, in order - to understand how Privoxy deals with - ads and other unwanted content. + Not every URLs with other URLs as parameters is evil. + Some sites offer a real service that requires this information to work. + For example a validation service needs to know, which document to validate. + fast-redirects assumes that every URL parameter that + looks like another URL is a redirection target, and will always redirect to + the last one. Most of the time the assumption is correct, but if it isn't, + the user gets redirected anyway. - The filter - action can perform a very similar task, by blocking - banner images and other content through rewriting the relevant URLs in the - document's HTML source, so they don't get requested in the first place. - Note that this is a totally different technique, and it's easy to confuse the two. + Another failure occurs if the URL contains other parameters after the URL parameter. + The URL: + http://www.example.org/?redirect=http%3a//www.example.net/&foo=bar. + contains the redirection URL http://www.example.net/, + followed by another parameter. fast-redirects doesn't know that + and will cause a redirect to http://www.example.net/&foo=bar. + Depending on the target server configuration, the parameter will be silently ignored + or lead to a page not found error. You can prevent this problem by + first using the redirect action + to remove the last part of the URL, but it requires a little effort. + + + To detect a redirection URL, fast-redirects only + looks for the string http://, either in plain text + (invalid but often used) or encoded as http%3a//. + Some sites use their own URL encoding scheme, encrypt the address + of the target server or replace it with a database id. In theses cases + fast-redirects is fooled and the request reaches the + redirection server where it probably gets logged. - Example usage (section): + Example usage: - {+block} # Block and replace with "blocked" page -.nasty-stuff.example.com + + { +fast-redirects{simple-check} } + one.example.com -{+block +handle-as-image} # Block and replace with image -.ad.doubleclick.net -.ads.r.us + { +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} } + another.example.com/testing - + - -crunch-incoming-cookies + +filter Typical use: - - Prevent the web server from setting any cookies on your system - + Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size), + do fun text replacements, add personalized effects, etc. @@ -2098,25 +4278,39 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph Effect: - Deletes any Set-Cookie: HTTP headers from server replies. + All instances of text-based type, most notably HTML and JavaScript, to which + this action applies, can be filtered on-the-fly through the specified regular + expression based substitutions. (Note: as of version 3.0.3 plain text documents + are exempted from filtering, because web servers often use the + text/plain MIME type for all files whose type they don't know.) Type: - + - Boolean. + Parameterized. - + Parameter: - N/A + The name of a content filter, as defined in the filter file. + Filters can be defined in one or more files as defined by the + filterfile + option in the config file. + default.filter is the collection of filters + supplied by the developers. Locally defined filters should go + in their own file, such as user.filter. + + When used in its negative form, + and without parameters, all filtering is completely disabled. + @@ -2124,25 +4318,184 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph Notes: - This action is only concerned with incoming cookies. For - outgoing cookies, use - crunch-outgoing-cookies. - Use both to disable cookies completely. + For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available + in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the examples below for + a list. - It makes no sense at all to use this action in conjunction - with the session-cookies-only action, - since it would prevent the session cookies from being set. See also - filter-content-cookies. + Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to + slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has + passed the filters. (The total time until the page is completely rendered + doesn't change much, but it may be perceived as slower since the page is + not incrementally displayed.) + This effect will be more noticeable on slower connections. + + + Rolling your own + filters requires a knowledge of + Regular + Expressions and + HTML. + This is very powerful feature, and potentially very intrusive. + Filters should be used with caution, and where an equivalent + action is not available. + + + The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the + buffer-limit + option in the main config file. The + default is 4096 KB (4 Megs). Once this limit is exceeded, the buffered + data, and all pending data, is passed through unfiltered. + + + Inappropriate MIME types, such as zipped files, are not filtered at all. + (Again, only text-based types except plain text). Encrypted SSL data + (from HTTPS servers) cannot be filtered either, since this would violate + the integrity of the secure transaction. In some situations it might + be necessary to protect certain text, like source code, from filtering + by defining appropriate -filter exceptions. + + + Compressed content can't be filtered either, unless &my-app; + is compiled with zlib support (requires at least &my-app; 3.0.7), + in which case &my-app; will decompress the content before filtering + it. + + + If you use a &my-app; version without zlib support, but want filtering to work on + as much documents as possible, even those that would normally be sent compressed, + you must use the prevent-compression + action in conjunction with filter. + + + Content filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the + block + action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism + works quite differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners + based on their size (see below), since many of these seem to be somewhat + standardized. + + + Feedback with suggestions for new or + improved filters is particularly welcome! + + + The below list has only the names and a one-line description of each + predefined filter. There are more + verbose explanations of what these filters do in the filter file chapter. - Example usage: + Example usage (with filters from the distribution default.filter file). + See the Predefined Filters section for + more explanation on each: - +crunch-incoming-cookies + + +filter{js-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse. + + + + +filter{js-events} # Kill all JS event bindings and timers (Radically destructive! Only for extra nasty sites). + + + + +filter{html-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse. + + + + +filter{content-cookies} # Kill cookies that come in the HTML or JS content. + + + + +filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups). + + + + +filter{unsolicited-popups} # Disable only unsolicited pop-up windows. Useful if your browser lacks this ability. + + + + +filter{all-popups} # Kill all popups in JavaScript and HTML. Useful if your browser lacks this ability. + + + + +filter{img-reorder} # Reorder attributes in <img> tags to make the banners-by-* filters more effective. + + + + +filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners by size. + + + + +filter{banners-by-link} # Kill banners by their links to known clicktrackers. + + + + +filter{webbugs} # Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking). + + + + +filter{tiny-textforms} # Extend those tiny textareas up to 40x80 and kill the hard wrap. + + + + +filter{jumping-windows} # Prevent windows from resizing and moving themselves. + + + + +filter{frameset-borders} # Give frames a border and make them resizable. + + + + +filter{demoronizer} # Fix MS's non-standard use of standard charsets. + + + + +filter{shockwave-flash} # Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects. + + + + +filter{quicktime-kioskmode} # Make Quicktime movies saveable. + + + + +filter{fun} # Text replacements for subversive browsing fun! + + + + +filter{crude-parental} # Crude parental filtering. Note that this filter doesn't work reliably. + + + + +filter{ie-exploits} # Disable some known Internet Explorer bug exploits. + + + + +filter{site-specifics} # Cure for site-specific problems. Don't apply generally! + + + + +filter{no-ping} # Removes non-standard ping attributes in <a> and <area> tags. + + + + +filter{google} # CSS-based block for Google text ads. Also removes a width limitation and the toolbar advertisement. + + + + +filter{yahoo} # CSS-based block for Yahoo text ads. Also removes a width limitation. + + + + +filter{msn} # CSS-based block for MSN text ads. Also removes tracking URLs and a width limitation. + + + + +filter{blogspot} # Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this. @@ -2151,16 +4504,16 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph - -crunch-outgoing-cookies - + +force-text-mode + Typical use: - - Prevent the web server from reading any cookies from your system - + Force Privoxy to treat a document as if it was in some kind of text format. @@ -2168,8 +4521,8 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph Effect: - Deletes any Cookie: HTTP headers from client requests. - + Declares a document as text, even if the Content-Type: isn't detected as such. + @@ -2189,46 +4542,52 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph - + Notes: - This action is only concerned with outgoing cookies. For - incoming cookies, use - crunch-incoming-cookies. - Use both to disable cookies completely. - - - It makes no sense at all to use this action in conjunction - with the session-cookies-only action, - since it would prevent the session cookies from being read. + As explained above, + Privoxy tries to only filter files that are + in some kind of text format. The same restrictions apply to + content-type-overwrite. + force-text-mode declares a document as text, + without looking at the Content-Type: first. + + + Think twice before activating this action. Filtering binary data + with regular expressions can cause file damage. + + - + Example usage: - +crunch-outgoing-cookies + ++force-text-mode + - - -deanimate-gifs - + +forward-override + Typical use: - Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images. + Change the forwarding settings based on User-Agent or request origin @@ -2236,67 +4595,117 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph Effect: - De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image. - + Overrules the forward directives in the configuration file. + Type: - + - Parameterized. + Multi-value. + + + + + Parameter: + + + + forward . to use a direct connection without any additional proxies. + + + + forward 127.0.0.1:8123 to use the HTTP proxy listening at 127.0.0.1 port 8123. + + + + + forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 . to use the socks4a proxy listening at + 127.0.0.1 port 9050. Replace forward-socks4a with forward-socks4 + to use a socks4 connection (with local DNS resolution) instead, use forward-socks5 + for socks5 connections (with remote DNS resolution). + + + + + forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 proxy.example.org:8000 to use the socks4a proxy + listening at 127.0.0.1 port 9050 to reach the HTTP proxy listening at proxy.example.org port 8000. + Replace forward-socks4a with forward-socks4 to use a socks4 connection + (with local DNS resolution) instead, use forward-socks5 + for socks5 connections (with remote DNS resolution). + + + - Parameter: + Notes: - last or first + This action takes parameters similar to the + forward directives in the configuration + file, but without the URL pattern. It can be used as replacement, but normally it's only + used in cases where matching based on the request URL isn't sufficient. + + + Please read the description for the forward directives before + using this action. Forwarding to the wrong people will reduce your privacy and increase the + chances of man-in-the-middle attacks. + + + If the ports are missing or invalid, default values will be used. This might change + in the future and you shouldn't rely on it. Otherwise incorrect syntax causes Privoxy + to exit. + + + Use the show-url-info CGI page + to verify that your forward settings do what you thought the do. + + - Notes: + Example usage: - This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If - the option first is given, the first frame of the animation - is used as the replacement. If last is given, the last - frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for - most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire - last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame). - - - You can safely use this action with patterns that will also match non-GIF - objects, because no attempt will be made at anything that doesn't look like - a GIF. + +# Always use direct connections for requests previously tagged as +# User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2.0 and make sure +# resuming downloads continues to work. +# This way you can continue to use Tor for your normal browsing, +# without overloading the Tor network with your FreeBSD ports updates +# or downloads of bigger files like ISOs. +# Note that HTTP headers are easy to fake and therefore their +# values are as (un)trustworthy as your clients and users. +{+forward-override{forward .} \ + -hide-if-modified-since \ + -overwrite-last-modified \ +} +TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2\.0$ + - - - Example usage: - - - +deanimate-gifs{last} - - - - - -downgrade-http-version + + +handle-as-empty-document + Typical use: - Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1 + Mark URLs that should be replaced by empty documents if they get blocked @@ -2304,14 +4713,18 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph Effect: - Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0. + This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs. + If the block action also applies, + the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML BLOCKED + page, or an empty document will be sent to the client as a substitute for the blocked content. + The empty document isn't literally empty, but actually contains a single space. Type: - + Boolean. @@ -2325,42 +4738,50 @@ must find a better place for this paragraph - - + + Notes: - This is a left-over from the time when Privoxy - didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the - unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server - out there. Not all (optional) HTTP/1.1 features are supported yet, so there - is a chance you might need this action. + Some browsers complain about syntax errors if JavaScript documents + are blocked with Privoxy's + default HTML page; this option can be used to silence them. + And of course this action can also be used to eliminate the &my-app; + BLOCKED message in frames. + + + The content type for the empty document can be specified with + content-type-overwrite{}, + but usually this isn't necessary. - Example usage (section): + Example usage: - - {+downgrade-http-version} -problem-host.example.com - + + # Block all documents on example.org that end with ".js", +# but send an empty document instead of the usual HTML message. +{+block{Blocked JavaScript} +handle-as-empty-document} +example.org/.*\.js$ + + - + - -fast-redirects + +handle-as-image Typical use: - Fool some click-tracking scripts and speed up indirect links + Mark URLs as belonging to images (so they'll be replaced by images if they do get blocked, rather than HTML pages) @@ -2368,14 +4789,19 @@ problem-host.example.com Effect: - Cut off all but the last valid URL from requests. + This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs as images. + If the block action also applies, + the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML blocked + page, or a replacement image (as determined by the set-image-blocker action) will be sent to the + client as a substitute for the blocked content. Type: - + Boolean. @@ -2389,57 +4815,62 @@ problem-host.example.com - + Notes: - - Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they - will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a - parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs - resulting from this scheme typically look like: - http://some.place/click-tracker.cgi?target=http://some.where.else. - - Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the - URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable, - since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go - to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your - browser ask the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds - the advertisers. + The below generic example section is actually part of default.action. + It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should + be left intact. - This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement. - It is likely to break some sites. You should expect to need possibly - many exceptions to this action, if it is enabled by default in - default.action. Some sites just don't work without - it. + Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with + block, to block sources of banners, whose URLs don't + reflect the file type, like in the second example section. + + + Note that you cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, (in-line) ad + frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they won't display properly. + Forcing handle-as-image in this situation will not replace the + ad frame with an image, but lead to error messages. - Example usage: + Example usage (sections): - - {+fast-redirects} - + + # Generic image extensions: +# +{+handle-as-image} +/.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)$ + +# These don't look like images, but they're banners and should be +# blocked as images: +# +{+block{Nasty banners.} +handle-as-image} +nasty-banner-server.example.com/junk.cgi\?output=trash + + - - -filter - + +hide-accept-language + Typical use: - Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size), do fun text replacements, etc. + Pretend to use different language settings. @@ -2447,16 +4878,14 @@ problem-host.example.com Effect: - Text documents, including HTML and JavaScript, to which this action - applies, are filtered on-the-fly through the specified regular expression - based substitutions. + Deletes or replaces the Accept-Language: HTTP header in client requests. Type: - + Parameterized. @@ -2466,12 +4895,8 @@ problem-host.example.com Parameter: - The name of a filter, as defined in the filter file - (typically default.filter, set by the - filterfile - option in the config file). Filtering - can be completely disabled without the use of parameters. - + Keyword: block, or any user defined value. + @@ -2479,117 +4904,41 @@ problem-host.example.com Notes: - For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available - in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the examples below for - a list. - - - This is potentially a very powerful feature! But rolling your own - filters requires a knowledge of regular expressions and HTML. - - - Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to - slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has - passed the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way - since the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more - noticeable on slower connections. - - - The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the - buffer-limit - option in the main config file. The - default is 4096 KB (4 Megs). Once this limit is exceeded, the buffered - data, and all pending data, is passed through unfiltered. - - - Inappropriate MIME types, such as zipped files, are not filtered at all. - Encrypted SSL data (from HTTPS servers) cannot be filtered either since - this would violate the integrity of the secure transaction. + Faking the browser's language settings can be useful to make a + foreign User-Agent set with + hide-user-agent + more believable. - At this time, Privoxy cannot (yet!) uncompress compressed - documents. If you want filtering to work on all documents, even those that - would normally be sent compressed, use the - prevent-compression - action in conjunction with filter. + However some sites with content in different languages check the + Accept-Language: to decide which one to take by default. + Sometimes it isn't possible to later switch to another language without + changing the Accept-Language: header first. - Filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the - block - action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism - works quite differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners - based on their size (see below), since many of these seem to be somewhat - standardized. + Therefore it's a good idea to either only change the + Accept-Language: header to languages you understand, + or to languages that aren't wide spread. - Feedback with suggestions for new or - improved filters is particularly welcome! + Before setting the Accept-Language: header + to a rare language, you should consider that it helps to + make your requests unique and thus easier to trace. + If you don't plan to change this header frequently, + you should stick to a common language. - Example usage (with filters from the distribution default.filter file): + Example usage (section): - - - +filter{html-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse. - - - - +filter{js-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse - - - - +filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners based on their size for this page (very efficient!) - - - - +filter{banners-by-link} # Kill banners based on the link they are contained in (experimental) - - - - +filter{img-reorder} # Reorder attributes in <img> tags to make the banners-by-* filters more effective - - - - +filter{content-cookies} # Kill cookies that come sneaking in the HTML or JS content - - - - +filter{popups} # Kill all popups in JS and HTML - - - - +filter{webbugs} # Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking) - - - - +filter{fun} # Text replacements for subversive browsing fun! - - - - +filter{frameset-borders} # Give frames a border and make them resizeable - - - - +filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups) - - - - +filter{nimda} # Remove Nimda (virus) code. - - - - +filter{shockwave-flash} # Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects - - - - +filter{crude-parental} # Kill all web pages that contain the words "sex" or "warez" - - - - +filter{js-events} # Kill all JS event bindings (Radically destructive! Only for extra nasty sites) + + # Pretend to use Canadian language settings. +{+hide-accept-language{en-ca} \ ++hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; OpenBSD i386; en-CA; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060628 Firefox/1.5.0.4} \ +} +/ @@ -2598,14 +4947,16 @@ problem-host.example.com - -handle-as-image - + +hide-content-disposition + Typical use: - Mark URLs as belonging to images (so they'll be replaced by images if they get blocked) + Prevent download menus for content you prefer to view inside the browser. @@ -2613,12 +4964,7 @@ problem-host.example.com Effect: - This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs as images. - If the block action also applies, - the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML blocked - page, or a replacement image (as determined by the set-image-blocker action) will be sent to the - client as a substitute for the blocked content. + Deletes or replaces the Content-Disposition: HTTP header set by some servers. @@ -2627,7 +4973,7 @@ problem-host.example.com Type: - Boolean. + Parameterized. @@ -2635,8 +4981,8 @@ problem-host.example.com Parameter: - N/A - + Keyword: block, or any user defined value. + @@ -2644,42 +4990,45 @@ problem-host.example.com Notes: - The below generic example section is actually part of default.action. - It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should - be left intact. + Some servers set the Content-Disposition: HTTP header for + documents they assume you want to save locally before viewing them. + The Content-Disposition: header contains the file name + the browser is supposed to use by default. - Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with - block, to block sources of banners, whose URLs don't - reflect the file type, like in the second example section. + In most browsers that understand this header, it makes it impossible to + just view the document, without downloading it first, + even if it's just a simple text file or an image. - Note that you cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, (in-line) ad - frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they won't display properly. - Forcing handle-as-image in this situation will not replace the - ad frame with an image, but lead to error messages. + Removing the Content-Disposition: header helps + to prevent this annoyance, but some browsers additionally check the + Content-Type: header, before they decide if they can + display a document without saving it first. In these cases, you have + to change this header as well, before the browser stops displaying + download menus. + + + It is also possible to change the server's file name suggestion + to another one, but in most cases it isn't worth the time to set + it up. + + + This action will probably be removed in the future, + use server-header filters instead. - Example usage (sections): + Example usage: - - # Generic image extensions: -# -{+handle-as-image} -/.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)$ - -# These don't look like images, but they're banners and should be -# blocked as images: -# -{+block +handle-as-image} -some.nasty-banner-server.com/junk.cgi?output=trash - -# Banner source! Who cares if they also have non-image content? -ad.doubleclick.net - + + # Disarm the download link in Sourceforge's patch tracker +{ -filter \ + +content-type-overwrite{text/plain}\ + +hide-content-disposition{block} } + .sourceforge.net/tracker/download\.php @@ -2688,14 +5037,16 @@ ad.doubleclick.net - -hide-forwarded-for-headers - + +hide-if-modified-since + Typical use: - Improve privacy by hiding the true source of the request + Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions. @@ -2703,8 +5054,7 @@ ad.doubleclick.net Effect: - Deletes any existing X-Forwarded-for: HTTP header from client requests, - and prevents adding a new one. + Deletes the If-Modified-Since: HTTP client header or modifies its value. @@ -2713,7 +5063,7 @@ ad.doubleclick.net Type: - Boolean. + Parameterized. @@ -2721,8 +5071,8 @@ ad.doubleclick.net Parameter: - N/A - + Keyword: block, or a user defined value that specifies a range of hours. + @@ -2730,22 +5080,44 @@ ad.doubleclick.net Notes: - It is fairly safe to leave this on. + Removing this header is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real + reload instead of getting status code 304, which would cause the + browser to use a cached copy of the page. + + + Instead of removing the header, hide-if-modified-since can + also add or subtract a random amount of time to/from the header's value. + You specify a range of minutes where the random factor should be chosen from and + Privoxy does the rest. A negative value means + subtracting, a positive value adding. + + + Randomizing the value of the If-Modified-Since: makes + it less likely that the server can use the time as a cookie replacement, + but you will run into caching problems if the random range is too high. - This action is scheduled for improvement: It should be able to generate forged - X-Forwarded-for: headers using random IP addresses from a specified network, - to make successive requests from the same client look like requests from a pool of different - users sharing the same proxy. + It is a good idea to only use a small negative value and let + overwrite-last-modified + handle the greater changes. + + + It is also recommended to use this action together with + crunch-if-none-match, + otherwise it's more or less pointless. - Example usage: + Example usage (section): - +hide-forwarded-for-headers + # Let the browser revalidate but make tracking based on the time less likely. +{+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \ + +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \ + +crunch-if-none-match} +/ @@ -2860,7 +5232,13 @@ ad.doubleclick.net - block to delete the header completely. + conditional-block to delete the header completely if the host has changed. + + + conditional-forge to forge the header if the host has changed. + + + block to delete the header unconditionally. forge to pretend to be coming from the homepage of the server we are talking to. @@ -2876,18 +5254,37 @@ ad.doubleclick.net Notes: - forge is the preferred option here, since some servers will - not send images back otherwise, in an attempt to prevent their valuable - content from being embedded elsewhere (and hence, without being surrounded - by their banners). + conditional-block is the only parameter, + that isn't easily detected in the server's log file. If it blocks the + referrer, the request will look like the visitor used a bookmark or + typed in the address directly. + + + Leaving the referrer unmodified for requests on the same host + allows the server owner to see the visitor's click path, + but in most cases she could also get that information by comparing + other parts of the log file: for example the User-Agent if it isn't + a very common one, or the user's IP address if it doesn't change between + different requests. + + + Always blocking the referrer, or using a custom one, can lead to + failures on servers that check the referrer before they answer any + requests, in an attempt to prevent their content from being + embedded or linked to elsewhere. + + + Both conditional-block and forge + will work with referrer checks, as long as content and valid referring page + are on the same host. Most of the time that's the case. + + + hide-referer is an alternate spelling of + hide-referrer and the two can be can be freely + substituted with each other. (referrer is the + correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it + requires it to be spelled as referer.) - - hide-referer is an alternate spelling of - hide-referrer and the two can be can be freely - substituted with each other. (referrer is the - correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it - requires it to be spelled as referer.) - @@ -2912,7 +5309,7 @@ ad.doubleclick.net Typical use: - Conceal your type of browser and client operating system + Try to conceal your type of browser and client operating system @@ -2948,11 +5345,10 @@ ad.doubleclick.net - This breaks many web sites that depend on looking at this header in order - to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the - way, is NOT a smart way to do - that!). + This can lead to problems on web sites that depend on looking at this header in + order to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the + way, is NOT the right thing to do: good web sites + work browser-independently). @@ -2969,7 +5365,10 @@ ad.doubleclick.net (Must be just a silly MS goof, I'm sure :-). - This action is scheduled for improvement. + More information on known user-agent strings can be found at + http://www.user-agents.org/ + and + http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent. @@ -2987,14 +5386,98 @@ ad.doubleclick.net - -kill-popups<anchor id="kill-popup"> + +limit-connect + + + + Typical use: + + Prevent abuse of Privoxy as a TCP proxy relay or disable SSL for untrusted sites + + + + + Effect: + + + Specifies to which ports HTTP CONNECT requests are allowable. + + + + + + Type: + + + Parameterized. + + + + + Parameter: + + + A comma-separated list of ports or port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum + defaulting to 0 and the maximum to 65K). + + + + + + Notes: + + + By default, i.e. if no limit-connect action applies, + Privoxy allows HTTP CONNECT requests to all + ports. Use limit-connect if fine-grained control + is desired for some or all destinations. + + + The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites + (https:// URLs) through proxies. It works very simply: + the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then + short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote server. + This means CONNECT-enabled proxies can be used as TCP relays very easily. + + + Privoxy relays HTTPS traffic without seeing + the decoded content. Websites can leverage this limitation to circumvent &my-app;'s + filters. By specifying an invalid port range you can disable HTTPS entirely. + + + + + + Example usages: + + + + + + +limit-connect{443} # Port 443 is OK. ++limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK. ++limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Ports less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK. ++limit-connect{-} # All ports are OK ++limit-connect{,} # No HTTPS/SSL traffic is allowed + + + + + + + + +prevent-compression Typical use: - Eliminate those annoying pop-up windows + + Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be + passed through filters. + @@ -3002,8 +5485,7 @@ ad.doubleclick.net Effect: - While loading the document, replace JavaScript code that opens - pop-up windows with (syntactically neutral) dummy code on the fly. + Removes the Accept-Encoding header which can be used to ask for compressed transfer. @@ -3029,62 +5511,79 @@ ad.doubleclick.net Notes: - This action is easily confused with the built-in, hardwired filter - action, but there are important differences: For kill-popups, - the document need not be buffered, so it can be incrementally rendered while - downloading. But kill-popups doesn't catch as many pop-ups as - filter{popups} - does. + More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which + is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But the filter and + deanimate-gifs + actions need access to the uncompressed data. - Think of it as a fast and efficient replacement for a filter that you - can use if you don't want any filtering at all. Note that it doesn't make - sense to combine it with any filter action, - since as soon as one filter applies, - the whole document needs to be buffered anyway, which destroys the advantage of - the kill-popups action over its filter equivalent. + When compiled with zlib support (available since &my-app; 3.0.7), content that should be + filtered is decompressed on-the-fly and you don't have to worry about this action. + If you are using an older &my-app; version, or one that hasn't been compiled with zlib + support, this action can be used to convince the server to send the content uncompressed. - Killing all pop-ups is a dangerous business. Many shops and banks rely on - pop-ups to display forms, shopping carts etc, and killing only the unwanted pop-ups - would require artificial intelligence in Privoxy. - If the only kind of pop-ups that you want to kill are exit consoles (those - really nasty windows that appear when you close an other - one), you might want to use - filter{js-annoyances} - instead. + Most text-based instances compress very well, the size is seldom decreased by less than 50%, + for markup-heavy instances like news feeds saving more than 90% of the original size isn't + unusual. - - - Example usage: + Example usage (sections): - +kill-popups + + +# Selectively turn off compression, and enable a filter +# +{ +filter{tiny-textforms} +prevent-compression } +# Match only these sites + .google. + sourceforge.net + sf.net + +# Or instead, we could set a universal default: +# +{ +prevent-compression } + / # Match all sites + +# Then maybe make exceptions for broken sites: +# +{ -prevent-compression } +.compusa.com/ + + - -limit-connect - + +overwrite-last-modified + Typical use: - Prevent abuse of Privoxy as a TCP proxy relay + Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions. @@ -3092,7 +5591,7 @@ ad.doubleclick.net Effect: - Specifies to which ports HTTP CONNECT requests are allowable. + Deletes the Last-Modified: HTTP server header or modifies its value. @@ -3109,9 +5608,9 @@ ad.doubleclick.net Parameter: - A comma-separated list of ports or port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum - defaulting to 0 and the maximum to 65K). - + One of the keywords: block, reset-to-request-time + and randomize + @@ -3119,55 +5618,70 @@ ad.doubleclick.net Notes: - By default, i.e. if no limit-connect action applies, - Privoxy only allows HTTP CONNECT - requests to port 443 (the standard, secure HTTPS port). Use - limit-connect if more fine-grained control is desired - for some or all destinations. + Removing the Last-Modified: header is useful for filter + testing, where you want to force a real reload instead of getting status + code 304, which would cause the browser to reuse the old + version of the page. - The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites - (https:// URLs) through proxies. It works very simply: - the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then - short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote server. - This can be a big security hole, since CONNECT-enabled proxies can be - abused as TCP relays very easily. - - - If you don't know what any of this means, there probably is no reason to - change this one, since the default is already very restrictive. - + The randomize option overwrites the value of the + Last-Modified: header with a randomly chosen time + between the original value and the current time. In theory the server + could send each document with a different Last-Modified: + header to track visits without using cookies. Randomize + makes it impossible and the browser can still revalidate cached documents. + + + reset-to-request-time overwrites the value of the + Last-Modified: header with the current time. You could use + this option together with + hide-if-modified-since + to further customize your random range. + + + The preferred parameter here is randomize. It is safe + to use, as long as the time settings are more or less correct. + If the server sets the Last-Modified: header to the time + of the request, the random range becomes zero and the value stays the same. + Therefore you should later randomize it a second time with + hided-if-modified-since, + just to be sure. + + + It is also recommended to use this action together with + crunch-if-none-match. + - Example usages: + Example usage: - - - - +limit-connect{443} # This is the default and need not be specified. -+limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK. -+limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Ports less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK. -+limit-connect{-} # All ports are OK (gaping security hole!) + # Let the browser revalidate without being tracked across sessions +{ +hide-if-modified-since{-60} \ + +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \ + +crunch-if-none-match} +/ - - -prevent-compression + + +redirect + Typical use: - Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be - passed through filters + Redirect requests to other sites. @@ -3176,7 +5690,8 @@ ad.doubleclick.net Effect: - Adds a header to the request that asks for uncompressed transfer. + Convinces the browser that the requested document has been moved + to another location and the browser should get it from there. @@ -3185,7 +5700,7 @@ ad.doubleclick.net Type: - Boolean. + Parameterized @@ -3193,7 +5708,7 @@ ad.doubleclick.net Parameter: - N/A + An absolute URL or a single pcrs command. @@ -3202,42 +5717,61 @@ ad.doubleclick.net Notes: - More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which - is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But for the filter, deanimate-gifs - and kill-popups actions to work, - Privoxy needs access to the uncompressed data. - Unfortunately, Privoxy can't yet(!) uncompress, filter, and - re-compress the content on the fly. So if you want to ensure that all websites, including - those that normally compress, can be filtered, you need to use this action. + Requests to which this action applies are answered with a + HTTP redirect to URLs of your choosing. The new URL is + either provided as parameter, or derived by applying a + single pcrs command to the original URL. - This will slow down transfers from those websites, though. If you use any of the above-mentioned - actions, you will typically want to use prevent-compression in conjunction - with them. + This action will be ignored if you use it together with + block. + It can be combined with + fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} + to redirect to a decoded version of a rewritten URL. - Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed - documents correctly (they send an empty document body). If you use prevent-compression - per default, you'll have to add exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that. + Use this action carefully, make sure not to create redirection loops + and be aware that using your own redirects might make it + possible to fingerprint your requests. + + + In case of problems with your redirects, or simply to watch + them working, enable debug 128. - Example usage (sections): + Example usages: - # Set default: -# -{+prevent-compression} -/ # Match all sites + # Replace example.com's style sheet with another one +{ +redirect{http://localhost/css-replacements/example.com.css} } + example.com/stylesheet\.css -# Make exceptions for ill sites: -# -{-prevent-compression} -www.debianhelp.org -www.pclinuxonline.com +# Create a short, easy to remember nickname for a favorite site +# (relies on the browser accept and forward invalid URLs to &my-app;) +{ +redirect{http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/actions-file.html} } + a + +# Always use the expanded view for Undeadly.org articles +# (Note the $ at the end of the URL pattern to make sure +# the request for the rewritten URL isn't redirected as well) +{+redirect{s@$@&mode=expanded@}} +undeadly.org/cgi\?action=article&sid=\d*$ + +# Redirect Google search requests to MSN +{+redirect{s@^http://[^/]*/search\?q=([^&]*).*@http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=$1@}} +.google.com/search + +# Redirect MSN search requests to Yahoo +{+redirect{s@^http://[^/]*/results\.aspx\?q=([^&]*).*@http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=$1@}} +search.msn.com//results\.aspx\?q= + +# Redirect remote requests for this manual +# to the local version delivered by Privoxy +{+redirect{s@^http://www@http://config@}} +www.privoxy.org/user-manual/ @@ -3247,15 +5781,15 @@ www.pclinuxonline.com - -send-vanilla-wafer + +server-header-filter Typical use: - Feed log analysis scripts with useless data. + Rewrite or remove single server headers. @@ -3264,17 +5798,17 @@ www.pclinuxonline.com Effect: - Sends a cookie with each request stating that you do not accept any copyright - on cookies sent to you, and asking the site operator not to track you. + All server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly + through the specified regular expression based substitutions. Type: - + - Boolean. + Parameterized. @@ -3282,7 +5816,8 @@ www.pclinuxonline.com Parameter: - N/A + The name of a server-header filter, as defined in one of the + filter files. @@ -3291,20 +5826,35 @@ www.pclinuxonline.com Notes: - The vanilla wafer is a (relatively) unique header and could conceivably be used to track you. + Server-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to + all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside + you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z. + You can do that by using tags though. - This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration. + Server-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished + and use their output as input. - + + Please refer to the filter file chapter + to learn which server-header filters are available by default, and how to + create your own. + + - Example usage: + Example usage (section): - - +send-vanilla-wafer - + + +{+server-header-filter{html-to-xml}} +example.org/xml-instance-that-is-delivered-as-html + +{+server-header-filter{xml-to-html}} +example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not + + @@ -3313,15 +5863,15 @@ www.pclinuxonline.com - -send-wafer + +server-header-tagger Typical use: - Send custom cookies or feed log analysis scripts with even more useless data. + Enable or disable filters based on the Content-Type header. @@ -3330,16 +5880,18 @@ www.pclinuxonline.com Effect: - Sends a custom, user-defined cookie with each request. + Server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through + the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as + tag. Type: - + - Multi-value. + Parameterized. @@ -3347,8 +5899,8 @@ www.pclinuxonline.com Parameter: - A string of the form name=value. + The name of a server-header tagger, as defined in one of the + filter files. @@ -3357,23 +5909,38 @@ www.pclinuxonline.com Notes: - Being multi-valued, multiple instances of this action can apply to the same request, - resulting in multiple cookies being sent. + Server-header taggers are applied to each header on its own, + and as the header isn't modified, each tagger sees + the original. - This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration. + Server-header taggers are executed before all other header actions + that modify server headers. Their tags can be used to control + all of the other server-header actions, the content filters + and the crunch actions (redirect + and block). - + + Obviously crunching based on tags created by server-header taggers + doesn't prevent the request from showing up in the server's log file. + + + + Example usage (section): - - {+send-wafer{UsingPrivoxy=true}} -my-internal-testing-server.void - + + +# Tag every request with the content type declared by the server +{+server-header-tagger{content-type}} +/ + + + @@ -3387,7 +5954,8 @@ my-internal-testing-server.void Typical use: - Allow only temporary session cookies (for the current browser session only). + Allow only temporary session cookies (for the current + browser session only). @@ -3396,8 +5964,9 @@ my-internal-testing-server.void Effect: - Deletes the expires field from Set-Cookie: server headers. - Most browsers will not store such cookies permanently and forget them in between sessions. + Deletes the expires field from Set-Cookie: + server headers. Most browsers will not store such cookies permanently and + forget them in between sessions. @@ -3526,7 +6095,8 @@ my-internal-testing-server.void target-url to send a redirect to target-url. You can redirect - to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem (via file:/// URL). + to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem via file:/// URL. + (But note that not all browsers support redirecting to a local file system). A good application of redirects is to use special Privoxy-built-in @@ -3566,7 +6136,7 @@ my-internal-testing-server.void +set-image-blocker{pattern} - Redirect to the BSD devil: + Redirect to the BSD daemon: +set-image-blocker{http://www.freebsd.org/gifs/dae_up3.gif} @@ -3637,7 +6207,6 @@ my-internal-testing-server.void them before writing. So the effects of your aliases are of course preserved, but the aliases themselves are lost when you edit sections that use aliases with it. - This is likely to change in future versions of Privoxy. @@ -3656,16 +6225,17 @@ my-internal-testing-server.void # These aliases just save typing later: # (Note that some already use other aliases!) # - +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies - -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies - block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image - mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only + +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies + -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies + +block-as-image = +block{Blocked image.} +handle-as-image + allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only -filter{content-cookies} # These aliases define combinations of actions # that are useful for certain types of sites: # - fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -kill-popups - shop = -crunch-all-cookies -filter{popups} -kill-popups + fragile = -block -filter -crunch-all-cookies -fast-redirects -hide-referrer -prevent-compression + + shop = -crunch-all-cookies -filter{all-popups} # Short names for other aliases, for really lazy people ;-) # @@ -3687,7 +6257,8 @@ my-internal-testing-server.void {fragile} .office.microsoft.com .windowsupdate.microsoft.com - .nytimes.com + # Gmail is really mail.google.com, not gmail.com + mail.google.com # Shopping sites: # Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data) @@ -3695,22 +6266,24 @@ my-internal-testing-server.void {shop} .quietpc.com .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com - .scan.co.uk + mybank.example.com # These shops require pop-ups: # - {shop -kill-popups -filter{popups}} + {-filter{all-popups} -filter{unsolicited-popups}} .dabs.com .overclockers.co.uk - Aliases like shop and fragile are often used for - problem sites that require some actions to be disabled + Aliases like shop and fragile are typically used for + problem sites that require more than one action to be disabled in order to function properly. - + Actions Files Tutorial @@ -3720,143 +6293,108 @@ my-internal-testing-server.void linkend="actions">specified and applied to URLs, how patterns work, and how to define and use aliases. Now, let's look at an - example default.action and user.action - file and see how all these pieces come together: + example match-all.action, default.action + and user.action file and see how all these pieces come together: -default.action - + +match-all.action -Every config file should start with a short comment stating its purpose: + Remember all actions are disabled when matching starts, + so we have to explicitly enable the ones we want. - # Sample default.action file <developers@privoxy.org> + While the match-all.action file only contains a + single section, it is probably the most important one. It has only one + pattern, /, but this pattern + matches all URLs. Therefore, the set of + actions used in this default section will + be applied to all requests as a start. It can be partly or + wholly overridden by other actions files like default.action + and user.action, but it will still be largely responsible + for your overall browsing experience. -Then, since this is the default.action file, the -first section is a special section for internal use that you needn't -change or worry about: - + Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is + no need to disable any actions here. (Remember: a + + preceding the action name enables the action, a - disables!). + Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into + multiple lines with line continuation. + -########################################################################## -# Settings -- Don't change! For internal Privoxy use ONLY. -########################################################################## - -{{settings}} -for-privoxy-version=3.0 +{ \ + +change-x-forwarded-for{block} \ + +hide-from-header{block} \ + +set-image-blocker{pattern} \ +} +/ # Match all URLs + -After that comes the (optional) alias section. We'll use the example -section from the above chapter on aliases, -that also explains why and how aliases are used: + The default behavior is now set. + - - -########################################################################## -# Aliases -########################################################################## -{{alias}} + +default.action -# These aliases just save typing later: -# (Note that some already use other aliases!) -# -+crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies --crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies -block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image -mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only + + If you aren't a developer, there's no need for you to edit the + default.action file. It is maintained by + the &my-app; developers and if you disagree with some of the + sections, you should overrule them in your user.action. + -# These aliases define combinations of actions -# that are useful for certain types of sites: -# -fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -kill-popups -shop = mercy-for-cookies -filter{popups} -kill-popups + + Understanding the default.action file can + help you with your user.action, though. - Now come the regular sections, i.e. sets of actions, accompanied - by URL patterns to which they apply. Remember all actions - are disabled when matching starts, so we have to explicitly - enable the ones we want. + The first section in this file is a special section for internal use + that prevents older &my-app; versions from reading the file: - The first regular section is probably the most important. It has only - one pattern, /, but this pattern - matches all URLs. Therefore, the - set of actions used in this default section will - be applied to all requests as a start. It can be partly or - wholly overridden by later matches further down this file, or in user.action, - but it will still be largely responsible for your overall browsing - experience. + +########################################################################## +# Settings -- Don't change! For internal Privoxy use ONLY. +########################################################################## +{{settings}} +for-privoxy-version=3.0.11 - Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is - no real need to disable any actions here, but we will do that nonetheless, - to have a complete listing for your reference. (Remember: a + - preceding the action name enables the action, a - disables!). - Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into - multiple lines with line continuation. - + After that comes the (optional) alias section. We'll use the example + section from the above chapter on aliases, + that also explains why and how aliases are used: + ########################################################################## -# "Defaults" section: +# Aliases ########################################################################## - { \ - -add-header \ - -block \ - -crunch-incoming-cookies \ - -crunch-outgoing-cookies \ - +deanimate-gifs \ - -downgrade-http-version \ - +fast-redirects \ - +filter{html-annoyances} \ - +filter{js-annoyances} \ - -filter{content-cookies} \ - +filter{popups} \ - +filter{webbugs} \ - -filter{refresh-tags} \ - -filter{fun} \ - +filter{nimda} \ - +filter{banners-by-size} \ - -filter{banners-by-link} \ - -filter{img-reorder} \ - -filter{shockwave-flash} \ - -filter{crude-parental} \ - -filter{js-events} \ - -handle-as-image \ - +hide-forwarded-for-headers \ - +hide-from-header{block} \ - +hide-referrer{forge} \ - -hide-user-agent \ - -kill-popups \ - -limit-connect \ - +prevent-compression \ - -send-vanilla-wafer \ - -send-wafer \ - +session-cookies-only \ - +set-image-blocker{pattern} \ - } - / # forward slash will match *all* potential URL patterns. - +{{alias}} - - The default behavior is now set. Note that some actions, like not hiding - the user agent, are part of a general policy that applies - universally and won't get any exceptions defined later. Other choices, - like not blocking (which is understandably the - default!) need exceptions, i.e. we need to specify explicitly what we - want to block in later sections. - We will also want to make exceptions from our general pop-up-killing, - and use our defined aliases for that. + # These aliases just save typing later: + # (Note that some already use other aliases!) + # + +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies + -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies + +block-as-image = +block{Blocked image.} +handle-as-image + mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only -filter{content-cookies} + + # These aliases define combinations of actions + # that are useful for certain types of sites: + # + fragile = -block -filter -crunch-all-cookies -fast-redirects -hide-referrer + shop = -crunch-all-cookies -filter{all-popups} @@ -3878,7 +6416,8 @@ shop = mercy-for-cookies -filter{popups} -kill-popups # { fragile } .office.microsoft.com # surprise, surprise! -.windowsupdate.microsoft.com +.windowsupdate.microsoft.com +mail.google.com @@ -3898,33 +6437,10 @@ shop = mercy-for-cookies -filter{popups} -kill-popups .scan.co.uk - - Then, there are sites which rely on pop-up windows (yuck!) to work. - Since we made pop-up-killing our default above, we need to make exceptions - now. Mozilla users, who - can turn on smart handling of unwanted pop-ups in their browsers, can - safely choose - -filter{popups} (and - -kill-popups) above - and hence don't need this section. Anyway, disabling an already disabled - action doesn't hurt, so we'll define our exceptions regardless of what was - chosen in the defaults section: - - - - -# These sites require pop-ups too :( -# -{ -kill-popups -filter{popups} } -.dabs.com -.overclockers.co.uk -.deutsche-bank-24.de - - The fast-redirects - action, which we enabled per default above, breaks some sites. So disable - it for popular sites where we know it misbehaves: + action, which may have been enabled in match-all.action, + breaks some sites. So disable it for popular sites where we know it misbehaves: @@ -3944,8 +6460,8 @@ edit.*.yahoo.com be blocked, a substitute image can be sent, rather than an HTML page. Contacting the remote site to find out is not an option, since it would destroy the loading time advantage of banner blocking, and it - would feed the advertisers (in terms of money and - information). We can mark any URL as an image with the handle-as-image action, and marking all URLs that end in a known image file extension is a good start: @@ -3969,7 +6485,7 @@ edit.*.yahoo.com generate the banners, so it won't be visible from the URL that the request is for an image. Hence we block them and mark them as images in one go, with the help of our - block-as-image alias defined above. (We could of + +block-as-image alias defined above. (We could of course just as well use +block +handle-as-image here.) Remember that the type of the replacement image is chosen by the @@ -3983,20 +6499,19 @@ edit.*.yahoo.com # Known ad generators: # -{ block-as-image } +{ +block-as-image } ar.atwola.com .ad.doubleclick.net .ad.*.doubleclick.net .a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$ .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$ bs*.gsanet.com -bs*.einets.com .qkimg.net One of the most important jobs of Privoxy - is to block banners. A huge bunch of them are already blocked + is to block banners. Many of these can be blocked by the filter{banners-by-size} action, which we enabled above, and which deletes the references to banner images from the pages while they are loaded, so the browser doesn't request @@ -4006,7 +6521,7 @@ bs*.einets.com block action to them. - First comes a bunch of generic patterns, which do most of the work, by + First comes many generic patterns, which do most of the work, by matching typical domain and path name components of banners. Then comes a list of individual patterns for specific sites, which is omitted here to keep the example short: @@ -4017,7 +6532,7 @@ bs*.einets.com ########################################################################## # Block these fine banners: ########################################################################## -{ +block } +{ +block{Banner ads.} } # Generic patterns: # @@ -4034,7 +6549,7 @@ count*. - You wouldn't believe how many advertisers actually call their banner + It's quite remarkable how many advertisers actually call their banner servers ads.company.com, or call the directory in which the banners are stored simply banners. So the above generic patterns are surprisingly effective. @@ -4072,6 +6587,7 @@ count*. { -block } adv[io]*. # (for advogato.org and advice.*) adsl. # (has nothing to do with ads) +adobe. # (has nothing to do with ads either) ad[ud]*. # (adult.* and add.*) .edu # (universities don't host banners (yet!)) .*loads. # (downloads, uploads etc) @@ -4099,12 +6615,15 @@ www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv # Don't filter code! # { -filter } -/.*cvs +/(.*/)?cvs +bugzilla. +developer. +wiki. .sourceforge.net - The actual default.action is of course more + The actual default.action is of course much more comprehensive, but we hope this example made clear how it works. @@ -4137,7 +6656,7 @@ www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv -# My user.action file. <fred@foobar.com> +# My user.action file. <fred@example.com> @@ -4148,447 +6667,1045 @@ www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv +# Aliases are local to the file they are defined in. # (Re-)define aliases for this file: # {{alias}} +# +# These aliases just save typing later, and the alias names should +# be self explanatory. +# ++crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies -mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only -fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -kill-popups -shop = mercy-for-cookies -filter{popups} -kill-popups -allow-ads = -block -filter{banners-by-size} # (see below) - + allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only + allow-popups = -filter{all-popups} ++block-as-image = +block{Blocked as image.} +handle-as-image +-block-as-image = -block + +# These aliases define combinations of actions that are useful for +# certain types of sites: +# +fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referrer +shop = -crunch-all-cookies allow-popups + +# Allow ads for selected useful free sites: +# +allow-ads = -block -filter{banners-by-size} -filter{banners-by-link} + +# Alias for specific file types that are text, but might have conflicting +# MIME types. We want the browser to force these to be text documents. +handle-as-text = -filter +-content-type-overwrite{text/plain} +-force-text-mode -hide-content-disposition + Say you have accounts on some sites that you visit regularly, and you don't want to have to log in manually each time. So you'd like to allow persistent cookies for these sites. The - mercy-for-cookies alias defined above does exactly - that, i.e. it disables crunching of cookies in any direction, and - processing of cookies to make them temporary. + allow-all-cookies alias defined above does exactly + that, i.e. it disables crunching of cookies in any direction, and the + processing of cookies to make them only temporary. + + + + +{ allow-all-cookies } + sourceforge.net + .yahoo.com + .msdn.microsoft.com + .redhat.com + + + + Your bank is allergic to some filter, but you don't know which, so you disable them all: -{ mercy-for-cookies } -sunsolve.sun.com -slashdot.org -.yahoo.com -.msdn.microsoft.com -.redhat.com +{ -filter } + .your-home-banking-site.com - Your bank needs popups and is allergic to some filter, but you don't - know which, so you disable them all: + Some file types you may not want to filter for various reasons: -{ -filter -kill-popups } -.your-home-banking-site.com +# Technical documentation is likely to contain strings that might +# erroneously get altered by the JavaScript-oriented filters: +# +.tldp.org +/(.*/)?selfhtml/ + +# And this stupid host sends streaming video with a wrong MIME type, +# so that Privoxy thinks it is getting HTML and starts filtering: +# +stupid-server.example.com/ - While browsing the web with Privoxy you - noticed some ads that sneaked through, but you were too lazy to - report them through our fine and easy feedback - system, so you have added them here: + Example of a simple block action. Say you've + seen an ad on your favourite page on example.com that you want to get rid of. + You have right-clicked the image, selected copy image location + and pasted the URL below while removing the leading http://, into a + { +block{} } section. Note that { +handle-as-image + } need not be specified, since all URLs ending in + .gif will be tagged as images by the general rules as set + in default.action anyway: -{ +block } -www.a-popular-site.com/some/unobvious/path -another.popular.site.net/more/junk/here/ +{ +block{Nasty ads.} } + www.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor\.gif + another.example.net/more/junk/here/ + + + + The URLs of dynamically generated banners, especially from large banner + farms, often don't use the well-known image file name extensions, which + makes it impossible for Privoxy to guess + the file type just by looking at the URL. + You can use the +block-as-image alias defined above for + these cases. + Note that objects which match this rule but then turn out NOT to be an + image are typically rendered as a broken image icon by the + browser. Use cautiously. - Note that, assuming the banners in the above example have regular image - extensions (most do), - +handle-as-image - need not be specified, since all URLs ending in these extensions will - already have been tagged as images in the relevant section of - default.action by now. + +{ +block-as-image } + .doubleclick.net + .fastclick.net + /Realmedia/ads/ + ar.atwola.com/ - Then you noticed that the default configuration breaks Forbes Magazine, + Now you noticed that the default configuration breaks Forbes Magazine, but you were too lazy to find out which action is the culprit, and you were again too lazy to give feedback, so you just used the fragile alias on the site, and - -- whoa! -- it worked: + -- whoa! -- it worked. The fragile + aliases disables those actions that are most likely to break a site. Also, + good for testing purposes to see if it is Privoxy + that is causing the problem or not. We later find other regular sites + that misbehave, and add those to our personalized list of troublemakers: + + + + +{ fragile } + .forbes.com + webmail.example.com + .mybank.com + + + + You like the fun text replacements in default.filter, + but it is disabled in the distributed actions file. + So you'd like to turn it on in your private, + update-safe config, once and for all: + + + + +{ +filter{fun} } + / # For ALL sites! + + + + Note that the above is not really a good idea: There are exceptions + to the filters in default.action for things that + really shouldn't be filtered, like code on CVS->Web interfaces. Since + user.action has the last word, these exceptions + won't be valid for the fun filtering specified here. + + + + You might also worry about how your favourite free websites are + funded, and find that they rely on displaying banner advertisements + to survive. So you might want to specifically allow banners for those + sites that you feel provide value to you: + + + + +{ allow-ads } + .sourceforge.net + .slashdot.org + .osdn.net + + + + Note that allow-ads has been aliased to + -block, + -filter{banners-by-size}, and + -filter{banners-by-link} above. + + + + Invoke another alias here to force an over-ride of the MIME type + application/x-sh which typically would open a download type + dialog. In my case, I want to look at the shell script, and then I can save + it should I choose to. + + + + +{ handle-as-text } + /.*\.sh$ + + + + user.action is generally the best place to define + exceptions and additions to the default policies of + default.action. Some actions are safe to have their + default policies set here though. So let's set a default policy to have a + blank image as opposed to the checkerboard pattern for + ALL sites. / of course matches all URL + paths and patterns: + + + + +{ +set-image-blocker{blank} } +/ # ALL sites + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +Filter Files + + + On-the-fly text substitutions need + to be defined in a filter file. Once defined, they + can then be invoked as an action. + + + + &my-app; supports three different filter actions: + filter to + rewrite the content that is send to the client, + client-header-filter + to rewrite headers that are send by the client, and + server-header-filter + to rewrite headers that are send by the server. + + + + &my-app; also supports two tagger actions: + client-header-tagger + and + server-header-tagger. + Taggers and filters use the same syntax in the filter files, the difference + is that taggers don't modify the text they are filtering, but use a rewritten + version of the filtered text as tag. The tags can then be used to change the + applying actions through sections with tag-patterns. + + + + + Multiple filter files can be defined through the filterfile config directive. The filters + as supplied by the developers are located in + default.filter. It is recommended that any locally + defined or modified filters go in a separately defined file such as + user.filter. + + + + Common tasks for content filters are to eliminate common annoyances in + HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows, + exit consoles, crippled windows without navigation tools, the + infamous <BLINK> tag etc, to suppress images with certain + width and height attributes (standard banner sizes or web-bugs), + or just to have fun. + + + + Enabled content filters are applied to any content whose + Content Type header is recognised as a sign + of text-based content, with the exception of text/plain. + Use the force-text-mode action + to also filter other content. + + + + Substitutions are made at the source level, so if you want to roll + your own filters, you should first be familiar with HTML syntax, + and, of course, regular expressions. + + + + Just like the actions files, the + filter file is organized in sections, which are called filters + here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with one of the + keywords FILTER:, + CLIENT-HEADER-FILTER: or SERVER-HEADER-FILTER: + followed by the filter's name, and a short (one line) + description of what it does. Below that line + come the jobs, i.e. lines that define the actual + text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter + should describe what the filter eliminates. The + comment is used in the web-based + user interface. + + + + Once a filter called name has been defined + in the filter file, it can be invoked by using an action of the form + +filter{name} + in any actions file. + + + + Filter definitions start with a header line that contains the filter + type, the filter name and the filter description. + A content filter header line for a filter called foo could look + like this: + + + + FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar" + + + + Below that line, and up to the next header line, come the jobs that + define what text replacements the filter executes. They are specified + in a syntax that imitates Perl's + s/// operator. If you are familiar with Perl, you + will find this to be quite intuitive, and may want to look at the + PCRS documentation for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour. Most + notably, the non-standard option letter U is supported, + which turns the default to ungreedy matching. + + + + If you are new to + Regular + Expressions, you might want to take a look at + the Appendix on regular expressions, and + see the Perl + manual for + the + s/// operator's syntax and Perl-style regular + expressions in general. + The below examples might also help to get you started. + + + + + +Filter File Tutorial + + Now, let's complete our foo content filter. We have already defined + the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace + foo with bar, there is only one (trivial) job + needed: + + + + s/foo/bar/ + + + + But wait! Didn't the comment say that all occurrences + of foo should be replaced? Our current job will only take + care of the first foo on each page. For global substitution, + we'll need to add the g option: + + + + s/foo/bar/g + + + + Our complete filter now looks like this: + + + FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar" +s/foo/bar/g + + + + Let's look at some real filters for more interesting examples. Here you see + a filter that protects against some common annoyances that arise from JavaScript + abuse. Let's look at its jobs one after the other: + + + + + +FILTER: js-annoyances Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse + +# Get rid of JavaScript referrer tracking. Test page: http://www.randomoddness.com/untitled.htm +# +s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|Usg + + + + Following the header line and a comment, you see the job. Note that it uses + | as the delimiter instead of /, because + the pattern contains a forward slash, which would otherwise have to be escaped + by a backslash (\). + + + + Now, let's examine the pattern: it starts with the text <script.* + enclosed in parentheses. Since the dot matches any character, and * + means: Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself, this + matches <script, followed by any text, i.e. + it matches the whole page, from the start of the first <script> tag. + + + + That's more than we want, but the pattern continues: document\.referrer + matches only the exact string document.referrer. The dot needed to + be escaped, i.e. preceded by a backslash, to take away its + special meaning as a joker, and make it just a regular dot. So far, the meaning is: + Match from the start of the first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including, + the text document.referrer, if both are present + in the page (and appear in that order). + + + + But there's still more pattern to go. The next element, again enclosed in parentheses, + is .*</script>. You already know what .* + means, so the whole pattern translates to: Match from the start of the first <script> + tag in a page to the end of the last <script> tag, provided that the text + document.referrer appears somewhere in between. - -{ fragile } -.forbes.com + This is still not the whole story, since we have ignored the options and the parentheses: + The portions of the page matched by sub-patterns that are enclosed in parentheses, will be + remembered and be available through the variables $1, $2, ... in + the substitute. The U option switches to ungreedy matching, which means + that the first .* in the pattern will only eat up all + text in between <script and the first occurrence + of document.referrer, and that the second .* will + only span the text up to the first </script> + tag. Furthermore, the s option says that the match may span + multiple lines in the page, and the g option again means that the + substitution is global. - You like the fun text replacements in default.filter, - but it is disabled in the distributed actions file. (My colleagues on the team just - don't have a sense of humour, that's why! ;-). So you'd like to turn it on in your private, - update-safe config, once and for all: + So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text + document.referrer. Remember the parts of the script from + (and including) the start tag up to (and excluding) the string + document.referrer as $1, and the part following + that string, up to and including the closing tag, as $2. - -{ +filter{fun} } -/ # For ALL sites! + Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So + lets look at the substitute: $1"Not Your Business!"$2 is + easy to read: The text remembered as $1, followed by + "Not Your Business!" (including + the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as $2. + This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part + (the document.referrer) replaced by "Not Your + Business!". - Note that the above is not really a good idea: There are exceptions - to the filters in default.action for things that - really shouldn't be filtered, like code on CVS->Web interfaces. Since - user.action has the last word, these exceptions - won't be valid for the fun filtering specified here. + The whole job now reads: Replace document.referrer by + "Not Your Business!" wherever it appears inside a + <script> tag. Note that this job won't break JavaScript syntax, + since both the original and the replacement are syntactically valid + string objects. The script just won't have access to the referrer + information anymore. - Finally, you might think about how your favourite free websites are - funded, and find that they rely on displaying banner advertisements - to survive. So you might want to specifically allow banners for those - sites that you feel provide value to you: + We'll show you two other jobs from the JavaScript taming department, but + this time only point out the constructs of special interest: - -{ allow-ads } -.sourceforge.net -.slashdot.org -.osdn.net + +# The status bar is for displaying link targets, not pointless blahblah +# +s/window\.status\s*=\s*(['"]).*?\1/dUmMy=1/ig - Note that allow-ads has been aliased to - -block - -filter{banners-by-size} - above. + \s stands for whitespace characters (space, tab, newline, + carriage return, form feed), so that \s* means: zero + or more whitespace. The ? in .*? + makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the U + option is not set). The ['"] construct means: a single + or a double quote. Finally, \1 is + a back-reference to the first parenthesis just like $1 above, + with the difference that in the pattern, a backslash indicates + a back-reference, whereas in the substitute, it's the dollar. - - - - - - - - - - - - -The Filter File - All text substitutions that can be invoked through the - filter action - must first be defined in the filter file, which is typically - called default.filter and which can be - selected through the - filterfile config - option. + So what does this job do? It replaces assignments of single- or double-quoted + strings to the window.status object with a dummy assignment + (using a variable name that is hopefully odd enough not to conflict with + real variables in scripts). Thus, it catches many cases where e.g. pointless + descriptions are displayed in the status bar instead of the link target when + you move your mouse over links. - Typical reasons for doing such substitutions are to eliminate - common annoyances in HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows, - exit consoles, crippled windows without navigation tools, the - infamous <BLINK> tag etc, to suppress images with certain - width and height attributes (standard banner sizes or web-bugs), - or just to have fun. The possibilities are endless. + +# Kill OnUnload popups. Yummy. Test: http://www.zdnet.com/zdsubs/yahoo/tree/yfs.html +# +s/(<body [^>]*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU - Filtering works on any text-based document type, including plain - text, HTML, JavaScript, CSS etc. (all text/* - MIME types). Substitutions are made at the source level, so if - you want to roll your own filters, you should be - familiar with HTML syntax. + Including the + OnUnload + event binding in the HTML DOM was a CRIME. + When I close a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta. + This job replaces the onunload attribute in + <body> tags with the dummy word never. + Note that the i option makes the pattern matching + case-insensitive. Also note that ungreedy matching alone doesn't always guarantee + a minimal match: In the first parenthesis, we had to use [^>]* + instead of .* to prevent the match from exceeding the + <body> tag if it doesn't contain OnUnload, but the page's + content does. - Just like the actions files, the - filter file is organized in sections, which are called filters - here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with the - keyword FILTER:, followed by - the filter's name, and a short (one line) - description of what it does. Below that line - come the jobs, i.e. lines that define the actual - text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter - should describe what the filter eliminates. The - comment is used in the web-based - user interface. + The last example is from the fun department: - Once a filter called name has been defined - in the filter file, it can be invoked by using an action of the form - +filter{name} - in any actions file. + +FILTER: fun Fun text replacements + +# Spice the daily news: +# +s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig - + - A filter header line for a filter called foo could look - like this: + Note the (?!\.com) part (a so-called negative lookahead) + in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string + .com appears directly following microsoft + in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being trashed, while + still replacing the word everywhere else. - FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar" + +# Buzzword Bingo (example for extended regex syntax) +# +s* industry[ -]leading \ +| cutting[ -]edge \ +| customer[ -]focused \ +| market[ -]driven \ +| award[ -]winning # Comments are OK, too! \ +| high[ -]performance \ +| solutions[ -]based \ +| unmatched \ +| unparalleled \ +| unrivalled \ +*<font color="red"><b>BINGO!</b></font> \ +*igx - Below that line, and up to the next header line, come the jobs that - define what text replacements the filter executes. They are specified - in a syntax that imitates Perl's - s/// operator. If you are familiar with Perl, you - will find this to be quite intuitive, and may want to look at the - PCRS man page - for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour. Most notably, the non-standard - option letter U is supported, which turns the default - to ungreedy matching. + The x option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for + e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting. - If you are new to regular expressions, you might want to take a look at - the Appendix on regular expressions, and - see the Perl - manual for - the - s/// operator's syntax and Perl-style regular - expressions in general. - The below examples might also help to get you started. + You get the idea? + -Filter File Tutorial - - Now, let's complete our foo filter. We have already defined - the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace - foo with bar, there is only one (trivial) job - needed: - +The Pre-defined Filters - - s/foo/bar/ - + - s/foo/bar/g +The distribution default.filter file contains a selection of +pre-defined filters for your convenience: - - Our complete filter now looks like this: - - - FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar" -s/foo/bar/g - + + + js-annoyances + + + The purpose of this filter is to get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse. + To that end, it + + + + replaces JavaScript references to the browser's referrer information + with the string "Not Your Business!". This compliments the hide-referrer action on the content level. + + + + + removes the bindings to the DOM's + unload + event which we feel has no right to exist and is responsible for most exit consoles, i.e. + nasty windows that pop up when you close another one. + + + + + removes code that causes new windows to be opened with undesired properties, such as being + full-screen, non-resizeable, without location, status or menu bar etc. + + + + + + Use with caution. This is an aggressive filter, and can break sites that + rely heavily on JavaScript. + + + + + + js-events + + + This is a very radical measure. It removes virtually all JavaScript event bindings, which + means that scripts can not react to user actions such as mouse movements or clicks, window + resizing etc, anymore. Use with caution! + + + We strongly discourage using this filter as a default since it breaks + many legitimate scripts. It is meant for use only on extra-nasty sites (should you really + need to go there). + + + - - Let's look at some real filters for more interesting examples. Here you see - a filter that protects against some common annoyances that arise from JavaScript - abuse. Let's look at its jobs one after the other: - + + html-annoyances + + + This filter will undo many common instances of HTML based abuse. + + + The BLINK and MARQUEE tags + are neutralized (yeah baby!), and browser windows will be created as + resizeable (as of course they should be!), and will have location, + scroll and menu bars -- even if specified otherwise. + + + + + content-cookies + + + Most cookies are set in the HTTP dialog, where they can be intercepted + by the + crunch-incoming-cookies + and crunch-outgoing-cookies + actions. But web sites increasingly make use of HTML meta tags and JavaScript + to sneak cookies to the browser on the content level. + + + This filter disables most HTML and JavaScript code that reads or sets + cookies. It cannot detect all clever uses of these types of code, so it + should not be relied on as an absolute fix. Use it wherever you would also + use the cookie crunch actions. + + + - - -FILTER: js-annoyances Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse + + refresh tags + + + Disable any refresh tags if the interval is greater than nine seconds (so + that redirections done via refresh tags are not destroyed). This is useful + for dial-on-demand setups, or for those who find this HTML feature + annoying. + + + + + + unsolicited-popups + + + This filter attempts to prevent only unsolicited pop-up + windows from opening, yet still allow pop-up windows that the user + has explicitly chosen to open. It was added in version 3.0.1, + as an improvement over earlier such filters. + + + Technical note: The filter works by redefining the window.open JavaScript + function to a dummy function, PrivoxyWindowOpen(), + during the loading and rendering phase of each HTML page access, and + restoring the function afterward. + + + This is recommended only for browsers that cannot perform this function + reliably themselves. And be aware that some sites require such windows + in order to function normally. Use with caution. + + + + + + all-popups + + + Attempt to prevent all pop-up windows from opening. + Note this should be used with even more discretion than the above, since + it is more likely to break some sites that require pop-ups for normal + usage. Use with caution. + + + -# Get rid of JavaScript referrer tracking. Test page: http://www.randomoddness.com/untitled.htm -# -s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|Usg - + + img-reorder + + + This is a helper filter that has no value if used alone. It makes the + banners-by-size and banners-by-link + (see below) filters more effective and should be enabled together with them. + + + - - Following the header line and a comment, you see the job. Note that it uses - | as the delimiter instead of /, because - the pattern contains a forward slash, which would otherwise have to be escaped - by a backslash (\). - + + banners-by-size + + + This filter removes image tags purely based on what size they are. Fortunately + for us, many ads and banner images tend to conform to certain standardized + sizes, which makes this filter quite effective for ad stripping purposes. + + + Occasionally this filter will cause false positives on images that are not ads, + but just happen to be of one of the standard banner sizes. + + + Recommended only for those who require extreme ad blocking. The default + block rules should catch 95+% of all ads without this filter enabled. + + + - - Now, let's examine the pattern: it starts with the text <script.* - enclosed in parentheses. Since the dot matches any character, and * - means: Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself, this - matches <script, followed by any text, i.e. - it matches the whole page, from the start of the first <script> tag. - + + banners-by-link + + + This is an experimental filter that attempts to kill any banners if + their URLs seem to point to known or suspected click trackers. It is currently + not of much value and is not recommended for use by default. + + + - - That's more than we want, but the pattern continues: document\.referrer - matches only the exact string document.referrer. The dot needed to - be escaped, i.e. preceded by a backslash, to take away its - special meaning as a joker, and make it just a regular dot. So far, the meaning is: - Match from the start of the first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including, - the text document.referrer, if both are present - in the page (and appear in that order). - + + webbugs + + + Webbugs are small, invisible images (technically 1X1 GIF images), that + are used to track users across websites, and collect information on them. + As an HTML page is loaded by the browser, an embedded image tag causes the + browser to contact a third-party site, disclosing the tracking information + through the requested URL and/or cookies for that third-party domain, without + the user ever becoming aware of the interaction with the third-party site. + HTML-ized spam also uses a similar technique to verify email addresses. + + + This filter removes the HTML code that loads such webbugs. + + + - - But there's still more pattern to go. The next element, again enclosed in parentheses, - is .*</script>. You already know what .* - means, so the whole pattern translates to: Match from the start of the first <script> - tag in a page to the end of the last <script> tag, provided that the text - document.referrer appears somewhere in between. - + + tiny-textforms + + + A rather special-purpose filter that can be used to enlarge textareas (those + multi-line text boxes in web forms) and turn off hard word wrap in them. + It was written for the sourceforge.net tracker system where such boxes are + a nuisance, but it can be handy on other sites, too. + + + It is not recommended to use this filter as a default. + + + - - This is still not the whole story, since we have ignored the options and the parentheses: - The portions of the page matched by sub-patterns that are enclosed in parentheses, will be - remembered and be available through the variables $1, $2, ... in - the substitute. The U option switches to ungreedy matching, which means - that the first .* in the pattern will only eat up all - text in between <script and the first occurrence - of document.referrer, and that the second .* will - only span the text up to the first </script> - tag. Furthermore, the s option says that the match may span - multiple lines in the page, and the g option again means that the - substitution is global. - + + jumping-windows + + + Many consider windows that move, or resize themselves to be abusive. This filter + neutralizes the related JavaScript code. Note that some sites might not display + or behave as intended when using this filter. Use with caution. + + + - - So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text - document.referrer. Remember the parts of the script from - (and including) the start tag up to (and excluding) the string - document.referrer as $1, and the part following - that string, up to and including the closing tag, as $2. - + + frameset-borders + + + Some web designers seem to assume that everyone in the world will view their + web sites using the same browser brand and version, screen resolution etc, + because only that assumption could explain why they'd use static frame sizes, + yet prevent their frames from being resized by the user, should they be too + small to show their whole content. + + + This filter removes the related HTML code. It should only be applied to sites + which need it. + + + - - Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So - lets look at the substitute: $1"Not Your Business!"$2 is - easy to read: The text remembered as $1, followed by - "Not Your Business!" (including - the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as $2. - This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part - (the document.referrer) replaced by "Not Your - Business!". - + + demoronizer + + + Many Microsoft products that generate HTML use non-standard extensions (read: + violations) of the ISO 8859-1 aka Latin-1 character set. This can cause those + HTML documents to display with errors on standard-compliant platforms. + + + This filter translates the MS-only characters into Latin-1 equivalents. + It is not necessary when using MS products, and will cause corruption of + all documents that use 8-bit character sets other than Latin-1. It's mostly + worthwhile for Europeans on non-MS platforms, if weird garbage characters + sometimes appear on some pages, or user agents that don't correct for this on + the fly. + + + + - - The whole job now reads: Replace document.referrer by - "Not Your Business!" wherever it appears inside a - <script> tag. Note that this job won't break JavaScript syntax, - since both the original and the replacement are syntactically valid - string objects. The script just won't have access to the referrer - information anymore. - + + shockwave-flash + + + A filter for shockwave haters. As the name suggests, this filter strips code + out of web pages that is used to embed shockwave flash objects. + + + + + - - We'll show you two other jobs from the JavaScript taming department, but - this time only point out the constructs of special interest: - + + quicktime-kioskmode + + + Change HTML code that embeds Quicktime objects so that kioskmode, which + prevents saving, is disabled. + + + - - -# The status bar is for displaying link targets, not pointless blahblah -# -s/window\.status\s*=\s*(['"]).*?\1/dUmMy=1/ig - + + fun + + + Text replacements for subversive browsing fun. Make fun of your favorite + Monopolist or play buzzword bingo. + + + - - \s stands for whitespace characters (space, tab, newline, - carriage return, form feed), so that \s* means: zero - or more whitespace. The ? in .*? - makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the U - option is not set). The ['"] construct means: a single - or a double quote. Finally, \1 is - a backreference to the first parenthesis just like $1 above, - with the difference that in the pattern, a backslash indicates - a backreference, whereas in the substitute, it's the dollar. - + + crude-parental + + + A demonstration-only filter that shows how Privoxy + can be used to delete web content on a keyword basis. + + + - - So what does this job do? It replaces assignments of single- or double-quoted - strings to the window.status object with a dummy assignment - (using a variable name that is hopefully odd enough not to conflict with - real variables in scripts). Thus, it catches many cases where e.g. pointless - descriptions are displayed in the status bar instead of the link target when - you move your mouse over links. - + + ie-exploits + + + An experimental collection of text replacements to disable malicious HTML and JavaScript + code that exploits known security holes in Internet Explorer. + + + Presently, it only protects against Nimda and a cross-site scripting bug, and + would need active maintenance to provide more substantial protection. + + + - - -# Kill OnUnload popups. Yummy. Test: http://www.zdnet.com/zdsubs/yahoo/tree/yfs.html -# -s/(<body [^>]*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU - + + site-specifics + + + Some web sites have very specific problems, the cure for which doesn't apply + anywhere else, or could even cause damage on other sites. + + + This is a collection of such site-specific cures which should only be applied + to the sites they were intended for, which is what the supplied + default.action file does. Users shouldn't need to change + anything regarding this filter. + + + - - Including the - OnUnload - event binding in the HTML DOM was a CRIME. - When I close a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta. - This job replaces the onunload attribute in - <body> tags with the dummy word never. - Note that the i option makes the pattern matching - case-insensitive. Also note that ungreedy matching alone doesn't always guarantee - a minimal match: In the first parenthesis, we had to use [^>]* - instead of .* to prevent the match from exceeding the - <body> tag if it doesn't contain OnUnload, but the page's - content does. - + + google + + + A CSS based block for Google text ads. Also removes a width limitation + and the toolbar advertisement. + + + + + + yahoo + + + Another CSS based block, this time for Yahoo text ads. And removes + a width limitation as well. + + + - - The last example is from the fun department: - + + msn + + + Another CSS based block, this time for MSN text ads. And removes + tracking URLs, as well as a width limitation. + + + - - -FILTER: fun Fun text replacements + + blogspot + + + Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this one! + + + This filter also intentionally removes some navigation stuff and sets the + page width to 100%. As a result, some rounded corners would + appear to early or not at all and as fixing this would require a browser + that understands background-size (CSS3), they are removed instead. + + + -# Spice the daily news: -# -s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig - + + xml-to-html + + + Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from xml to html. + + + + + + html-to-xml + + + Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from html to xml. + + + - - Note the (?!\.com) part (a so-called negative lookahead) - in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string - .com appears directly following microsoft - in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being trashed, while - still replacing the word everywhere else. - + + no-ping + + + Removes the non-standard ping attribute from + anchor and area HTML tags. + + + - - -# Buzzword Bingo (example for extended regex syntax) -# -s* industry[ -]leading \ -| cutting[ -]edge \ -| customer[ -]focused \ -| market[ -]driven \ -| award[ -]winning # Comments are OK, too! \ -| high[ -]performance \ -| solutions[ -]based \ -| unmatched \ -| unparalleled \ -| unrivalled \ -*<font color="red"><b>BINGO!</b></font> \ -*igx - + + hide-tor-exit-notation + + + Client-header filter to remove the Tor exit node notation + found in Host and Referer headers. + + + If &my-app; and Tor are chained and &my-app; + is configured to use socks4a, one can use http://www.example.org.foobar.exit/ + to access the host www.example.org through the + Tor exit node foobar. + + + As the HTTP client isn't aware of this notation, it treats the + whole string www.example.org.foobar.exit as host and uses it + for the Host and Referer headers. From the + server's point of view the resulting headers are invalid and can cause problems. + + + An invalid Referer header can trigger hot-linking + protections, an invalid Host header will make it impossible for + the server to find the right vhost (several domains hosted on the same IP address). + + + This client-header filter removes the foo.exit part in those headers + to prevent the mentioned problems. Note that it only modifies + the HTTP headers, it doesn't make it impossible for the server + to detect your Tor exit node based on the IP address + the request is coming from. + + + - - The x option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for - e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting. - + + - - You get the idea? - @@ -4599,7 +7716,7 @@ s* industry[ -]leading \ -Templates +Privoxy's Template Files All Privoxy built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the 404 - No Such Domain @@ -4621,11 +7738,17 @@ s* industry[ -]leading \ The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols - or exports), which Privoxy fills at run time. You can - edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want to customize them. - (Not recommended for the casual user). Note that - just like in configuration files, lines starting with # are - ignored when the templates are filled in. + or exports), which Privoxy fills at run time. It + is possible to edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want + to customize them. (Not recommended for the casual + user). Should you create your own custom templates, you should use + the config setting templdir + to specify an alternate location, so your templates do not get overwritten + during upgrades. + + + Note that just like in configuration files, lines starting + with # are ignored when the templates are filled in. @@ -4641,7 +7764,7 @@ s* industry[ -]leading \ blocks of HTML code disappear when a specific symbol is set. We use this for many purposes, one of them being to include the beta warning in all our user interface (CGI) pages when Privoxy - in in an alpha or beta development stage: + is in an alpha or beta development stage: @@ -4698,7 +7821,7 @@ Requests -<application>Privoxy</application> Copyright, License and History +Privoxy Copyright, License and History ©right; @@ -4753,7 +7876,11 @@ Requests expressions in its actions files and filter file, through the PCRE and + + PCRS libraries. @@ -4833,7 +7960,7 @@ Requests - [] - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if + [ ] - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, [0-9] matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine this with + to match any digit one of more times: [0-9]+. @@ -4842,7 +7969,7 @@ Requests - () - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression, + ( ) - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression, or multiple sub-expressions. @@ -4884,7 +8011,7 @@ Requests - A now something a little more complex: + And now something a little more complex: @@ -4922,7 +8049,7 @@ Requests /.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g) - Again another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets - [] can be matched. This is using 0-9 as a + [ ] can be matched. This is using 0-9 as a shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as saying 0123456789. So any digit matches. The + means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding @@ -4958,7 +8085,7 @@ Requests More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions: - http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html + http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html @@ -4973,7 +8100,7 @@ Requests -<application>Privoxy</application>'s Internal Pages +Privoxy's Internal Pages Since Privoxy proxies each requested @@ -5061,8 +8188,10 @@ Requests - Toggle Privoxy on or off. In this case, Privoxy continues - to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking place: + Toggle Privoxy on or off. This feature can be turned off/on in the main + config file. When toggled off, Privoxy + continues to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking + place:
@@ -5141,12 +8270,13 @@ Requests 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 - + Privoxy - Why? @@ -5171,8 +8301,9 @@ Requests Chain of Events - Let's take a quick look at the basic sequence of events when a web page is - requested by your browser and Privoxy is on duty: + Let's take a quick look at how some of Privoxy's + core features are triggered, and the ensuing sequence of events when a web + page is requested by your browser: @@ -5188,7 +8319,7 @@ Requests Privoxy traps any request for its own internal CGI - pages (e.g http://p.p/) and sends the CGI page back to the browser. + pages (e.g http://p.p/) and sends the CGI page back to the browser. @@ -5198,10 +8329,13 @@ Requests linkend="BLOCK">+block patterns. If so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted. +handle-as-image - is then checked and if it does not match, an - HTML BLOCKED page is sent back. Otherwise, if it does match, - an image is returned. The type of image depends on the setting of +set-image-blocker + and + +handle-as-empty-document + are then checked, and if there is no match, an + HTML BLOCKED page is sent back to the browser. Otherwise, if + it does match, an image is returned for the former, and an empty text + document for the latter. The type of image would depend on the setting of + +set-image-blocker (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere). @@ -5229,8 +8363,8 @@ Requests - Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web page and related - data). + Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web + page). @@ -5246,27 +8380,20 @@ Requests - If the +kill-popups - action applies, and it is an HTML or JavaScript document, the popup-code in the - response is filtered on-the-fly as it is received. - - - - - If a +filter + If any +filter action or +deanimate-gifs action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from - default.filter) are processed against the buffered - content. Filters are applied in the order they are specified in the - default.filter file. Animated GIFs, if present, are - reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action + default.filter and any other filter files) are + processed against the buffered content. Filters are applied in the order + they are specified in one of the filter files. Animated GIFs, if present, + are reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by Privoxy back to your browser. - If neither +filter + If neither a +filter action or +deanimate-gifs matches, then Privoxy passes the raw data through @@ -5275,24 +8402,32 @@ Requests - As the browser receives the now (probably filtered) page content, it + As the browser receives the now (possibly filtered) page content, it reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g. - frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a new - request. And each such request is in turn processed as above. Note that a - complex web page may have many such embedded URLs. + frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a + separate request (this is easily viewable in Privoxy's + logs). And each such request is in turn processed just as above. Note that a + complex web page will have many, many such embedded URLs. If these + secondary requests are to a different server, then quite possibly a very + differing set of actions is triggered. + + NOTE: This is somewhat of a simplistic overview of what happens with each URL + request. For the sake of brevity and simplicity, we have focused on + Privoxy's core features only. + -Anatomy of an Action +Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action The way Privoxy applies @@ -5312,7 +8447,16 @@ Requests or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting step. See the Bookmarklets section on a quick and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!). Looking at the - logs is a good idea too. + logs is a good idea too. (Note that both the toggle feature and logging are + enabled via config file settings, and may need to be + turned on.) + + + Another easy troubleshooting step to try is if you have done any + customization of your installation, revert back to the installed + defaults and see if that helps. There are times the developers get complaints + about one thing or another, and the problem is more related to a customized + configuration issue. @@ -5328,7 +8472,7 @@ Requests how the current configuration will handle it. This will not help with filtering effects (i.e. the +filter action) from - the default.filter file since this is handled very + one of the filter files since this is handled very differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So @@ -5341,47 +8485,31 @@ Requests Let's try an example, google.com, - and look at it one section at a time: + and look at it one section at a time in a sample configuration (your real + configuration may vary): - Matches for http://google.com: + Matches for http://www.google.com: In file: default.action [ View ] [ Edit ] -{-add-header - -block - -crunch-outgoing-cookies - -crunch-incoming-cookies - +deanimate-gifs{last} - -downgrade-http-version - +fast-redirects - -filter{popups} - -filter{fun} - -filter{shockwave-flash} - -filter{crude-parental} - +filter{html-annoyances} - +filter{js-annoyances} - +filter{content-cookies} - +filter{webbugs} - +filter{refresh-tags} - +filter{nimda} - +filter{banners-by-size} - +hide-forwarded-for-headers - +hide-from-header{block} - +hide-referer{forge} - -hide-user-agent - -handle-as-image - -kill-popups - -limit-connect - +prevent-compression - -send-vanilla-wafer - -send-wafer - +session-cookies-only - +set-image-blocker{pattern} } + {+change-x-forwarded-for{block} + +deanimate-gifs {last} + +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url} + +filter {refresh-tags} + +filter {img-reorder} + +filter {banners-by-size} + +filter {webbugs} + +filter {jumping-windows} + +filter {ie-exploits} + +hide-from-header {block} + +hide-referrer {forge} + +session-cookies-only + +set-image-blocker {pattern} / - + { -session-cookies-only } .google.com @@ -5394,41 +8522,53 @@ In file: user.action [ View ] [ Edit ] - This tells us how we have defined our + This is telling us how we have defined our actions, and - which ones match for our example, google.com. The first listing - is any matches for the standard.action file. No hits at - all here on standard. Then next is default, or - our default.action file. The large, multi-line listing, - is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default settings. - If you look at your actions file, this would be the section - just below the aliases section near the top. This will apply to - all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end of the listing - -- /. - - - - But we can define additional actions that would be exceptions to these general - rules, and then list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions would - apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit matches for - .google.com. The first is negating our previous cookie setting, - which was for google.com. + Displayed is all the actions that are available to us. Remember, + the + sign denotes on. - + denotes off. So some are on here, but many + are off. Each example we try may provide a slightly different + end result, depending on our configuration directives. + + + The first listing + is for our default.action file. The large, multi-line + listing, is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default + settings. If you look at your actions file, this would be the + section just below the aliases section near the top. This + will apply to all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end + of the listing -- / . + + + + But we have defined additional actions that would be exceptions to these general + rules, and then we list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions + would apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit + matches for .google.com. The first is negating our previous + cookie setting, which was for +session-cookies-only - (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google. The - second turns off any - off any +fast-redirects action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading dot here -- .google.com. This will match any hosts and sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as - www.google.com. So, apparently, we have these two actions - defined somewhere in the lower part of our default.action - file, and google.com is referenced somewhere in these latter - sections. + www.google.com or mail.google.com. But it would not + match www.google.de! So, apparently, we have these two actions + defined as exceptions to the general rules at the top somewhere in the lower + part of our default.action file, and + google.com is referenced somewhere in these latter sections. Then, for our user.action file, we again have no hits. + So there is nothing google-specific that we might have added to our own, local + configuration. If there was, those actions would over-rule any actions from + previously processed files, such as default.action. + user.action typically has the last word. This is the + best place to put hard and fast exceptions, @@ -5443,42 +8583,69 @@ In file: user.action [ View ] [ Edit ] + -add-header + -block + +change-x-forwarded-for{block} + -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation} + -content-type-overwrite + -crunch-client-header + -crunch-if-none-match + -crunch-incoming-cookies + -crunch-outgoing-cookies + -crunch-server-header + +deanimate-gifs {last} + -downgrade-http-version + -fast-redirects + -filter {js-events} + -filter {content-cookies} + -filter {all-popups} + -filter {banners-by-link} + -filter {tiny-textforms} + -filter {frameset-borders} + -filter {demoronizer} + -filter {shockwave-flash} + -filter {quicktime-kioskmode} + -filter {fun} + -filter {crude-parental} + -filter {site-specifics} + -filter {js-annoyances} + -filter {html-annoyances} + +filter {refresh-tags} + -filter {unsolicited-popups} + +filter {img-reorder} + +filter {banners-by-size} + +filter {webbugs} + +filter {jumping-windows} + +filter {ie-exploits} + -filter {google} + -filter {yahoo} + -filter {msn} + -filter {blogspot} + -filter {no-ping} + -force-text-mode + -handle-as-empty-document + -handle-as-image + -hide-accept-language + -hide-content-disposition + +hide-from-header {block} + -hide-if-modified-since + +hide-referrer {forge} + -hide-user-agent + -limit-connect + -overwrite-last-modified + -prevent-compression + -redirect + -server-header-filter{xml-to-html} + -server-header-filter{html-to-xml} + -session-cookies-only + +set-image-blocker {pattern} Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to - fast-redirects and session-cookies-only. + fast-redirects and session-cookies-only, + which are activated specifically for this site in our configuration, + and thus show in the Final Results. @@ -5488,22 +8655,23 @@ In file: user.action [ View ] [ Edit ] - { +block +handle-as-image } - .ad.doubleclick.net - - { +block +handle-as-image } + { +block{Domains starts with "ad"} } ad*. - { +block +handle-as-image } - .doubleclick.net + { +block{Domain contains "ad"} } + .ad. + + { +block{Doubleclick banner server} +handle-as-image } + .[a-vx-z]*.doubleclick.net - We'll just show the interesting part here, the explicit matches. It is - matched three different times. Each as an +block +handle-as-image, + We'll just show the interesting part here - the explicit matches. It is + matched three different times. Two +block{} sections, + and a +block{} +handle-as-image, which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as: - +imageblock. (+block-as-image. (Aliases are defined in the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more than one action.) @@ -5516,65 +8684,98 @@ In file: user.action [ View ] [ Edit ]ad.doubleclick.net is done here -- as both a +block + linkend="BLOCK">+block{} and an - +handle-as-image. - The custom alias +imageblock just simplifies the process and make - it more readable. + +handle-as-image. + The custom alias +block-as-image just + simplifies the process and make it more readable. - One last example. Let's try http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/. + One last example. Let's try http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/. This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm ... - Matches for http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/: + Matches for http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/: In file: default.action [ View ] [ Edit ] {-add-header - -block - -crunch-incoming-cookies - -crunch-outgoing-cookies + -block + +change-x-forwarded-for{block} + -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation} + -content-type-overwrite + -crunch-client-header + -crunch-if-none-match + -crunch-incoming-cookies + -crunch-outgoing-cookies + -crunch-server-header +deanimate-gifs -downgrade-http-version - +fast-redirects - +filter{html-annoyances} - +filter{js-annoyances} - +filter{kill-popups} - +filter{webbugs} - +filter{nimda} - +filter{banners-by-size} - +filter{hal} - +filter{fun} - +hide-forwarded-for-headers + +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url} + -filter {js-events} + -filter {content-cookies} + -filter {all-popups} + -filter {banners-by-link} + -filter {tiny-textforms} + -filter {frameset-borders} + -filter {demoronizer} + -filter {shockwave-flash} + -filter {quicktime-kioskmode} + -filter {fun} + -filter {crude-parental} + -filter {site-specifics} + -filter {js-annoyances} + -filter {html-annoyances} + +filter {refresh-tags} + -filter {unsolicited-popups} + +filter {img-reorder} + +filter {banners-by-size} + +filter {webbugs} + +filter {jumping-windows} + +filter {ie-exploits} + -filter {google} + -filter {yahoo} + -filter {msn} + -filter {blogspot} + -filter {no-ping} + -force-text-mode + -handle-as-empty-document + -handle-as-image + -hide-accept-language + -hide-content-disposition +hide-from-header{block} +hide-referer{forge} -hide-user-agent - -handle-as-image - +kill-popups + -overwrite-last-modified +prevent-compression - -send-vanilla-wafer - -send-wafer + -redirect + -server-header-filter{xml-to-html} + -server-header-filter{html-to-xml} +session-cookies-only +set-image-blocker{blank} } / - { +block +handle-as-image } + { +block{Path contains "ads".} +handle-as-image } /ads - Ooops, the /adsl/ is matching /ads! But - we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the blank page. We could - now add a new action below this that explicitly does not - block ({-block}) paths with adsl. There are - various ways to handle such exceptions. Example: + Ooops, the /adsl/ is matching /ads in our + configuration! But we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the + blank page. It is actually triggering two different actions here, and + the effects are aggregated so that the URL is blocked, and &my-app; is told + to treat the block as if it were an image. But this is, of course, all wrong. + We could now add a new action below this (or better in our own + user.action file) that explicitly + un blocks ( + {-block}) paths with + adsl in them (remember, last match in the configuration + wins). There are various ways to handle such exceptions. Example: @@ -5586,8 +8787,10 @@ In file: user.action [ View ] [ Edit ] - Now the page displays ;-) Be sure to flush your browser's caches when - making such changes. Or, try using Shift+Reload. + Now the page displays ;-) + Remember to flush your browser's caches when making these kinds of changes to + your configuration to insure that you get a freshly delivered page! Or, try + using Shift+Reload. @@ -5598,25 +8801,27 @@ In file: user.action [ View ] [ Edit ] - { +block +handle-as-image } + { +block{Path starts with "ads".} +handle-as-image } /ads - That actually was very telling and pointed us quickly to where the problem + That actually was very helpful and pointed us quickly to where the problem was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default - rules in the first section is causing the problem. This would require some - guesswork, and maybe a little trial and error to isolate the offending rule. - One likely cause would be one of the {+filter} actions. These - tend to be harder to troubleshoot. Try adding the URL for the site to one of - aliases that turn off +filter: + rules in the first section of default.action is causing + the problem. This would require some guesswork, and maybe a little trial and + error to isolate the offending rule. One likely cause would be one of the + +filter actions. + These tend to be harder to troubleshoot. + Try adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off + +filter: - {shop} + { shop } .quietpc.com .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com .jungle.com @@ -5626,8 +8831,8 @@ In file: user.action [ View ] [ Edit ] - {shop} is an alias that expands to - { -filter -session-cookies-only }. + { shop } is an alias that expands to + { -filter -session-cookies-only }. Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering: @@ -5635,29 +8840,55 @@ In file: user.action [ View ] [ Edit ] - {-filter} + { -filter } + # Disable ALL filter actions for sites in this section .forbes.com + developer.ibm.com + localhost - This would turn off all filtering for that site. This would probably be most - appropriately put in user.action, for local site - exceptions. + This would turn off all filtering for these sites. This is best + put in user.action, for local site + exceptions. Note that when a simple domain pattern is used by itself (without + the subsequent path portion), all sub-pages within that domain are included + automatically in the scope of the action. Images that are inexplicably being blocked, may well be hitting the - +filter{banners-by-size} rule, which assumes - that images of certain sizes are ad banners (works well most of the time - since these tend to be standardized). ++filter{banners-by-size} + rule, which assumes + that images of certain sizes are ad banners (works well + most of the time since these tend to be standardized). + + + + { fragile } is an alias that disables most + actions that are the most likely to cause trouble. This can be used as a + last resort for problem sites. + + + + + { fragile } + # Handle with care: easy to break + mail.google. + mybank.example.com + - {fragile} is an alias that disables most actions. This can be - used as a last resort for problem sites. Remember to flush caches! If this - still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining actions one by - one to find which one(s) is causing the problem. + Remember to flush caches! Note that the + mail.google reference lacks the TLD portion (e.g. + .com). This will effectively match any TLD with + google in it, such as mail.google.de., + just as an example. + + + If this still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining + actions one by one to find which one(s) is causing the problem. @@ -5681,23 +8912,509 @@ In file: user.action [ View ] [ Edit ][ View ] [ Edit ][ View ] [ Edit ][ View ] [ Edit ][ View ] [ Edit ]