1 <!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V3.1//EN"[
2 <!entity % dummy "IGNORE">
3 <!entity supported SYSTEM "supported.sgml">
4 <!entity newfeatures SYSTEM "newfeatures.sgml">
5 <!entity p-intro SYSTEM "privoxy.sgml">
6 <!entity seealso SYSTEM "seealso.sgml">
7 <!entity contacting SYSTEM "contacting.sgml">
8 <!entity history SYSTEM "history.sgml">
9 <!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
10 <!entity license SYSTEM "license.sgml">
11 <!entity p-version "3.0.13">
12 <!entity p-status "beta">
13 <!entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE">
14 <!entity % p-stable "IGNORE">
15 <!entity % p-text "IGNORE"> <!-- define we are not a text only doc -->
16 <!entity % p-doc "INCLUDE"> <!-- and we are a formal doc -->
17 <!entity % p-supp-userman "INCLUDE"> <!-- Include all from supported.sgml -->
18 <!entity my-copy "©"> <!-- kludge for docbook2man -->
19 <!entity % p-newstuff "INCLUDE"> <!-- exclude stuff from devel versions -->
20 <!entity % seealso-extra "INCLUDE"> <!-- extra stuff from seealso.sgml -->
21 <!entity my-app "<application>Privoxy</application>">
24 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/faq.sgml,v $
27 This file belongs into
28 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
30 $Id: faq.sgml,v 2.62 2009/06/12 14:30:58 fabiankeil Exp $
32 Copyright (C) 2001-2009 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org/
35 Based partially on the Internet Junkbuster FAQ originally written by and
36 Copyright (C) 1997 Anonymous Coders and Junkbusters Corporation.
37 http://www.junkbusters.com/
39 <Qandaset defaultlabel='qanda'>
54 ========================================================================
55 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
58 Please we keep the info in this file as version independent as possible
59 so we only have to maintain one FAQ. Where significant changes are
60 made to Privoxy configuration, please note the change in such a way that
61 it makes sense to both users of older and newer versions.
62 ========================================================================
68 <article id="index" class="faq">
70 <title>Privoxy Frequently Asked Questions</title>
74 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
75 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
76 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001-2009 by
77 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
81 <pubdate>$Id: faq.sgml,v 2.62 2009/06/12 14:30:58 fabiankeil Exp $</pubdate>
85 Note: this should generate a separate page, and a live link to it.
86 But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave commented
87 unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the copyright
88 statement will be in copyright.smgl.
92 <legalnotice id="legalnotice">
94 text goes here ........
104 <orgname>By: Privoxy Developers</orgname>
113 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
114 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
115 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
120 This FAQ gives quick answers to frequently asked questions about
121 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy</ulink>.
122 It is not a substitute for the
123 <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html"><citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle></ulink>.
125 This works, at least in some situtations:
126 Test: <ulink url="privoxy-user-manual.pdf"><citetitle>User Manual</citetitle></ulink>.
130 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
131 <para>What is Privoxy?</para> &p-intro;
132 <!-- end boilerplate -->
135 Please note that this document is a work in progress. This copy represents
136 the state at the release of version &p-version;.
137 You can find the latest version of the document at <ulink
138 url="http://www.privoxy.org/faq/">http://www.privoxy.org/faq/</ulink>.
139 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> if you want to
140 contact the developers.
144 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
150 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
152 <sect1 id="general"><title>General Information</title>
153 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="who-uses"><title>Who should give &my-app; a try?</title>
155 Anyone who is interested in security, privacy, or in
156 finer-grained control over their web and Internet experience.
160 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="bestchoice"><title>Is Privoxy the best choice for
163 &my-app; is certainly a good choice, especially for those who want more
164 control and security. Those with the willingness to read the documentation
165 and the ability to fine-tune their installation will benefit the most.
168 One of <application>Privoxy's</application>
169 strengths is that it is highly configurable giving you the ability to
170 completely personalize your installation. Being familiar with, or at least
171 having an interest in learning about <ulink
172 url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Http">HTTP</ulink> and other networking
173 protocols, <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html">HTML</ulink>, and
174 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
175 Expressions</quote></ulink>
176 will be a big plus and will help you get the most out of &my-app;.
177 A new installation just includes a very basic configuration. The user
178 should take this as a starting point only, and enhance it as he or she
179 sees fit. In fact, the user is encouraged, and expected to, fine-tune the
183 Much of <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration can be done
184 with a <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_browser">Web browser</ulink>.
185 But there are areas where configuration is done using a
186 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_editors">text editor</ulink>
187 to edit configuration files. Also note that the web-based action editor
188 doesn't use authentication and should only be enabled in environments
189 where all clients with access to &my-app; listening port can be trusted.
193 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="proxymoron"><title>What is a <quote>proxy</quote>? How does
194 Privoxy work? </title>
196 A <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">web proxy</ulink>
197 is a service, based on a software such as &my-app;, that clients
198 (i.e. browsers) can use instead of connecting to web servers directly.
199 The clients then ask the proxy to request objects (web pages, images, movies etc)
200 on their behalf and to forward the data to the clients.
201 It is a <quote>go-between</quote>. For details, see
202 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">Wikipedia's proxy definition</ulink>.
205 There are many reasons to use web proxies, such as security (firewalling),
206 efficiency (caching) and others, and there are any number of proxies
207 to accommodate those needs.
210 &my-app; is a proxy that is primarily focused on
211 privacy enhancement, ad and junk elimination and freeing the user from
212 restrictions placed on his activities. Sitting between your browser(s) and the Internet,
213 it is in a perfect position to filter outbound personal information that your
214 browser is leaking, as well as inbound junk. It uses a variety of techniques to do
215 this, all of which are under your complete control via the various configuration
216 files and options. Being a proxy also makes it easier to share
217 configurations among multiple browsers and/or users.
221 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="otherstuff">
222 <title>Does Privoxy do anything more than ad blocking?</title>
224 Yes, ad blocking is but one possible use. There are many, many ways &my-app;
225 can be used to sanitize and customize web browsing.
229 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newjb"><title>What is this new version of
230 <quote><citetitle>Junkbuster</citetitle></quote>?</title>
232 <!-- Include history.sgml -->
239 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
240 <title id="whyprivoxy">Why <quote>Privoxy</quote>? Why change the name from
241 Junkbuster at all?</title>
243 Though outdated, <ulink url="http://junkbusters.com/">Junkbusters Corporation</ulink>
244 continues to offer their original version of the <application>Internet
245 Junkbuster</application>, so publishing our
246 <application> Junkbuster</application>-derived software under the same name
250 There are also potential legal complications from our use of the
251 <application>Junkbuster</application> name, which is a registered trademark of
252 <ulink url="http://junkbusters.com/">Junkbusters Corporation</ulink>.
253 There are, however, no objections from Junkbusters Corporation to the
254 <application>Privoxy</application> project itself, and they, in fact, still
255 share our ideals and goals.
258 The developers also believed that there are so many improvements over the original
259 code, that it was time to make a clean break from the past and make
260 a name in their own right.
263 <application>Privoxy</application> is the
264 <quote><emphasis>Privacy Enhancing Proxy</emphasis></quote>. Also, its content
265 modification and junk suppression gives <emphasis>you</emphasis>, the user, more
266 control, more freedom, and allows you to browse your personal and
267 <quote><emphasis>private</emphasis> edition</quote> of the web.
271 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="differs"><title>How does Privoxy differ
272 from the old Junkbuster?</title>
274 <application>Privoxy</application> picks up where
275 <application>Junkbuster</application> left off.
276 The new <application>Privoxy</application> still blocks ads and banners,
278 url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>, and still
279 helps protect your privacy. But, most of these features have been enhanced,
280 and many new ones have been added, all in the same vein.
283 <application>Privoxy</application>'s new features include:
286 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml: -->
292 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whatsanad">
293 <title id="knows">How does Privoxy know what is
294 an ad, and what is not?</title>
296 <application>Privoxy</application>'s approach to blocking ads is twofold:
299 First, there are certain patterns in the <emphasis>locations</emphasis> (URLs)
300 of banner images. This applies to both the path (you wouldn't guess how many
301 web sites serve their banners from a directory called <quote>banners</quote>!)
302 and the host (blocking the big banner hosting services like doublecklick.net
303 already helps a lot). <application>Privoxy</application> takes advantage of this
304 fact by using <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#AF-PATTERNS">URL
305 patterns</ulink> to sort out and block the requests for things that sound
306 like they would be ads or banners.
309 Second, banners tend to come in certain <emphasis>sizes</emphasis>. But you
310 can't tell the size of an image by its URL without downloading it, and if you
311 do, it's too late to save bandwidth. Therefore, <application>Privoxy</application>
312 also inspects the HTML sources of web pages while they are loaded, and replaces
313 references to images with standard banner sizes by dummy references, so that
314 your browser doesn't request them anymore in the first place.
317 Both of this involves a certain amount of guesswork and is, of course, freely
318 and readily configurable.
322 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
323 <title id="mistakes">Can Privoxy make mistakes?
324 This does not sound very scientific.</title>
326 Actually, it's a black art ;-) And yes, it is always possible to have a broad
327 rule accidentally block or change something by mistake. You will almost surely
328 run into such situations at some point. It is tricky writing rules to
329 cover every conceivable possibility, and not occasionally get false positives.
333 But this should not be a big concern since the
334 <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is very flexible, and
335 includes tools to help identify these types of situations so they can be
336 addressed as needed, allowing you to customize your installation.
337 (<link linkend="badsite">See the Troubleshooting section below</link>.)
342 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
343 <title id="configornot">Will I have to configure Privoxy
344 before I can use it?</title>
346 That depends on your expectations.
347 The default installation should give you a good starting
348 point, and block <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads and unwanted content,
349 but many of the more advanced features are off by default, and require
350 you to activate them.
353 You do have to set up your browser to use
354 <application>Privoxy</application> (see the <link
355 linkend="firststep">Installation section below</link>).
358 And you will certainly run into situations where there are false positives,
359 or ads not being blocked that you may not want to see. In these cases, you
360 would certainly benefit by customizing <application>Privoxy's</application>
361 configuration to more closely match your individual situation. And we
362 encourage you to do this. This is where the real power of
363 <application>Privoxy</application> lies!
368 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="lan">
369 <title>Can Privoxy run as a server on a network?</title>
371 Yes, &my-app; runs as a server already, and can easily be configured to
372 <quote>serve</quote> more than one client. See <link linkend="lanconfig">
373 How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my LAN</link> below.
377 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="browsers2"><title>My browser does the same things as
378 Privoxy. Why should I use Privoxy at all?</title>
380 Modern browsers do indeed have <emphasis>some</emphasis> of the same
381 functionality as <application>Privoxy</application>. Maybe this is
382 adequate for you. But <application>Privoxy</application> is very
383 versatile and powerful, and can probably do a number of things
384 your browser just can't.
387 In addition, a proxy is good choice if you use multiple browsers, or
388 have a LAN with multiple computers since &my-app; can run as a server
389 application. This way all the configuration is in one place, and you don't
390 have to maintain a similar configuration for possibly many browsers or
394 Note, however, that it's recommended to leverage both your browser's
395 and <application>Privoxy's</application> privacy enhancing features
396 at the same time. While your browser probably lacks some features
397 &my-app; offers, it should also be able to do some things more
398 reliable, for example restricting and suppressing JavaScript.
402 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whytrust"><title>Why should I trust Privoxy?</title>
404 The most important reason is because you have access to
405 <emphasis>everything</emphasis>, and you can control everything. You can
406 check every line of every configuration file yourself. You can check every
407 last bit of source code should you desire. And even if you can't read code,
408 there should be some comfort in knowing that <!-- thousands of -->other people can,
409 and do read it. You can build the software from scratch, if you want,
410 so that you know the executable is clean, and that it is
411 <emphasis>yours</emphasis>. In fact, we encourage this level of scrutiny. It
412 is one reason we use &my-app; ourselves.
416 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="license"><title>Is there is a license or fee? What about a
417 warranty? Registration?</title>
419 <application>Privoxy</application> is free software and licensed under the <ulink
420 url="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html">GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2</ulink>.
421 It is free to use, copy, modify or distribute as you wish under the terms of this
422 license. Please see the <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> section for more
423 information on the license and copyright. Or the <filename>LICENSE</filename> file
424 that should be included.
427 There is <emphasis>no warranty</emphasis> of any kind, expressed, implied or otherwise.
428 That is something that would cost real money ;-) There is no registration either.
433 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="spyware">
434 <title>Can Privoxy remove spyware? Adware? Viruses?</title>
436 No, at least not reliably enough to trust it. &my-app; is not designed to be
437 a malware removal tool and the default configuration doesn't even try to
438 filter out any malware.
441 &my-app; could help prevent contact from (known) sites that use such
442 tactics with appropriate configuration rules, and thus could conceivably
443 prevent contamination from such sites. However, keeping such a configuration
444 up to date would require a lot of time and effort that would be better spend
445 on keeping your software itself up to date so it doesn't have known
451 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="otherads">
452 <title>Can I use Privoxy with other ad-blocking software?</title>
454 &my-app; should work fine with other proxies and other software in general.
457 But it is probably not necessary to use &my-app; in conjunction with other
458 ad-blocking products, and this could conceivably cause undesirable results.
459 It might be better to choose one software or the other and work a little to
460 tweak its configuration to your liking.
463 Note that this is an advice specific to ad blocking.
467 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="help-the-developers"><title id="jointeam">I would like to help you, what can I do?</title>
469 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="participate"><title id="jointeam-work">Would you like to participate?</title>
471 Well, we <emphasis>always</emphasis> need help. There is something for
472 everybody who wants to help us. We welcome new developers, packagers,
473 testers, documentation writers or really anyone with a desire to help in
474 any way. You <emphasis>DO NOT</emphasis> need to be a
475 <quote>programmer</quote>. There are many other tasks available. In fact,
476 the programmers often can't spend as much time programming because of some
477 of the other, more mundane things that need to be done, like checking the
478 Tracker feedback sections or responding to user questions on the mailing
482 So first thing, subscribe to the <ulink
483 url="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-users">Privoxy Users</ulink>
484 or the <ulink url="https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-developers">Privoxy
485 Developers</ulink> mailing list, join the discussion, help out other users, provide general
486 feedback or report problems you noticed.
489 If you intend to help out with the trackers, you also might want to <ulink
490 url="https://sourceforge.net/account/register.php">get an account on SourceForge.net</ulink>
491 so we don't confuse you with the other name-less users.
494 We also have a <ulink
495 url="../developer-manual/index.html">Developer's Manual</ulink>.
496 While it is partly out of date, it's still worth reading.
499 Our <ulink url="http://ijbswa.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/ijbswa/current/TODO?view=markup">TODO list</ulink>
500 may be of interest to you as well.
501 Please let us know if you want to work on one of the items listed.
505 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="donate"><title>Would you like to donate?</title>
507 <application>Privoxy</application> is developed by unpaid volunteers
508 and thus our current running costs are pretty low. Nevertheless, we
509 have plans that will cost money in the future. We would like to get
510 this money through donations made by our users.
514 <application>Privoxy</application> has therefore become an associated
515 project of <ulink url="http://www.spi-inc.org/about-spi/about-spi">Software
516 in the Public Interest (SPI)</ulink>, which allows us to receive tax-deductible
517 donations in most western countries.
521 We intend to use the donations to pay for our domain after transfering
522 it to SPI. Our goal is to make sure there's no single point of failure
523 and the bill gets paid and the site keeps running even if a some of
524 the currently active developers were to suddenly disappear for a while.
528 We would also like to spend some money on more reliable hosting,
529 on hardware to help make sure <application>Privoxy</application>
530 keeps running on platforms the developers currently can't test on,
531 and on technical books to educate our developers about said platforms
532 or to improve their knowledge in general.
536 If you enjoy our software and feel like helping out with a donation,
537 please have a look at
538 <ulink url="http://www.spi-inc.org/donations">SPI's donation page</ulink>
539 to see what the options are.
548 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
550 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
552 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whichbrowsers">
553 <title>Which browsers are supported by Privoxy?</title>
555 Any browser that can be configured to use a proxy, which
556 should be virtually all browsers, including
557 <application>Firefox</application>, <application>Internet
558 Explorer</application>, <application>Opera</application>, and
559 <application>Safari</application> among others.
560 Direct browser support is not an absolute requirement since
561 <application>Privoxy</application> runs as a separate application and talks
562 to the browser in the standardized HTTP protocol, just like a web server
567 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whichos">
568 <title>Which operating systems are supported?</title>
570 Include supported.sgml here:
575 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="email-client">
576 <title>Can I use Privoxy with my email client?</title>
578 As long as there is some way to set a HTTP proxy for the client, then yes,
579 any application can be used, whether it is strictly speaking a
580 <quote>browser</quote> or not. Though this may not be the best approach for
581 dealing with some of the common abuses of HTML in email. See <link
582 linkend="outlook">How can I configure <application>Privoxy</application>
583 with <application>Outlook</application>?</link> below for more on
587 Be aware that HTML email presents a number of unique security and privacy
588 related issues, that can require advanced skills to overcome. The developers
589 recommend using email clients that can be configured to convert HTML to plain
590 text for these reasons.
594 <!-- Nobody is going to still be doing this!
595 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newinstall"><title>Can I install
596 Privoxy over Junkbuster?</title>
598 We recommend you un-install <application>Junkbuster</application>
599 first to minimize conflicts and confusion. You may want to
600 save your old configuration files for future reference. The configuration
601 files and syntax have substantially changed, so you will need to manually
602 port your old patterns. See the <ulink url="../user-manual/upgradersnote.html">note
603 to upgraders</ulink> and <ulink url="../user-manual/installation.html">installation
604 chapter</ulink> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">User Manual</ulink>
608 Note: Some installers may automatically un-install
609 <application>Junkbuster</application>, if present!
615 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="firststep">
616 <title>I just installed Privoxy. Is there anything
617 special I have to do now?</title>
620 All browsers should be told to use <application>Privoxy</application>
621 as a proxy by specifying the correct proxy address and port number
622 in the appropriate configuration area for the browser. It's possible
623 to combine &my-app; with a packet filter to intercept HTTP requests
624 even if the client isn't explicitly configured to use &my-app;,
625 but where possible, configuring the client is recommended. See
626 <ulink url="../user-manual/startup.html">the User Manual for more
627 details</ulink>. You should also flush your browser's memory and disk
628 cache to get rid of any cached junk items, and remove any stored
629 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>.
635 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="localhost"><title>What is the proxy address of Privoxy?</title>
637 If you set up the <application>Privoxy</application> to run on
638 the computer you browse from (rather than your ISP's server or some
639 networked computer on a LAN), the proxy will be on <literal>127.0.0.1</literal>
640 (sometimes referred to as <quote>localhost</quote>,
641 which is the special name used by every computer on the Internet to refer
642 to itself) and the port will be 8118 (unless you used the <ulink
643 url="../user-manual/config.html#LISTEN-ADDRESS">listen-address</ulink>
644 config option to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to run on
648 When configuring your browser's proxy settings you typically enter
649 the word <quote>localhost</quote> or the IP address <quote>127.0.0.1</quote>
650 in the boxes next to <quote>HTTP</quote> and <quote>Secure</quote> (HTTPS) and
651 then the number <quote>8118</quote> for <quote>port</quote>.
652 This tells your browser to send all web requests to <application>Privoxy</application>
653 instead of directly to the Internet.
656 <application>Privoxy</application> can also be used to proxy for
657 a Local Area Network. In this case, your would enter either the IP
658 address of the LAN host where <application>Privoxy</application>
659 is running, or the equivalent hostname, e.g. <literal>192.168.1.1</literal>.
660 Port assignment would be same as above. Note that
661 <application>Privoxy</application> doesn't listen on any LAN interfaces by
665 <application>Privoxy</application> does not currently handle
666 any other protocols such as FTP, SMTP, IM, IRC, ICQ, etc.
670 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="nothing">
671 <title>I just installed Privoxy, and nothing is happening.
672 All the ads are there. What's wrong?</title>
675 Did you configure your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application>
676 as a proxy? It does not sound like it. See above. You might also try flushing
677 the browser's caches to force a full re-reading of pages. You can verify
678 that <application>Privoxy</application> is running, and your browser
679 is correctly configured by entering the special URL:
680 <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>.
681 <!-- Use http://p.p/ instead of http://config.privoxy.org/ here because
682 of potential redirect caching problem (see next Q). -->
683 This should take you to a page titled <quote>This is Privoxy..</quote> with
684 access to <application>Privoxy's</application> internal configuration.
685 If you see this, then you are good to go. If you receive a page saying
686 <quote>Privoxy is not running</quote>, then the browser is not set up to use
687 your <application>Privoxy</application> installation.
688 If you receive anything else (probably nothing at all), it could either
689 be that the browser is not set up correctly, or that
690 <application>Privoxy</application> is not running at all. Check the <ulink
691 url="../user-manual/config.html#LOGFILE">log file</ulink>. For instructions
692 on starting <application>Privoxy</application> and browser configuration,
693 see the <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/startup.html">chapter
694 on starting <application>Privoxy</application></ulink> in the
695 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">User Manual</ulink>.
700 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="notused">
701 <title>I get a <quote>Privoxy is not being used</quote> dummy page although
702 Privoxy is running and being used.</title>
705 First, make sure that Privoxy is <emphasis>really</emphasis> running and
706 being used by visiting <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>. You
707 should see the <application>Privoxy</application> main page. If not, see
708 the <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/startup.html">chapter
709 on starting <application>Privoxy</application></ulink> in the
710 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">User Manual</ulink>.
714 Now if <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> works for you, but
715 other parts of <application>Privoxy</application>'s web interface show
716 the dummy page, your browser has cached a redirection it encountered before
717 <application>Privoxy</application> was being used. You need to clear your
718 browser's cache. Note that shift-reloading the dummy page won't help, since
719 that'll only refresh the dummy page, not the redirection that lead you there.
723 The procedure for clearing the cache varies from browser to browser. For
724 example, <application>Mozilla/Netscape</application> users would click
725 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> --> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -->
726 <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> --> <guibutton>Cache</guibutton> and
727 then click both <quote><guibutton>Clear Memory Cache</guibutton></quote>
728 and <quote><guibutton>Clear Disk Cache</guibutton></quote>.
729 In some <application>Firefox</application> versions it's
730 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> --> <guibutton>Options</guibutton> -->
731 <guibutton>Privacy</guibutton> --> <guibutton>Cache</guibutton> and
732 then click <quote><guibutton>Clear Cache Now</guibutton></quote>.
733 <!-- In my Firefox versions it's the Netscape way. fk 2007-11-19-->
740 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
742 <sect1 id="configuration"><title>Configuration</title>
743 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
744 <title id="actionsfile">What exactly is an <quote>actions</quote> file?</title>
747 &my-app; utilizes the concept of <quote>
748 <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACTIONS">actions</ulink></quote>
749 that are used to manipulate and control web page data.
750 <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">Actions files</ulink>
751 are where these <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACTIONS">actions</ulink>
752 that <application>Privoxy</application> could take while processing a certain
753 request, are configured. Typically, you would define a set of default actions
754 that apply globally to all URLs, then add exceptions to these defaults where needed.
755 There is a wide array of actions available that give the user a high degree
756 of control and flexibility on how to process each and every web page.
760 Actions can be defined on a <ulink
761 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#AF-PATTERNS">URL pattern</ulink> basis, i.e.
762 for single URLs, whole web sites, groups or parts thereof etc. Actions can also be
763 grouped together and then applied to requests matching one or more patterns.
764 There are many possible actions that might apply to any given site. As an example,
765 if you are blocking <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>
766 as one of your default actions, but need to accept cookies from a given site,
767 you would need to define an exception for this site in one of your actions
768 files, preferably in <filename>user.action</filename>.
773 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="actionss">
774 <title>The <quote>actions</quote> concept confuses me. Please list
775 some of these <quote>actions</quote>.</title>
777 For a comprehensive discussion of the actions concept, please refer
778 to the <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">actions file
779 chapter</ulink> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">User
780 Manual</ulink>. It includes a <ulink
781 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACTIONS">list of all actions</ulink>
782 and an <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACT-EXAMPLES">actions
783 file tutorial</ulink> to get you started.
788 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
789 <title id="actconfig">How are actions files configured? What is the easiest
790 way to do this?</title>
793 Actions files are just text files in a special syntax and can be edited
794 with a text editor. But probably the easiest way is to access
795 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface with your web browser
796 at <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
797 (Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>) and then select
798 <quote><ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View &
799 change the current configuration</ulink></quote> from the menu. Note
800 that this feature must be explicitly enabled in the main config file
802 url="../user-manual/config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions</ulink>).
807 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
808 <title>There are several different <quote>actions</quote> files. What are
809 the differences?</title>
812 are being included by the developers, to be used for
813 different purposes: These are
814 <filename>default.action</filename>, the <quote>main</quote> actions file
815 which is actively maintained by the <application>Privoxy</application>
816 developers and typically sets the default policies, <filename>user.action</filename>,
817 where users are encouraged to make their private customizations.
818 Please see <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">the actions chapter</ulink>
819 in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">User Manual</ulink> for a more
820 detailed explanation.
824 Earlier versions included three different versions of the
825 <filename>default.action</filename> file. The new scheme allows for
826 greater flexibility of local configuration, and for browser based
827 selection of pre-defined <quote>aggressiveness</quote> levels.
832 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="getupdates"><title>Where can I get updated Actions Files?</title>
834 Based on your feedback and the continuing development, updates of
835 <filename>default.action</filename> will be
836 made available from time to time on the <ulink
837 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">files section</ulink> of
838 our <ulink url="http://sf.net/projects/ijbswa/">project page</ulink>.
842 If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
843 <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
844 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce/">subscribe
845 to our announce mailing list</ulink>, ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
850 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newconfig"><title>Can I use my old config files?</title>
852 The syntax and purpose of configuration files has remained roughly the
853 same throughout the 3.x series, but backwards compatibility is not guaranteed.
854 Also each release contains updated, <quote>improved</quote> versions and it is
855 therefore strongly recommended to install the newer configuration files
856 and merge back your modifications.
860 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="difficult">
861 <title>Why is the configuration so complicated?</title>
863 <quote>Complicated</quote> is in the eye of the beholder. Those that are
864 familiar with some of the underlying concepts, such as regular expression
865 syntax, take to it like a fish takes to water. Also, software that tries
866 hard to be <quote>user friendly</quote>, often lacks sophistication and
867 flexibility. There is always that trade-off there between power vs.
868 easy-of-use. Furthermore, anyone is welcome to contribute ideas and
869 implementations to enhance &my-app;.
873 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="yahoo"><title>How can I make my Yahoo/Hotmail/Gmail account work?</title>
875 The default configuration shouldn't impact the usability of any of these services.
876 It may, however, make all <ulink
877 url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>
878 temporary, so that your browser will forget your
879 login credentials in between browser sessions. If you would like not to have to log
880 in manually each time you access those websites, simply turn off all cookie handling
881 for them in the <filename>user.action</filename> file. An example for yahoo might
885 <screen># Allow all cookies for Yahoo login:
887 { -<ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</ulink> -<ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</ulink> -<ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</ulink> }
888 .login.yahoo.com</screen>
891 These kinds of sites are often quite complex and heavy with
892 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript">Javascript</ulink> and
893 thus <quote>fragile</quote>. So if <emphasis>still</emphasis> a problem,
895 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ALIASES">alias</ulink> just for such
899 <screen># Gmail is a _fragile_ site:
901 { <literal>fragile</literal> }
903 mail.google.com</screen>
906 Be sure to flush your browser's caches whenever making these kinds of
907 changes, just to make sure the changes <quote>take</quote>.
910 Make sure the domain, host and path are appropriate as well. Your browser can
911 tell you where you are specifically and you should use that information for
912 your configuration settings. Note that above it is not referenced as
913 <literal>gmail.com</literal>, which is a valid domain name.
918 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="configfiles"> <title>What's the difference between the
919 <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> and <quote>Advanced</quote> defaults?</title>
921 Configuring <application>Privoxy</application> is not entirely trivial. To
922 help you get started, we provide you with three different default action
923 <quote>profiles</quote> in the web based actions file editor at <ulink
924 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
925 See the <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html"><citetitle>User
926 Manual</citetitle></ulink> for a list of actions, and how the default
931 Where the defaults are likely to break some sites, exceptions for
932 known popular <quote>problem</quote> sites are included, but in
933 general, the more aggressive your default settings are, the more exceptions
934 you will have to make later. New users are best to start off in
935 <quote>Cautious</quote> setting. This is safest and will have the fewest
936 problems. See the <ulink
937 url="../user-manual/index.html"><citetitle>User Manual</citetitle></ulink>
938 for a more detailed discussion.
942 It should be noted that the <quote>Advanced</quote> profile (formerly known
943 as the <quote>Adventuresome</quote> profile) is more
944 aggressive, and will make use of some of
945 <application>Privoxy's</application> advanced features. Use at your own risk!
950 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="browseconfig"> <title>Why can I change the configuration
951 with a browser? Does that not raise security issues?</title>
953 It may seem strange that regular users can edit the config files with their
954 browsers, although the whole <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> hierarchy
955 belongs to the user <quote>privoxy</quote>, with only 644 permissions.
958 When you use the browser-based editor, <application>Privoxy</application>
959 itself is writing to the config files. Because
960 <application>Privoxy</application> is running as the user <quote>privoxy</quote>,
961 it can update its own config files.
964 If you run <application>Privoxy</application> for multiple untrusted users (e.g. in
965 a LAN) or aren't entirely in control of your own browser, you will probably want
966 to make sure that the the web-based editor and remote toggle features are
967 <quote>off</quote> by setting <quote><literal><ulink
968 url="../user-manual/config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions</ulink>
969 0</literal></quote> and <quote><literal><ulink
970 url="../user-manual/config.html#ENABLE-REMOTE-TOGGLE">enable-remote-toggle</ulink>
971 0</literal></quote> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html">main configuration file</ulink>.
974 As of &my-app; 3.0.7 these options are disabled by default.
979 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
980 <title id="filterfile">What is the <filename>default.filter</filename> file? What is a <quote>filter</quote>?</title>
982 The <ulink url="../user-manual/filter-file.html"><filename>default.filter</filename></ulink>
983 file is where <emphasis>filters</emphasis> as supplied by the developers are defined.
984 Filters are a special subset of actions that can be used to modify or
985 remove web page content or headers on the fly. Content filters can
986 be applied to <emphasis>anything</emphasis> in the page source,
987 header filters can be applied to either server or client headers.
988 Regular expressions are used to accomplish this.
991 There are a number of pre-defined filters to deal with common annoyances. The
992 filters are only defined here, to invoke them, you need to use the
994 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER"><literal>filter</literal>
995 action</ulink> in one of the actions files. Content filtering is automatically
996 disabled for inappropriate MIME types, but if you now better than Privoxy
997 what should or should not be filtered you can filter any content you like.
1001 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be confused with <ulink
1002 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK"><literal>blocks</literal></ulink>, which
1003 is a completely different action, and is more typically used to block ads and
1008 If you are familiar with regular expressions, and HTML, you can look at
1009 the provided <filename>default.filter</filename> with a text editor and define
1010 your own filters. This is potentially a very powerful feature, but
1011 requires some expertise in both regular expressions and HTML/HTTP.
1012 <![%p-newstuff;[ You should
1013 place any modifications to the default filters, or any new ones you create
1014 in a separate file, such as <filename>user.filter</filename>, so they won't
1015 be overwritten during upgrades.
1016 The ability to define multiple filter files
1017 in <filename>config</filename> is a new feature as of v. 3.0.5.]]>
1021 There is no GUI editor option for this part of the configuration,
1022 but you can disable/enable the various pre-defined filters of the included
1023 <filename>default.filter</filename> file with the <ulink
1024 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">web-based actions file editor</ulink>.
1025 Note that the custom actions editor must be explicitly enabled in
1026 the main config file (see <ulink
1027 url="../user-manual/config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions</ulink>).
1031 If you intend to develop your own filters, you might want to have a look at
1033 url="http://www.fabiankeil.de/sourcecode/pft/">Privoxy-Filter-Test</ulink>.
1038 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="lanconfig">
1039 <title>How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my
1042 By default, <application>Privoxy</application> only responds to requests
1043 from <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> (localhost). To have it act as a server for
1044 a network, this needs to be changed in the <ulink
1045 url="../user-manual/config.html">main configuration file</ulink>. Look for
1047 url="../user-manual/config.html#LISTEN-ADDRESS">listen-address</ulink></literal>
1048 option, which may be commented out with a <quote>#</quote> symbol. Make sure
1049 it is uncommented, and assign it the address of the LAN gateway interface,
1050 and port number to use. Assuming your LAN address is 192.168.1.1 and you
1051 wish to run <application>Privoxy</application> on port 8118, this line
1057 listen-address 192.168.1.1:8118</screen>
1061 Save the file, and restart <application>Privoxy</application>. Configure
1062 all browsers on the network then to use this address and port number.
1066 Alternately, you can have <application>Privoxy</application> listen on
1067 all available interfaces:
1072 listen-address :8118</screen>
1076 And then use <application>Privoxy's</application>
1078 url="../user-manual/config.html#PERMIT-ACCESS">permit-access</ulink>
1079 feature to limit connections. A firewall in this situation is recommended
1084 The above steps should be the same for any TCP network, regardless of
1089 If you run <application>Privoxy</application> on a LAN with untrusted users,
1090 we recommend that you double-check the <ulink
1091 url="../user-manual/config.html#ACCESS-CONTROL">access control and security</ulink>
1098 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1099 <title id="noseeum">Instead of ads, now I get a checkerboard pattern. I don't want to see anything.</title>
1101 The replacement for blocked images can be controlled with the <ulink
1102 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><literal>set-image-blocker</literal>
1103 action</ulink>. You have the choice of a checkerboard pattern, a transparent 1x1 GIF
1104 image (aka <quote>blank</quote>), or a redirect to a custom image of your choice.
1105 Note that this choice only has effect for images which are blocked as images, i.e.
1106 whose URLs match both a <literal><ulink
1107 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</ulink></literal>
1108 <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><ulink
1109 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">block</ulink></literal> action.
1112 If you want to see nothing, then change the <ulink
1113 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><literal>set-image-blocker</literal>
1114 action</ulink> to <quote>blank</quote>. This can be done by editing the
1115 <filename>user.action</filename> file, or through the <ulink
1116 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">web-based actions file editor</ulink>.
1121 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1122 <title id="whyseeum">Why would anybody want to see a checkerboard pattern?</title>
1124 Remember that <link linkend="whatsanad">telling which image is an ad and which
1125 isn't</link>, is an educated guess. While we hope that the standard configuration
1126 is rather smart, it will make occasional mistakes. The checkerboard image is visually
1127 decent, and it shows you where images have been blocked, which can be very
1128 helpful in case some navigation aid or otherwise innocent image was
1129 erroneously blocked. It is recommended for new users so they can
1130 <quote>see</quote> what is happening. Some people might also enjoy seeing how
1131 many banners they <emphasis>don't</emphasis> have to see.
1136 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1137 <title id="blockedbytext">I see some images being replaced with text
1138 instead of the checkerboard image. Why and how do I get rid of this?</title>
1140 This happens when the banners are not embedded in the HTML code of the
1141 page itself, but in separate HTML (sub)documents that are loaded into (i)frames
1142 or (i)layers, and these external HTML documents are blocked. Being non-images
1143 they get replaced by a substitute HTML page rather than a substitute image,
1144 which wouldn't work out technically, since the browser expects and accepts
1145 only HTML when it has requested an HTML document.
1148 The substitute page adapts to the available space and shows itself as a
1149 miniature two-liner if loaded into small frames, or full-blown with a
1150 large red "BLOCKED" banner if space allows.
1153 If you prefer the banners to be blocked by images, you must see to it that
1154 the HTML documents in which they are embedded are not blocked. Clicking
1155 the <quote>See why</quote> link offered in the substitute page will show
1156 you which rule blocked the page. After changing the rule and un-blocking
1157 the HTML documents, the browser will try to load the actual banner images
1158 and the usual image blocking will (hopefully!) kick in.
1163 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="srvany">
1164 <title>Can Privoxy run as a service
1165 on Win2K/NT/XP?</title>
1168 Yes. Version 3.0.5 introduces full <application>Windows</application> service
1169 functionality. See <ulink url="../user-manual/installation.html#installation-pack-win">
1170 the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle></ulink> for details on how to install and configure
1171 <application>Privoxy</application> as a service.
1174 Earlier ]]>3.x versions could run as a system service using <command>srvany.exe</command>.
1175 See the discussion at <ulink
1176 url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=361118&aid=485617&group_id=11118">http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=361118&aid=485617&group_id=11118</ulink>,
1177 for details, and a sample configuration.
1182 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="otherproxy">
1183 <title>How can I make Privoxy work with other
1184 proxies like Squid or Tor?</title>
1186 This can be done and is often useful to combine the benefits of
1187 <application>Privoxy</application> with those of a another proxy.
1189 url="../user-manual/config.html#FORWARDING">forwarding chapter</ulink>
1190 in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">User Manual</ulink> which
1191 describes how to do this, and the <link linkend="TOR">
1192 How do I use Privoxy together with
1193 Tor</link> section below.
1197 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="port-80">
1198 <title>Can I just set Privoxy to use port 80
1199 and thus avoid individual browser configuration?</title>
1202 No, its more complicated than that. This only works with special kinds
1203 of proxies known as <quote>intercepting</quote> proxies (see below).
1208 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="transparent">
1209 <title>Can Privoxy run as a <quote>transparent
1210 </quote> proxy?</title>
1212 The whole idea of Privoxy is to modify client requests
1213 and server responses in all sorts of ways and therefore
1214 it's not a transparent proxy as described in
1215 <ulink url="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616">RFC 2616</ulink>.
1218 However, some people say <quote>transparent proxy</quote> when they
1219 mean <quote>intercepting proxy</quote>. If you are one of them,
1220 please read the <ulink url="#intercepting">next entry</ulink>.
1225 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="intercepting">
1226 <title>Can Privoxy run as a <quote>intercepting</quote> proxy?</title>
1228 <application>Privoxy</application> can't intercept traffic itself,
1229 but it can handle requests that where intercepted and redirected
1230 with a packet filter (like <application>PF</application> or
1231 <application>iptables</application>), as long as the <literal>Host</literal>
1235 As the <literal>Host</literal> header is required by HTTP/1.1 and as most
1236 web sites rely on it anyway, this limitation shouldn't be a problem.
1239 Please refer to your packet filter's documentation to learn how to
1240 intercept and redirect traffic into <application>Privoxy</application>.
1241 Afterward you just have to configure <application>Privoxy</application> to
1242 <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html#ACCEPT-INTERCEPTED-REQUESTS">accept
1243 intercepted requests</ulink>.
1248 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="outlook">
1249 <title>How can I configure Privoxy for use with Outlook?</title>
1251 Versions of <application>Outlook</application> prior to Office 2007, use
1252 <application>Internet Explorer</application> components to both render HTML,
1253 and fetch any HTTP requests that may be embedded in an HTML email. So however
1254 you have <application>Privoxy</application> configured to work with IE, this
1255 configuration should automatically be shared, at least with older version of
1259 Starting with Office 2007, Microsoft is instead using the MS-Word rendering
1260 engine with Outlook. It is unknown whether this can be configured to use a
1262 <!-- FIXME HB 2009-02-15 -->
1266 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="outlook-more">
1267 <title>How can I have separate rules just for HTML mail?</title>
1269 The short answer is, you can't. <application>Privoxy</application> has no way
1270 of knowing which particular application makes a request, so there is no way to
1271 distinguish between web pages and HTML mail.
1272 <application>Privoxy</application> just blindly proxies all requests. In the
1273 case of <application>Outlook Express</application> (see above), OE uses
1274 IE anyway, and there is no way for <application>Privoxy</application> to ever
1275 be able to distinguish between them (nor could any other proxy type application for
1279 For a good discussion of some of the issues involved (including privacy and
1280 security issues), see
1281 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=211118&aid=629518&group_id=11118">http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=211118&aid=629518&group_id=11118</ulink>.
1285 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="sneaky-cookies">
1286 <title>I sometimes notice cookies sneaking through. How?</title>
1289 url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">Cookies</ulink> can be
1290 set in several ways. The classic method is via the
1291 <literal>Set-Cookie</literal> HTTP header. This is straightforward, and an
1292 easy one to manipulate, such as the &my-app; concept of
1293 <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</ulink>.
1294 There is also the possibility of using
1295 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript">Javascript</ulink> to
1296 set cookies (&my-app; calls these <literal>content-cookies</literal>). This
1297 is trickier because the syntax can vary widely, and thus requires a certain
1298 amount of guesswork. It is not realistic to catch all of these short of
1299 disabling Javascript, which would break many sites. And lastly, if the
1300 cookies are embedded in a HTTPS/SSL secure session via Javascript, they are beyond
1301 <application>Privoxy's</application> reach.
1304 All in all, &my-app; can help manage cookies in general, can help minimize
1305 the loss of privacy posed by cookies, but can't realistically stop all
1310 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="evil-cookies">
1311 <title>Are all cookies bad? Why?</title>
1313 No, in fact there are many beneficial uses of
1315 url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>. Cookies are just a
1316 method that browsers can use to store data between pages, or between browser
1317 sessions. Sometimes there is a good reason for this, and the user's life is a
1318 bit easier as a result. But there is a long history of some websites taking
1319 advantage of this layer of trust, and using the data they glean from you and
1320 your browsing habits for their own purposes, and maybe to your potential
1321 detriment. Such sites are using you and storing their data on your system.
1322 That is why the privacy conscious watch from whom those cookies come, and why
1323 they really <emphasis>need</emphasis> to be there.
1327 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">Wikipedia cookie
1328 definition</ulink> for more.
1332 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="allow-cookies">
1333 <title>How can I allow permanent cookies for my trusted sites?</title>
1336 There are several actions that relate to cookies. The default behavior is to
1337 allow only <quote>session cookies</quote>, which means the cookies only last
1338 for the current browser session. This eliminates most kinds of abuse related
1339 to cookies. But there may be cases where you want cookies to last.
1342 To disable all cookie actions, so that cookies are allowed unrestricted,
1343 both in and out, for <literal>example.com</literal>:
1347 { -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies -session-cookies-only -filter{content-cookies} }
1348 .example.com</screen>
1351 Place the above in <filename>user.action</filename>. Note that some of these may
1352 be off by default anyway, so this might be redundant, but there is no harm
1353 being explicit in what you want to happen. <filename>user.action</filename>
1354 includes an alias for this situation, called
1355 <literal>allow-all-cookies</literal>.
1359 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="multiples">
1360 <title>Can I have separate configurations for different users?</title>
1362 Each instance of <application>Privoxy</application> has its own
1363 configuration, including such attributes as the TCP port that it listens on.
1364 What you can do is run multiple instances of <application>Privoxy</application>, each with
1366 <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html#LISTEN-ADDRESS">listen-address</ulink>
1367 configuration setting, and configuration path, and then
1368 each of these can have their own configurations. Think of it as per-port
1372 Simple enough for a few users, but for large installations, consider having
1373 groups of users that might share like configurations.
1377 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whitelists">
1378 <title>Can I set-up Privoxy as a whitelist of
1379 <quote>good</quote> sites?</title>
1381 Sure. There are a couple of things you can do for simple white-listing.
1382 Here's one real easy one:
1385 ############################################################
1387 ############################################################
1388 { <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">+block</ulink> }
1389 / # Block *all* URLs
1391 ############################################################
1393 ############################################################
1394 { <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">-block</ulink> }
1397 games.example.com</screen>
1399 This allows access to only those three sites by first blocking all URLs, and
1400 then subsequently allowing three specific exceptions.
1403 Another approach is <application>Privoxy's</application>
1404 <literal>trustfile</literal> concept, which incorporates the notion of
1405 <quote>trusted referrers</quote>. See the <ulink
1406 url="../user-manual/config.html#TRUSTFILE">Trust documentation</ulink>
1410 These are fairly simple approaches and are not completely foolproof. There
1411 are various other configuration options that should be disabled (described
1412 elsewhere here and in <ulink url="../user-manual/">the User Manual</ulink>)
1413 so that users can't modify their own configuration and easily circumvent the
1418 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="no-adblock">
1419 <title>How can I turn off ad-blocking?</title>
1421 Ad blocking is achieved through a complex application of various &my-app;
1422 <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">actions</ulink>. These
1423 actions are deployed against simple images, banners, flash animations,
1424 text pages, JavaScript, pop-ups and pop-unders, etc., so its not as simple as
1425 just turning one or two actions off. The various actions that make up
1426 &my-app; ad blocking are hard-coded into the default configuration files. It
1427 has been assumed that everyone using &my-app; is interested in this
1431 If you want to do without this, there are several approaches you can take:
1432 You can manually undo the many block rules in
1433 <filename>default.action</filename>. Or even easier, just create your own
1434 <filename>default.action</filename> file from scratch without the many ad
1435 blocking rules, and corresponding exceptions. Or lastly, if you are not
1436 concerned about the additional blocks that are done for privacy reasons, you
1437 can very easily over-ride <emphasis>all</emphasis> blocking with the
1438 following very simple rule in your <filename>user.action</filename>:
1442 # Unblock everybody, everywhere
1443 { <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">-block</ulink> }
1444 / # UN-Block *all* URLs</screen>
1447 Or even a more comprehensive reversing of various ad related actions:
1451 # Unblock everybody, everywhere, and turn off appropriate filtering, etc
1452 { <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">-block</ulink> \
1453 <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE">-filter{banners-by-size}</ulink> \
1454 <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER-BANNERS-BY-LINK">-filter{banners-by-link}</ulink> \
1455 <literal>allow-popups</literal> \
1457 / # UN-Block *all* URLs and allow ads</screen>
1460 This last <quote>action</quote> in this compound statement,
1461 <literal>allow-popups</literal>, is an <ulink
1462 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ALIASES">alias</ulink> that disables
1463 various pop-up blocking features.
1467 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="templates">
1468 <title>How can I have custom template pages, like the
1469 <emphasis>BLOCKED</emphasis> page?</title>
1471 &my-app; <quote>templates</quote> are specialized text files utilized by
1472 &my-app; for various purposes and can easily be modified using any text
1473 editor. All the template pages are installed in a sub-directory appropriately
1474 named: <filename>templates</filename>. Knowing something about HTML syntax
1475 will of course be helpful.
1478 Be forewarned that the default templates are subject to being overwritten
1479 during upgrades. You can, however, create completely new templates,
1480 place them in another directory and specify the alternate path in the main
1481 <filename>config</filename>. For details, have a look at the <ulink
1482 url="../user-manual/config.html#templdir">templdir</ulink> option.
1486 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="blockall">
1487 <title>How can I remove the <quote>Go There Anyway</quote> link from
1488 the <emphasis>BLOCKED</emphasis> page?</title>
1490 There is more than one way to do it (although Perl is not involved).
1493 Editing the BLOCKED template page (see above) may dissuade some users, but
1494 this method is easily circumvented. Where you need this level of control, you
1495 might want to build &my-app; from source, and disable various features that are
1496 available as compile-time options. You should
1497 <command>configure</command> the sources as follows:
1501 ./configure --disable-toggle --disable-editor --disable-force</screen>
1504 This will create an executable with hard-coded security features so that
1505 &my-app; does not allow easy bypassing of blocked sites, or changing the
1506 current configuration via any connected user's web browser.
1509 Finally, all of these features can also be toggled on/off via options in
1510 <application>Privoxy's</application> main <ulink
1511 url="../user-manual/config.html#ACCESS-CONTROL">config</ulink> file which
1512 means you don't have to recompile anything.
1518 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1521 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1523 <sect1 id="misc"><title>Miscellaneous</title>
1525 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1526 <title id="slowsme">How much does Privoxy slow my browsing down? This
1527 has to add extra time to browsing.</title>
1529 How much of an impact depends on many things, including the CPU of the host
1530 system, how aggressive the configuration is, which specific actions are being triggered,
1531 the size of the page, the bandwidth of the connection, etc.
1534 Overall, it should not slow you down any in real terms, and may actually help
1535 speed things up since ads, banners and other junk are not typically being
1536 retrieved and displayed. The actual processing time required by
1537 <application>Privoxy</application> itself for each page, is relatively small
1538 in the overall scheme of things, and happens very quickly. This is typically
1539 more than offset by time saved not downloading and rendering ad images and
1540 other junk content (if ad blocking is being used).
1544 <quote>Filtering</quote> content via the <literal><ulink
1545 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER">filter</ulink></literal> or
1547 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</ulink></literal>
1548 actions may cause a perceived slowdown, since the entire document
1549 needs to be buffered before displaying. And on very large documents,
1550 filtering may have some measurable impact. How much depends on the page size,
1551 the actual definition of the filter(s), etc. See below. Most other actions
1552 have little to no impact on speed.
1555 Also, when filtering is enabled but zlib support isn't available, compression
1556 is often disabled (see <ulink
1557 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</ulink>).
1558 This can have an impact on speed as well, although it's probably smaller than
1559 you might think. Again, the page size, etc. will determine how much of an impact.
1565 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="loadingtimes"><title>I notice considerable
1566 delays in page requests. What's wrong?</title>
1568 If you use any <literal><ulink
1569 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER">filter</ulink></literal> action,
1570 such as filtering banners by size, web-bugs etc, or the <literal><ulink
1571 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</ulink></literal>
1572 action, the entire document must be loaded into memory in order for the filtering
1573 mechanism to work, and nothing is sent to the browser during this time.
1576 The loading time typically does not really change much in real numbers, but
1577 the feeling is different, because most browsers are able to start rendering
1578 incomplete content, giving the user a feeling of "it works". This effect is
1579 more noticeable on slower dialup connections. Extremely large documents
1580 may have some impact on the time to load the page where there is filtering
1581 being done. But overall, the difference should be very minimal. If there is a
1582 big impact, then probably some other situation is contributing (like
1583 anti-virus software).
1586 Filtering is automatically disabled for inappropriate MIME types. But note
1587 that if the web server mis-reports the MIME type, then content that should
1588 not be filtered, could be. <application>Privoxy</application> only knows how
1589 to differentiate filterable content because of the MIME type as reported by
1590 the server, or because of some configuration setting that enables/disables
1595 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="configurl"><title>What are "http://config.privoxy.org/" and
1596 "http://p.p/"?</title>
1598 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink> is the
1599 address of <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in user interface, and
1600 <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> is a shortcut for it.
1603 Since <application>Privoxy</application> sits between your web browser and the Internet,
1604 it can simply intercept requests for these addresses and answer them with its built-in
1605 <quote>web server</quote>.
1608 This also makes for a good test for your browser configuration: If entering the
1609 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1610 takes you to a page saying <quote>This is Privoxy ...</quote>, everything is OK.
1611 If you get a page saying <quote>Privoxy is not working</quote> instead, then
1612 your browser didn't use <application>Privoxy</application> for the request,
1613 hence it could not be intercepted, and you have accessed the <emphasis>real</emphasis>
1614 web site at config.privoxy.org.
1620 out of date 09/02/06 HB
1621 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="blocklist"><title>Do you still maintain the blocklists?</title>
1623 No. The patterns for blocking now reside (among other things) in the <ulink
1624 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">actions files</ulink>, which are
1625 actively maintained instead. See next question ...
1629 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newads"><title>How can I submit new ads, or report
1632 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> for
1633 various ways to interact with the developers.
1638 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newads2"><title>If I do submit missed ads, will
1639 they be included in future updates?</title>
1641 Whether such submissions are eventually included in the
1642 <filename>default.action</filename> configuration file depends on how
1643 significant the issue is. We of course want to address any potential
1644 problem with major, high-profile sites such as <citetitle>Google</citetitle>,
1645 <citetitle>Yahoo</citetitle>, etc. Any site with global or regional reach,
1646 has a good chance of being a candidate. But at the other end of the spectrum
1647 are any number of smaller, low-profile sites such as for local clubs or
1648 schools. Since their reach and impact are much less, they are best handled by
1649 inclusion in the user's <filename>user.action</filename>, and thus would be
1650 unlikely to be included.
1656 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="noonecares"><title>Why doesn't anyone answer my support
1659 Rest assured that it has been read and considered. Why it is not answered,
1660 could be for various reasons, including no one has a good answer for it, no
1661 one has had time to yet investigate it thoroughly, it has been reported
1662 numerous times already, or because not enough information was provided to help
1663 us help you. Your efforts are not wasted, and we do appreciate them.
1669 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="ip"><title>How can I hide my IP address?</title>
1671 If you run both the browser and &my-app; locally, you cannot hide your IP
1672 address with <application>Privoxy</application> or ultimately any other
1673 software alone. The server needs to know your IP address so that it knows
1674 where to send the responses back.
1677 There are many publicly usable "anonymous" proxies out there, which
1678 provide a further level of indirection between you and the web server.
1681 However, these proxies are called "anonymous" because you don't need
1682 to authenticate, not because they would offer any real anonymity.
1683 Most of them will log your IP address and make it available to the
1684 authorities in case you violate the law of the country they run in. In fact
1685 you can't even rule out that some of them only exist to *collect* information
1686 on (those suspicious) people with a more than average preference for privacy.
1689 If you want to hide your IP address from most adversaries,
1690 you should consider chaining <application>Privoxy</application>
1691 with <ulink url="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</ulink>.
1692 The configuration details can be found in
1693 <ulink url="#TOR">How do I use <application>Privoxy</application> together
1694 with <application>Tor</application> section</ulink>
1699 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1700 <title id="anonforsure">Can Privoxy guarantee I am anonymous?</title>
1702 No. Your chances of remaining anonymous are improved, but unless you
1703 <ulink url="#TOR">chain <application>Privoxy</application> with <application>Tor</application></ulink>
1704 or a similar proxy and know what you're doing when it comes to configuring
1705 the rest of your system, you should assume that everything you do
1706 on the Web can be traced back to you.
1709 <application>Privoxy</application> can remove various information about you,
1710 and allows <emphasis>you</emphasis> more freedom to decide which sites
1711 you can trust, and what details you want to reveal. But it neither
1712 hides your IP address, nor can it guarantee that the rest of the system
1713 behaves correctly. There are several possibilities how a web sites can find
1714 out who you are, even if you are using a strict <application>Privoxy</application>
1715 configuration and chained it with <application>Tor</application>.
1718 Most of <application>Privoxy's</application> privacy-enhancing features can be easily subverted
1719 by an insecure browser configuration, therefore you should use a browser that can
1720 be configured to only execute code from trusted sites, and be careful which sites you trust.
1721 For example there is no point in having <application>Privoxy</application>
1722 modify the User-Agent header, if websites can get all the information they want
1723 through JavaScript, ActiveX, Flash, Java etc.
1726 A few browsers disclose the user's email address in certain situations, such
1727 as when transferring a file by FTP. <application>Privoxy</application>
1728 does not filter FTP. If you need this feature, or are concerned about the
1729 mail handler of your browser disclosing your email address, you might
1730 consider products such as <application>NSClean</application>.
1733 Browsers available only as binaries could use non-standard headers to give
1734 out any information they can have access to: see the manufacturer's license
1735 agreement. It's impossible to anticipate and prevent every breach of privacy
1736 that might occur. The professionally paranoid prefer browsers available as
1737 source code, because anticipating their behavior is easier. Trust the source,
1743 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1744 <title id="proxytest">A test site says I am not using a Proxy.</title>
1746 Good! Actually, they are probably testing for some other kinds of proxies.
1747 Hiding yourself completely would require additional steps.
1751 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="tor"><title>How do I use Privoxy
1752 together with Tor?</title>
1754 Before you configure <application>Privoxy</application> to use
1755 <ulink url="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</ulink>,
1756 please follow the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> chapters
1757 <ulink url="../user-manual/installation.html">2. Installation</ulink> and
1758 <ulink url="../user-manual/startup.html">5. Startup</ulink> to make sure
1759 <application>Privoxy</application> itself is setup correctly.
1762 If it is, refer to <ulink url="https://www.torproject.org/documentation.html">Tor's
1763 extensive documentation</ulink> to learn how to install <application>Tor</application>,
1764 and make sure <application>Tor</application>'s logfile says that
1765 <quote>Tor has successfully opened a circuit</quote> and it
1766 <quote>looks like client functionality is working</quote>.
1769 If either <application>Tor</application> or <application>Privoxy</application>
1770 isn't working, their combination most likely will neither. Testing them on their
1771 own will also help you to direct problem reports to the right audience.
1772 If <application>Privoxy</application> isn't working, don't bother the
1773 <application>Tor</application> developers. If <application>Tor</application>
1774 isn't working, don't send bug reports to the <application>Privoxy</application> Team.
1777 If you verified that <application>Privoxy</application> and <application>Tor</application>
1778 are working, it is time to connect them. As far as <application>Privoxy</application>
1779 is concerned, <application>Tor</application> is just another proxy that can be reached
1780 by socks4 or socks4a. Most likely you are interested in <application>Tor</application>
1781 to increase your anonymity level, therefore you should use socks4a, to make sure DNS requests are
1782 done through <application>Tor</application> and thus invisible to your local network.
1787 Since <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.5, its
1788 <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html">main configuration file</ulink>
1789 is already prepared for <application>Tor</application>, if you are using a
1790 default <application>Tor</application> configuration and run it on the same
1791 system as &my-app;, you just have to edit the
1792 <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html#FORWARDING">forwarding section</ulink>
1793 and uncomment the line:
1797 # forward-socks5 / 127.0.0.1:9050 .
1801 This is enough to reach the Internet, but additionally you might want to
1802 uncomment the following forward rules, to make sure your local network is still
1803 reachable through Privoxy:
1807 # forward 192.168.*.*/ .
1808 # forward 10.*.*.*/ .
1809 # forward 127.*.*.*/ .
1813 Unencrypted connections to systems in these address ranges will
1814 be as (un)secure as the local network is, but the alternative is
1815 that your browser can't reach the network at all. Then again,
1816 that may actually be desired and if you don't know for sure
1817 that your browser has to be able to reach the local network,
1818 there's no reason to allow it.
1821 If you want your browser to be able to reach servers in your local
1822 network by using their names, you will need additional exceptions
1823 that look like this:
1827 # forward localhost/ .
1831 Save the modified configuration file and open
1832 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status/</ulink>
1833 in your browser, confirm that <application>Privoxy</application> has reloaded its configuration
1834 and that there are no other forward lines, unless you know that you need them. If everything looks good,
1836 <ulink url="https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#IsMyConnectionPrivate">Tor
1837 Faq 4.2</ulink> to learn how to verify that you are really using <application>Tor</application>.
1840 Afterward, please take the time to at least skim through the rest
1841 of <application>Tor's</application> documentation. Make sure you understand
1842 what <application>Tor</application> does, why it is no replacement for
1843 application level security, and why you probably don't want to
1844 use it for unencrypted logins.
1848 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1849 <title id="sitebreak">Might some things break because header information or
1850 content is being altered?</title>
1853 Definitely. It is common for sites to use browser type, browser version,
1854 HTTP header content, and various other techniques in order to dynamically
1855 decide what to display and how to display it. What you see, and what I see,
1856 might be very different. There are many, many ways that this can be handled,
1857 so having hard and fast rules, is tricky.
1861 The <quote>User-Agent</quote> is sometimes used in this way to identify
1862 the browser, and adjust content accordingly.
1866 Also, different browsers use different encodings of non-English
1867 characters, certain web servers convert pages on-the-fly according to the
1868 User Agent header. Giving a <quote>User Agent</quote> with the wrong
1869 operating system or browser manufacturer causes some sites in these languages
1870 to be garbled; Surfers to Eastern European sites should change it to
1871 something closer. And then some page access counters work by looking at the
1872 <quote>Referer</quote> header; they may fail or break if unavailable. The
1873 weather maps of Intellicast have been blocked by their server when no
1874 <quote>Referer</quote> or cookie is provided, is another example. (But you
1875 can forge both headers without giving information away). There are
1876 many other ways things can go wrong when trying to fool a web server. The
1877 results of which could inadvertently cause pages to load incorrectly,
1878 partially, or even not at all. And there may be no obvious clues as to just
1879 what went wrong, or why. Nowhere will there be a message that says
1880 <quote><emphasis>Turn off <literal>fast-redirects</literal> or else!</emphasis>
1885 Similar thoughts apply to modifying JavaScript, and, to a lesser degree,
1890 If you have problems with a site, you will have to adjust your configuration
1891 accordingly. Cookies are probably the most likely adjustment that may
1892 be required, but by no means the only one.
1898 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1899 <title id="caching">Can Privoxy act as a <quote>caching</quote> proxy to
1900 speed up web browsing?</title>
1902 No, it does not have this ability at all. You want something like
1903 <ulink url="http://www.squid-cache.org/">Squid</ulink> or
1904 <ulink url="http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/">Polipo</ulink> for this.
1905 And, yes, before you ask, <application>Privoxy</application> can co-exist
1906 with other kinds of proxies like <application>Squid</application>.
1907 See the <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html#FORWARDING">forwarding
1908 chapter</ulink> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">user
1909 manual</ulink> for details.
1913 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1914 <title id="firewall">What about as a firewall? Can Privoxy protect me?</title>
1916 Not in the way you mean, or in the way some firewall vendors claim they can.
1917 <application>Privoxy</application> can help protect your privacy, but can't
1918 protect your system from intrusion attempts. It is, of course, perfectly possible
1919 to use <emphasis>both</emphasis>.
1923 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1924 <title id="wasted">I have large empty spaces / a checkerboard pattern now where
1925 ads used to be. Why?</title>
1927 It is technically possible to eliminate banners and ads in a way that frees
1928 their allocated page space. This could easily be done by blocking with
1929 <application>Privoxy's</application> filters,
1930 and eliminating the <emphasis>entire</emphasis> image references from the
1934 But, this would consume considerably more CPU resources (IOW, slow things
1935 down), would likely destroy the layout of some web pages which rely on the
1936 banners utilizing a certain amount of page space, and might fail in other
1937 cases, where the screen space is reserved (e.g. by HTML tables for instance).
1938 Also, making ads and banners disappear without any trace complicates
1939 troubleshooting, and would sooner or later be problematic.
1942 The better alternative is to instead let them stay, and block the resulting
1943 requests for the banners themselves as is now the case. This leaves either
1944 empty space, or the familiar checkerboard pattern.
1947 So the developers won't support this in the default configuration, but you
1948 can of course define appropriate filters yourself to achieve this.
1952 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1953 <title id="ssl">How can Privoxy filter Secure (HTTPS) URLs?</title>
1955 Since secure HTTP connections are encrypted SSL sessions between your browser
1956 and the secure site, and are meant to be reliably <emphasis>secure</emphasis>,
1957 there is little that <application>Privoxy</application> can do but hand the raw
1958 gibberish data though from one end to the other unprocessed.
1961 The only exception to this is blocking by host patterns, as the client needs
1962 to tell <application>Privoxy</application> the name of the remote server,
1963 so that <application>Privoxy</application> can establish the connection.
1964 If that name matches a host-only pattern, the connection will be blocked.
1967 As far as ad blocking is concerned, this is less of a restriction than it may
1968 seem, since ad sources are often identifiable by the host name, and often
1969 the banners to be placed in an encrypted page come unencrypted nonetheless
1970 for efficiency reasons, which exposes them to the full power of
1971 <application>Privoxy</application>'s ad blocking.
1974 <quote>Content cookies</quote> (those that are embedded in the actual HTML or
1975 JS page content, see <literal><ulink
1976 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</ulink></literal>),
1977 in an SSL transaction will be impossible to block under these conditions.
1978 Fortunately, this does not seem to be a very common scenario since most
1979 cookies come by traditional means.
1984 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1985 <title id="secure">Privoxy runs as a <quote>server</quote>. How
1986 secure is it? Do I need to take any special precautions?</title>
1988 On Unix-like systems, <application>Privoxy</application> can run as a non-privileged
1989 user, which is how we recommend it be run. Also, by default
1990 <application>Privoxy</application> listens to requests from <quote>localhost</quote>
1994 The server aspect of <application>Privoxy</application> is not itself directly
1995 exposed to the Internet in this configuration. If you want to have
1996 <application>Privoxy</application> serve as a LAN proxy, this will have to
1997 be opened up to allow for LAN requests. In this case, we'd recommend
1998 you specify only the LAN gateway address, e.g. 192.168.1.1, in the main
1999 <application>Privoxy</application> configuration file and check all <ulink
2000 url="../user-manual/config.html#ACCESS-CONTROL">access control and security
2001 options</ulink>. All LAN hosts can then use this as their proxy address
2002 in the browser proxy configuration, but <application>Privoxy</application>
2003 will not listen on any external interfaces. ACLs can be defined in addition,
2004 and using a firewall is always good too. Better safe than sorry.
2009 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="turnoff">
2010 <title>Can I temporarily disable Privoxy?</title>
2012 &my-app; doesn't have a transparent proxy mode,
2013 but you can toggle off blocking and content filtering.
2016 The easiest way to do that is to point your browser
2017 to the remote toggle URL: <ulink
2018 url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>.
2021 See the <ulink url="../user-manual/appendix.html#BOOKMARKLETS">Bookmarklets section</ulink>
2022 of the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> for an easy way to access this
2023 feature. Note that this is a feature that may need to be enabled in the main
2024 <filename>config</filename> file.
2029 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="reallyoff">
2030 <title>When <quote>disabled</quote> is Privoxy totally
2031 out of the picture?</title>
2033 No, this just means all optional filtering and actions are disabled.
2034 <application>Privoxy</application> is still acting as a proxy, but just
2035 doing less of the things that <application>Privoxy</application> would
2036 normally be expected to do. It is still a <quote>middle-man</quote> in
2037 the interaction between your browser and web sites. See below to bypass
2042 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="turnoff2">
2043 <title>How can I tell Privoxy to totally ignore certain sites?</title>
2045 Bypassing a proxy, or proxying based on arbitrary criteria, is purely a browser
2046 configuration issue, not a &my-app; issue. Modern browsers typically do have
2047 settings for not proxying certain sites. Check your browser's help files.
2052 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="crunch">
2053 <title>My logs show Privoxy <quote>crunches</quote>
2054 ads, but also its own internal CGI pages. What is a <quote>crunch</quote>?</title>
2056 A <quote>crunch</quote> simply means <application>Privoxy</application> intercepted
2057 <emphasis>something</emphasis>, nothing more. Often this is indeed ads or
2058 banners, but <application>Privoxy</application> uses the same mechanism for
2059 trapping requests for its own internal pages. For instance, a request for
2060 <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration page at: <ulink
2061 url="http://config.privoxy.org">http://config.privoxy.org</ulink>, is
2062 intercepted (i.e. it does not go out to the 'net), and the familiar CGI
2063 configuration is returned to the browser, and the log consequently will show
2064 a <quote>crunch</quote>.
2067 Since version 3.0.7, Privoxy will also log the crunch reason.
2068 If you are using an older version you might want to upgrade.
2072 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="downloads">
2073 <title>Can Privoxy effect files that I download
2074 from a webserver? FTP server?</title>
2076 From the webserver's perspective, there is no difference between
2077 viewing a document (i.e. a page), and downloading a file. The same is true of
2078 <application>Privoxy</application>. If there is a match for a <literal><ulink
2079 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">block</ulink></literal> pattern,
2080 it will still be blocked, and of course this is obvious.
2083 Filtering is potentially more of a concern since the results are not always
2084 so obvious, and the effects of filtering are there whether the file is simply
2085 viewed, or downloaded. And potentially whether the content is some obnoxious
2086 advertisement, or Mr. Jimmy's latest/greatest source code jewel. Of course,
2087 one of these presumably is <quote>bad</quote> content that we don't want, and
2088 the other is <quote>good</quote> content that we do want.
2089 <application>Privoxy</application> is blind to the differences, and can only
2090 distinguish <quote>good from bad</quote> by the configuration parameters
2091 <emphasis>we</emphasis> give it.
2094 <application>Privoxy</application> knows the differences in files according
2095 to the <quote>Content Type</quote> as reported by the webserver. If this is
2096 reported accurately (e.g. <quote>application/zip</quote> for a zip archive),
2097 then <application>Privoxy</application> knows to ignore these where
2098 appropriate. <application>Privoxy</application> potentially can filter HTML
2099 as well as plain text documents, subject to configuration parameters of
2100 course. Also, documents that are of an unknown type (generally assumed to be
2101 <quote>text/plain</quote>) can be filtered, as will those that might be
2102 incorrectly reported by the webserver. If such a file is a downloaded file
2103 that is intended to be saved to disk, then any content that might have been
2104 altered by filtering, will be saved too, for these (probably rare) cases.
2107 Note that versions later than 3.0.2 do NOT filter document types reported as
2108 <quote>text/plain</quote>. Prior to this, <application>Privoxy</application>
2109 did filter this document type.
2112 In short, filtering is <quote>ON</quote> if a) the content type as reported
2113 by the webserver is appropriate <emphasis>and</emphasis> b) the configuration
2114 allows it (or at least does not disallow it). That's it. There is no magic
2115 cookie anywhere to say this is <quote>good</quote> and this is
2116 <quote>bad</quote>. It's the configuration that lets it all happen or not.
2119 If you download text files, you probably do not want these to be filtered,
2120 particularly if the content is source code, or other critical content. Source
2121 code sometimes might be mistaken for Javascript (i.e. the kind that might
2122 open a pop-up window). It is recommended to turn off filtering for download
2123 sites (particularly if the content may be plain text files and you are using
2124 version 3.0.2 or earlier) in your <filename>user.action</filename> file. And
2125 also, for any site or page where making <emphasis>any</emphasis> changes at
2126 all to the content is to be avoided.
2129 <application>Privoxy</application> does not do FTP at all, only HTTP
2130 and HTTPS (SSL) protocols.
2134 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="downloads2">
2135 <title>I just downloaded a Perl script, and Privoxy
2136 altered it! Yikes, what is wrong!</title>
2142 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="hostsfile">
2143 <title>Should I continue to use a <quote>HOSTS</quote> file for ad-blocking?</title>
2145 One time-tested technique to defeat common ads is to trick the local DNS
2146 system by giving a phony IP address for the ad generator in the local
2147 <filename>HOSTS</filename> file, typically using <literal>127.0.0.1</literal>, aka
2148 <literal>localhost</literal>. This effectively blocks the ad.
2151 There is no reason to use this technique in conjunction with
2152 <application>Privoxy</application>. <application>Privoxy</application>
2153 does essentially the same thing, much more elegantly and with much more
2154 flexibility. A large <filename>HOSTS</filename> file, in fact, not only
2155 duplicates effort, but may get in the way and seriously slow down your system.
2156 It is recommended to remove such entries from your <filename>HOSTS</filename> file. If you think
2157 your hosts list is neglected by <application>Privoxy's </application>
2158 configuration, consider adding your list to your <filename>user.action</filename> file:
2165 ads.galore.example.com
2166 etc.example.com</screen>
2170 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="seealso">
2171 <title>Where can I find more information about Privoxy
2172 and related issues?</title>
2173 <!-- Include seealso.sgml boilerplate: -->
2175 <!-- end boilerplate -->
2180 <ulink url="../user-manual/seealso.html">user-manual</ulink> for
2186 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="microsuck">
2187 <title>I've noticed that Privoxy changes <quote>Microsoft</quote> to
2188 <quote>MicroSuck</quote>! Why are you manipulating my browsing?</title>
2191 We're not. The text substitutions that you are seeing are disabled
2192 in the default configuration as shipped. You have either manually
2193 activated the <quote><literal>fun</literal></quote> filter which
2194 is clearly labeled <quote>Text replacements for subversive browsing
2195 fun!</quote> or you are using an older Privoxy version and have implicitly
2196 activated it by choosing the <quote>Advanced</quote> profile in the
2197 web-based editor. Please upgrade.
2201 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="valid">
2202 <title>Does Privoxy produce <quote>valid</quote> HTML (or XHTML)?</title>
2205 Privoxy generates HTML in both its own <quote>templates</quote>, and possibly
2206 whenever there are text substitutions via a &my-app; filter. While this
2207 should always conform to the HTML 4.01 specifications, it has not been
2208 validated against this or any other standard.
2216 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2218 <sect1 id="trouble">
2219 <title>Troubleshooting</title>
2221 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
2222 <title id="refused">I cannot connect to any websites. Or, I am getting
2223 <quote>connection refused</quote> message with every web page. Why?</title>
2225 There are several possibilities:
2230 <application>Privoxy</application> is not running. Solution: verify
2231 that &my-app; is installed correctly, has not crashed, and is indeed running.
2232 Turn on <application>Privoxy's</application> logging, and look at the logs to see what they say.
2234 <listitem><para>Or your browser is configured for a different port than what
2235 <application>Privoxy</application> is using. Solution: verify that &my-app;
2236 and your browser are set to the same port (<literal>listen-address</literal>).
2238 <listitem><para>Or if using a forwarding rule, you have a configuration problem or a
2239 problem with a host in the forwarding chain. Solution: temporarily alter your
2240 configuration and take the forwarders out of the equation.
2243 Or you have a firewall that is interfering and blocking you. Solution:
2244 try disabling or removing the firewall as a simple test.
2251 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2252 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="error503">
2253 <title>Why am I getting a 503 Error (WSAECONNREFUSED) on every page?</title>
2255 More than likely this is a problem with your TCP/IP networking. ZoneAlarm has
2256 been reported to cause this symptom -- even if not running! The solution is
2257 to either fight the ZA configuration, or uninstall ZoneAlarm, and then find
2258 something better behaved in its place. Other personal firewall type products
2259 may cause similar type problems if not configured correctly.
2263 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
2264 <title id="flushit">I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is
2265 still getting through. How?</title>
2267 If the ad had been displayed before you added its URL, it will probably be
2268 held in the browser's cache for some time, so it will be displayed without
2269 the need for any request to the server, and <application>Privoxy</application>
2270 will not be involved. Flush the browser's caches, and then try again.
2274 If this doesn't help, you probably have an error in the rule you
2275 applied. Try pasting the full URL of the offending ad into <ulink
2276 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
2277 and see if it really matches your new rule. Blocking ads is like blocking
2278 spam: a lot of tinkering is required to stay ahead of the game. And
2279 remember you need to block the URL of the ad in question, which may be
2280 entirely different from the site URL itself. Most ads are hosted on different
2281 servers than the main site itself. If you right-click on the ad, you should
2282 be able to get all the relevant information you need. Alternately, you can
2283 find the correct URL by looking at <application>Privoxy's</application> logs
2284 (you may need to enable logging in the main config file if its disabled).
2287 Below is a slightly modified real-life log snippet that originates with one
2288 requested URL: <literal>www.example.com</literal> (name of site was changed
2289 for this example, the number of requests is real). You can see in this the
2290 complexity of what goes into making up this one <quote>page</quote>. There
2291 are eight different domains involved here, with thirty two separate URLs
2292 requested in all, making up all manner of images, Shockwave Flash,
2293 JavaScript, CSS stylesheets, scripts, and other related content. Some of this
2294 content is obviously <quote>good</quote> or <quote>bad</quote>, but not all.
2295 Many of the more questionable looking requests, are going to outside domains
2296 that seem to be identifying themselves with suspicious looking names, making
2297 our job a little easier. &my-app; has <quote>crunched</quote> (meaning caught
2298 and BLOCKED) quite a few items in this example, but perhaps missed a few as well.
2303 Request: www.example.com/
2304 Request: www.example.com/favicon.ico
2305 Request: img.example.com/main.css
2306 Request: img.example.com/sr.js
2307 Request: example.betamarker.com/example.html
2308 Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/bestsellers/skyscraper.php?likref=BSellers
2309 Request: img.example.com/pb.png
2310 Request: www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js crunch! (Blocked)
2311 Request: www.advertising-department.com/ats/switch.ps.php?26856 crunch! (Blocked)
2312 Request: img.example.com/p.gif
2313 Request: www.popuptraffic.com/assign.php?l=example&mode=behind crunch! (Blocked)
2314 Request: www.popuptraffic.com/scripts/popup.php?hid=5c3cf&tmpl=PBa.tmpl crunch! (Blocked)
2315 Request: www.popuptraffic.com/assign.php?l=example crunch! (Blocked)
2316 Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/best_sellers.css
2317 Request: www.adtrak.net/adx.js crunch! (Blocked)
2318 Request: img.example.com/hbg.gif
2319 Request: img.example.com/example.jpg
2320 Request: img.example.com/mt.png
2321 Request: img.example.com/mm.png
2322 Request: img.example.com/mb.png
2323 Request: www.popuptraffic.com/scripts/popup.php?hid=a71b91fa5&tmpl=Ua.tmp crunch! (Blocked)
2324 Request: www.example.com/tracker.js
2325 Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/lsi_head.gif
2326 Request: www.adtrak.net/adjs.php?n=020548130&what=zone:61 crunch! (Blocked)
2327 Request: www.adtrak.net/adjs.php?n=463594413&what=zone:58&source=Ua crunch! (Blocked)
2328 Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/bottomani.swf
2329 Request: mmm.elitemediagroup.net/install.php?allowpop=no&popupmincook=0&allowsp2=1 crunch! (Blocked)
2330 Request: www.example.com/tracker.js?screen=1400x1050&win=962x693
2331 Request: www.adtrak.net/adlog.php?bannerid=1309&clientid=439&zoneid=61 crunch! (Blocked)
2332 Request: 66.70.21.80/scripts/click.php?hid=5c3cf599a9efd0320d26&si
2333 Request: 66.70.21.80/img/pixel.gif
2334 Request: www.adtrak.net/adlog.php?bannerid=1309&clientid=439&zoneid=58&source=Ua&block=86400 crunch! (Blocked)
2335 Request: 66.70.21.80/scripts/click.php?hid=a71b9f6504b0c5681fa5&si=Ua
2340 Despite 12 out of 32 requests being blocked, the page looked, and seemed to
2341 behave perfectly <quote>normal</quote> (minus some ads, of course).
2346 <sect2 id="badsite" renderas="sect3">
2347 <title >One of my favorite sites does not work with Privoxy.
2348 What can I do?</title>
2351 First verify that it is indeed a <application>Privoxy</application> problem,
2352 by toggling off <application>Privoxy</application> through <ulink
2353 url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
2354 (the toggle feature may need to be enabled in the main
2355 <filename>config</filename>),
2356 and then shift-reloading the problem page (i.e. holding down the shift key
2357 while clicking reload. Alternatively, flush your browser's disk and memory
2362 If the problem went away, we know we have a configuration related problem.
2364 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
2365 and paste the full URL of the page in question into the prompt. See which
2366 actions are being applied to the URL, and which matches in which actions
2367 files are responsible for that. It might be helpful also to look at your logs
2368 for this site too, to see what else might be happening (note: logging may need
2369 to be enabled in the main config file). Many sites are
2370 complex and require a number of related pages to help present their content.
2371 Look at what else might be used by the page in question, and what of that
2372 might be <emphasis>required</emphasis>.
2373 Now, armed with this information, go to
2375 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
2376 and select the appropriate actions files for editing. </para>
2378 You can now either look for a section which disables the actions that
2379 you suspect to cause the problem and add a pattern for your site there,
2380 or make up a completely new section for your site. In any case, the recommended
2381 way is to disable only the prime suspect, reload the problem page, and only
2382 if the problem persists, disable more and more actions until you have
2383 identified the culprit. You may or may not want to turn the other actions
2384 on again. Remember to flush your browser's caches in between any such changes!
2387 Alternately, if you are comfortable with a text editor, you can accomplish
2388 the same thing by editing the appropriate actions file. Probably the easiest
2389 way to deal with such problems when editing by hand is to add your
2390 site to a <literal>{ fragile }</literal> section in <filename>user.action</filename>,
2391 which is an alias that turns off most <quote>dangerous</quote>
2392 actions, but is also likely to turn off more actions then needed, and thus lower
2393 your privacy and protection more than necessary,
2396 Troubleshooting actions is discussed in more detail in the <ulink
2397 url="../user-manual/appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT">User Manual appendix,
2398 Troubleshooting: the Anatomy of an Action</ulink>.
2399 There is also an <ulink
2400 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACT-EXAMPLES">actions tutorial</ulink>
2401 with general configuration information and examples.
2404 As a last resort, you can always see if your browser has a setting that will
2405 bypass the proxy setting for selective sites. Modern browsers can do this.
2411 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2412 <sect2 id="dun" renderas="sect3">
2413 <title>After installing Privoxy, I have to log in
2414 every time I start IE. What gives?</title>
2417 This is a quirk that effects the installation of
2418 <application>Privoxy</application>, in conjunction with Internet Explorer and
2419 Internet Connection Sharing on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The symptoms may
2420 appear to be corrupted or invalid DUN settings, or passwords.
2424 When setting up an NT based Windows system with
2425 <application>Privoxy</application> you may find that things do not seem to be
2426 doing what you expect. When you set your system up you will probably have set
2427 up Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) with Dial up Networking (DUN) when
2428 logged in with administrator privileges. You will probably have made this DUN
2429 connection available to other accounts that you may have set-up on your
2430 system. E.g. Mum or Dad sets up the system and makes accounts suitably
2431 configured for the kids.
2435 When setting up <application>Privoxy</application> in this environment you
2436 will have to alter the proxy set-up of Internet Explorer (IE) for the
2437 specific DUN connection on which you wish to use
2438 <application>Privoxy</application>. When you do this the ICS DUN set-up
2439 becomes user specific. In this instance you will see no difference if you
2440 change the DUN connection under the account used to set-up the connection.
2441 However when you do this from another user you will notice that the DUN
2442 connection changes to make available to "Me only". You will also find that
2443 you have to store the password under each different user!
2447 The reason for this is that each user's set-up for IE is user specific. Each
2448 set-up DUN connection and each LAN connection in IE store the settings for
2449 each user individually. As such this enforces individual configurations
2450 rather than common ones. Hence the first time you use a DUN connection after
2451 re-booting your system it may not perform as you expect, and prompt you for
2452 the password. Just set and save the password again and all should be OK.
2456 [Thanks to Ray Griffith for this submission.]
2461 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2462 <sect2 id="ftp" renderas="sect3">
2463 <title>I cannot connect to any FTP sites. Privoxy
2464 is blocking me.</title>
2466 <application>Privoxy</application> cannot act as a proxy for FTP traffic,
2467 so do not configure your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application>
2468 as an FTP proxy. The same is true for <emphasis>any protocol other than HTTP
2469 or HTTPS (SSL)</emphasis>.
2472 Most browsers understand FTP as well as HTTP. If you connect to a site, with
2473 a URL like <literal>ftp://ftp.example.com</literal>, your browser is making
2474 an FTP connection, and not a HTTP connection. So while your browser may
2475 speak FTP, <application>Privoxy</application> does not, and cannot proxy
2479 To complicate matters, some systems may have a generic <quote>proxy</quote>
2480 setting, which will enable various protocols, including
2481 <emphasis>both</emphasis> HTTP and FTP proxying! So it is possible to
2482 accidentally enable FTP proxying in these cases. And of course, if this
2483 happens, <application>Privoxy</application> will indeed cause problems since
2484 it does not know FTP. <![%p-newstuff;[Newer version will give a sane error
2485 message if a FTP connection is attempted.]]> Just disable the FTP setting
2486 and all will be well again.
2489 Will <application>Privoxy</application> ever proxy FTP traffic? Unlikely.
2490 There just is not much reason, and the work to make this happen is more than
2495 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2496 <sect2 id="macosxie" renderas="sect3">
2497 <title>In Mac OS X, I can't configure Microsoft Internet Explorer to use
2498 Privoxy as the HTTP proxy.</title>
2500 Microsoft Internet Explorer (in versions like 5.1) respects system-wide
2501 network settings. In order to change the HTTP proxy, open System
2502 Preferences, and click on the Network icon. In the settings pane that
2503 comes up, click on the Proxies tab. Ensure the "Web Proxy (HTTP)" checkbox
2504 is checked and enter <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> in the entry field.
2505 Enter <literal>8118</literal> in the Port field. The next time you start
2506 IE, it should reflect these values.
2510 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2511 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="macosxuninstall">
2512 <title>In Mac OS X, I dragged the Privoxy folder to the trash in order to
2513 uninstall it. Now the finder tells me I don't have sufficient privileges to
2514 empty the trash.</title>
2516 Note: This ONLY applies to privoxy 3.0.6 and earlier.
2519 Just dragging the <application>Privoxy</application> folder to the trash is
2520 not enough to delete it. <application>Privoxy</application> supplies an
2521 <application>uninstall.command</application> file that takes care of
2522 these details. Open the trash, drag the <application>uninstall.command</application>
2523 file out of the trash and double-click on it. You will be prompted for
2524 confirmation and the administration password.
2527 The trash may still appear full after this command; emptying the trash
2528 from the desktop should make it appear empty again.
2533 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2534 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="macosximages">
2535 <title>In Mac OS X Panther (10.3), images often fail to load and/or I
2536 experience random delays in page loading. I'm using
2537 <literal>localhost</literal> as my browser's proxy setting.</title>
2539 We believe this is due to an IPv6-related bug in Mac OS X, but don't fully
2540 understand the issue yet. In any case, changing the proxy setting to
2541 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> instead of <literal>localhost</literal>
2542 works around the problem.
2546 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2547 <!-- XXX: Is this still relevant now that we have gzip support? -->
2548 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="blankpage">
2549 <title>I get a completely blank page at one site. <quote>View Source</quote>
2550 shows only: <markup><![CDATA[<html><body></body></html>]]></markup>. Without
2551 Privoxy the page loads fine.</title>
2553 Chances are that the site suffers from a bug in
2554 <ulink url="http://www.php.net/"><application>PHP</application></ulink>,
2555 which results in empty pages being sent if the client explicitly requests
2556 an uncompressed page, like <application>Privoxy</application> does.
2557 This bug has been fixed in PHP 4.2.3.
2560 To find out if this is in fact the source of the problem, try adding
2561 the site to a <literal>-prevent-compression</literal> section in
2562 <filename>user.action</filename>:
2565 # Make exceptions for ill-behaved sites:
2567 {-prevent-compression}
2568 .example.com</screen>
2570 If that works, you may also want to report the problem to the
2571 site's webmasters, telling them to use zlib.output_compression
2572 instead of ob_gzhandler in their PHP applications (workaround)
2573 or upgrade to PHP 4.2.3 or later (fix).
2577 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="nohostname">
2578 <title>My logs show many <quote>Unable to get my own hostname</quote> lines.
2581 <application>Privoxy</application> tries to get the hostname of the system
2582 its running on from the IP address of the system interface it is bound to
2583 (from the <filename>config</filename> file
2584 <emphasis>listen-address</emphasis> setting). If the system cannot supply
2585 this information, <application>Privoxy</application> logs this condition.
2588 Typically, this would be considered a minor system configuration error. It is
2589 not a fatal error to <application>Privoxy</application> however, but may
2590 result in a much slower response from <application>Privoxy</application> on
2591 some platforms due to DNS timeouts.
2594 This can be caused by a problem with the local <filename>hosts</filename>
2595 file. If this file has been changed from the original, try reverting it to
2596 see if that helps. Make sure whatever name(s) are used for the local system,
2597 that they resolve both ways.
2600 You should also be able to work around the problem with the
2601 <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html#HOSTNAME">hostname option</ulink>.
2605 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="inuse">
2606 <title>When I try to launch Privoxy, I get an
2607 error message <quote>port 8118 is already in use</quote> (or similar wording).
2610 Port 8118 is <application>Privoxy's</application> default TCP
2611 <quote>listening</quote> port. Typically this message would mean that there
2612 is already one instance of <application>Privoxy</application> running, and
2613 your system is actually trying to start a second
2614 <application>Privoxy</application> on the same port, which will not work.
2615 (You can have multiple instances but they must be assigned different ports.)
2616 How and why this might happen varies from platform to platform, but you need
2617 to check your installation and start-up procedures.
2621 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="demoronizer">
2623 Pages with UTF-8 fonts are garbled.
2626 This is caused by the <quote>demoronizer</quote> filter. You should either
2627 upgrade <application>Privoxy</application>, or at least upgrade to the most
2628 recent <filename>default.action</filename> file available from <ulink
2629 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">SourceForge</ulink>.
2630 Or you can simply disable the demoronizer filter.
2634 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="demoronizer2">
2636 Why are binary files (such as images) corrupted when Privoxy
2640 This may also be caused by the <quote>demoronizer</quote> filter,
2641 in conjunction with a web server that is misreporting the content type. Binary
2642 files are exempted from <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering
2643 (unless the web server by mistake says the file is something else). Either
2644 upgrade <application>Privoxy</application>, or go to the most recent
2645 <filename>default.action</filename> file available from <ulink
2646 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">SourceForge</ulink>.
2650 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="demoronizer3">
2652 What is the <quote>demoronizer</quote> and why is it there?
2655 The original demoronizer was a Perl script that cleaned up HTML pages which
2656 were created with certain Microsoft products. MS has used proprietary extensions
2657 to standardized font encodings (ISO 8859-1), which has caused problems for pages
2658 that are viewed with non-Microsoft products (and are expecting to see a
2659 standard set of fonts). The demoronizer corrected these errors so the pages
2660 displayed correctly. <application>Privoxy</application> borrowed from this
2661 script, introducing a filter based on the original demoronizer, which in turn could
2662 correct these errors on the fly.
2665 But this is only needed in some situations, and will cause serious problems in some
2669 If you are using Microsoft products, you do not need it. If you need to view
2670 pages with UTF-8 characters (such as Cyrillic or Chinese), then it will
2671 cause corruption of the fonts, and thus <emphasis>should not be on</emphasis>.
2674 On the other hand, if you use non-Microsoft products, and you occasionally
2675 notice weird characters on pages, you might want to try it.
2679 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="windowopen">
2681 Why do I keep seeing <quote>PrivoxyWindowOpen()</quote> in raw source code?
2684 <application>Privoxy</application> is attempting to disable malicious
2685 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript">Javascript</ulink>
2686 in this case, with the <literal>unsolicited-popups</literal>
2687 filter. <application>Privoxy</application> cannot tell very well
2688 <quote>good</quote> code snippets from <quote>bad</quote> code snippets.
2691 If you see this in HTML source, and the page displays without problems, then
2692 this is good, and likely some pop-up window was disabled. If you see this
2693 where it is causing a problem, such as a downloaded program source code file,
2694 then you should set an exception for this site or page such that the
2695 integrity of the page stays in tact by disabling all filtering.
2699 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="dnserrors">
2701 I am getting too many DNS errors like <quote>404 No Such Domain</quote>. Why
2702 can't Privoxy do this better?
2705 There are potentially several factors here. First of all, the DNS resolution
2706 is done by the underlying operating system -- not
2707 <application>Privoxy</application> itself. <application>Privoxy</application>
2708 merely initiates the process and hands it off, and then later reports
2709 whatever the outcome was and tries to give a coherent message if there seems
2710 to be a problem. In some cases, this might otherwise be mitigated by the
2711 browser itself which might try some work-arounds and alternate approaches (e.g
2712 adding <quote>www.</quote> to the URL).
2715 In other cases, if <application>Privoxy</application> is being chained
2716 with another proxy, this could complicate the issue, and cause undue
2717 delays and timeouts. In the case of a <quote>socks4a</quote> proxy, the socks
2718 server handles all the DNS. <application>Privoxy</application> would just be
2719 the <quote>messenger</quote> which is reporting whatever problem occurred
2720 downstream, and not the root cause of the error.
2724 In any case, versions newer than 3.0.3 include various improvements to help
2725 <application>Privoxy</application> better handle these cases.
2729 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="allcpu">
2731 At one site Privoxy just hangs, and starts taking
2732 all CPU. Why is this?
2735 This is probably a manifestation of the <quote>100% cpu</quote> problem that
2736 occurs on pages containing many (thousands upon thousands) of blank lines. The blank lines
2737 are in the raw HTML source of the page, and the browser just ignores them. But the
2738 pattern matching in <application>Privoxy's</application> page filtering
2739 mechanism is trying to match against absurdly long strings and this becomes
2740 very CPU-intensive, taking a long, long time to complete.
2743 Until a better solution comes along, disable filtering on these pages,
2744 particularly the <literal>js-annoyances</literal> and
2745 <literal>unsolicited-popups</literal> filters. If you run into this problem
2746 with a recent &my-app; version, please send a problem report.
2750 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="slowcrawl">
2751 <title>I just installed Privoxy, and all my
2752 browsing has slowed to a crawl. What gives? </title>
2754 This should not happen, and for the overwhelming number of users world-wide,
2755 it does not happen. I would suspect some inadvertent interaction of software
2756 components such as anti-virus software, spyware protectors, personal
2757 firewalls or similar components. Try disabling (or uninstalling) these one
2758 at a time and see if that helps. Either way, if you are using a
2759 recent &my-app; version, please report the problem.
2763 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="preventcomp">
2764 <title>Why do my filters work on some sites but not on others? </title>
2766 It's probably due to compression. It is a common practice for web servers to
2767 send their content <quote>compressed</quote> in order to speed things up, and
2768 then let the browser <quote>uncompress</quote> them. When compiled with zlib support
2769 &my-app; can decompress content before filtering, otherwise you may want to enable
2771 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</ulink>.
2774 As of &my-app; 3.0.9, zlib support is enabled in the default builds.
2779 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="ssl-warnings">
2780 <title>On some HTTPS sites my browser warns me about unauthenticated content,
2781 the URL bar doesn't get highlighted and the lock symbol appears to be broken.
2782 What's going on?</title>
2784 Probably the browser is requesting ads through HTTPS and &my-app;
2785 is blocking the requests. Privoxy's error messages are delivered
2786 unencrypted and while it's obvious for the browser that the HTTPS
2787 request is already blocked by the proxy, some warn about unauthenticated
2791 To work around the problem you can redirect those requests to an invalid
2792 local address instead of blocking them. While the redirects aren't
2793 encrypted either, many browsers don't care. They simply follow the
2794 redirect, fail to reach a server and display an error message instead
2798 To do that, enable logging to figure out which requests get blocked by
2799 &my-app; and add the hosts (no path patterns) to a section like this:
2804 {+redirect{http://127.0.0.1:0/} -block -limit-connect}
2810 Additionally you have to configure your browser to contact
2811 <quote>127.0.0.1:0</quote> directly (instead of through &my-app;).
2814 To add a proxy exception in <application>Mozilla Firefox</application>
2815 open the <quote>Preferences</quote>, click the <quote>Settings</quote>
2816 button located on the <quote>Network</quote> tab in the <quote>Advanced</quote>
2817 section, and add <quote>127.0.0.1:0</quote> in the <quote>No Proxy for:</quote>
2823 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="se-linux">
2824 <title>I get selinux error messages. How can I fix this?</title>
2826 Please report the problem to the creator of your selinux policies.
2829 The problem is that some selinux policy writers aren't familiar
2830 with the application they are trying to <quote>secure</quote> and
2831 thus create policies that make no sense.
2834 In <application>Privoxy's</application> case the problem usually
2835 is that the policy only allows outgoing connections for certain
2836 destination ports (e.g. 80 and 443). While this may cover the
2837 standard ports, websites occasionally use other ports as well.
2838 This isn't a security problem and therefore <application>Privoxy's</application>
2839 default configuration doesn't block these requests.
2842 If you really want to block these ports (and don't be able
2843 to load websites that don't use standard ports), you should
2844 configure Privoxy to block these ports as well, so it doesn't
2845 trigger the selinux warnings.
2850 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="gentoo-ricers">
2851 <title>I compiled &my-app; with Gentoo's portage and it appears to be very slow. Why?</title>
2853 Probably you unintentionally compiled &my-app; without threading support
2854 in which case requests have to be serialized and only one can be served
2858 Check your <quote>USE</quote> flags and make sure they include
2859 <quote>threads</quote>. If they don't, add the flag and rebuild &my-app;.
2862 If you compiled &my-app; with threading support (on POSIX-based systems),
2863 the <quote>Conditional #defines</quote> section on <ulink
2864 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
2865 will list <quote>FEATURE_PTHREAD</quote> as <quote>enabled</quote>.
2872 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2873 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests</title>
2874 <!-- Include contacting.sgml -->
2876 <!-- end contacting -->
2879 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2880 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Privoxy Copyright, License and History</title>
2882 <!-- Include copyright.sgml -->
2888 Portions of this document are <quote>borrowed</quote> from the original
2889 <application>Junkbuster</application> (tm) FAQ, and modified as
2890 appropriate for <application>Privoxy</application>.
2893 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2894 <sect2><title>License</title>
2895 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
2897 <!-- end copyright -->
2899 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2901 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2902 <sect2><title>History</title>
2903 <!-- Include history.sgml -->
2909 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2912 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2914 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See also</title>
2916 <!-- Include seealso.sgml -->
2927 Tue 09/11/01 06:38:14 PM EST: Test SGML doc by Hal Burgiss.
2929 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
2930 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
2931 Public License as published by the Free Software
2932 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
2933 your option) any later version.
2935 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
2936 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
2937 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
2938 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
2939 License for more details.
2941 The GNU General Public License should be included with
2942 this file. If not, you can view it at
2943 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
2944 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
2945 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA
2948 Revision 2.62 2009/06/12 14:30:58 fabiankeil
2949 Update entities for 3.0.13 beta.
2951 Revision 2.61 2009/06/12 11:52:33 fabiankeil
2952 Mention the TODO list in the participate entry.
2954 Revision 2.60 2009/04/07 12:25:05 fabiankeil
2955 In the "I would like to help ..." entry:
2956 - Change the ids to more general ones as helping out doesn't require
2957 joining the team (and joining the team requires significantly helping
2959 - Add links to the subscription pages for the main mailing lists.
2961 Revision 2.59 2009/03/28 15:33:41 fabiankeil
2962 Recommend the use of forward-socks5 when forwarding to Tor.
2963 The error messages are more detailed than with forward-socks4a.
2965 Revision 2.58 2009/03/21 12:27:44 fabiankeil
2966 Turn the donation entry title into a question,
2967 also rephrase the content a bit.
2969 Revision 2.57 2009/03/19 19:07:49 fabiankeil
2970 First draft of a "Donating" entry. To be polished tomorrow.
2972 Revision 2.56 2009/02/19 17:05:05 fabiankeil
2973 Explain slowness when build with Gentoo's portage.
2975 Revision 2.55 2009/02/19 02:20:21 hal9
2976 Make some links in seealso conditional. Man page is now privoxy only links.
2978 Revision 2.54 2009/02/15 20:47:12 hal9
2981 Revision 2.53 2009/02/15 20:46:13 hal9
2982 Update Outlook HTML rendering engine comments re: Office 2007.
2984 Revision 2.52 2009/02/14 10:27:52 fabiankeil
2985 Finish last paragraph in the selinux entry which
2986 I unintentionally committed with the last commit.
2988 Revision 2.51 2009/02/12 16:08:26 fabiankeil
2989 Declare the code stable.
2991 Revision 2.50 2009/02/11 18:13:36 fabiankeil
2994 Revision 2.49 2009/02/10 16:30:20 fabiankeil
2995 Add a workaround for "unauthenticated content" warnings on HTTPS sites.
2997 Revision 2.48 2009/01/13 16:50:35 fabiankeil
2998 The standard.action file is gone.
3000 Revision 2.47 2008/11/24 18:29:39 fabiankeil
3001 Two changes suggested by Roger Dingledine:
3002 - Use https://www.torproject.org/ in section 4.7, too.
3003 - Replace the Tor wiki URL in section 4.10 with one
3004 with a more useful anchor name.
3006 Revision 2.46 2008/08/30 15:37:35 fabiankeil
3009 Revision 2.45 2008/08/16 08:51:28 fabiankeil
3010 Update version-related entities.
3012 Revision 2.44 2008/06/19 01:41:36 hal9
3013 Add short note about zlib being enabled in 3.0.9
3015 Revision 2.43 2008/06/14 13:21:25 fabiankeil
3016 Prepare for the upcoming 3.0.9 beta release.
3018 Revision 2.42 2008/06/07 13:11:15 fabiankeil
3019 - Note that the "100% cpu problem" is worth
3020 reporting if it happens with a recent release.
3021 - Mention the hostname option as a workaround for
3022 the "can't get my own hostname" issue.
3023 - The profile formerly known as "Adventuresome"
3024 is called "Advanced" now.
3025 - Some white-space fixes.
3027 Revision 2.41 2008/06/06 15:32:09 fabiankeil
3029 - Don't claim that all the old Junkbuster features remain.
3030 Some of them have been removed or replaced with better ones.
3032 Revision 2.40 2008/02/22 05:54:27 markm68k
3033 updates for mac os x
3035 Revision 2.39 2008/02/03 21:37:41 hal9
3036 Apply patch from Mark: s/OSX/OS X/
3038 Revision 2.38 2008/01/19 17:52:39 hal9
3039 Re-commit to fix various minor issues for new release.
3041 Revision 2.37 2008/01/19 15:03:05 hal9
3042 Doc sources tagged for 3.0.8 release.
3044 Revision 2.36 2008/01/17 01:49:51 hal9
3045 Change copyright notice for docs s/2007/2008/. All these will be rebuilt soon
3048 Revision 2.35 2007/11/19 17:57:59 fabiankeil
3049 A bunch of rewordings, minor updates and fixes.
3051 Revision 2.34 2007/11/19 02:38:11 hal9
3052 Minor revisions and rebuild
3054 Revision 2.33 2007/11/15 03:30:20 hal9
3055 Results of spell check.
3057 Revision 2.32 2007/11/13 03:03:42 hal9
3058 Various changes to reflect new features and revised configuration for the
3061 Revision 2.31 2007/11/05 02:34:53 hal9
3062 Various changes in preparation for the upcoming release. Much yet to be done.
3064 Revision 2.30 2007/11/04 15:16:40 hal9
3067 Revision 2.29 2007/11/04 15:12:47 hal9
3068 Various minor adjustments.
3070 Revision 2.28 2007/10/27 15:14:16 fabiankeil
3071 Change Tor links to use the new domain torproject.org.
3073 Revision 2.27 2007/10/22 19:47:05 fabiankeil
3074 - Bump version and copyright.
3075 - Adjust Tor section to make it clear that forward exceptions
3076 aren't required and may not even be desired.
3077 - A bunch of other minor rewordings.
3078 - Fix markup problems Roland noticed (hopefully without adding new ones).
3080 Revision 2.26 2007/08/05 15:37:55 fabiankeil
3081 - Don't claim that thousands of people read our code.
3082 - Specify the GPL version and link to GPLv2 instead of v3.
3083 - Note that configuration syntax may change between releases.
3084 - Mention zlib support.
3085 - Answer the "transparent proxy" question properly.
3086 - Add "intercepting proxy" entry.
3088 - Rephrase some other sentences for various reasons.
3090 Revision 2.25 2007/07/18 11:00:34 hal9
3091 Add misc note about valid mark-up in Privoxy.
3093 Revision 2.24 2006/11/14 01:57:46 hal9
3094 Dump all docs prior to 3.0.6 release. Various minor changes to faq and user
3097 Revision 2.23 2006/10/21 22:19:52 hal9
3098 Two new FAQs, a rewrite or two, and some touch ups.
3100 Revision 2.22 2006/10/14 20:33:10 hal9
3101 Three new FAQ's re: templates and blocking, and various minor touch-ups/improvements.
3103 Revision 2.21 2006/10/03 14:40:51 fabiankeil
3104 Added links from the Tor faq to the
3105 configuration chapter in the User Manual.
3107 Revision 2.20 2006/09/26 10:12:37 fabiankeil
3110 Revision 2.19 2006/09/22 10:54:32 hal9
3111 Change references to 3.0.4 to 3.0.5 and minor adjustments.
3113 Revision 2.18 2006/09/22 01:27:55 hal9
3114 Final commit of probably various minor changes here and there. Unless
3115 something changes this should be ready for pending release.
3117 Revision 2.17 2006/09/17 14:56:32 hal9
3118 This includes yet several more new FAQs, some improved wording, enhanced
3119 mark-up, various hyper links to wikipedia to explain key terminology to the
3120 uninitiated, etc. This is ready for release IMO pending final tagging of cvs
3121 and Privoxy version stamping.
3123 Revision 2.16 2006/09/10 15:30:46 hal9
3126 Revision 2.15 2006/09/08 23:05:07 hal9
3127 Fix broken links. Add faq on hosts files. Move most of new windows service
3128 feature to user manual and reference in faq. Various other small changes.
3130 Revision 2.14 2006/09/05 13:25:12 david__schmidt
3131 Add Windows service invocation stuff (duplicated) in FAQ and in user manual under Windows startup. One probably ought to reference the other.
3133 Revision 2.13 2006/09/04 19:20:33 fabiankeil
3134 Adjusted anonymity related sections to match reality.
3135 Added a section about using Privoxy with Tor.
3137 Revision 2.12 2006/09/03 14:15:30 hal9
3138 Various updates, including 7 or 8 new FAQs, and updates/changes to various
3139 other ones to better reflect improvements, additions and changes for the
3140 upcoming release. This is close to final form for 3.0.4 IMHO.
3142 Revision 2.11 2006/07/18 14:48:50 david__schmidt
3143 Reorganizing the repository: swapping out what was HEAD (the old 3.1 branch)
3144 with what was really the latest development (the v_3_0_branch branch)
3146 Revision 1.61.2.41 2004/04/05 13:44:05 oes
3147 Fixed allow-all-cookies alias name; closes SR #929746
3149 Revision 1.61.2.40 2004/01/30 17:00:33 oes
3150 Added Mac OS X Panther problem
3152 Revision 1.61.2.39 2004/01/29 22:53:08 hal9
3153 Minor changes for exempting docs of text/plain. Change copyright date.
3155 Revision 1.61.2.38 2003/12/10 03:39:45 hal9
3156 Added FAQs for: demoronizer, related problems and why its included. Also,
3157 port 8118 already in use questions, and PrivoxyWindowOpen() questions. All in
3158 troubleshooting section.
3160 Revision 1.61.2.37 2003/10/17 11:01:50 oes
3161 Added Q&A for "not being used" page problem
3163 Revision 1.61.2.36 2003/06/26 23:49:20 hal9
3164 More on the filter/source code problem.
3166 Revision 1.61.2.35 2003/06/26 13:38:08 hal9
3167 Add FAQ on whether configuring Privoxy is necessary or not.
3169 Revision 1.61.2.34 2003/06/26 03:00:03 hal9
3170 Sorry, found another copyright date.
3172 Revision 1.61.2.33 2003/06/26 02:57:05 hal9
3173 Fix typo (finally!) and very minor modifications.
3175 Revision 1.61.2.32 2003/06/26 02:52:04 hal9
3178 Revision 1.61.2.31 2003/06/25 01:27:51 hal9
3179 Fix copyright, and a few nits.
3181 Revision 1.61.2.30 2003/06/25 01:13:52 hal9
3184 - FAQ on "Unable to get my own hostname"
3185 - Another one on filtering effects on text files.
3187 Revision 1.61.2.29 2003/06/15 21:32:58 hal9
3188 Add to the 4.17 (filtering effects on downloaded files).
3190 Revision 1.61.2.28 2003/03/18 19:37:21 oes
3191 s/Advanced|Radical/Adventuresome/g to avoid complaints re fun filter
3193 Revision 1.61.2.27 2002/12/01 06:31:58 hal9
3194 Add faq on win32 error 503 due to ZoneAlarm.
3196 Revision 1.61.2.26 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9
3197 Move default profiles table from FAQ to U-M, and other minor related changes.
3200 Revision 1.61.2.25 2002/10/29 03:21:50 hal9
3201 Add 3 Q/A's relating to HTML in email. Other minor touchups.
3203 Revision 1.61.2.24 2002/10/15 12:50:22 oes
3204 s/Advanced/Radical/ (stupid me)
3206 Revision 1.61.2.23 2002/10/15 12:38:56 oes
3207 Added Microsuck faq; more detail for PHP problem
3209 Revision 1.61.2.22 2002/10/12 01:13:13 hal9
3210 Updates for demoronizer, more commentary on Radical profile, and update on
3211 the srvany.exe/icon fix.
3213 Revision 1.61.2.21 2002/10/10 04:09:35 hal9
3214 s/Advanced/Radical/ and added very brief note.
3216 Revision 1.61.2.20 2002/09/26 01:22:45 hal9
3217 Small additions for LAN setup, content-cookies/SSL, and FTP non-support.
3219 Revision 1.61.2.19 2002/08/25 23:31:56 hal9
3220 Fix one grammatical error. Add brief FAQ relating to tranparent proxies (ie
3221 port 80 setting). Add FAQ on effects of Privoxy on downloaded files
3222 (especially filtering).
3224 Revision 1.61.2.18 2002/08/14 16:39:37 hal9
3225 Fix wrong tag on FAQ addition.
3227 Revision 1.61.2.17 2002/08/14 00:01:18 hal9
3230 Revision 1.61.2.16 2002/08/13 00:10:38 hal9
3231 Add faq to troubleshooting re: blank page syndrome, ie {-prevent-compression}.
3233 Revision 1.61.2.15 2002/08/10 11:34:22 oes
3234 Add disclaimer about probably being out-of-date
3236 Revision 1.61.2.14 2002/08/07 02:53:43 hal9
3237 Fix some minor markup errors, and move one Mac OS X Q/A to troubleshooting section.
3239 Revision 1.61.2.13 2002/08/06 11:55:32 oes
3240 Added missing close tag
3242 Revision 1.61.2.12 2002/08/06 11:43:46 david__schmidt
3243 Updated Mac OS X uninstall FAQ... we have an uninstall script now.
3245 Revision 1.61.2.11 2002/08/06 08:54:03 oes
3246 Style police: Fixed formatting details
3248 Revision 1.61.2.10 2002/08/02 14:00:25 david__schmidt
3249 Made the Mac OS X removal commands far less dangerous
3251 Revision 1.61.2.9 2002/08/02 13:14:45 oes
3252 Added warning about sudo rm -r for Mac OS X deinstallation; moved this item to install section
3254 Revision 1.61.2.8 2002/08/02 02:01:42 david__schmidt
3255 Add FAQ item for MSIE on Mac OS X HTTP proxy confusion
3257 Revision 1.61.2.7 2002/08/02 01:46:01 david__schmidt
3258 Added FAQ item for Mac OS X uninstall woes
3260 Revision 1.61.2.6 2002/07/30 20:04:56 hal9
3261 Fix typo: 'schould'.
3263 Revision 1.61.2.5 2002/07/26 15:22:58 oes
3264 - Updated to reflect changes in standard.action
3265 - Added info on where to get updated actions files
3267 Revision 1.61.2.4 2002/07/25 21:42:29 hal9
3268 Add brief notes on not proxying non-HTTP protocols.
3270 Revision 1.61.2.3 2002/06/09 16:36:33 hal9
3271 Clarifications on filtering and MIME. Hardcode 'latest release' in index.html.
3273 Revision 1.61.2.2 2002/06/06 02:51:34 hal9
3274 Fix typo in URL http:/config.privoxy.org
3276 Revision 1.61.2.1 2002/06/05 23:10:43 hal9
3277 Add new FAQ re: DUN/IE. Change release date from May to June :)
3279 Revision 1.61 2002/05/25 12:37:25 hal9
3280 Various minor changes and edits.
3282 Revision 1.60 2002/05/22 17:17:48 oes
3283 Proofread & added more links into u-m
3285 Revision 1.59 2002/05/15 04:03:30 hal9
3286 Fix ulink -> link markup.
3288 Revision 1.58 2002/05/10 01:48:20 hal9
3289 This is mostly proposed copyright/licensing additions and changes. Docs
3290 are still GPL, but licensing and copyright are more visible. Also, copyright
3291 changed in doc header comments (eliminate references to JB except FAQ).
3293 Revision 1.57 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
3294 Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
3296 Revision 1.56 2002/05/04 08:44:44 swa
3299 Revision 1.55 2002/05/04 00:41:56 hal9
3300 -Remove TOC/first page kludge in favor of proper handling via dsl file.
3302 Revision 1.54 2002/05/03 05:06:44 hal9
3303 Add brief Q/A on transparent proxies.
3305 Revision 1.53 2002/05/03 01:34:52 hal9
3306 Fix section numbering for new sections (due to TOC kludge).
3308 Revision 1.52 2002/04/29 03:08:43 hal9
3309 -Added new Q/A on new actions file set up (pointer to u-m)
3310 -Fixed a few broken links and converted old actions as a result of
3313 Revision 1.51 2002/04/26 17:24:31 swa
3314 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
3316 Revision 1.50 2002/04/26 05:25:23 hal9
3317 Mass commit to catch a few scattered fixes.
3319 Revision 1.49 2002/04/12 10:10:18 swa
3322 Revision 1.48 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
3325 Revision 1.47 2002/04/10 04:05:32 hal9
3328 Revision 1.45 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
3329 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
3331 Revision 1.44 2002/04/07 21:24:29 hal9
3332 Touch up on name change.
3334 Revision 1.43 2002/04/04 21:59:53 hal9
3335 Added NT/W2K service/icon situation.
3337 Revision 1.42 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
3338 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
3340 Revision 1.41 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
3341 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
3342 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
3343 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
3344 eventually be set by Makefile.
3345 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
3347 Revision 1.40 2002/04/03 04:22:03 hal9
3348 Fixed several typos.
3350 Revision 1.39 2002/04/03 03:53:03 hal9
3351 Revert some changes, and then make some news, to layout, and appearance.
3353 Revision 1.38 2002/04/02 03:49:10 hal9
3354 Major changes to doc structure and layout. Sections are not automatically
3355 numbered now. TOC is on page by itself.
3357 Revision 1.37 2002/04/01 16:24:07 hal9
3358 -Rework of supported Q/A.
3359 -Set up entities to include boilerplate text.
3361 Revision 1.36 2002/03/31 23:18:47 hal9
3362 More on dealing with BLOCKED.
3364 Revision 1.35 2002/03/30 04:14:19 hal9
3365 Fix privoxy.org/config links.
3367 Revision 1.34 2002/03/29 04:35:56 hal9
3370 Revision 1.33 2002/03/29 01:31:48 hal9
3371 Several new Q/A's and other touch ups.
3373 Revision 1.32 2002/03/27 00:57:03 hal9
3374 Touch ups for name change.
3376 Revision 1.31 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
3377 we have a new homepage!
3379 Revision 1.30 2002/03/25 16:39:22 hal9
3380 A few new sections. Made all links relative to user-manual.
3382 Revision 1.29 2002/03/25 05:23:57 hal9
3383 Moved section, and touch ups.
3385 Revision 1.28 2002/03/25 04:27:33 hal9
3386 New section related to name change.
3388 Revision 1.25 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
3389 we are too lazy to make a block-built
3390 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
3392 Revision 1.24 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
3393 name change related issue.
3395 Revision 1.23 2002/03/24 12:33:01 swa
3398 Revision 1.22 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
3399 name change. changed filenames.
3401 Revision 1.21 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
3404 Revision 1.20 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
3405 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
3406 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
3407 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
3408 comments and remarks to history untouched.
3410 Revision 1.19 2002/03/21 17:01:54 hal9
3413 Revision 1.18 2002/03/18 16:40:31 hal9
3416 Revision 1.17 2002/03/18 03:53:53 hal9
3419 Revision 1.16 2002/03/17 21:32:56 hal9
3420 A few more additions.
3422 Revision 1.15 2002/03/17 07:25:59 hal9
3423 Correcting some of my typos, and some additions.
3425 Revision 1.14 2002/03/17 02:39:13 hal9
3426 A little more added ...
3428 Revision 1.13 2002/03/17 00:22:20 hal9
3429 Adding new stuff, and trying to incorporate stuff from old faq.
3431 Revision 1.12 2002/03/11 20:13:21 swa
3434 Revision 1.11 2002/03/11 18:42:27 swa
3437 Revision 1.10 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
3438 correct feedback channels
3440 Revision 1.9 2002/03/10 23:34:04 swa
3441 more info on not hiding ip address
3443 Revision 1.8 2002/03/09 15:55:48 swa
3444 added default config section
3446 Revision 1.7 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
3449 Revision 1.6 2002/03/07 13:16:31 oes
3450 Committing changes by Stefan
3452 Revision 1.5 2002/03/02 15:50:04 swa
3453 2.9.11 version. more input for docs.
3455 Revision 1.4 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
3456 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
3457 will work - no other changes are needed.
3459 Revision 1.3 2001/09/23 10:13:48 swa
3460 upload process established. run make webserver and
3461 the documentation is moved to the webserver. documents
3462 are now linked correctly.
3464 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:20:17 swa
3465 merged standards into developer manual
3467 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
3468 source files for junkbuster documentation
3470 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
3471 first proposal of a structure.
3473 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
3474 docs should have an author.
3476 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
3477 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.