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9 <!entity history SYSTEM "history.sgml">
10 <!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
11 <!entity license SYSTEM "license.sgml">
12 <!entity p-authors SYSTEM "p-authors.sgml">
13 <!entity p-version "2.9.15">
14 <!entity p-status "beta">
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16 <!entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE">
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19 <!entity % p-doc "INCLUDE"> <!-- and we are a formal doc -->
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23 <!entity my-copy "©"> <!-- kludge for docbook2man -->
24 <!entity % draft "IGNORE"> <!-- WIP stuff -->
27 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
30 This file belongs into
31 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
33 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.119 2002/05/22 17:17:05 oes Exp $
35 Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Privoxy Developers <developers@privoxy.org>
38 ========================================================================
39 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
40 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
41 ========================================================================
48 <title>Privoxy User Manual</title>
52 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
53 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
54 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001, 2002 by
55 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
59 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.119 2002/05/22 17:17:05 oes Exp $</pubdate>
63 Note: the following should generate a separate page, and a live link to it,
64 all nicely done. But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave
65 commented unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the
66 copyright/license declarations will be in their own sgml.
73 <holder>Privoxy Developers</holder>
76 <legalnotice id="legalnotice">
78 text goes here ........
90 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
91 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
92 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
98 The user manual gives users information on how to install, configure and use
100 url="http://www.privoxy.org/"><application>Privoxy</application></ulink>.
103 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
105 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
108 You can find the latest version of the user manual at <ulink
109 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
110 Please see the <ulink url="contact.html">Contact section</ulink> on how to
111 contact the developers.
115 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
121 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
122 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
124 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
125 <application>Privoxy</application>, v.&p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
126 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
127 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
128 configuration files. Development of version 3.0 is currently nearing
129 completion, and includes many significant changes and enhancements over
130 earlier versions. The target release date for
131 stable v3.0 is <quote>soon</quote> ;-)]]>.
134 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
137 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
138 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
139 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
144 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
145 <sect2 id="features"><title>Features</title>
147 In addition to <application>Internet Junkbuster's</application> traditional
148 features of ad and banner blocking and cookie management,
149 <application>Privoxy</application> provides new features<![%p-not-stable;[,
150 some of them currently under development]]>:
152 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
154 <!-- end boilerplate -->
159 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
162 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
163 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
166 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
167 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
168 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
169 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project
174 Note: If you have a previous <application>Junkbuster</application> or
175 <application>Privoxy</application> installation on your system, you
176 will need to remove it. On some platforms, this may be done for you as part
177 of their installation procedure. (See below for your platform). In any case
178 <emphasis>be sure to backup your old configuration if it is valuable to
179 you.</emphasis> See the <link linkend="upgradersnote">note to
180 upgraders</link> section below.
183 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
184 <sect2 id="installation-packages"><title>Binary Packages</title>
186 How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
189 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
190 <sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Red Hat, SuSE RPMs and Conectiva</title>
193 RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm</literal>,
194 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location
195 of configuration files.
199 Note that on Red Hat, <application>Privoxy</application> will
200 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be automatically started on system boot. You will
201 need to enable that using <command>chkconfig</command>,
202 <command>ntsysv</command>, or similar methods. Note that SuSE will
203 automatically start Privoxy in the boot process.
207 If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM:
208 <literal>rpm --rebuild privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm;</literal>. This
209 will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.
213 Also note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
214 on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
215 Otherwise, RPM will try to remove <application>Junkbuster</application>
216 automatically, before installing <application>Privoxy</application>.
220 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
221 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian</title>
223 DEBs can be installed with <literal>dpkg -i
224 privoxy_&p-version;-1.deb</literal>, and will use
225 <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location of configuration
230 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
231 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
234 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
235 the installation process. You will find the configuration files
236 in the same directory as you installed Privoxy in. We do not
237 use the registry of Windows.
241 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
242 <sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX</title>
245 Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
246 untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
251 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
252 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
255 First, make sure that no previous installations of
256 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
257 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
258 system. You can do this by
262 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
263 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
264 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
265 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
269 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
270 into will contain all of the configuration files.
274 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
275 <sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Max OSX</title>
277 Unzip the downloaded package (you can either double-click on the file
278 in the finder, or on the desktop if you downloaded it there). Then,
279 double-click on the package installer icon and follow the installation
281 <application>Privoxy</application> will be installed in the subdirectory
282 <literal>/Applications/Privoxy.app</literal>.
283 <application>Privoxy</application> will set itself up to start
284 automatically on system bring-up via
285 <literal>/System/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal>.
289 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
290 <sect3 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
292 Copy and then unpack the <filename>lha</filename> archive to a suitable location.
293 All necessary files will be installed into <application>Privoxy</application>
294 directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just
295 remove this directory.
298 Start <application>Privoxy</application> (with RUN <>NIL:) in your
299 <filename>startnet</filename> script (AmiTCP), in
300 <filename>s:user-startup</filename> (RoadShow), as startup program in your
301 startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
302 <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically quit when you quit your
303 TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that
304 <application>Privoxy</application> is still running).
309 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
310 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
313 The most convenient way to obtain the <application>Privoxy</application> sources
314 is to download the source tarball from our <ulink url="http://sf.net/projects/ijbswa/">project
319 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
320 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
321 version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
322 CVS repository</ulink> or simply download <ulink
323 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.gz">the nightly CVS
327 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
329 <!-- end boilerplate -->
335 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
337 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
338 <sect1 id="upgradersnote">
339 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
341 There are very significant changes from earlier
342 <application>Junkbuster</application> versions to the current
343 <application>Privoxy</application>. The number, names, syntax, and
344 purposes of configuration files have substantially changed.
345 <application>Junkbuster 2.0.x</application> configuration
346 files will not migrate, <application>Junkbuster 2.9.x</application>
347 and <application>Privoxy</application> configurations will need to be
348 ported. The functionalities of the old <filename>blockfile</filename>,
349 <filename>cookiefile</filename> and <filename>imagelist</filename>
350 are now combined into the <link linkend="actions-file"><quote>actions
351 files</quote></link>.
352 <filename>default.action</filename>, is the main actions file. Local
353 exceptions should best be put into <filename>user.action</filename>.
356 A <link linkend="filter-file"><quote>filter file</quote></link> (typically
357 <filename>default.filter</filename>) is new as of <application>Privoxy
358 2.9.x</application>, and provides some of the new sophistication (explained
359 below). <filename>config</filename> is much the same as before.
362 If upgrading from a 2.0.x version, you will have to use the new config
363 files, and possibly adapt any personal rules from your older files.
364 When porting personal rules over from the old <filename>blockfile</filename>
365 to the new actions files, please note that even the pattern syntax has
366 changed. If upgrading from 2.9.x development versions, it is still
367 recommended to use the new configuration files.
370 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading:
378 The default listening port is now 8118 due to a conflict with another
384 Some installers may remove earlier versions completely. Save any
385 important configuration files!
390 <application>Privoxy</application> is controllable with a web browser
391 at the special URL: <ulink
392 url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
393 (Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>). Many
394 aspects of configuration can be done here, including temporarily disabling
395 <application>Privoxy</application>.
400 The primary configuration files for cookie management, ad and banner
401 blocking, and many other aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
402 configuration are the <link linkend="actions-file">actions
403 files</link>. It is strongly recommended to become familiar with the new
404 actions concept below, before modifying these files. Locally defined rules
405 should go into <filename>user.action</filename>.
410 <!-- I think it is best to keep this somewhat vague, in case -->
411 <!-- the situation changes under our feet. -->
412 Some installers may not automatically start
413 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
421 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
422 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using <application>Privoxy</application></title>
428 If upgrading, from versions before 2.9.16, please back up any configuration
429 files. See the <link linkend="upgradersnote">Note to Upgraders</link> Section.
435 Install <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
436 linkend="installation">Installation Section</link> below for platform specific
443 Advanced users and those who want to offer <application>Privoxy</application>
444 service to more than just their local machine should check the <link
445 linkend="config">main config file</link>, especially the <link
446 linkend="access-control">security-relevant</link> options. These are
453 Start <application>Privoxy</application>, if the installation program has
454 not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
455 <link linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link>.
461 Set your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application> as HTTP and
462 HTTPS proxy by setting the proxy configuration for address of
463 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> and port <literal>8118</literal>.
464 (<application>Junkbuster</application> and earlier versions of
465 <application>Privoxy</application> used port 8000.) See the section <link
466 linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link> below
467 for more details on this.
473 Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
479 A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
480 most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
481 configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
482 to no initial configuration is required in most cases.
485 See the <link linkend="configuration">Configuration section</link> for more
486 configuration options, and how to customize your installation.
487 <![%draft;[ You might also want to look at the <link
488 linkend="quickstart-ad-blocking">next section</link> for a quick
489 introduction to how <application>Privoxy</application> blocks ads and
496 If you experience ads that slipped through, innocent images that are
497 blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
498 <application>Privoxy's</application> behaviour, take a look at the <link
499 linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>. As a quick start, you might
500 find the <link linkend="act-examples">richly commented examples</link>
501 helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the <ulink
502 url="http://config.privoxy.org">web-based user interface</ulink>. The
503 Appendix <quote><link linkend="actionsanat">Anatomy of an
504 Action</link></quote> has hints how to debug actions that
505 <quote>misbehave</quote>.
511 Please see the section <link linkend="contact">Contacting the
512 Developers</link> on how to report bugs or problems with websites or to get
519 Now enjoy surfing with enhanced comfort and privacy!
527 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
529 <sect2 id="quickstart-ad-blocking">
530 <title>Quickstart to Ad Blocking</title>
532 NOTE: This section is deliberately redundant for those that don't
533 want to read the whole thing (which is getting lengthy).
536 Ad blocking is but one of <application>Privoxy's</application>
537 array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
538 user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody.
541 This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
542 you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive
543 information provided below, though this is highly recommeneded.
546 First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
547 more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
548 things that were not intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
549 extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
550 <quote>problem</quote> sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
551 configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
552 not an easy way to eliminate <emphasis>all</emphasis> ads. Either take
553 the easy way and settle for <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads blocked with the
554 default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing
555 habits and preferences.
558 Secondly, a brief explanation of <application>Privoxy's </application>
559 <quote>actions</quote>. <quote>Actions</quote> in this context, are
560 the directives we use to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to perform
561 some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell
562 <application>Privoxy</application> to take some <quote>action</quote>. Each
563 action has a unique name and function. While there are many potential
564 <application>actions</application> in <application>Privoxy's</application>
565 arsenal, only a few are used for ad blocking. <link
566 linkend="actions">Actions</link>, and <link linkend="actions-file">action
567 configuration files</link>, are explained in depth below.
570 Actions are specified in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
571 followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
572 can actually be URL type <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> that use
573 wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs.
576 When you connect to a website, the full path of the URL will either match one
577 of the <quote>actions</quote> as defined in
578 <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration, or not. If so, then
579 <application>Privoxy</application> will perform the action accordingly. If
580 not, then nothing special happens. Futhermore, web pages may contain
581 embedded, secondary URLs that your web browser will display as it parses the
582 original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just a URL
583 embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server,
584 or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many
589 The actions we need to know about for ad blocking are: <link
590 linkend="block">block</link>, <link
591 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link>, and <link
592 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link>:
600 <link linkend="block"><emphasis>block</emphasis></link> - this action stops
601 any contact between your browser and any URL patterns that match this
602 action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads, but also anything
603 that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply stops any
604 communication with the remote server. If this is the only action that
605 matches for this particular URL, then <application>Privoxy</application> will
606 display its own BLOCKED page to let you now what has happened.
612 <link linkend="handle-as-image"><emphasis>handle-as-image</emphasis></link> -
613 forces <application>Privoxy</application> to treat this URL as if it were
614 an image. <application>Privoxy</application> knows about common image
615 types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this does not apply.
616 So we'll force it. This is particularly important for ad blocking, since
617 once we can treat it as an image, we can make more intelligent decisisions
618 on how to handle it. There are some limitations to this though. For
619 instance, you can't just force an image substituion for an entire HTML page
627 linkend="set-image-blocker"><emphasis>set-image-blocker</emphasis></link> -
628 tells <application>Privoxy</application> what to display in place of
629 an ad image that has hit a block rule. For this to come into play,
630 the URL must match a block action somewhere in the configuration.
631 <emphasis>And</emphasis>, it must also either be of a known image type, or
633 linkend="handle-as-image"><emphasis>handle-as-image</emphasis></link>
637 The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are:
641 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> - a checkboard pattern, so that an ad
642 replacement is obvious. This is the default.
647 <emphasis>blank</emphasis> - A very small empty GIF image is displayed.
648 This is the so-called <quote>invisible</quote> configuration option.
653 <emphasis>http://<URL></emphasis> - A redirect to any URL of the
654 user's choosing (advanced usage).
663 The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
664 the special <application>Privoxy</application> editor at <ulink
665 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
666 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>). This
667 is an internal page, and does not require Internet access. Select the
668 appropriate <quote>actions</quote> file, and click
669 <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>. It is best to put personal or
670 local preferences in <filename>user.action</filename> since this is not
671 meant to be overwritten during upgrades, and will over-ride the settings in
672 other files. Here you can insert new <quote>actions</quote>, and URLs for ad
673 blocking or other purposes, and make other adjustments to the configuration.
674 <application>Privoxy</application> will detect these changes automatically.
678 A quick and simple step by step example:
686 Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
687 <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote> from the
695 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
700 Find <filename>user.action</filename> in the top section, and click
701 on <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>:
704 <!-- image of editor and actions files selections -->
706 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Actions Files in Use</title>
709 <imagedata fileref="../images/files-in-use.jpg" format="jpg">
712 <phrase>Screenshot of Files in Use</phrase>
721 You should have an Actions section labeled <emphasis>+block</emphasis>.
722 If not, click the <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote> button just
723 under the word <quote>Actions</quote>. This will bring up a list of all
724 actions. Find <emphasis>block</emphasis> near the top, and click in the
725 <quote>Enabled</quote> column, then
726 <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote> just below the list.
731 Now, in the <emphasis>+block</emphasis> actions section, click the
732 <quote><guibutton>Add</guibutton></quote> button, and paste the URL the
733 browser got from <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link
734 Location</guimenuitem></quote>. Remove the <literal>http://</literal> at
735 the beginning of the URL. Then, click
736 <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote>.
741 Now go back to the original page, and press <keycap>SHIFT-Reload</keycap>
742 (or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now.
750 This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
751 wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same
752 site. For a more extensive explanation of <quote>patterns</quote>, and
753 the entire actions concept, see <link linkend="actions-file">the Actions
758 For advanced users who want to hand edit their config files, you might want
759 to now go to the <link linkend="act-examples">Actions Files Tutorial</link>.
766 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
769 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
771 <title>Starting <application>Privoxy</application></title>
773 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
774 will want to configure your browser(s) to use
775 <application>Privoxy</application> as a HTTP and HTTPS proxy. The default is
776 127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions
777 used port 8000). This is the one configuration step that must be done!
781 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
782 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under <literal>Edit
783 -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Proxies -> HTTP Proxy</literal>.
784 For <application>Internet Explorer</application>: <literal>Tools ->
785 Internet Properties -> Connections -> LAN Setting</literal>. Then,
786 check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info (Address:
787 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include if HTTPS proxy support too.
791 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
792 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. You
793 are now ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
794 <application>Privoxy</application>!
798 <application>Privoxy</application> is typically started by specifying the
799 main configuration file to be used on the command line. If no configuration
800 file is specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application>
801 will look for a file named <filename>config</filename> in the current
802 directory. Except on Win32 where it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>.
805 <sect2 id="start-redhat">
806 <title>RedHat and Conectiva</title>
808 We use a script. Note that RedHat does not start Privoxy upon booting per
809 default. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its
810 main configuration file.
814 # /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
819 <sect2 id="start-debian">
820 <title>Debian</title>
822 We use a script. Note that Debian starts Privoxy upon booting per
823 default. It will use the file
824 <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
829 # /etc/init.d/privoxy start
834 <sect2 id="start-suse">
837 We use a script. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename>
838 as its main configuration file. Note that SuSE starts Privoxy upon booting
848 <sect2 id="start-windows">
849 <title>Windows</title>
851 Click on the Privoxy Icon to start Privoxy. If no configuration file is
852 specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application> will look
853 for a file named <filename>config.txt</filename>. Note that Windows will
854 automatically start Privoxy upon booting you PC.
858 <sect2 id="start-unices">
859 <title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others</title>
861 Example Unix startup command:
865 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
870 <sect2 id="start-os2">
877 <sect2 id="start-macosx">
878 <title>MAX OSX</title>
885 <sect2 id="start-amigaos">
886 <title>AmigaOS</title>
895 See the section <link linkend="cmdoptions">Command line options</link> for
899 must find a better place for this paragraph
902 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
903 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
904 <ulink url="actions-file.html"><quote>actions</quote></ulink> files. These are
905 where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking, and other
906 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several
907 such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
911 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites for which you may prefer
912 persistent cookies, and add these to your actions configuration as needed. By
913 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
914 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), unless you add them to the
915 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
916 to edit <filename>user.action</filename> (or through the web based interface)
917 and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser, it would make
918 more sense to let <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which
919 case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
923 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
924 sites is the popup-killing (through the <ulink
925 url="actions-file.html#KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></ulink> and
927 url="actions-file.html#FILTER-POPUPS"><quote>+filter{popups}</quote></ulink>
928 actions), because your favorite shopping, banking, or leisure site may need
929 popups (explained below).
933 <application>Privoxy</application> is HTTP/1.1 compliant, but not all of
934 the optional 1.1 features are as yet supported. In the unlikely event that
935 you experience inexplicable problems with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
936 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
937 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
938 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
939 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote> config option in
940 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
941 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
945 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
946 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
947 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
948 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote>
949 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
950 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
951 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
952 and then follow the link to <quote>View & Change the Current Configuration</quote>.
953 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
957 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
958 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
959 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
960 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
961 to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
962 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
963 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
967 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
968 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
969 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
970 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
971 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
972 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
977 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <ulink
978 url="actions-file.html#ACTIONSFILE">read more about the actions concept</ulink>
979 or even dive deep into the <ulink url="appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT">Appendix
984 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
985 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
986 section <ulink url="contact.html"><quote>Contacting the
987 Developers</quote></ulink> below.
992 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
993 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
994 <title>Command Line Options</title>
996 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
997 command-line options:
1005 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
1008 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
1013 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
1016 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
1021 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
1024 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
1025 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
1030 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
1034 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
1035 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
1036 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
1037 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
1042 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
1046 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
1047 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
1048 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
1053 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
1056 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
1057 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
1058 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
1059 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
1060 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
1061 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
1072 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1075 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1076 <sect1 id="configuration"><title><application>Privoxy</application> Configuration</title>
1078 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
1079 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
1080 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
1081 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
1085 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1088 <title>Controlling <application>Privoxy</application> with Your Web Browser</title>
1090 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
1091 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1092 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1093 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
1094 You will see the following section:
1098 <!-- Needs to be put in a table and colorized -->
1101 <bridgehead renderas="sect2">Privoxy Menu</bridgehead>
1105 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View & change the current configuration</ulink>
1108 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">View the source code version numbers</ulink>
1111 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">View the request headers.</ulink>
1114 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">Look up which actions apply to a URL and why</ulink>
1117 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">Toggle Privoxy on or off</ulink>
1125 This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the
1126 <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, which is where the ad, banner,
1127 cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
1128 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
1129 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
1130 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
1134 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
1135 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
1136 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
1137 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
1138 to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e.
1139 <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There
1140 is even a toggle <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklet</link> offered, so
1141 that you can toggle <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from
1147 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1152 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1154 <sect2 id="confoverview">
1155 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
1157 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
1158 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
1159 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
1160 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
1161 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
1162 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
1166 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
1167 some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
1168 principle configuration files are:
1176 The <link linkend="config">main configuration file</link> is named <filename>config</filename>
1177 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
1178 on Windows. This is a required file.
1184 <filename>default.action</filename> (the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>)
1185 is used to define which <quote>actions</quote> relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups,
1186 content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default. It also defines many
1187 exceptions (both positive and negative) from this default set of actions that enable
1188 <application>Privoxy</application> to selectively eliminate the junk, and only the junk, on
1189 as many websites as possible.
1192 Multiple actions files may be defined in <filename>config</filename>. These
1193 are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
1194 preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
1195 <filename>default.action</filename> (which you will most probably want
1196 to define sooner or later) are probably best applied in
1197 <filename>user.action</filename>, where you can preserve them across
1198 upgrades. <filename>standard.action</filename> is for
1199 <application>Privoxy's</application> internal use.
1202 There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
1204 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1206 url="http://p.p/show-status">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>) for the
1207 various actions files.
1213 <filename>default.filter</filename> (the <link linkend="filter-file">filter
1214 file</link>) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
1215 viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
1216 lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
1217 whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
1225 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
1226 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
1227 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
1228 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
1229 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
1230 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
1235 The actions files and <filename>default.filter</filename>
1236 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
1237 maximum flexibility.
1241 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
1242 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
1243 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
1244 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
1245 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
1246 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
1247 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
1252 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
1253 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
1254 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
1255 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
1261 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1264 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1267 <title>The Main Configuration File</title>
1270 Again, the main configuration file is named <filename>config</filename> on
1271 Linux/Unix/BSD and OS/2, and <filename>config.txt</filename> on Windows.
1272 Configuration lines consist of an initial keyword followed by a list of
1273 values, all separated by whitespace (any number of spaces or tabs). For
1281 <emphasis>confdir /etc/privoxy</emphasis></literallayout>
1287 Assigns the value <literal>/etc/privoxy</literal> to the option
1288 <literal>confdir</literal> and thus indicates that the configuration
1289 directory is named <quote>/etc/privoxy/</quote>.
1293 All options in the config file except for <literal>confdir</literal> and
1294 <literal>logdir</literal> are optional. Watch out in the below description
1295 for what happens if you leave them unset.
1299 The main config file controls all aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>'s
1300 operation that are not location dependent (i.e. they apply universally, no matter
1301 where you may be surfing).
1305 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1307 <sect2 id="conf-log-loc">
1308 <title>Configuration and Log File Locations</title>
1311 <application>Privoxy</application> can (and normally does) use a number of
1312 other files for additional configuration, help and logging.
1313 This section of the configuration file tells <application>Privoxy</application>
1314 where to find those other files.
1318 The user running Privoxy, must have read permission for all
1319 configuration files, and write permission to any files that would
1320 be modified, such as log files.
1323 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="confdir"><title>confdir</title>
1327 <term>Specifies:</term>
1329 <para>The directory where the other configuration files are located</para>
1333 <term>Type of value:</term>
1335 <para>Path name</para>
1339 <term>Default value:</term>
1341 <para>/etc/privoxy (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> <application>Privoxy</application> installation dir (Windows) </para>
1345 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1347 <para><emphasis>Mandatory</emphasis></para>
1354 No trailing <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please
1357 When development goes modular and multi-user, the blocker, filter, and
1358 per-user config will be stored in subdirectories of <quote>confdir</quote>.
1359 For now, the configuration directory structure is flat, except for
1360 <filename>confdir/templates</filename>, where the HTML templates for CGI
1361 output reside (e.g. <application>Privoxy's</application> 404 error page).
1369 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="logdir"><title>logdir</title>
1373 <term>Specifies:</term>
1376 The directory where all logging takes place (i.e. where <filename>logfile</filename> and
1377 <filename>jarfile</filename> are located)
1382 <term>Type of value:</term>
1384 <para>Path name</para>
1388 <term>Default value:</term>
1390 <para>/var/log/privoxy (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> <application>Privoxy</application> installation dir (Windows) </para>
1394 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1396 <para><emphasis>Mandatory</emphasis></para>
1403 No trailing <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, please
1410 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="actionsfile"><title>
1413 <anchor id="default.action">
1414 <anchor id="standard.action">
1415 <anchor id="user.action">
1416 <!-- Note: slightly modified this section 04/28/02, hal. See NOTE. -->
1419 <term>Specifies:</term>
1422 The <link linkend="actions-file">actions file(s)</link> to use
1427 <term>Type of value:</term>
1429 <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal>, without the <literal>.action</literal> suffix</para>
1433 <term>Default values:</term>
1437 <msgtext><literallayout> standard # Internal purposes, no editing recommended</literallayout></msgtext>
1440 <msgtext><literallayout> default # Main actions file</literallayout></msgtext>
1443 <msgtext><literallayout> user # User customizations</literallayout></msgtext>
1449 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1452 No actions are taken at all. Simple neutral proxying.
1460 Multiple <literal>actionsfile</literal> lines are permitted, and are in fact recommended!
1463 The default values include standard.action, which is used for internal
1464 purposes and should be loaded, default.action, which is the
1465 <quote>main</quote> actions file maintained by the developers, and
1466 <filename>user.action</filename>, where you can make your personal additions.
1469 Actions files are where all the per site and per URL configuration is done for
1470 ad blocking, cookie management, privacy considerations, etc.
1471 There is no point in using <application>Privoxy</application> without at
1472 least one actions file.
1479 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filterfile"><title>filterfile</title>
1480 <anchor id="default.filter">
1483 <term>Specifies:</term>
1486 The <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link> to use
1491 <term>Type of value:</term>
1493 <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
1497 <term>Default value:</term>
1499 <para>default.filter (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> default.filter.txt (Windows)</para>
1503 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1506 No textual content filtering takes place, i.e. all
1507 <literal>+<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>}</literal>
1508 actions in the actions files are turned neutral.
1516 The <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link> contains content modification
1517 rules that use <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link>. These rules permit
1518 powerful changes on the content of Web pages, e.g., you could disable your favorite
1519 JavaScript annoyances, re-write the actual displayed text, or just have some
1520 fun replacing <quote>Microsoft</quote> with <quote>MicroSuck</quote> wherever
1521 it appears on a Web page.
1525 <literal>+<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>}</literal>
1526 actions rely on the relevant filter (<replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>)
1527 to be defined in the filter file!
1530 A pre-defined filter file called <filename>default.filter</filename> that contains
1531 a bunch of handy filters for common problems is included in the distribution.
1532 See the section on the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
1540 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="logfile"><title>logfile</title>
1544 <term>Specifies:</term>
1552 <term>Type of value:</term>
1554 <para>File name, relative to <literal>logdir</literal></para>
1558 <term>Default value:</term>
1560 <para>logfile (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> privoxy.log (Windows)</para>
1564 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1567 No log file is used, all log messages go to the console (<literal>stderr</literal>).
1575 The windows version will additionally log to the console.
1578 The logfile is where all logging and error messages are written. The level
1579 of detail and number of messages are set with the <literal>debug</literal>
1580 option (see below). The logfile can be useful for tracking down a problem with
1581 <application>Privoxy</application> (e.g., it's not blocking an ad you
1582 think it should block) but in most cases you probably will never look at it.
1585 Your logfile will grow indefinitely, and you will probably want to
1586 periodically remove it. On Unix systems, you can do this with a cron job
1587 (see <quote>man cron</quote>). For Red Hat, a <command>logrotate</command>
1588 script has been included.
1591 On SuSE Linux systems, you can place a line like <quote>/var/log/privoxy.*
1592 +1024k 644 nobody.nogroup</quote> in <filename>/etc/logfiles</filename>, with
1593 the effect that cron.daily will automatically archive, gzip, and empty the
1594 log, when it exceeds 1M size.
1597 Any log files must be writable by whatever user <application>Privoxy</application>
1598 is being run as (default on UNIX, user id is <quote>privoxy</quote>).
1605 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="jarfile"><title>jarfile</title>
1609 <term>Specifies:</term>
1612 The file to store intercepted cookies in
1617 <term>Type of value:</term>
1619 <para>File name, relative to <literal>logdir</literal></para>
1623 <term>Default value:</term>
1625 <para>jarfile (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> privoxy.jar (Windows)</para>
1629 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1632 Intercepted cookies are not stored at all.
1640 The jarfile may grow to ridiculous sizes over time.
1647 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="trustfile"><title>trustfile</title>
1650 <term>Specifies:</term>
1653 The trust file to use
1658 <term>Type of value:</term>
1660 <para>File name, relative to <literal>confdir</literal></para>
1664 <term>Default value:</term>
1666 <para><emphasis>Unset (commented out)</emphasis>. When activated: trust (Unix) <emphasis>or</emphasis> trust.txt (Windows)</para>
1670 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1673 The whole trust mechanism is turned off.
1681 The trust mechanism is an experimental feature for building white-lists and should
1682 be used with care. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> recommended for the casual user.
1685 If you specify a trust file, <application>Privoxy</application> will only allow
1686 access to sites that are named in the trustfile.
1687 You can also mark sites as trusted referrers (with <literal>+</literal>), with
1688 the effect that access to untrusted sites will be granted, if a link from a
1689 trusted referrer was used.
1690 The link target will then be added to the <quote>trustfile</quote>.
1691 Possible applications include limiting Internet access for children.
1694 If you use <literal>+</literal> operator in the trust file, it may grow considerably over time.
1702 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1706 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1708 <sect2 id="local-set-up">
1709 <title>Local Set-up Documentation</title>
1712 If you intend to operate <application>Privoxy</application> for more users
1713 than just yourself, it might be a good idea to let them know how to reach
1714 you, what you block and why you do that, your policies, etc.
1717 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="user-manual"><title>user-manual</title>
1720 <term>Specifies:</term>
1723 Location of the <application>Privoxy</application> User Manual.
1728 <term>Type of value:</term>
1730 <para>A fully qualified URI</para>
1734 <term>Default value:</term>
1736 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1740 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1743 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/<replaceable class="parameter">version</replaceable>/user-manual/</ulink>
1744 will be used, where <replaceable class="parameter">version</replaceable> is the <application>Privoxy</application> version.
1752 The User Manual URI is used for help links from some of the internal CGI pages.
1753 The manual itself is normally packaged with the binary distributions, so you probably want
1754 to set this to a locally installed copy. For multi-user setups, you could provide a copy on
1755 a local webserver for all your users and use the corresponding URL here.
1761 Unix, in local filesystem:
1764 <screen>user-manual file:///usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;/user-manual/</screen>
1767 Any platform, on local webserver (called <quote>local-webserver</quote>):
1770 <screen>user-manual http://local-webserver/privoxy-user-manual/</screen>
1774 If set, this option should be <emphasis>the first option in the config file</emphasis>, because
1775 it is used while the config file is being read.
1783 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="trust-info-url"><title>trust-info-url</title>
1787 <term>Specifies:</term>
1790 A URL to be displayed in the error page that users will see if access to an untrusted page is denied.
1795 <term>Type of value:</term>
1801 <term>Default value:</term>
1803 <para>Two example URL are provided</para>
1807 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1810 No links are displayed on the "untrusted" error page.
1818 The value of this option only matters if the experimental trust mechanism has been
1819 activated. (See <link linkend="trustfile"><emphasis>trustfile</emphasis></link> above.)
1822 If you use the trust mechanism, it is a good idea to write up some on-line
1823 documentation about your trust policy and to specify the URL(s) here.
1824 Use multiple times for multiple URLs.
1827 The URL(s) should be added to the trustfile as well, so users don't end up
1828 locked out from the information on why they were locked out in the first place!
1835 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="admin-address"><title>admin-address</title>
1839 <term>Specifies:</term>
1842 An email address to reach the proxy administrator.
1847 <term>Type of value:</term>
1849 <para>Email address</para>
1853 <term>Default value:</term>
1855 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1859 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1862 No email address is displayed on error pages and the CGI user interface.
1870 If both <literal>admin-address</literal> and <literal>proxy-info-url</literal>
1871 are unset, the whole "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will
1879 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="proxy-info-url"><title>proxy-info-url</title>
1883 <term>Specifies:</term>
1886 A URL to documentation about the local <application>Privoxy</application> setup,
1887 configuration or policies.
1892 <term>Type of value:</term>
1898 <term>Default value:</term>
1900 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
1904 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1907 No link to local documentation is displayed on error pages and the CGI user interface.
1915 If both <literal>admin-address</literal> and <literal>proxy-info-url</literal>
1916 are unset, the whole "Local Privoxy Support" box on all generated pages will
1920 This URL shouldn't be blocked ;-)
1928 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1930 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1932 <sect2 id="debugging">
1933 <title>Debugging</title>
1936 These options are mainly useful when tracing a problem.
1937 Note that you might also want to invoke
1938 <application>Privoxy</application> with the <literal>--no-daemon</literal>
1939 command line option when debugging.
1942 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="debug"><title>debug</title>
1946 <term>Specifies:</term>
1949 Key values that determine what information gets logged to the
1950 <link linkend="logfile"><emphasis>logfile</emphasis></link>.
1955 <term>Type of value:</term>
1957 <para>Integer values</para>
1961 <term>Default value:</term>
1963 <para>12289 (i.e.: URLs plus informational and warning messages)</para>
1967 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
1970 Nothing gets logged.
1978 The available debug levels are:
1982 debug 1 # show each GET/POST/CONNECT request
1983 debug 2 # show each connection status
1984 debug 4 # show I/O status
1985 debug 8 # show header parsing
1986 debug 16 # log all data into the logfile
1987 debug 32 # debug force feature
1988 debug 64 # debug regular expression filter
1989 debug 128 # debug fast redirects
1990 debug 256 # debug GIF de-animation
1991 debug 512 # Common Log Format
1992 debug 1024 # debug kill pop-ups
1993 debug 4096 # Startup banner and warnings.
1994 debug 8192 # Non-fatal errors
1998 To select multiple debug levels, you can either add them or use
1999 multiple <literal>debug</literal> lines.
2002 A debug level of 1 is informative because it will show you each request
2003 as it happens. <emphasis>1, 4096 and 8192 are highly recommended</emphasis>
2004 so that you will notice when things go wrong. The other levels are probably
2005 only of interest if you are hunting down a specific problem. They can produce
2006 a hell of an output (especially 16).
2010 The reporting of <emphasis>fatal</emphasis> errors (i.e. ones which crash
2011 <application>Privoxy</application>) is always on and cannot be disabled.
2014 If you want to use CLF (Common Log Format), you should set <quote>debug
2015 512</quote> <emphasis>ONLY</emphasis> and not enable anything else.
2022 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="single-threaded"><title>single-threaded</title>
2026 <term>Specifies:</term>
2029 Whether to run only one server thread
2034 <term>Type of value:</term>
2036 <para><emphasis>None</emphasis></para>
2040 <term>Default value:</term>
2042 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
2046 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2049 Multi-threaded (or, where unavailable: forked) operation, i.e. the ability to
2050 serve multiple requests simultaneously.
2058 This option is only there for debug purposes and you should never
2059 need to use it. <emphasis>It will drastically reduce performance.</emphasis>
2068 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2070 <sect2 id="access-control">
2071 <title>Access Control and Security</title>
2074 This section of the config file controls the security-relevant aspects
2075 of <application>Privoxy</application>'s configuration.
2078 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="listen-address"><title>listen-address</title>
2082 <term>Specifies:</term>
2085 The IP address and TCP port on which <application>Privoxy</application> will
2086 listen for client requests.
2091 <term>Type of value:</term>
2093 <para>[<replaceable class="parameter">IP-Address</replaceable>]:<replaceable class="parameter">Port</replaceable></para>
2098 <term>Default value:</term>
2100 <para>127.0.0.1:8118</para>
2104 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2107 Bind to 127.0.0.1 (localhost), port 8118. This is suitable and recommended for
2108 home users who run <application>Privoxy</application> on the same machine as
2117 You will need to configure your browser(s) to this proxy address and port.
2120 If you already have another service running on port 8118, or if you want to
2121 serve requests from other machines (e.g. on your local network) as well, you
2122 will need to override the default.
2125 If you leave out the IP address, <application>Privoxy</application> will
2126 bind to all interfaces (addresses) on your machine and may become reachable
2127 from the Internet. In that case, consider using <link
2128 linkend="acls">access control lists</link> (ACL's, see below), and/or
2132 If you open <application>Privoxy</application> to untrusted users, you will
2133 also want to turn off the <literal><link
2134 linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link></literal> and
2135 <literal><link linkend="enable-remote-toggle">enable-remote-toggle</link></literal>
2141 <term>Example:</term>
2144 Suppose you are running <application>Privoxy</application> on
2145 a machine which has the address 192.168.0.1 on your local private network
2146 (192.168.0.0) and has another outside connection with a different address.
2147 You want it to serve requests from inside only:
2151 listen-address 192.168.0.1:8118
2159 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="toggle"><title>toggle</title>
2163 <term>Specifies:</term>
2166 Initial state of "toggle" status
2171 <term>Type of value:</term>
2177 <term>Default value:</term>
2183 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2186 Act as if toggled on
2194 If set to 0, <application>Privoxy</application> will start in
2195 <quote>toggled off</quote> mode, i.e. behave like a normal, content-neutral
2196 proxy where all ad blocking, filtering, etc are disabled. See
2197 <literal>enable-remote-toggle</literal> below. This is not really useful
2198 anymore, since toggling is much easier via <ulink
2199 url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">the web interface</ulink> than via
2200 editing the <filename>conf</filename> file.
2203 The windows version will only display the toggle icon in the system tray
2204 if this option is present.
2212 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="enable-remote-toggle"><title>enable-remote-toggle</title>
2215 <term>Specifies:</term>
2218 Whether or not the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">web-based toggle
2219 feature</ulink> may be used
2224 <term>Type of value:</term>
2230 <term>Default value:</term>
2236 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2239 The web-based toggle feature is disabled.
2247 When toggled off, <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal,
2248 content-neutral proxy, i.e. it acts as if none of the actions applied to
2252 For the time being, access to the toggle feature can <emphasis>not</emphasis> be
2253 controlled separately by <quote>ACLs</quote> or HTTP authentication,
2254 so that everybody who can access <application>Privoxy</application> (see
2255 <quote>ACLs</quote> and <literal>listen-address</literal> above) can
2256 toggle it for all users. So this option is <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>
2257 for multi-user environments with untrusted users.
2260 Note that you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
2261 support for this feature, otherwise this option has no effect.
2269 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="enable-edit-actions"><title>enable-edit-actions</title>
2272 <term>Specifies:</term>
2275 Whether or not the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">web-based actions
2276 file editor</ulink> may be used
2281 <term>Type of value:</term>
2287 <term>Default value:</term>
2293 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2296 The web-based actions file editor is disabled.
2304 For the time being, access to the editor can <emphasis>not</emphasis> be
2305 controlled separately by <quote>ACLs</quote> or HTTP authentication,
2306 so that everybody who can access <application>Privoxy</application> (see
2307 <quote>ACLs</quote> and <literal>listen-address</literal> above) can
2308 modify its configuration for all users. So this option is <emphasis>not
2309 recommended</emphasis> for multi-user environments with untrusted users.
2312 Note that you must have compiled <application>Privoxy</application> with
2313 support for this feature, otherwise this option has no effect.
2320 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="acls"><title>
2321 ACLs: permit-access and deny-access</title>
2322 <anchor id="permit-access">
2323 <anchor id="deny-access">
2327 <term>Specifies:</term>
2330 Who can access what.
2335 <term>Type of value:</term>
2338 <replaceable class="parameter">src_addr</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable>]
2339 [<replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">dst_masklen</replaceable>]]
2342 Where <replaceable class="parameter">src_addr</replaceable> and
2343 <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable> are IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or valid
2344 DNS names, and <replaceable class="parameter">src_masklen</replaceable> and
2345 <replaceable class="parameter">dst_masklen</replaceable> are subnet masks in CIDR notation, i.e. integer
2346 values from 2 to 30 representing the length (in bits) of the network address. The masks and the whole
2347 destination part are optional.
2352 <term>Default value:</term>
2354 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
2358 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2361 Don't restrict access further than implied by <literal>listen-address</literal>
2369 Access controls are included at the request of ISPs and systems
2370 administrators, and <emphasis>are not usually needed by individual users</emphasis>.
2371 For a typical home user, it will normally suffice to ensure that
2372 <application>Privoxy</application> only listens on the localhost
2373 (127.0.0.1) or internal (home) network address by means of the
2374 <link linkend="listen-address"><emphasis>listen-address</emphasis></link>
2378 Please see the warnings in the FAQ that this proxy is not intended to be a substitute
2379 for a firewall or to encourage anyone to defer addressing basic security
2383 Multiple ACL lines are OK.
2384 If any ACLs are specified, then the <application>Privoxy</application>
2385 talks only to IP addresses that match at least one <literal>permit-access</literal> line
2386 and don't match any subsequent <literal>deny-access</literal> line. In other words, the
2387 last match wins, with the default being <literal>deny-access</literal>.
2390 If <application>Privoxy</application> is using a forwarder (see <literal>forward</literal> below)
2391 for a particular destination URL, the <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable>
2392 that is examined is the address of the forwarder and <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the address
2393 of the ultimate target. This is necessary because it may be impossible for the local
2394 <application>Privoxy</application> to determine the IP address of the
2395 ultimate target (that's often what gateways are used for).
2398 You should prefer using IP addresses over DNS names, because the address lookups take
2399 time. All DNS names must resolve! You can <emphasis>not</emphasis> use domain patterns
2400 like <quote>*.org</quote> or partial domain names. If a DNS name resolves to multiple
2401 IP addresses, only the first one is used.
2404 Denying access to particular sites by ACL may have undesired side effects
2405 if the site in question is hosted on a machine which also hosts other sites.
2410 <term>Examples:</term>
2413 Explicitly define the default behavior if no ACL and
2414 <literal>listen-address</literal> are set: <quote>localhost</quote>
2415 is OK. The absence of a <replaceable class="parameter">dst_addr</replaceable> implies that
2416 <emphasis>all</emphasis> destination addresses are OK:
2420 permit-access localhost
2424 Allow any host on the same class C subnet as www.privoxy.org access to
2425 nothing but www.example.com:
2429 permit-access www.privoxy.org/24 www.example.com/32
2433 Allow access from any host on the 26-bit subnet 192.168.45.64 to anywhere,
2434 with the exception that 192.168.45.73 may not access www.dirty-stuff.example.com:
2438 permit-access 192.168.45.64/26
2439 deny-access 192.168.45.73 www.dirty-stuff.example.com
2447 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="buffer-limit"><title>buffer-limit</title>
2451 <term>Specifies:</term>
2454 Maximum size of the buffer for content filtering.
2459 <term>Type of value:</term>
2461 <para>Size in Kbytes</para>
2465 <term>Default value:</term>
2471 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2474 Use a 4MB (4096 KB) limit.
2482 For content filtering, i.e. the <literal>+filter</literal> and
2483 <literal>+deanimate-gif</literal> actions, it is necessary that
2484 <application>Privoxy</application> buffers the entire document body.
2485 This can be potentially dangerous, since a server could just keep sending
2486 data indefinitely and wait for your RAM to exhaust -- with nasty consequences.
2490 When a document buffer size reaches the <literal>buffer-limit</literal>, it is
2491 flushed to the client unfiltered and no further attempt to
2492 filter the rest of the document is made. Remember that there may be multiple threads
2493 running, which might require up to <literal>buffer-limit</literal> Kbytes
2494 <emphasis>each</emphasis>, unless you have enabled <quote>single-threaded</quote>
2504 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2507 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2509 <sect2 id="forwarding">
2510 <title>Forwarding</title>
2513 This feature allows routing of HTTP requests through a chain of
2515 It can be used to better protect privacy and confidentiality when
2516 accessing specific domains by routing requests to those domains
2517 through an anonymous public proxy (see e.g. <ulink
2518 url="http://www.multiproxy.org/anon_list.htm">http://www.multiproxy.org/anon_list.htm</ulink>)
2519 Or to use a caching proxy to speed up browsing. Or chaining to a parent
2520 proxy may be necessary because the machine that <application>Privoxy</application>
2521 runs on has no direct Internet access.
2525 Also specified here are SOCKS proxies. <application>Privoxy</application>
2526 supports the SOCKS 4 and SOCKS 4A protocols.
2529 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="forward"><title>forward</title>
2532 <term>Specifies:</term>
2535 To which parent HTTP proxy specific requests should be routed.
2540 <term>Type of value:</term>
2543 <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2544 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2547 Where <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable> is a domain name pattern (see the
2548 chapter on domain matching in the <filename>default.action</filename> file),
2549 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is the address of the parent HTTP proxy
2550 as an IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or as a valid DNS name (or <quote>.</quote> to denote
2551 <quote>no forwarding</quote>, and the optional
2552 <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> parameters are TCP ports, i.e. integer
2553 values from 1 to 64535
2558 <term>Default value:</term>
2560 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
2564 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2567 Don't use parent HTTP proxies.
2575 If <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is <quote>.</quote>, then requests are not
2576 forwarded to another HTTP proxy but are made directly to the web servers.
2579 Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
2584 <term>Examples:</term>
2587 Everything goes to an example anonymizing proxy, except SSL on port 443 (which it doesn't handle):
2591 forward .* anon-proxy.example.org:8080
2596 Everything goes to our example ISP's caching proxy, except for requests
2597 to that ISP's sites:
2601 forward .*. caching-proxy.example-isp.net:8000
2602 forward .example-isp.net .
2610 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="socks"><title>
2611 forward-socks4 and forward-socks4a</title>
2612 <anchor id="forward-socks4">
2613 <anchor id="forward-socks4a">
2617 <term>Specifies:</term>
2620 Through which SOCKS proxy (and to which parent HTTP proxy) specific requests should be routed.
2625 <term>Type of value:</term>
2628 <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2629 <replaceable class="parameter">socks_proxy</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2630 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>[/<replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable>]
2633 Where <replaceable class="parameter">target_domain</replaceable> is a domain name pattern (see the
2634 chapter on domain matching in the <filename>default.action</filename> file),
2635 <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> and <replaceable class="parameter">socks_proxy</replaceable>
2636 are IP addresses in dotted decimal notation or valid DNS names (<replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable>
2637 may be <quote>.</quote> to denote <quote>no HTTP forwarding</quote>), and the optional
2638 <replaceable class="parameter">port</replaceable> parameters are TCP ports, i.e. integer values from 1 to 64535
2643 <term>Default value:</term>
2645 <para><emphasis>Unset</emphasis></para>
2649 <term>Effect if unset:</term>
2652 Don't use SOCKS proxies.
2660 Multiple lines are OK, they are checked in sequence, and the last match wins.
2663 The difference between <literal>forward-socks4</literal> and <literal>forward-socks4a</literal>
2664 is that in the SOCKS 4A protocol, the DNS resolution of the target hostname happens on the SOCKS
2665 server, while in SOCKS 4 it happens locally.
2668 If <replaceable class="parameter">http_parent</replaceable> is <quote>.</quote>, then requests are not
2669 forwarded to another HTTP proxy but are made (HTTP-wise) directly to the web servers, albeit through
2675 <term>Examples:</term>
2678 From the company example.com, direct connections are made to all
2679 <quote>internal</quote> domains, but everything outbound goes through
2680 their ISP's proxy by way of example.com's corporate SOCKS 4A gateway to
2685 forward-socks4a .*. socks-gw.example.com:1080 www-cache.example-isp.net:8080
2686 forward .example.com .
2690 A rule that uses a SOCKS 4 gateway for all destinations but no HTTP parent looks like this:
2694 forward-socks4 .*. socks-gw.example.com:1080 .
2702 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="advanced-forwarding-examples"><title>Advanced Forwarding Examples</title>
2705 If you have links to multiple ISPs that provide various special content
2706 only to their subscribers, you can configure multiple <application>Privoxies</application>
2707 which have connections to the respective ISPs to act as forwarders to each other, so that
2708 <emphasis>your</emphasis> users can see the internal content of all ISPs.
2712 Assume that host-a has a PPP connection to isp-a.net. And host-b has a PPP connection to
2713 isp-b.net. Both run <application>Privoxy</application>. Their forwarding
2714 configuration can look like this:
2724 forward .isp-b.net host-b:8118
2735 forward .isp-a.net host-a:8118
2740 Now, your users can set their browser's proxy to use either
2741 host-a or host-b and be able to browse the internal content
2742 of both isp-a and isp-b.
2746 If you intend to chain <application>Privoxy</application> and
2747 <application>squid</application> locally, then chain as
2748 <literal>browser -> squid -> privoxy</literal> is the recommended way.
2752 Assuming that <application>Privoxy</application> and <application>squid</application>
2753 run on the same box, your squid configuration could then look like this:
2758 # Define Privoxy as parent proxy (without ICP)
2759 cache_peer 127.0.0.1 parent 8118 7 no-query
2761 # Define ACL for protocol FTP
2764 # Do not forward FTP requests to Privoxy
2765 always_direct allow ftp
2767 # Forward all the rest to Privoxy
2768 never_direct allow all</screen>
2772 You would then need to change your browser's proxy settings to <application>squid</application>'s address and port.
2773 Squid normally uses port 3128. If unsure consult <literal>http_port</literal> in <filename>squid.conf</filename>.
2780 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2783 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2785 <sect2 id="windows-gui">
2786 <title>Windows GUI Options</title>
2788 <application>Privoxy</application> has a number of options specific to the
2789 Windows GUI interface:
2792 <anchor id="activity-animation">
2794 If <quote>activity-animation</quote> is set to 1, the
2795 <application>Privoxy</application> icon will animate when
2796 <quote>Privoxy</quote> is active. To turn off, set to 0.
2803 <emphasis>activity-animation 1</emphasis>
2809 <anchor id="log-messages">
2811 If <quote>log-messages</quote> is set to 1,
2812 <application>Privoxy</application> will log messages to the console
2820 <emphasis>log-messages 1</emphasis>
2826 <anchor id="log-buffer-size">
2828 If <quote>log-buffer-size</quote> is set to 1, the size of the log buffer,
2829 i.e. the amount of memory used for the log messages displayed in the
2830 console window, will be limited to <quote>log-max-lines</quote> (see below).
2834 Warning: Setting this to 0 will result in the buffer to grow infinitely and
2835 eat up all your memory!
2842 <emphasis>log-buffer-size 1</emphasis>
2848 <anchor id="log-max-lines">
2850 <application>log-max-lines</application> is the maximum number of lines held
2851 in the log buffer. See above.
2858 <emphasis>log-max-lines 200</emphasis>
2864 <anchor id="log-highlight-messages">
2866 If <quote>log-highlight-messages</quote> is set to 1,
2867 <application>Privoxy</application> will highlight portions of the log
2868 messages with a bold-faced font:
2875 <emphasis>log-highlight-messages 1</emphasis>
2881 <anchor id="log-font-name">
2883 The font used in the console window:
2890 <emphasis>log-font-name Comic Sans MS</emphasis>
2896 <anchor id="log-font-size">
2898 Font size used in the console window:
2905 <emphasis>log-font-size 8</emphasis>
2911 <anchor id="show-on-task-bar">
2913 <quote>show-on-task-bar</quote> controls whether or not
2914 <application>Privoxy</application> will appear as a button on the Task bar
2922 <emphasis>show-on-task-bar 0</emphasis>
2928 <anchor id="close-button-minimizes">
2930 If <quote>close-button-minimizes</quote> is set to 1, the Windows close
2931 button will minimize <application>Privoxy</application> instead of closing
2932 the program (close with the exit option on the File menu).
2939 <emphasis>close-button-minimizes 1</emphasis>
2945 <anchor id="hide-console">
2947 The <quote>hide-console</quote> option is specific to the MS-Win console
2948 version of <application>Privoxy</application>. If this option is used,
2949 <application>Privoxy</application> will disconnect from and hide the
2957 #<emphasis>hide-console</emphasis>
2966 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2970 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
2972 <sect1 id="actions-file"><title>Actions Files</title>
2975 The actions files are used to define what actions
2976 <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which URLs, and thus determine
2977 how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
2978 transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof). There
2979 are three such files included with <application>Privoxy</application> (as of
2980 version 2.9.15), with differing purposes:
2987 <filename>default.action</filename> - is the primary action file
2988 that sets the initial values for all actions. It is intended to
2989 provide a base level of functionality for
2990 <application>Privoxy's</application> array of features. So it is
2991 a set of broad rules that should work reasonably well for users everywhere.
2992 This is the file that the developers are keeping updated, and making
2998 <filename>user.action</filename> - is intended to be for local site
2999 preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank
3000 has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
3001 thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded.
3006 <filename>standard.action</filename> - is used by the web based editor,
3007 to set various pre-defined sets of rules for the default actions section
3008 in <filename>default.action</filename>. These have increasing levels of
3009 aggressiveness <emphasis>and have no influence on your browsing unless
3010 you select them explicitly in the editor</emphasis>. It is not recommend
3018 The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
3019 file, and are processed in the order they are defined. The content of these
3020 can all be viewed and edited from <ulink
3021 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
3025 An actions file typically has multiple sections. If you want to use
3026 <quote>aliases</quote> in an actions file, you have to place the (optional)
3027 <link linkend="aliases">alias section</link> at the top of that file.
3028 Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all
3029 sites and pages (be <emphasis>very careful</emphasis> with using such a
3030 universal set in <filename>user.action</filename> or any other actions file after
3031 <filename>default.action</filename>, because it will override the result
3032 from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
3033 exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
3034 <filename>user.action</filename> as an appendix to <filename>default.action</filename>,
3035 with the advantage that is a separate file, which makes preserving your
3036 personal settings across <application>Privoxy</application> upgrades easier.
3040 Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
3041 just some obnoxious URL that you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
3042 or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
3043 written to disk), content can be modified, JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking
3044 fooled, and much more. See below for a <link linkend="actions">complete list
3048 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3050 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
3052 Note that some <link linkend="actions">actions</link>, like cookie suppression
3053 or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these
3054 techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and
3055 certainly a matter of personal taste. In general, it can be said that the more
3056 <quote>aggressive</quote> your default settings (in the top section of the
3057 actions file) are, the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you
3058 will have to make later. If, for example, you want to kill popup windows per
3059 default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you
3060 regularly use and that require popups for actually useful content, like maybe
3061 your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
3065 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
3066 distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
3067 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
3068 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :).
3072 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3074 <title>How to Edit</title>
3076 The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by
3077 using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from <ulink
3078 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
3079 The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single feature on a
3080 per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults like
3081 <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> or <quote>Advanced</quote>.
3085 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
3086 the actions files. Look at <filename>default.action</filename> which is richly
3092 <sect2 id="actions-apply">
3093 <title>How Actions are Applied to URLs</title>
3095 Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections,
3096 like the <quote><link linkend="aliases">alias</link></quote> sections which will be discussed later. For now
3097 let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a heading line (often split
3098 up to multiple lines for readability) which consist of a list of actions,
3099 separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces. Below that, there
3100 is a list of URL patterns, each on a separate line.
3104 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
3105 compared to all patterns in each action file file. Every time it matches, the list of
3106 applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated, using the heading
3107 of the section in which the pattern is located. If multiple matches for
3108 the same URL set the same action differently, the last match wins. If not,
3109 the effects are aggregated (e.g. a URL might match both the
3110 <ulink url="actions-file.html#HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></ulink>
3111 and <ulink url="actions-file.html#BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></ulink> actions).
3116 You can trace this process for any given URL by visiting <ulink
3117 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
3121 More detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
3122 Anatomy of an Action</link>.
3126 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3127 <sect2 id="af-patterns">
3128 <title>Patterns</title>
3130 Generally, a pattern has the form <literal><domain>/<path></literal>,
3131 where both the <literal><domain></literal> and <literal><path></literal>
3132 are optional. (This is why the pattern <literal>/</literal> matches all URLs).
3137 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
3140 is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
3141 regardless of which document on that server is requested.
3146 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
3149 means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
3155 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
3158 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
3159 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
3164 <term><literal>/index.html</literal></term>
3167 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
3168 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server.
3173 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
3176 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
3177 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>.
3184 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3185 <sect3><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
3188 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
3189 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
3195 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
3198 matches any domain that <emphasis>ENDS</emphasis> in
3199 <literal>.example.com</literal>
3204 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
3207 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
3208 <literal>www.</literal>
3213 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
3216 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>
3217 (Correctly speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as a domain.)
3224 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
3225 themselves. They work pretty similar to shell wild-cards: <quote>*</quote>
3226 stands for zero or more arbitrary characters, <quote>?</quote> stands for
3227 any single character, you can define character classes in square
3228 brackets and all of that can be freely mixed:
3233 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
3236 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
3237 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
3242 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
3245 matches all of the above, and then some.
3250 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
3253 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
3254 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
3259 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
3262 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
3263 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
3264 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
3265 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
3273 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3276 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3277 <sect3><title>The Path Pattern</title>
3280 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl compatible regular expressions
3281 (through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> library) for
3286 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
3287 expressions, and full (very technical) documentation on PCRE regex syntax is available on-line
3288 at <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/man.txt">http://www.pcre.org/man.txt</ulink>.
3289 You might also find the Perl man page on regular expressions (<literal>man perlre</literal>)
3290 useful, which is available on-line at <ulink
3291 url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>.
3295 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
3296 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote> (regular expression speak
3297 for the beginning of a line).
3301 Please also note that matching in the path is case
3302 <emphasis>INSENSITIVE</emphasis> by default, but you can switch to case
3303 sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
3304 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch:
3305 <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match only
3306 documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
3307 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
3313 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
3316 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3318 <sect2 id="actions">
3319 <title>Actions</title>
3321 All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
3322 somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
3323 <quote>+</quote>, and turned off if preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. So a
3324 <literal>+action</literal> means <quote>do that action</quote>, e.g.
3325 <literal>+block</literal> means <quote>please block URLs that match the
3326 following patterns</quote>, and <literal>-block</literal> means <quote>don't
3327 block URLs that match the following patterns, even if <literal>+block</literal>
3328 previously applied.</quote>
3333 Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
3334 separated by whitespace, like in
3335 <literal>{+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}}</literal>,
3336 followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
3337 Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
3338 of the actions file.
3342 There are three classes of actions:
3349 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>enabled</quote> or
3350 <quote>disabled</quote>. Syntax:
3354 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # enable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>
3355 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable></screen>
3358 Example: <literal>+block</literal>
3365 Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
3370 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and set parameter to <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>,
3371 # overwriting parameter from previous match if necessary
3372 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action. The parameter can be omitted</screen>
3375 Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action,
3376 the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
3379 Example: <literal>+hide-user-agent{ Mozilla 1.0 }</literal>
3385 Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions,
3386 but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the
3387 same URL, but with different parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> the parameters
3388 from <emphasis>all</emphasis> matches are remembered. This is used for actions
3389 that can be executed for the same request repeatedly, like adding multiple
3390 headers, or filtering through multiple filters. Syntax:
3394 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and add <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> to the list of parameters
3395 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # remove the parameter <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> from the list of parameters
3396 # If it was the last one left, disable the action.
3397 <replaceable class="parameter">-name</replaceable> # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list</screen>
3400 Examples: <literal>+add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text}</literal> and
3401 <literal>+filter{html-annoyances}</literal>
3409 If nothing is specified in any actions file, no <quote>actions</quote> are
3410 taken. So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
3411 normal, non-blocking, non-anonymizing proxy. You must specifically enable the
3412 privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions
3413 files will give a good starting point).
3417 Later defined actions always over-ride earlier ones. So exceptions
3418 to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
3419 in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files). For
3420 multi-valued actions, the actions are applied in the order they are specified.
3421 Actions files are processed in the order they are defined in
3422 <filename>config</filename> (the default installation has three actions
3423 files). It also quite possible for any given URL pattern to match more than
3424 one pattern and thus more than one set of actions!
3427 <!-- start actions listing -->
3429 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> actions are:
3433 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
3434 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
3435 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
3437 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
3440 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3442 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="add-header">
3443 <title><emphasis>add-header</emphasis></title>
3447 <term>Typical use:</term>
3449 <para>Confuse log analysis, custom applications</para>
3454 <term>Effect:</term>
3457 Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
3464 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3466 <para>Multi-value.</para>
3471 <term>Parameter:</term>
3474 Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
3475 It is recommended that you use the <quote><literal>X-</literal></quote> prefix
3485 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
3486 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
3487 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
3494 <term>Example usage:</term>
3497 <screen>+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}</screen>
3505 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3506 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="block">
3507 <title><emphasis>block</emphasis></title>
3511 <term>Typical use:</term>
3513 <para>Block ads or other obnoxious content</para>
3518 <term>Effect:</term>
3521 Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the requests are not
3522 forwarded to the remote server, but answered locally with a substitute page or image,
3523 as determined by the <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>
3524 and <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> actions.
3531 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3533 <para>Boolean.</para>
3538 <term>Parameter:</term>
3548 <application>Privoxy</application> sends a special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page
3549 for requests to blocked pages. This page contains links to find out why the request
3550 was blocked, and a click-through to the blocked content (the latter only if compiled with the
3551 force feature enabled). The <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page adapts to the available
3552 screen space -- it displays full-blown if space allows, or miniaturized and text-only
3553 if loaded into a small frame or window. If you are using <application>Privoxy</application>
3554 right now, you can take a look at the
3555 <ulink url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
3559 A very important exception occurs if <emphasis>both</emphasis>
3560 <literal>block</literal> and <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
3561 apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If
3562 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
3563 (see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter,
3564 if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent.
3567 It is important to understand this process, in order
3568 to understand how <application>Privoxy</application> deals with
3569 ads and other unwanted content.
3572 The <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
3573 action can perform a very similar task, by <quote>blocking</quote>
3574 banner images and other content through rewriting the relevant URLs in the
3575 document's HTML source, so they don't get requested in the first place.
3576 Note that this is a totally different technique, and it's easy to confuse the two.
3582 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3585 <screen>{+block} # Block and replace with "blocked" page
3586 .nasty-stuff.example.com
3588 {+block +handle-as-image} # Block and replace with image
3599 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3600 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-incoming-cookies">
3601 <title><emphasis>crunch-incoming-cookies</emphasis></title>
3605 <term>Typical use:</term>
3608 Prevent the web server from setting any cookies on your system
3614 <term>Effect:</term>
3617 Deletes any <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from server replies.
3624 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3626 <para>Boolean.</para>
3631 <term>Parameter:</term>
3643 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> cookies. For
3644 <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> cookies, use
3645 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>.
3646 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable cookies completely.
3649 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3650 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3651 since it would prevent the session cookies from being set.
3657 <term>Example usage:</term>
3660 <screen>+crunch-incoming-cookies</screen>
3668 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3669 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-outgoing-cookies">
3670 <title><emphasis>crunch-outgoing-cookies</emphasis></title>
3674 <term>Typical use:</term>
3677 Prevent the web server from reading any cookies from your system
3683 <term>Effect:</term>
3686 Deletes any <quote>Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from client requests.
3693 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3695 <para>Boolean.</para>
3700 <term>Parameter:</term>
3712 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> cookies. For
3713 <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> cookies, use
3714 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>.
3715 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable cookies completely.
3718 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3719 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3720 since it would prevent the session cookies from being read.
3726 <term>Example usage:</term>
3729 <screen>+crunch-outgoing-cookies</screen>
3738 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3739 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="deanimate-gifs">
3740 <title><emphasis>deanimate-gifs</emphasis></title>
3744 <term>Typical use:</term>
3746 <para>Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.</para>
3751 <term>Effect:</term>
3754 De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image.
3761 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3763 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3768 <term>Parameter:</term>
3771 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
3780 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
3781 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
3782 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
3783 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
3784 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
3785 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
3788 You can safely use this action with patterns that will also match non-GIF
3789 objects, because no attempt will be made at anything that doesn't look like
3796 <term>Example usage:</term>
3799 <screen>+deanimate-gifs{last}</screen>
3806 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3807 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="downgrade-http-version">
3808 <title><emphasis>downgrade-http-version</emphasis></title>
3812 <term>Typical use:</term>
3814 <para>Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1</para>
3819 <term>Effect:</term>
3822 Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0.
3829 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3831 <para>Boolean.</para>
3836 <term>Parameter:</term>
3848 This is a left-over from the time when <application>Privoxy</application>
3849 didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
3850 unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server
3851 out there. Not all (optional) HTTP/1.1 features are supported yet, so there
3852 is a chance you might need this action.
3858 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3861 <screen>{+downgrade-http-version}
3862 problem-host.example.com</screen>
3870 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3871 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="fast-redirects">
3872 <title><emphasis>fast-redirects</emphasis></title>
3876 <term>Typical use:</term>
3878 <para>Fool some click-tracking scripts and speed up indirect links</para>
3883 <term>Effect:</term>
3886 Cut off all but the last valid URL from requests.
3893 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3895 <para>Boolean.</para>
3900 <term>Parameter:</term>
3912 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
3913 will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a
3914 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
3915 resulting from this scheme typically look like:
3916 <emphasis>http://some.place/click-tracker.cgi?target=http://some.where.else</emphasis>.
3919 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
3920 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
3921 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go
3922 to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your
3923 browser ask the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds
3927 This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement.
3928 It is likely to break some sites. You should expect to need possibly
3929 many exceptions to this action, if it is enabled by default in
3930 <filename>default.action</filename>. Some sites just don't work without
3937 <term>Example usage:</term>
3940 <screen>{+fast-redirects}</screen>
3949 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3950 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter">
3951 <title><emphasis>filter</emphasis></title>
3955 <term>Typical use:</term>
3957 <para>Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size), do fun text replacements, etc.</para>
3962 <term>Effect:</term>
3965 Text documents, including HTML and JavaScript, to which this action applies, are filtered on-the-fly
3966 through the specified regular expression based substitutions.
3973 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3975 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3980 <term>Parameter:</term>
3983 The name of a filter, as defined in the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>
3984 (typically <filename>default.filter</filename>, set by the
3985 <literal><link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal>
3986 option in the <link linkend="config">config file</link>)
3995 For your convenience, there are a bunch of pre-defined filters available
3996 in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the example below for
4000 This is potentially a very powerful feature! But <quote>rolling your own</quote>
4001 filters requires a knowledge of regular expressions and HTML.
4004 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
4005 slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
4006 passed the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way
4007 since the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more
4008 noticeable on slower connections.
4011 At this time, <application>Privoxy</application> cannot (yet!) uncompress compressed
4012 documents. If you want filtering to work on all documents, even those that
4013 would normally be sent compressed, use the
4014 <literal><link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link></literal>
4015 action in conjunction with <literal>filter</literal>.
4018 Filtering can achieve some of the effects as the
4019 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
4020 action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners.
4023 <link linkend="contact">Feedback</link> with suggestions for new or improved filters is particularly
4030 <term>Example usage (with filters from the distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file):</term>
4033 <anchor id="filter-html-annoyances">
4034 <screen>+filter{html-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse.</screen>
4037 <anchor id="filter-js-annoyances">
4038 <screen>+filter{js-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse</screen>
4041 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-size">
4042 <screen>+filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners by size (<emphasis>very</emphasis> efficient!)</screen>
4045 <anchor id="filter-content-cookies">
4046 <screen>+filter{content-cookies} # Kill cookies that come sneaking in the HTML or JS content</screen>
4049 <anchor id="filter-popups">
4050 <screen>+filter{popups} # Kill all popups in JS and HTML</screen>
4053 <anchor id="filter-webbugs">
4054 <screen>+filter{webbugs} # Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)</screen>
4057 <anchor id="filter-fun">
4058 <screen>+filter{fun} # Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!</screen>
4061 <anchor id="filter-frameset-borders">
4062 <screen>+filter{frameset-borders} # Give frames a border and make them resizeable</screen>
4065 <anchor id="filter-refresh-tags">
4066 <screen>+filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups)</screen>
4069 <anchor id="filter-nimda">
4070 <screen>+filter{nimda} # Remove Nimda (virus) code.</screen>
4073 <anchor id="filter-shockwave-flash">
4074 <screen>+filter{shockwave-flash} # Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects</screen>
4077 <anchor id="filter-crude-parental">
4078 <screen>+filter{crude-parental} # Kill all web pages that contain the words "sex" or "warez"</screen>
4086 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4087 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-image">
4088 <title><emphasis>handle-as-image</emphasis></title>
4092 <term>Typical use:</term>
4094 <para>Mark URLs as belonging to images (so they'll be replaced by images <emphasis>if they get blocked</emphasis>)</para>
4099 <term>Effect:</term>
4102 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs as images.
4103 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
4104 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>blocked</quote>
4105 page, or a replacement image (as determined by the <literal><link
4106 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> action) will be sent to the
4107 client as a substitute for the blocked content.
4114 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4116 <para>Boolean.</para>
4121 <term>Parameter:</term>
4133 The below generic example section is actually part of <filename>default.action</filename>.
4134 It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should
4138 Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with
4139 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>, to block sources of banners, whose URLs don't
4140 reflect the file type, like in the second example section.
4143 Note that you cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, (inline) ad
4144 frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they won't display properly.
4145 Forcing <literal>handle-as-image</literal> in this situation will not replace the
4146 ad frame with an image, but lead to error messages.
4152 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
4155 <screen># Generic image extensions:
4158 /.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)$
4160 # These don't look like images, but they're banners and should be
4161 # blocked as images:
4163 {+block +handle-as-image}
4164 some.nasty-banner-server.com/junk.cgi?output=trash
4166 # Banner source! Who cares if they also have non-image content?
4176 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4177 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-forwarded-for-headers">
4178 <title><emphasis>hide-forwarded-for-headers</emphasis></title>
4182 <term>Typical use:</term>
4184 <para>Improve privacy by hiding the true source of the request</para>
4189 <term>Effect:</term>
4192 Deletes any existing <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> HTTP header from client requests,
4193 and prevents adding a new one.
4200 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4202 <para>Boolean.</para>
4207 <term>Parameter:</term>
4219 It is fairly safe to leave this on.
4222 This action is scheduled for improvement: It should be able to generate forged
4223 <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> headers using random IP addresses from a specified network,
4224 to make successive requests from the same client look like requests from a pool of different
4225 users sharing the same proxy.
4231 <term>Example usage:</term>
4234 <screen>+hide-forwarded-for-headers</screen>
4242 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4243 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-from-header">
4244 <title><emphasis>hide-from-header</emphasis></title>
4248 <term>Typical use:</term>
4250 <para>Keep your (old and ill) browser from telling web servers your email address</para>
4255 <term>Effect:</term>
4258 Deletes any existing <quote>From:</quote> HTTP header, or replaces it with the
4266 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4268 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4273 <term>Parameter:</term>
4276 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4285 The keyword <quote>block</quote> will completely remove the header
4286 (not to be confused with the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
4290 Alternately, you can specify any value you prefer to be sent to the web
4291 server. If you do, it is a matter of fairness not to use any address that
4292 is actually used by a real person.
4295 This action is rarely needed, as modern web browsers don't send
4296 <quote>From:</quote> headers anymore.
4302 <term>Example usage:</term>
4305 <screen>+hide-from-header{block}</screen> or
4306 <screen>+hide-from-header{spam-me-senseless@sittingduck.example.com}</screen>
4314 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4315 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-referrer">
4316 <title><emphasis>hide-referrer</emphasis></title>
4317 <anchor id="hide-referer">
4320 <term>Typical use:</term>
4322 <para>Conceal which link you followed to get to a particular site</para>
4327 <term>Effect:</term>
4330 Deletes the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) HTTP header from the client request,
4331 or replaces it with a forged one.
4338 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4340 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4345 <term>Parameter:</term>
4349 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header completely.</para>
4352 <para><quote>forge</quote> to pretend to be coming from the homepage of the server we are talking to.</para>
4355 <para>Any other string to set a user defined referrer.</para>
4365 <quote>forge</quote> is the preferred option here, since some servers will
4366 not send images back otherwise, in an attempt to prevent their valuable
4367 content from being embedded elsewhere (and hence, without being surrounded
4368 by <emphasis>their</emphasis> banners).
4371 <literal>hide-referer</literal> is an alternate spelling of
4372 <literal>hide-referrer</literal> and the two can be can be freely
4373 substituted with each other. (<quote>referrer</quote> is the
4374 correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
4375 requires it to be spelled as <quote>referer</quote>.)
4381 <term>Example usage:</term>
4384 <screen>+hide-referrer{forge}</screen> or
4385 <screen>+hide-referrer{http://www.yahoo.com/}</screen>
4393 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4394 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-user-agent">
4395 <title><emphasis>hide-user-agent</emphasis></title>
4399 <term>Typical use:</term>
4401 <para>Conceal your type of browser and client operating system</para>
4406 <term>Effect:</term>
4409 Replaces the value of the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> HTTP header
4410 in client requests with the specified value.
4417 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4419 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4424 <term>Parameter:</term>
4427 Any user-defined string.
4437 This breaks many web sites that depend on looking at this header in order
4438 to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the
4439 way, is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> a <ulink
4440 url="http://www.javascriptkit.com/javaindex.shtml">smart way to do
4445 Using this action in multi-user setups or wherever different types of
4446 browsers will access the same <application>Privoxy</application> is
4447 <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>. In single-user, single-browser
4448 setups, you might use it to delete your OS version information from
4449 the headers, because it is an invitation to exploit known bugs for your
4450 OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
4451 sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
4452 reason in some cases). Example of this: some MSN sites will not
4453 let <application>Mozilla</application> enter, yet forging to a
4454 <application>Netscape 6.1</application> user-agent works just fine.
4455 (Must be just a silly MS goof, I'm sure :-).
4458 This action is scheduled for improvement.
4464 <term>Example usage:</term>
4467 <screen>+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}</screen>
4475 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4476 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="kill-popups">
4477 <title><emphasis>kill-popups<anchor id="kill-popup"></emphasis></title>
4481 <term>Typical use:</term>
4483 <para>Eliminate those annoying pop-up windows</para>
4488 <term>Effect:</term>
4491 While loading the document, replace JavaScript code that opens
4492 pop-up windows with (syntactically neutral) dummy code on the fly.
4499 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4501 <para>Boolean.</para>
4506 <term>Parameter:</term>
4518 This action is easily confused with the built-in, hardwired <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
4519 action, but there are important differences: For <literal>kill-popups</literal>,
4520 the document need not be buffered, so it can be incrementally rendered while
4521 downloading. But <literal>kill-popups</literal> doesn't catch as many pop-ups as
4523 linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>popups</replaceable>}</literal>
4527 Think of it as a fast and efficient replacement for a filter that you
4528 can use if you don't want any filtering at all. Note that it doesn't make
4529 sense to combine it with any <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> action,
4530 since as soon as one <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> applies,
4531 the whole document needs to be buffered anyway, which destroys the advantage of
4532 the <literal>kill-popups</literal> action over its filter equivalent.
4535 Killing all pop-ups is a dangerous business. Many shops and banks rely on
4536 pop-ups to display forms, shopping carts etc, and killing only the unwanted pop-ups
4537 would require artificial intelligence in <application>Privoxy</application>.
4538 If the only kind of pop-ups that you want to kill are exit consoles (those
4539 <emphasis>really nasty</emphasis> windows that appear when you close an other
4540 one), you might want to use
4542 linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>js-annoyances</replaceable>}</literal>
4548 An alternate spelling is <literal>+kill-popup</literal>, which is
4556 <term>Example usage:</term>
4558 <para><screen>+kill-popups</screen></para>
4565 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4566 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="limit-connect">
4567 <title><emphasis>limit-connect</emphasis></title>
4571 <term>Typical use:</term>
4573 <para>Prevent abuse of <application>Privoxy</application> as a TCP proxy relay</para>
4578 <term>Effect:</term>
4581 Specifies to which ports HTTP CONNECT requests are allowable.
4588 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4590 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4595 <term>Parameter:</term>
4598 A comma-separated list of ports or port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum
4599 defaulting to 0 and the maximum to 65K).
4608 By default, i.e. if no <literal>limit-connect</literal> action applies,
4609 <application>Privoxy</application> only allows HTTP CONNECT
4610 requests to port 443 (the standard, secure HTTPS port). Use
4611 <literal>limit-connect</literal> if more fine-grained control is desired
4612 for some or all destinations.
4615 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
4616 (<quote>https://</quote> URLs) through proxies. It works very simply:
4617 the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then
4618 short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote server.
4619 This can be a big security hole, since CONNECT-enabled proxies can be
4620 abused as TCP relays very easily.
4623 If you don't know what any of this means, there probably is no reason to
4624 change this one, since the default is already very restrictive.
4630 <term>Example usages:</term>
4632 <!-- I had trouble getting the spacing to look right in my browser -->
4633 <!-- I probably have the wrong font setup, bollocks. -->
4634 <!-- Apparently the emphasis tag uses a proportional font no matter what -->
4636 <screen>+limit-connect{443} # This is the default and need not be specified.
4637 +limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
4638 +limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Ports less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
4639 +limit-connect{-} # All ports are OK (gaping security hole!)</screen>
4646 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4647 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="prevent-compression">
4648 <title><emphasis>prevent-compression</emphasis></title>
4652 <term>Typical use:</term>
4655 Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be
4656 passed through <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>s
4662 <term>Effect:</term>
4665 Adds a header to the request that asks for uncompressed transfer.
4672 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4674 <para>Boolean.</para>
4679 <term>Parameter:</term>
4691 More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which
4692 is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But for the <literal><link
4693 linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>, <literal><link linkend="deanimate-gifs">deanimate-gifs</link></literal>
4694 and <literal><link linkend="kill-popups">kill-popups</link></literal> actions to work,
4695 <application>Privoxy</application> needs access to the uncompressed data.
4696 Unfortunately, <application>Privoxy</application> can't yet(!) uncompress, filter, and
4697 re-compress the content on the fly. So if you want to ensure that all websites, including
4698 those that normally compress, can be filtered, you need to use this action.
4701 This will slow down transfers from those websites, though. If you use any of the above-mentioned
4702 actions, you will typically want to use <literal>prevent-compression</literal> in conjunction
4706 Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed
4707 documents correctly (they send an empty document body). If you use <literal>prevent-compression</literal>
4708 per default, you'll have to add exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
4714 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
4717 <screen># Set default:
4719 {+prevent-compression}
4722 # Make exceptions for ill sites:
4724 {-prevent-compression}
4726 www.pclinuxonline.com</screen>
4735 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4736 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-vanilla-wafer">
4737 <title><emphasis>send-vanilla-wafer</emphasis></title>
4741 <term>Typical use:</term>
4744 Feed log analysis scripts with useless data.
4750 <term>Effect:</term>
4753 Sends a cookie with each request stating that you do not accept any copyright
4754 on cookies sent to you, and asking the site operator not to track you.
4761 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4763 <para>Boolean.</para>
4768 <term>Parameter:</term>
4780 The vanilla wafer is a (relatively) unique header and could conceivably be used to track you.
4783 This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
4789 <term>Example usage:</term>
4792 <screen>+send-vanilla-wafer</screen>
4801 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4802 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-wafer">
4803 <title><emphasis>send-wafer</emphasis></title>
4807 <term>Typical use:</term>
4810 Send custom cookies or feed log analysis scripts with even more useless data.
4816 <term>Effect:</term>
4819 Sends a custom, user-defined cookie with each request.
4826 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4828 <para>Multi-value.</para>
4833 <term>Parameter:</term>
4836 A string of the form <quote><replaceable class="option">name</replaceable>=<replaceable
4837 class="parameter">value</replaceable></quote>.
4846 Being multi-valued, multiple instances of this action can apply to the same request,
4847 resulting in multiple cookies being sent.
4850 This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
4855 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4858 <screen>{+send-wafer{UsingPrivoxy=true}}
4859 my-internal-testing-server.void</screen>
4867 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4868 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="session-cookies-only">
4869 <title><emphasis>session-cookies-only</emphasis></title>
4873 <term>Typical use:</term>
4876 Allow only temporary <quote>session</quote> cookies (for the current browser session <emphasis>only</emphasis>).
4882 <term>Effect:</term>
4885 Deletes the <quote>expires</quote> field from <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> server headers.
4886 Most browsers will not store such cookies permanently and forget them in between sessions.
4893 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4895 <para>Boolean.</para>
4900 <term>Parameter:</term>
4912 This is less strict than <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> /
4913 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal> and allows you to browse
4914 websites that insist or rely on setting cookies, without compromising your privacy too badly.
4917 Most browsers will not permanently store cookies that have been processed by
4918 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal> and will forget about them between sessions.
4919 This makes profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
4920 that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
4921 sites, and is the recommended setting.
4924 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>
4925 together with <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> or
4926 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>. If you do, cookies
4927 will be plainly killed.
4930 Note that it is up to the browser how it handles such cookies without an <quote>expires</quote>
4931 field. If you use an exotic browser, you might want to try it out to be sure.
4937 <term>Example usage:</term>
4940 <screen>+session-cookies-only</screen>
4948 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4949 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="set-image-blocker">
4950 <title><emphasis>set-image-blocker</emphasis></title>
4954 <term>Typical use:</term>
4956 <para>Choose the replacement for blocked images</para>
4961 <term>Effect:</term>
4964 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. If <emphasis>both</emphasis>
4965 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><link
4966 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> <emphasis>also</emphasis>
4967 apply, i.e. if the request is to be blocked as an image,
4968 <emphasis>then</emphasis> the parameter of this action decides what will be
4969 sent as a replacement.
4976 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4978 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4983 <term>Parameter:</term>
4988 <quote>pattern</quote> to send a built-in checkerboard pattern image. The image is visually
4989 decent, scales very well, and makes it obvious where banners were busted.
4994 <quote>blank</quote> to send a built-in transparent image. This makes banners disappear
4995 completely, but makes it hard to detect where <application>Privoxy</application> has blocked
4996 images on a given page and complicates troubleshooting if <application>Privoxy</application>
4997 has blocked innocent images, like navigation icons.
5002 <quote><replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable></quote> to
5003 send a redirect to <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>. You can redirect
5004 to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem (via <quote>file:///</quote> URL).
5007 A good application of redirects is to use special <application>Privoxy</application>-built-in
5008 URLs, which send the built-in images, as <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>.
5009 This has the same visual effect as specifying <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote> in
5010 the first place, but enables your browser to cache the replacement image, instead of requesting
5011 it over and over again.
5022 The URLs for the built-in images are <quote>http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=<replaceable
5023 class="parameter">type</replaceable></quote>, where <replaceable class="parameter">type</replaceable> is
5024 either <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote>.
5027 There is a third (advanced) type, called <quote>auto</quote>. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> to be
5028 used in <literal>set-image-blocker</literal>, but meant for use from <link linkend="filter-file">filters</link>.
5029 Auto will select the type of image that would have applied to the referring page, had it been an image.
5035 <term>Example usage:</term>
5041 <screen>+set-image-blocker{pattern}</screen>
5044 Redirect to the BSD devil:
5047 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://www.freebsd.org/gifs/dae_up3.gif}</screen>
5050 Redirect to the built-in pattern for better caching:
5053 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=pattern}</screen>
5061 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5063 <title>Summary</title>
5065 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
5066 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
5067 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
5068 content, and other criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard
5069 and fast rules for all sites. See the <link
5070 linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link> for a brief example on troubleshooting
5076 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5077 <sect2 id="aliases">
5078 <title>Aliases</title>
5080 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
5081 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other actions.
5082 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in actions.
5083 Currently, an alias name can contain any character except space, tab,
5085 <quote>{</quote> and <quote>}</quote>, but we <emphasis>strongly
5086 recommend</emphasis> that you only use <quote>a</quote> to <quote>z</quote>,
5087 <quote>0</quote> to <quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and <quote>-</quote>.
5088 Alias names are not case sensitive, and are not required to start with a
5089 <quote>+</quote> or <quote>-</quote> sign, since they are merely textually
5093 Aliases can be used throughout the actions file, but they <emphasis>must be
5094 defined in a special section at the top of the file!</emphasis>
5095 And there can only be one such section per actions file. Each actions file may
5096 have its own alias section, and the aliases defined in it are only visible
5100 There are two main reasons to use aliases: One is to save typing for frequently
5101 used combinations of actions, the other one is a gain in flexibility: If you
5102 decide once how you want to handle shops by defining an alias called
5103 <quote>shop</quote>, you can later change your policy on shops in
5104 <emphasis>one</emphasis> place, and your changes will take effect everywhere
5105 in the actions file where the <quote>shop</quote> alias is used. Calling aliases
5106 by their purpose also makes your actions files more readable.
5109 Currently, there is one big drawback to using aliases, though:
5110 <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in web-based action file
5111 editor honors aliases when reading the actions files, but it expands
5112 them before writing. So the effects of your aliases are of course preserved,
5113 but the aliases themselves are lost when you edit sections that use aliases
5115 This is likely to change in future versions of <application>Privoxy</application>.
5119 Now let's define some aliases...
5124 # Useful custom aliases we can use later.
5126 # Note the (required!) section header line and that this section
5127 # must be at the top of the actions file!
5131 # These aliases just save typing later:
5132 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
5134 +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
5135 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
5136 block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
5137 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
5139 # These aliases define combinations of actions
5140 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
5142 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -kill-popups
5143 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -filter{popups} -kill-popups
5145 # Short names for other aliases, for really lazy people ;-)
5147 c0 = +crunch-all-cookies
5148 c1 = -crunch-all-cookies</screen>
5152 ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
5153 actions file and define exceptions to the default actions (as specified further
5154 up for the <quote>/</quote> pattern):
5159 # These sites are either very complex or very keen on
5160 # user data and require minimal interference to work:
5163 .office.microsoft.com
5164 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
5168 # Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data)
5172 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
5175 # These shops require pop-ups:
5177 {shop -kill-popups -filter{popups}}
5179 .overclockers.co.uk</screen>
5183 Aliases like <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> are often used for
5184 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require some actions to be disabled
5185 in order to function properly.
5189 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5190 <sect2 id="act-examples">
5191 <title>Actions Files Tutorial</title>
5193 The above chapters have shown <link linkend="actions-file">which actions files
5194 there are and how they are organized</link>, how actions are <link
5195 linkend="actions">specified</link> and <link linkend="actions-apply">applied
5196 to URLs</link>, how <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> work, and how to
5197 define and use <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link>. Now, let's look at an
5198 example <filename>default.action</filename> and <filename>user.action</filename>
5199 file and see how all these pieces come together:
5202 <sect3><title>default.action</title>
5205 Every config file should start with a short comment stating its purpose:
5209 <screen># Sample default.action file <developers@privoxy.org></screen>
5213 Then, since this is the <filename>default.action</filename> file, the
5214 first section is a special section for internal use that you needn't
5215 change or worry about:
5220 ##########################################################################
5221 # Settings -- Don't change! For internal Privoxy use ONLY.
5222 ##########################################################################
5225 for-privoxy-version=3.0</screen>
5229 After that comes the (optional) alias section. We'll use the example
5230 section from the above <link linkend="aliases">chapter on aliases</link>,
5231 that also explains why and how aliases are used:
5236 ##########################################################################
5238 ##########################################################################
5241 # These aliases just save typing later:
5242 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
5244 +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
5245 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
5246 block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
5247 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
5249 # These aliases define combinations of actions
5250 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
5252 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -kill-popups
5253 shop = mercy-for-cookies -filter{popups} -kill-popups</screen>
5257 Now come the regular sections, i.e. sets of actions, accompanied
5258 by URL patterns to which they apply. Remember <emphasis>all actions
5259 are disabled when matching starts</emphasis>, so we have to explicitly
5260 enable the ones we want.
5264 The first regular section is probably the most important. It has only
5265 one pattern, <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, but this pattern
5266 <link linkend="af-patterns">matches all URLs.</link>. Therefore, the
5267 set of actions used in this <quote>default</quote> section <emphasis>will
5268 be applied to all requests as a start</emphasis>. It can be partly or
5269 wholly overridden by later matches further down this file, or in user.action,
5270 but it will still be largely responsible for your overall browsing
5275 Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is
5276 no real need to disable any actions here, but we will do that nonetheless,
5277 to have a complete listing for your reference. (Remember: A <quote>+</quote>
5278 preceding the action name enables the action, a <quote>-</quote> disables!).
5279 Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into
5280 multiple lines with line continuation.
5285 ##########################################################################
5286 # "Defaults" section:
5287 ##########################################################################
5289 -<link linkend="ADD-HEADER">add-header</link> \
5290 -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> \
5291 -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> \
5292 -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link> \
5293 +<link linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</link> \
5294 -<link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION">downgrade-http-version</link> \
5295 +<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> \
5296 +<link linkend="FILTER-HTML-ANNOYANCES">filter{html-annoyances}</link> \
5297 +<link linkend="FILTER-JS-ANNOYANCES">filter{js-annoyances}</link> \
5298 -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link> \
5299 +<link linkend="FILTER-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link> \
5300 +<link linkend="FILTER-WEBBUGS">filter{webbugs}</link> \
5301 -<link linkend="FILTER-REFRESH-TAGS">filter{refresh-tags}</link> \
5302 -<link linkend="FILTER-FUN">filter{fun}</link> \
5303 +<link linkend="FILTER-NIMDA">filter{nimda}</link> \
5304 +<link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE">filter{banners-by-size}</link> \
5305 -<link linkend="FILTER-SHOCKWAVE-FLASH">filter{shockwave-flash}</link> \
5306 -<link linkend="FILTER-CRUDE-PARENTAL">filter{crude-parental}</link> \
5307 -<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> \
5308 +<link linkend="HIDE-FORWARDED-FOR-HEADERS">hide-forwarded-for-headers</link> \
5309 +<link linkend="HIDE-FROM-HEADER">hide-from-header{block}</link> \
5310 +<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer{forge}</link> \
5311 -<link linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT">hide-user-agent</link> \
5312 -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> \
5313 -<link linkend="LIMIT-CONNECT">limit-connect</link> \
5314 +<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link> \
5315 -<link linkend="SEND-VANILLA-WAFER">send-vanilla-wafer</link> \
5316 -<link linkend="SEND-WAFER">send-wafer</link> \
5317 +<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> \
5318 +<link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER">set-image-blocker{pattern}</link> \
5320 / # forward slash will match *all* potential URL patterns.</screen>
5324 The default behavior is now set. Note that some actions, like not hiding
5325 the user agent, are part of a <quote>general policy</quote> that applies
5326 universally and won't get any exceptions defined later. Other choices,
5327 like not blocking (which is <emphasis>understandably</emphasis> the
5328 default!) need exceptions, i.e. we need to specify explicitly what we
5329 want to block in later sections.
5330 We will also want to make exceptions from our general pop-up-killing,
5331 and use our defined aliases for that.
5335 The first of our specialized sections is concerned with <quote>fragile</quote>
5336 sites, i.e. sites that require minimum interference, because they are either
5337 very complex or very keen on tracking you (and have mechanisms in place that
5338 make them unusable for people who avoid being tracked). We will simply use
5339 our pre-defined <literal>fragile</literal> alias instead of stating the list
5340 of actions explicitly:
5345 ##########################################################################
5346 # Exceptions for sites that'll break under the default action set:
5347 ##########################################################################
5349 # "Fragile" Use a minimum set of actions for these sites (see alias above):
5352 .office.microsoft.com # surprise, surprise!
5353 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com</screen>
5357 Shopping sites are not as fragile, but they typically
5358 require cookies to log in, and pop-up windows for shopping
5359 carts or item details. Again, we'll use a pre-defined alias:
5368 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
5370 .scan.co.uk</screen>
5374 Then, there are sites which rely on pop-up windows (yuck!) to work.
5375 Since we made pop-up-killing our default above, we need to make exceptions
5376 now. <ulink url="http://www.mozilla.org/">Mozilla</ulink> users, who
5377 can turn on smart handling of unwanted pop-ups in their browsers, can
5379 -<literal><link linkend="FILTER-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link></literal> (and
5380 -<literal><link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link></literal>) above
5381 and hence don't need this section. Anyway, disabling an already disabled
5382 action doesn't hurt, so we'll define our exceptions regardless of what was
5383 chosen in the defaults section:
5388 # These sites require pop-ups too :(
5390 { -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link> }
5393 .deutsche-bank-24.de</screen>
5397 The <literal><link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link></literal>
5398 action, which we enabled per default above, breaks some sites. So disable
5399 it for popular sites where we know it misbehaves:
5404 { -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> }
5408 .altavista.com/.*(like|url|link):http
5409 .altavista.com/trans.*urltext=http
5410 .nytimes.com</screen>
5414 It is important that <application>Privoxy</application> knows which
5415 URLs belong to images, so that <emphasis>if</emphasis> they are to
5416 be blocked, a substitute image can be sent, rather than an HTML page.
5417 Contacting the remote site to find out is not an option, since it
5418 would destroy the loading time advantage of banner blocking, and it
5419 would feed the advertisers (in terms of money <emphasis>and</emphasis>
5420 information). We can mark any URL as an image with the <literal><link
5421 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action,
5422 and marking all URLs that end in a known image file extension is a
5428 ##########################################################################
5430 ##########################################################################
5432 # Define which file types will be treated as images, in case they get
5433 # blocked further down this file:
5435 { +<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> }
5436 /.*\.(gif|jpe?g|png|bmp|ico)$</screen>
5440 And then there are known banner sources. They often use scripts to
5441 generate the banners, so it won't be visible from the URL that the
5442 request is for an image. Hence we block them <emphasis>and</emphasis>
5443 mark them as images in one go, with the help of our
5444 <literal>block-as-image</literal> alias defined above. (We could of
5445 course just as well use <literal>+<link linkend="block">block</link>
5446 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> here.)
5447 Remember that the type of the replacement image is chosen by the
5448 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
5449 action. Since all URLs have matched the default section with its
5450 <literal>+<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link>{pattern}</literal>
5451 action before, it still applies and needn't be repeated:
5456 # Known ad generators:
5461 .ad.*.doubleclick.net
5462 .a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
5463 .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
5470 One of the most important jobs of <application>Privoxy</application>
5471 is to block banners. A huge bunch of them are already <quote>blocked</quote>
5472 by the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{banners-by-size}</literal>
5473 action, which we enabled above, and which deletes the references to banner
5474 images from the pages while they are loaded, so the browser doesn't request
5475 them anymore, and hence they don't need to be blocked here. But this naturally
5476 doesn't catch all banners, and some people choose not to use filters, so we
5477 need a comprehensive list of patterns for banner URLs here, and apply the
5478 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action to them.
5481 First comes a bunch of generic patterns, which do most of the work, by
5482 matching typical domain and path name components of banners. Then comes
5483 a list of individual patterns for specific sites, which is omitted here
5484 to keep the example short:
5489 ##########################################################################
5490 # Block these fine banners:
5491 ##########################################################################
5492 { <link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link> }
5500 /.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?)
5501 /(?:.*/)?(publicite|werbung|rekla(ma|me|am)|annonse|maino(kset|nta|s)?)/
5503 # Site-specific patterns (abbreviated):
5505 .hitbox.com</screen>
5509 You wouldn't believe how many advertisers actually call their banner
5510 servers ads.<replaceable>company</replaceable>.com, or call the directory
5511 in which the banners are stored simply <quote>banners</quote>. So the above
5512 generic patterns are surprisingly effective.
5515 But being very generic, they necessarily also catch URLs that we don't want
5516 to block. The pattern <literal>.*ads.</literal> e.g. catches
5517 <quote>nasty-<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.nasty-corp.com</quote> as intended,
5518 but also <quote>downlo<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.sourcefroge.net</quote> or
5519 <quote><emphasis>ads</emphasis>l.some-provider.net.</quote> So here come some
5520 well-known exceptions to the <literal>+<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
5524 Note that these are exceptions to exceptions from the default! Consider the URL
5525 <quote>downloads.sourcefroge.net</quote>: Initially, all actions are deactivated,
5526 so it wouldn't get blocked. Then comes the defaults section, which matches the
5527 URL, but just deactivates the <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
5528 action once again. Then it matches <literal>.*ads.</literal>, an exception to the
5529 general non-blocking policy, and suddenly
5530 <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link></literal> applies. And now, it'll match
5531 <literal>.*loads.</literal>, where <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">-block</link></literal>
5532 applies, so (unless it matches <emphasis>again</emphasis> further down) it ends up
5533 with no <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal> action applying.
5538 ##########################################################################
5539 # Save some innocent victims of the above generic block patterns:
5540 ##########################################################################
5544 { -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
5545 adv[io]*. # (for advogato.org and advice.*)
5546 adsl. # (has nothing to do with ads)
5547 ad[ud]*. # (adult.* and add.*)
5548 .edu # (universities don't host banners (yet!))
5549 .*loads. # (downloads, uploads etc)
5557 www.globalintersec.com/adv # (adv = advanced)
5558 www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv</screen>
5562 Filtering source code can have nasty side effects,
5563 so make an exception for our friends at sourceforge.net,
5564 and all paths with <quote>cvs</quote> in them. Note that
5565 <literal>-<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link></literal>
5566 disables <emphasis>all</emphasis> filters in one fell swoop!
5571 # Don't filter code!
5573 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
5575 .sourceforge.net</screen>
5579 The actual <filename>default.action</filename> is of course more
5580 comprehensive, but we hope this example made clear how it works.
5585 <sect3><title>user.action</title>
5588 So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies,
5589 which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
5590 you'd maybe want to be more specific and have customized rules that
5591 are more suitable to your personal habits and preferences. These would
5592 be for narrowly defined situations like your ISP or your bank, and should
5593 be placed in <filename>user.action</filename>, which is parsed after all other
5594 actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding any previously
5595 defined actions. <filename>user.action</filename> is also a
5596 <emphasis>safe</emphasis> place for your personal settings, since
5597 <filename>default.action</filename> is actively maintained by the
5598 <application>Privoxy</application> developers and you'll probably want
5599 to install updated versions from time to time.
5603 So let's look at a few examples of things that one might typically do in
5604 <filename>user.action</filename>:
5608 <!-- brief sample user.action here -->
5612 # My user.action file. <fred@foobar.com></screen>
5616 As <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link> are local to the actions
5617 file that they are defined in, you can't use the ones from
5618 <filename>default.action</filename>, unless you repeat them here:
5623 # (Re-)define aliases for this file:
5626 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
5627 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
5628 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -kill-popups
5629 shop = mercy-for-cookies -filter{popups} -kill-popups
5630 allow-ads = -block -filter{banners-by-size} # (see below)</screen>
5635 Say you have accounts on some sites that you visit regularly, and
5636 you don't want to have to log in manually each time. So you'd like
5637 to allow persistent cookies for these sites. The
5638 <literal>mercy-for-cookies</literal> alias defined above does exactly
5639 that, i.e. it disables crunching of cookies in any direction, and
5640 processing of cookies to make them temporary.
5645 { mercy-for-cookies }
5650 .redhat.com</screen>
5654 Your bank needs popups and is allergic to some filter, but you don't
5655 know which, so you disable them all:
5660 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> }
5661 .your-home-banking-site.com</screen>
5665 While browsing the web with <application>Privoxy</application> you
5666 noticed some ads that sneaked through, but you were too lazy to
5667 report them through our fine and easy <link linkend="contact">feedback</link>
5668 system, so you have added them here:
5673 { +<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
5674 www.a-popular-site.com/some/unobvious/path
5675 another.popular.site.net/more/junk/here/</screen>
5679 Note that, assuming the banners in the above example have regular image
5680 extensions (most do),
5681 <literal>+<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link></literal>
5682 need not be specified, since all URLs ending in these extensions will
5683 already have been tagged as images in the relevant section of
5684 <filename>default.action</filename> by now.
5688 Then you noticed that the default configuration breaks Forbes Magazine,
5689 but you were too lazy to find out which action is the culprit, and you
5690 were again too lazy to give <link linkend="contact">feedback</link>, so
5691 you just used the <literal>fragile</literal> alias on the site, and
5692 -- whoa! -- it worked:
5698 .forbes.com</screen>
5702 You like the <quote>fun</quote> text replacements in <filename>default.filter</filename>,
5703 but it is disabled in the distributed actions file. (My colleagues on the team just
5704 don't have a sense of humour, that's why! ;-). So you'd like to turn it on in your private,
5705 update-safe config, once and for all:
5710 { +<link linkend="filter-fun">filter{fun}</link> }
5711 / # For ALL sites!</screen>
5715 Note that the above is not really a good idea: There are exceptions
5716 to the filters in <filename>default.action</filename> for things that
5717 really shouldn't be filtered, like code on CVS->Web interfaces. Since
5718 <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word, these exceptions
5719 won't be valid for the <quote>fun</quote> filtering specified here.
5723 Finally, you might think about how your favourite free websites are
5724 funded, and find that they rely on displaying banner advertisements
5725 to survive. So you might want to specifically allow banners for those
5726 sites that you feel provide value to you:
5738 Note that <literal>allow-ads</literal> has been aliased to
5739 <literal>-<link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
5740 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-size">filter{banners-by-size}</link></literal>
5746 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5750 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5752 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
5754 <sect1 id="filter-file">
5755 <title>The Filter File</title>
5758 All text substitutions that can be invoked through the
5759 <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> action
5760 must first be defined in the filter file, which is typically
5761 called <filename>default.filter</filename> and which can be
5762 selected through the <literal>
5763 <link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal> config
5768 Typical reasons for doing such substitutions are to eliminate
5769 common annoyances in HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows,
5770 exit consoles, crippled windows without navigation tools, the
5771 infamous <BLINK> tag etc, to suppress images with certain
5772 width and height attributes (standard banner sizes or web-bugs),
5773 or just to have fun. The possibilities are endless.
5777 Filtering works on any text-based document type, including plain
5778 text, HTML, JavaScript, CSS etc. (all <literal>text/*</literal>
5779 MIME types). Substitutions are made at the source level, so if
5780 you want to <quote>roll your own</quote> filters, you should be
5781 familiar with HTML syntax.
5785 Just like the <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, the
5786 filter file is organized in sections, which are called <emphasis>filters</emphasis>
5787 here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with the
5788 <emphasis>keyword</emphasis> <literal>FILTER:</literal>, followed by
5789 the filter's <emphasis>name</emphasis>, and a short (one line)
5790 <emphasis>description</emphasis> of what it does. Below that line
5791 come the <emphasis>jobs</emphasis>, i.e. lines that define the actual
5792 text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter
5793 should describe what the filter <emphasis>eliminates</emphasis>. The
5794 comment is used in the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
5795 user interface</ulink>.
5799 Once a filter called <replaceable>name</replaceable> has been defined
5800 in the filter file, it can be invoked by using an action of the form
5801 +<literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>name</replaceable>}</literal>
5802 in any <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>.
5806 A filter header line for a filter called <quote>foo</quote> could look
5811 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"</screen>
5815 Below that line, and up to the next header line, come the jobs that
5816 define what text replacements the filter executes. They are specified
5817 in a syntax that imitates <ulink url="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</ulink>'s
5818 <literal>s///</literal> operator. If you are familiar with Perl, you
5819 will find this to be quite intuitive, and may want to look at the
5820 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/pcrs.1.html">PCRS man page</ulink>
5821 for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour. Most notably, the non-standard
5822 option letter <literal>U</literal> is supported, which turns the default
5823 to ungreedy matching.
5827 If you are new to regular expressions, you might want to take a look at
5828 the <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>, and
5829 see the <ulink url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perl.html">Perl
5831 <ulink url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perlop.html#s-PATTERN-REPLACEMENT-egimosx">the
5832 <literal>s///</literal> operator's syntax</ulink> and <ulink
5833 url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perlre.html">Perl-style regular
5834 expressions</ulink> in general.
5835 The below examples might also help to get you started.
5838 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
5840 <sect2><title>Filter File Tutorial</title>
5842 Now, let's complete our <quote>foo</quote> filter. We have already defined
5843 the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace
5844 <quote>foo</quote> with <quote>bar</quote>, there is only one (trivial) job
5849 <screen>s/foo/bar/</screen>
5853 But wait! Didn't the comment say that <emphasis>all</emphasis> occurrences
5854 of <quote>foo</quote> should be replaced? Our current job will only take
5855 care of the first <quote>foo</quote> on each page. For global substitution,
5856 we'll need to add the <literal>g</literal> option:
5860 <screen>s/foo/bar/g</screen>
5864 Our complete filter now looks like this:
5867 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"
5868 s/foo/bar/g</screen>
5872 Let's look at some real filters for more interesting examples. Here you see
5873 a filter that protects against some common annoyances that arise from JavaScript
5874 abuse. Let's look at its jobs one after the other:
5880 FILTER: js-annoyances Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
5882 # Get rid of JavaScript referrer tracking. Test page: http://www.randomoddness.com/untitled.htm
5884 s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|Usg</screen>
5888 Following the header line and a comment, you see the job. Note that it uses
5889 <literal>|</literal> as the delimiter instead of <literal>/</literal>, because
5890 the pattern contains a forward slash, which would otherwise have to be escaped
5891 by a backslash (<literal>\</literal>).
5895 Now, let's examine the pattern: it starts with the text <literal><script.*</literal>
5896 enclosed in parentheses. Since the dot matches any character, and <literal>*</literal>
5897 means: <quote>Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself</quote>, this
5898 matches <quote><script</quote>, followed by <emphasis>any</emphasis> text, i.e.
5899 it matches the whole page, from the start of the first <script> tag.
5903 That's more than we want, but the pattern continues: <literal>document\.referrer</literal>
5904 matches only the exact string <quote>document.referrer</quote>. The dot needed to
5905 be <emphasis>escaped</emphasis>, i.e. preceded by a backslash, to take away its
5906 special meaning as a joker, and make it just a regular dot. So far, the meaning is:
5907 Match from the start of the first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including,
5908 the text <quote>document.referrer</quote>, if <emphasis>both</emphasis> are present
5909 in the page (and appear in that order).
5913 But there's still more pattern to go. The next element, again enclosed in parentheses,
5914 is <literal>.*</script></literal>. You already know what <literal>.*</literal>
5915 means, so the whole pattern translates to: Match from the start of the first <script>
5916 tag in a page to the end of the last <script> tag, provided that the text
5917 <quote>document.referrer</quote> appears somewhere in between.
5921 This is still not the whole story, since we have ignored the options and the parentheses:
5922 The portions of the page matched by sub-patterns that are enclosed in parentheses, will be
5923 remembered and be available through the variables <literal>$1, $2, ...</literal> in
5924 the substitute. The <literal>U</literal> option switches to ungreedy matching, which means
5925 that the first <literal>.*</literal> in the pattern will only <quote>eat up</quote> all
5926 text in between <quote><script</quote> and the <emphasis>first</emphasis> occurrence
5927 of <quote>document.referrer</quote>, and that the second <literal>.*</literal> will
5928 only span the text up to the <emphasis>first</emphasis> <quote></script></quote>
5929 tag. Furthermore, the <literal>s</literal> option says that the match may span
5930 multiple lines in the page, and the <literal>g</literal> option again means that the
5931 substitution is global.
5935 So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text
5936 <quote>document.referrer</quote>. Remember the parts of the script from
5937 (and including) the start tag up to (and excluding) the string
5938 <quote>document.referrer</quote> as <literal>$1</literal>, and the part following
5939 that string, up to and including the closing tag, as <literal>$2</literal>.
5943 Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So
5944 lets look at the substitute: <literal>$1"Not Your Business!"$2</literal> is
5945 easy to read: The text remembered as <literal>$1</literal>, followed by
5946 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> (<emphasis>including</emphasis>
5947 the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as <literal>$2</literal>.
5948 This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part
5949 (the <quote>document.referrer</quote>) replaced by <literal>"Not Your
5950 Business!"</literal>.
5954 The whole job now reads: Replace <quote>document.referrer</quote> by
5955 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> wherever it appears inside a
5956 <script> tag. Note that this job won't break JavaScript syntax,
5957 since both the original and the replacement are syntactically valid
5958 string objects. The script just won't have access to the referrer
5959 information anymore.
5963 We'll show you two other jobs from the JavaScript taming department, but
5964 this time only point out the constructs of special interest:
5969 # The status bar is for displaying link targets, not pointless blahblah
5971 s/window\.status\s*=\s*['"].*?['"]/dUmMy=1/ig</screen>
5975 <literal>\s</literal> stands for whitespace characters (space, tab, newline,
5976 carriage return, form feed), so that <literal>\s*</literal> means: <quote>zero
5977 or more whitespace</quote>. The <literal>?</literal> in <literal>.*?</literal>
5978 makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the <literal>U</literal>
5979 option is not set). The <literal>['"]</literal> construct means: <quote>a single
5980 <emphasis>or</emphasis> a double quote</quote>.
5984 So what does this job do? It replaces assignments of single- or double-quoted
5985 strings to the <quote>window.status</quote> object with a dummy assignment
5986 (using a variable name that is hopefully odd enough not to conflict with
5987 real variables in scripts). Thus, it catches many cases where e.g. pointless
5988 descriptions are displayed in the status bar instead of the link target when
5989 you move your mouse over links.
5994 # Kill OnUnload popups. Yummy. Test: http://www.zdnet.com/zdsubs/yahoo/tree/yfs.html
5996 s/(<body .*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU</screen>
6001 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">OnUnload
6002 event binding</ulink> in the HTML DOM was a <emphasis>CRIME</emphasis>.
6003 When I close a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta.
6004 This job replaces the <quote>onunload</quote> attribute in
6005 <quote><body></quote> tags with the dummy word <literal>never</literal>.
6006 Note that the <literal>i</literal> option makes the pattern matching
6011 The last example is from the fun department:
6016 FILTER: fun Fun text replacements
6018 # Spice the daily news:
6020 s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig</screen>
6024 Note the <literal>(?!\.com)</literal> part (a so-called negative lookahead)
6025 in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
6026 <quote>.com</quote> appears directly following <quote>microsoft</quote>
6027 in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being messed, while
6028 still replacing the word everywhere else.
6033 # Buzzword Bingo (example for extended regex syntax)
6035 s* industry[ -]leading \
6037 | award[ -]winning # Comments are OK, too! \
6038 | high[ -]performance \
6039 | solutions[ -]based \
6043 *<font color="red"><b>BINGO!</b></font> \
6048 The <literal>x</literal> option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for
6049 e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
6058 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6062 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6064 <sect1 id="templates">
6065 <title>Templates</title>
6067 All <application>Privoxy</application> built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
6068 <ulink url="http://show-the-404-error.page"><quote>404 - No Such Domain</quote>
6069 error page</ulink>, the <ulink
6070 url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
6072 and all pages of its <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
6073 user interface</ulink>, are generated from <emphasis>templates</emphasis>.
6074 (<application>Privoxy</application> must be running for the above links to work as
6079 These templates are stored in a subdirectory of the <link linkend="confdir">configuration
6080 directory</link> called <filename>templates</filename>. On unixish platforms,
6082 <ulink url="file:///etc/privoxy/templates/"><filename>/etc/privoxy/templates/</filename></ulink>.
6086 The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols
6087 or exports), which <application>Privoxy</application> fills at run time. You can
6088 edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want to customize them.
6089 (<emphasis>Not recommended for the casual user</emphasis>). Note that
6090 just like in configuration files, lines starting with <literal>#</literal> are
6091 ignored when the templates are filled in.
6095 The place-holders are of the form <literal>@name@</literal>, and you will
6096 find a list of available symbols, which vary from template to template,
6097 in the comments at the start of each file. Note that these comments are not
6098 always accurate, and that it's probably best to look at the existing HTML
6099 code to find out which symbols are supported and what they are filled in with.
6103 A special application of this substitution mechanism is to make whole
6104 blocks of HTML code disappear when a specific symbol is set. We use this
6105 for many purposes, one of them being to include the beta warning in all
6106 our user interface (CGI) pages when <application>Privoxy</application>
6107 in in an alpha or beta development stage:
6112 <!-- @if-unstable-start -->
6114 ... beta warning HTML code goes here ...
6116 <!-- if-unstable-end@ --></screen>
6120 If the "unstable" symbol is set, everything in between and including
6121 <literal>@if-unstable-start</literal> and <literal>if-unstable-end@</literal>
6122 will disappear, leaving nothing but an empty comment:
6126 <screen><!-- --></screen>
6130 There's also an if-then-else construct and an <literal>#include</literal>
6131 mechanism, but you'll sure find out if you are inclined to edit the
6136 All templates refer to a style located at
6137 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet"><literal>http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet</literal></ulink>.
6138 This is, of course, locally served by <application>Privoxy</application>
6139 and the source for it can be found and edited in the
6140 <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> template.
6145 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6149 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6151 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
6154 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
6156 <!-- end boilerplate -->
6160 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6163 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6164 <sect1 id="copyright"><title><application>Privoxy</application> Copyright, License and History</title>
6166 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
6168 <!-- end copyright -->
6170 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6171 <sect2><title>License</title>
6172 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
6174 <!-- end copyright -->
6176 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6179 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6181 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
6182 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
6184 <!-- end history -->
6187 <sect2 id="authors"><title>Authors</title>
6188 <!-- Include p-authors.sgml: -->
6190 <!-- end authors -->
6195 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6198 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6199 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
6200 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
6202 <!-- end seealso -->
6207 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6208 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
6211 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6213 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
6215 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl-style <quote>regular
6216 expressions</quote> in its <link linkend="actions-file">actions
6217 files</link> and <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>,
6218 through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> and
6219 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/">PCRS</ulink> libraries.
6223 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
6224 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
6225 introduction only. A full explanation would require a <ulink
6226 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/">book</ulink> ;-)
6230 Regular expressions provide a language to describe patterns that can be
6231 run against strings of characters (letter, numbers, etc), to see if they
6232 match the string or not. The patterns are themselves (sometimes complex)
6233 strings of literal characters, combined with wild-cards, and other special
6234 characters, called meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have
6235 special meanings and are used to build complex patterns to be matched against.
6236 Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are an especially convenient
6237 <quote>dialect</quote> of the regular expression language.
6241 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
6242 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
6243 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
6244 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
6245 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
6246 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
6247 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
6248 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
6252 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
6253 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
6254 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
6255 and then some examples:
6260 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
6261 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
6263 </simplelist></para>
6267 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
6270 </simplelist></para>
6274 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
6277 </simplelist></para>
6281 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
6284 </simplelist></para>
6288 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
6289 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
6290 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
6291 not as a special meta-character. Example: <quote>example\.com</quote>, makes
6292 sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
6293 meta-character meaning of any single character).
6295 </simplelist></para>
6299 <emphasis>[]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
6300 any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, <quote>[0-9]</quote>
6301 matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
6302 this with <quote>+</quote> to match any digit one of more times: <quote>[0-9]+</quote>.
6304 </simplelist></para>
6308 <emphasis>()</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
6309 or multiple sub-expressions.
6311 </simplelist></para>
6315 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
6316 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
6317 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches. As an example:
6318 <quote>/(this|that) example/</quote> uses grouping and the bar character
6319 and would match either <quote>this example</quote> or <quote>that
6320 example</quote>, and nothing else.
6322 </simplelist></para>
6325 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
6326 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
6327 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
6328 be more illuminating:
6332 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
6333 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
6334 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
6335 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
6336 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
6337 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
6338 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
6339 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
6340 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
6341 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
6342 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
6343 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
6344 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
6345 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
6350 A now something a little more complex:
6354 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
6355 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
6356 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
6357 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
6358 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
6359 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
6360 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
6365 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
6366 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
6367 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
6368 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
6369 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
6370 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
6371 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
6372 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
6373 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
6374 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
6375 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
6376 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
6377 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
6378 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
6379 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
6380 changing our regular expression to:
6381 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
6386 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
6387 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
6388 <quote>[]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
6389 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
6390 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
6391 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
6392 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
6393 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
6394 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
6395 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
6396 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
6397 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
6398 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
6399 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
6400 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
6401 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
6402 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
6403 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
6404 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
6405 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
6406 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
6407 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
6408 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
6409 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
6410 in the expression anywhere).
6414 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
6415 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
6416 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
6417 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
6418 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
6423 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
6424 <ulink url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>
6428 For information on regular expression based substititions and their applications
6429 in filters, please see the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file tutorial</link>
6434 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6437 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6439 <title><application>Privoxy</application>'s Internal Pages</title>
6442 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
6443 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
6444 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
6445 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
6446 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
6447 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
6448 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
6454 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
6455 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
6456 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
6457 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
6470 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
6474 There is a shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> (But it
6475 doesn't provide a fallback to a real page, in case the request is not
6476 sent through <application>Privoxy</application>)
6482 Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
6483 editing of actions files:
6487 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
6494 Show the source code version numbers:
6498 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
6505 Show the browser's request headers:
6509 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
6516 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
6520 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
6527 Toggle Privoxy on or off. In this case, <quote>Privoxy</quote> continues
6528 to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking place:
6532 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
6536 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
6540 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
6545 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
6554 These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
6558 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
6559 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
6561 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
6562 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
6563 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
6564 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
6565 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
6566 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
6569 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
6570 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
6571 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
6572 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
6573 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
6574 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
6583 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=enabled','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Enable</ulink>
6590 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=disabled','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Disable</ulink>
6597 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=toggle','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Toggle Privoxy</ulink> (Toggles between enabled and disabled)
6604 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y','ijbstatus','width=250,height=2,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy- View Status</ulink>
6610 <ulink url="javascript:w=Math.floor(screen.width/2);h=Math.floor(screen.height*0.9);void(window.open('http://www.privoxy.org/actions/index.php?url='+escape(location.href),'Feedback','screenx='+w+',width='+w+',height='+h+',scrollbars=yes,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Submit Actions File Feedback</ulink>
6618 Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
6619 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
6620 have more information about bookmarklets.
6629 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6631 <title>Chain of Events</title>
6633 Let's take a quick look at the basic sequence of events when a web page is
6634 requested by your browser and <application>Privoxy</application> is on duty:
6641 First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
6642 the request to <application>Privoxy</application>, which will in turn,
6643 relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
6649 <application>Privoxy</application> traps any request for its own internal CGI
6650 pages (e.g http://p.p/) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
6655 Next, <application>Privoxy</application> checks to see if the URL
6657 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link> patterns. If
6658 so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
6659 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>
6660 is then checked and if it does not match, an
6661 HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page is sent back. Otherwise, if it does match,
6662 an image is returned. The type of image depends on the setting of <link
6663 linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></link>
6664 (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
6669 Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
6670 <filename>trust</filename> file, then that is done.
6675 If the URL pattern matches the <link
6676 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link> action,
6677 it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
6682 Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
6683 of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. <link
6684 linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT"><quote>+hide-user-agent</quote></link>,
6685 etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
6691 Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web page and related
6697 First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
6698 things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
6699 filtered as deterimed by the
6700 <link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES"><quote>+crunch-incoming-cookies</quote></link>,
6701 <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>,
6702 and <link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION"><quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote></link>
6708 If the <link linkend="KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></link>
6709 action applies, and it is an HTML or JavaScript document, the popup-code in the
6710 response is filtered on-the-fly as it is received.
6715 If a <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>
6717 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
6718 action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
6719 read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from
6720 <filename>default.filter</filename>) are processed against the buffered
6721 content. Filters are applied in the order they are specified in the
6722 <filename>default.filter</filename> file. Animated GIFs, if present, are
6723 reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
6724 setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
6725 <application>Privoxy</application> back to your browser.
6728 If neither <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>
6730 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
6731 matches, then <application>Privoxy</application> passes the raw data through
6732 to the client browser as it becomes available.
6737 As the browser receives the now (probably filtered) page content, it
6738 reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
6739 source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
6740 frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a new
6741 request. And each such request is in turn processed as above. Note that a
6742 complex web page may have many such embedded URLs.
6752 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6753 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
6754 <title>Anatomy of an Action</title>
6757 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies
6758 <link linkend="ACTIONS">actions</link> and <link linkend="FILTER">filters</link>
6759 to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
6760 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
6761 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
6762 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
6763 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
6764 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
6765 <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> whose consequences are not
6770 One quick test to see if <application>Privoxy</application> is causing a problem
6771 or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
6772 step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
6773 and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!).
6777 <application>Privoxy</application> also provides the
6778 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
6779 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
6780 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
6784 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
6785 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
6786 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
6787 help with filtering effects (i.e. the <link
6788 linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action) from
6789 the <filename>default.filter</filename> file since this is handled very
6790 differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other
6791 URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images
6792 such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So
6793 you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area
6794 -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you
6795 will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View
6796 Page Source</quote> option for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the
6801 Let's try an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
6802 and look at it one section at a time:
6807 Matches for http://google.com:
6809 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
6813 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
6814 -crunch-incoming-cookies
6815 +deanimate-gifs{last}
6816 -downgrade-http-version
6820 -filter{shockwave-flash}
6821 -filter{crude-parental}
6822 +filter{html-annoyances}
6823 +filter{js-annoyances}
6824 +filter{content-cookies}
6826 +filter{refresh-tags}
6828 +filter{banners-by-size}
6829 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
6830 +hide-from-header{block}
6831 +hide-referer{forge}
6836 +prevent-compression
6839 +session-cookies-only
6840 +set-image-blocker{pattern} }
6843 { -session-cookies-only }
6849 In file: user.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
6850 (no matches in this file)
6855 This tells us how we have defined our
6856 <link linkend="ACTIONS"><quote>actions</quote></link>, and
6857 which ones match for our example, <quote>google.com</quote>. The first listing
6858 is any matches for the <filename>standard.action</filename> file. No hits at
6859 all here on <quote>standard</quote>. Then next is <quote>default</quote>, or
6860 our <filename>default.action</filename> file. The large, multi-line listing,
6861 is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default settings.
6862 If you look at your <quote>actions</quote> file, this would be the section
6863 just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section near the top. This will apply to
6864 all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end of the listing
6865 -- <quote>/</quote>.
6869 But we can define additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
6870 rules, and then list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions would
6871 apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit matches for
6872 <quote>.google.com</quote>. The first is negating our previous cookie setting,
6874 linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>
6875 (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google. The
6876 second turns <emphasis>off</emphasis> any
6878 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link>
6879 action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading
6880 dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will match any hosts and
6881 sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
6882 <quote>www.google.com</quote>. So, apparently, we have these two actions
6883 defined somewhere in the lower part of our <filename>default.action</filename>
6884 file, and <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced somewhere in these latter
6889 Then, for our <filename>user.action</filename> file, we again have no hits.
6893 And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
6894 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
6895 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
6906 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
6907 -crunch-incoming-cookies
6908 +deanimate-gifs{last}
6909 -downgrade-http-version
6913 -filter{shockwave-flash}
6914 -filter{crude-parental}
6915 +filter{html-annoyances}
6916 +filter{js-annoyances}
6917 +filter{content-cookies}
6919 +filter{refresh-tags}
6921 +filter{banners-by-size}
6922 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
6923 +hide-from-header{block}
6924 +hide-referer{forge}
6929 +prevent-compression
6932 -session-cookies-only
6933 +set-image-blocker{pattern}
6938 Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
6939 <quote>fast-redirects</quote> and <quote>session-cookies-only</quote>.
6943 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
6949 { +block +handle-as-image }
6952 { +block +handle-as-image }
6955 { +block +handle-as-image }
6961 We'll just show the interesting part here, the explicit matches. It is
6962 matched three different times. Each as an <quote>+block +handle-as-image</quote>,
6963 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
6964 <quote>+imageblock</quote>. (<link
6965 linkend="ALIASES"><quote>Aliases</quote></link> are defined in
6966 the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
6971 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
6972 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
6973 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
6974 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
6975 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
6976 is done here -- as both a <link
6977 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link>
6978 <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
6980 linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>.
6981 The custom alias <quote>+imageblock</quote> just simplifies the process and make
6986 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
6987 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm...
6993 Matches for http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
6995 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
6999 -crunch-incoming-cookies
7000 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
7002 -downgrade-http-version
7004 +filter{html-annoyances}
7005 +filter{js-annoyances}
7006 +filter{kill-popups}
7009 +filter{banners-by-size}
7012 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
7013 +hide-from-header{block}
7014 +hide-referer{forge}
7018 +prevent-compression
7021 +session-cookies-only
7022 +set-image-blocker{blank} }
7025 { +block +handle-as-image }
7031 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote>! But
7032 we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the blank page. We could
7033 now add a new action below this that explicitly does <emphasis>not</emphasis>
7034 block (<quote>{-block}</quote>) paths with <quote>adsl</quote>. There are
7035 various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
7047 Now the page displays ;-) Be sure to flush your browser's caches when
7048 making such changes. Or, try using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
7052 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
7059 { +block +handle-as-image }
7065 That actually was very telling and pointed us quickly to where the problem
7066 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
7067 rules in the first section is causing the problem. This would require some
7068 guesswork, and maybe a little trial and error to isolate the offending rule.
7069 One likely cause would be one of the <quote>{+filter}</quote> actions. Try
7070 adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off <quote>+filter</quote>:
7078 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
7086 <quote>{shop}</quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
7087 <quote>{ -filter -session-cookies-only }</quote>.
7088 Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
7101 This would probably be most appropriately put in <filename>user.action</filename>,
7102 for local site exceptions.
7106 <quote>{fragile}</quote> is an alias that disables most actions. This can be
7107 used as a last resort for problem sites. Remember to flush caches! If this
7108 still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining actions one by
7109 one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
7118 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
7119 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
7120 Public License as published by the Free Software
7121 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
7122 your option) any later version.
7124 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
7125 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
7126 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
7127 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
7128 License for more details.
7130 The GNU General Public License should be included with
7131 this file. If not, you can view it at
7132 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
7133 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
7134 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
7136 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
7137 Revision 1.119 2002/05/22 17:17:05 oes
7140 Revision 1.118 2002/05/21 04:54:55 hal9
7141 -New Section: Quickstart to Ad Blocking
7142 -Reformat Actions Anatomy to match new CGI layout
7144 Revision 1.117 2002/05/17 13:56:16 oes
7145 - Reworked & extended Templates chapter
7146 - Small changes to Regex appendix
7147 - #included authors.sgml into (C) and hist chapter
7149 Revision 1.116 2002/05/17 03:23:46 hal9
7150 Fixing merge conflict in Quickstart section.
7152 Revision 1.115 2002/05/16 16:25:00 oes
7153 Extended the Filter File chapter & minor fixes
7155 Revision 1.114 2002/05/16 09:42:50 oes
7156 More ulink->link, added some hints to Quickstart section
7158 Revision 1.113 2002/05/15 21:07:25 oes
7159 Extended and further commented the example actions files
7161 Revision 1.112 2002/05/15 03:57:14 hal9
7162 Spell check. A few minor edits here and there for better syntax and
7165 Revision 1.111 2002/05/14 23:01:36 oes
7168 Revision 1.110 2002/05/14 19:10:45 oes
7169 Restored alphabetical order of actions
7171 Revision 1.109 2002/05/14 17:23:11 oes
7172 Renamed the prevent-*-cookies actions, extended aliases section and moved it before the example AFs
7174 Revision 1.108 2002/05/14 15:29:12 oes
7175 Completed proofreading the actions chapter
7177 Revision 1.107 2002/05/12 03:20:41 hal9
7178 Small clarifications for 127.0.0.1 vs localhost for listen-address since this
7179 apparently an important distinction for some OS's.
7181 Revision 1.106 2002/05/10 01:48:20 hal9
7182 This is mostly proposed copyright/licensing additions and changes. Docs
7183 are still GPL, but licensing and copyright are more visible. Also, copyright
7184 changed in doc header comments (eliminate references to JB except FAQ).
7186 Revision 1.105 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
7187 Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
7189 Revision 1.104 2002/05/04 08:44:45 swa
7192 Revision 1.103 2002/05/04 00:40:53 hal9
7193 -Remove the TOC first page kludge. It's fixed proper now in ldp.dsl.in.
7194 -Some minor additions to Quickstart.
7196 Revision 1.102 2002/05/03 17:46:00 oes
7197 Further proofread & reactivated short build instructions
7199 Revision 1.101 2002/05/03 03:58:30 hal9
7200 Move the user-manual config directive to top of section. Add note about
7201 Privoxy needing read permissions for configs, and write for logs.
7203 Revision 1.100 2002/04/29 03:05:55 hal9
7204 Add clarification on differences of new actions files.
7206 Revision 1.99 2002/04/28 16:59:05 swa
7207 more structure in starting section
7209 Revision 1.98 2002/04/28 05:43:59 hal9
7210 This is the break up of configuration.html into multiple files. This
7211 will probably break links elsewhere :(
7213 Revision 1.97 2002/04/27 21:04:42 hal9
7214 -Rewrite of Actions File example.
7215 -Add section for user-manual directive in config.
7217 Revision 1.96 2002/04/27 05:32:00 hal9
7218 -Add short section to Filter Files to tie in with +filter action.
7219 -Start rewrite of examples in Actions Examples (not finished).
7221 Revision 1.95 2002/04/26 17:23:29 swa
7222 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
7224 Revision 1.94 2002/04/26 05:24:36 hal9
7225 -Add most of Andreas suggestions to Chain of Events section.
7226 -A few other minor corrections and touch up.
7228 Revision 1.92 2002/04/25 18:55:13 hal9
7229 More catchups on new actions files, and new actions names.
7230 Other assorted cleanups, and minor modifications.
7232 Revision 1.91 2002/04/24 02:39:31 hal9
7233 Add 'Chain of Events' section.
7235 Revision 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 hal9
7236 Linuxconf is deprecated on RH, substitute chkconfig.
7238 Revision 1.89 2002/04/23 21:05:28 oes
7239 Added hint for startup on Red Hat
7241 Revision 1.88 2002/04/23 05:37:54 hal9
7242 Add AmigaOS install stuff.
7244 Revision 1.87 2002/04/23 02:53:15 david__schmidt
7245 Updated OSX installation section
7246 Added a few English tweaks here an there
7248 Revision 1.86 2002/04/21 01:46:32 hal9
7249 Re-write actions section.
7251 Revision 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9
7252 Fix ugly typo (mine).
7254 Revision 1.84 2002/04/18 21:17:13 hal9
7255 Spell Redhat correctly (ie Red Hat). A few minor grammar corrections.
7257 Revision 1.83 2002/04/18 18:21:12 oes
7258 Added RPM install detail
7260 Revision 1.82 2002/04/18 12:04:50 oes
7263 Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
7264 Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
7266 Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
7267 Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
7269 Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
7270 Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
7272 Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
7275 Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
7276 Proofreading, part one
7278 Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
7279 -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
7280 -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
7282 Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
7283 Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
7285 Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
7286 Add small section on submitting actions.
7288 Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
7291 Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
7292 Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
7294 Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
7295 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
7297 Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
7300 Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
7301 -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
7302 -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
7303 -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
7304 -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
7306 Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
7307 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
7309 Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
7310 more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
7312 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
7313 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
7314 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
7315 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
7316 eventually be set by Makefile.
7317 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
7319 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
7320 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
7322 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
7323 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
7325 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
7326 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
7328 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
7329 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
7330 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
7331 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
7333 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
7336 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
7337 Added more to Anatomy section.
7339 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
7340 Touch up intro for new name.
7342 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
7343 we have a new homepage!
7345 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
7346 A few minor catch ups with name change.
7348 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
7349 configure needs to be generated.
7351 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
7352 we are too lazy to make a block-built
7353 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
7355 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
7356 name change related issue.
7358 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
7359 name change. changed filenames.
7361 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
7364 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
7365 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
7366 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
7367 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
7368 comments and remarks to history untouched.
7370 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
7373 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
7374 New section in Appendix.
7376 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
7377 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
7379 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
7380 correct feedback channels
7382 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
7383 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
7385 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
7388 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
7389 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
7391 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
7392 Added imageblock{pattern}.
7394 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
7397 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
7398 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
7400 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
7401 provide correct feedback channels
7403 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
7404 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
7406 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
7407 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
7409 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
7410 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
7412 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
7413 Add new - - user option.
7415 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
7416 Added section on command line options.
7418 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
7419 Changed default port to 8118
7421 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
7422 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
7424 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
7425 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
7426 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
7429 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
7432 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
7433 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
7435 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
7436 Update OS/2 build section
7438 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
7439 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
7440 will work - no other changes are needed.
7442 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
7443 Added a very short section on Templates
7445 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
7446 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
7448 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
7449 Touch ups for *.action files.
7451 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
7454 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
7455 Updates for recent changes.
7457 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
7458 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
7460 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
7461 Correct 2 minor errors
7463 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
7464 *** empty log message ***
7466 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
7467 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
7469 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
7470 wrong url in documentation
7472 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
7473 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
7475 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
7478 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
7481 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
7484 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
7485 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
7487 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
7488 Some additions, and re-arranging.
7490 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
7493 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
7494 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
7496 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
7499 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
7500 source files for junkbuster documentation
7502 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
7503 first proposal of a structure.
7505 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
7506 docs should have an author.
7508 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
7509 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.