1 <!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V3.1//EN" [
2 <!entity % dummy "IGNORE">
3 <!entity supported SYSTEM "supported.sgml">
4 <!entity newfeatures SYSTEM "newfeatures.sgml">
5 <!entity p-intro SYSTEM "privoxy.sgml">
6 <!entity seealso SYSTEM "seealso.sgml">
7 <!entity buildsource SYSTEM "buildsource.sgml">
8 <!entity contacting SYSTEM "contacting.sgml">
9 <!entity history SYSTEM "history.sgml">
10 <!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
11 <!entity license SYSTEM "license.sgml">
12 <!entity p-authors SYSTEM "p-authors.sgml">
13 <!entity config SYSTEM "p-config.sgml">
14 <!entity p-version "3.0.16">
15 <!entity p-status "stable">
16 <!entity % p-authors-formal "INCLUDE"> <!-- include additional text, etc -->
17 <!entity % p-not-stable "IGNORE">
18 <!entity % p-stable "INCLUDE">
19 <!entity % p-text "IGNORE"> <!-- define we are not a text only doc -->
20 <!entity % p-doc "INCLUDE"> <!-- and we are a formal doc -->
21 <!entity % p-readme "IGNORE">
22 <!entity % user-man "IGNORE">
23 <!entity % config-file "IGNORE">
24 <!entity % p-supp-userman "IGNORE"> <!-- Omit some from supported.sgml -->
25 <!entity my-copy "©"> <!-- kludge for docbook2man -->
26 <!entity % draft "IGNORE"> <!-- WIP stuff -->
27 <!entity % seealso-extra "INCLUDE"> <!-- extra stuff from seealso.sgml -->
28 <!entity my-app "<application>Privoxy</application>">
31 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
34 This file belongs into
35 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
37 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.124 2010/05/01 18:21:30 fabiankeil Exp $
39 Copyright (C) 2001-2010 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org/
42 ========================================================================
43 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
44 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
45 ========================================================================
52 <title>Privoxy &p-version; User Manual</title>
56 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
57 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
58 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001-2010 by
59 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
63 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.124 2010/05/01 18:21:30 fabiankeil Exp $</pubdate>
67 Note: the following should generate a separate page, and a live link to it,
68 all nicely done. But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave
69 commented unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the
70 copyright/license declarations will be in their own sgml.
83 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
84 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
85 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
91 The <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> gives users information on how to
92 install, configure and use <ulink
93 url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy</ulink>.
96 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
98 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
101 You can find the latest version of the <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> at <ulink
102 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
103 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> on how to
104 contact the developers.
108 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
114 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
115 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
117 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
118 <application>Privoxy</application>, v.&p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
119 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
120 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
121 configuration files. Development of a new version is currently nearing
122 completion, and includes significant changes and enhancements over
126 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
129 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
130 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
131 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
136 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
137 <sect2 id="features"><title>Features</title>
139 In addition to the core
140 features of ad blocking and
141 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookie</ulink> management,
142 <application>Privoxy</application> provides many supplemental
143 features<![%p-not-stable;[, some of them currently under development]]>,
144 that give the end-user more control, more privacy and more freedom:
146 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
148 <!-- end boilerplate -->
153 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
156 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
157 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
160 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
161 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
162 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
163 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project
169 On some platforms, the installer may remove previously installed versions, if
170 found. (See below for your platform). In any case <emphasis>be sure to backup
171 your old configuration if it is valuable to you.</emphasis> See the <link
172 linkend="upgradersnote">note to upgraders</link> section below.
175 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
176 <sect2 id="installation-packages"><title>Binary Packages</title>
178 How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
181 <!-- XXX: The installation sections should be sorted -->
183 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
184 <sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Red Hat and Fedora RPMs</title>
187 RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm</literal>,
188 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location
189 of configuration files.
193 Note that on Red Hat, <application>Privoxy</application> will
194 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be automatically started on system boot. You will
195 need to enable that using <command>chkconfig</command>,
196 <command>ntsysv</command>, or similar methods.
200 If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM:
201 <literal>rpm --rebuild privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm</literal>. This
202 will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.
206 Also note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
207 on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
208 Otherwise, RPM will try to remove <application>Junkbuster</application>
209 automatically if found, before installing <application>Privoxy</application>.
213 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
214 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian and Ubuntu</title>
216 DEBs can be installed with <literal>apt-get install privoxy</literal>,
217 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location of
222 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
223 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
226 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
227 the installation process. You will find the configuration files
228 in the same directory as you installed <application>Privoxy</application> in.
231 Version 3.0.5 beta introduced full <application>Windows</application> service
232 functionality. On Windows only, the <application>Privoxy</application>
233 program has two new command line arguments to install and uninstall
234 <application>Privoxy</application> as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>.
238 <term>Arguments:</term>
241 <replaceable class="parameter">--install</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
244 <replaceable class="parameter">--uninstall</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
250 After invoking <application>Privoxy</application> with
251 <command>--install</command>, you will need to bring up the
252 <application>Windows</application> service console to assign the user you
253 want <application>Privoxy</application> to run under, and whether or not you
254 want it to run whenever the system starts. You can start the
255 <application>Windows</application> services console with the following
256 command: <command>services.msc</command>. If you do not take the manual step
257 of modifying <application>Privoxy's</application> service settings, it will
258 not start. Note too that you will need to give Privoxy a user account that
259 actually exists, or it will not be permitted to
260 write to its log and configuration files.
265 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
266 <sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris <!--, NetBSD, HP-UX--></title>
269 Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
270 untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
271 things go. <!-- FIXME, more info needed? -->
275 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
276 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
279 First, make sure that no previous installations of
280 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
281 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
282 system. Check that no <application>Junkbuster</application>
283 or <application>Privoxy</application> objects are in
289 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
290 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
291 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
292 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
296 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
297 into will contain all of the configuration files.
301 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
302 <sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Mac OS X</title>
304 Unzip the downloaded file (you can either double-click on the zip file
305 icon from the Finder, or from the desktop if you downloaded it there).
306 Then, double-click on the package installer icon and follow the
307 installation process.
310 The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful
311 installation (in addition to every time your computer starts up). To
312 prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your
313 computer starts up, remove or rename the folder named
314 <literal>/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal>.
317 To manually start or stop the privoxy service, use the Privoxy Utility
318 for Mac OS X. This application controls the privoxy service (e.g.
319 starting and stopping the service as well as uninstalling the software).
323 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
324 <sect3 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
326 Copy and then unpack the <filename>lha</filename> archive to a suitable location.
327 All necessary files will be installed into <application>Privoxy</application>
328 directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just
329 remove this directory.
333 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
334 <sect3 id="installation-tbz"><title>FreeBSD</title>
337 Privoxy is part of FreeBSD's Ports Collection, you can build and install
338 it with <literal>cd /usr/ports/www/privoxy; make install clean</literal>.
341 If you don't use the ports, you can fetch and install
342 the package with <literal>pkg_add -r privoxy</literal>.
345 The port skeleton and the package can also be downloaded from the
346 <ulink url="https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">File Release
347 Page</ulink>, but there's no reason to use them unless you're interested in the
348 beta releases which are only available there.
352 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
353 <sect3 id="installattion-gentoo"><title>Gentoo</title>
355 Gentoo source packages (Ebuilds) for <application>Privoxy</application> are
356 contained in the Gentoo Portage Tree (they are not on the download page,
357 but there is a Gentoo section, where you can see when a new
358 <application>Privoxy</application> Version is added to the Portage Tree).
361 Before installing <application>Privoxy</application> under Gentoo just do
362 first <literal>emerge --sync</literal> to get the latest changes from the
363 Portage tree. With <literal>emerge privoxy</literal> you install the latest
367 Configuration files are in <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename>, the
368 documentation is in <filename>/usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;</filename>
369 and the Log directory is in <filename>/var/log/privoxy</filename>.
375 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
376 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
379 The most convenient way to obtain the <application>Privoxy</application> sources
380 is to download the source tarball from our
381 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&package_id=10571">project download
386 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
387 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
388 version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
389 CVS repository</ulink>.
391 deprecated...out of business.
392 or simply download <ulink
393 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.bz2">the nightly CVS
398 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
400 <!-- end boilerplate -->
403 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
404 <sect2 id="installation-keepupdated"><title>Keeping your Installation Up-to-Date</title>
406 As user feedback comes in and development continues, we will make updated versions
407 of both the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link> (as a <ulink
408 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&release_id=103670">separate
409 package</ulink>) and the software itself (including the actions file) available for
414 If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
415 <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
416 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce/">subscribe
417 to our announce mailing list</ulink>, ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
421 In order not to lose your personal changes and adjustments when updating
422 to the latest <literal>default.action</literal> file we <emphasis>strongly
423 recommend</emphasis> that you use <literal>user.action</literal> and
424 <literal>user.filter</literal> for your local
425 customizations of <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
426 linkend="actions-file">Chapter on actions files</link> for details.
434 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
436 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
437 <sect1 id="whatsnew">
438 <title>What's New in this Release</title>
440 <application>Privoxy 3.0.16</application> is a stable release.
441 The changes since 3.0.15 beta are:
448 Added the config file option handle-as-empty-doc-returns-ok to
449 work around Firefox bug #492459, which causes Firefox to hang
450 if JavaScripts are blocked in certain situations. The option is
451 enabled in the default config file.
456 Added the config file option default-server-timeout to control the
457 assumed default server timeout. Since Privoxy no longer returns
458 an error message for connection resets on reused client connections,
459 assuming larger server timeout values appears to actually work
460 pretty well as long as connections aren't shared.
465 Added optional support for FreeBSD's accf_http(9). Use the
466 configure option --enable-accept-filter to enable it.
471 Added fancier Privoxy icons for win32. Contributed by Jeff H.
476 In daemon mode, fd 0, 1 and 2 are bound to /dev/null.
481 Resolve localhost using whatever address family the operating
482 system feels like. Previous betas would try to use IPv4 as this
483 is what most users expect, but this didn't work reliably on
489 In the action lists on CGI pages, actions and their parameters are
490 no longer separated with a space. The action file parser doesn't
491 actually allow this and will throw an invalid syntax error if actions
492 and parameters in the action files are separated. Not adding the
493 spaces means copy and pasting CGI output into the action files works.
498 The default keep-alive timeout has been reduced to 5 seconds to work
499 around hangs in clients that treat the proxy like any other host and
500 stop allowing any new connections if the "maximum number of
501 connections per host" is reached.
506 Several webbug URLs that look like they are leading to images are now
507 blocked as image instead of empty documents. Doing the latter causes
508 WebKit-based clients to show a "missing image" icon which may mess up
514 The no-such-domain template is used for DNS resolution
515 problems with FEATURE_IPV6_SUPPORT enabled. Previously the
516 connect-failed template was used. Reported by 'zebul666'.
521 Accepts quoted expiration dates even though RFC 2109 10.1.2
522 doesn't seem to allow them. Reported anonymously.
527 Don't try to forget connections if connection sharing is disabled.
528 This wasn't a real problem but caused an unnecessary log message.
533 The still undocumented --enable-extended-host-patterns configure
534 option has a better description.
539 Fixed an error message that would claim a write to the server
540 failed when actually writing to the client failed.
545 Log the crunch reason before trying to write to the client.
546 The log is easier to read that way.
551 Several log messages about client connections also mention
557 handle-as-empty-document no longer depends on the image blocking
563 Privoxy-Log-Parser is roughly 40% faster in highlighting mode.
568 uagen, a Firefox User-Agent generator for Privoxy and Mozilla
569 browsers has been imported and is available in the tarball's
575 The scripts in the tools directory treat unknown parameters
583 If you missed the previous three beta versions, you may also be
584 interested in the additional changes since 3.0.12, the
592 Added IPv6 support. Thanks to Petr Pisar who not only provided
593 the initial patch but also helped a lot with the integration.
598 Added client-side keep-alive support.
603 The connection sharing code is only used if the connection-sharing
609 The latency is taken into account when evaluating whether or not to
610 reuse a connection. This should significantly reduce the number of
611 connections problems several users reported.
616 The max-client-connections option has been added to restrict
617 the number of client connections below a value enforced by
618 the operating system.
623 If the server doesn't specify how long the connection stays alive,
624 Privoxy errs on the safe side of caution and assumes it's only a second.
629 Setting keep-alive-timeout to 0 disables keep-alive support. Previously
630 Privoxy would claim to allow persistence but not reuse the connection.
635 Pipelined requests are less likely to be mistaken for the request
636 body of the previous request. Note that Privoxy still has no real
637 pipeline support and will either serialize pipelined requests or
638 drop them in which case the client has to resent them.
643 Fixed a crash on some Windows versions when header randomization
644 is enabled and the date couldn't be parsed.
649 Privoxy's keep-alive timeout for the current connection is reduced
650 to the one specified in the client's Keep-Alive header.
655 For HTTP/1.1 requests, Privoxy implies keep-alive support by not
656 setting any Connection header instead of using 'Connection: keep-alive'.
661 If the socket isn't reusable, Privoxy doesn't temporarily waste
662 a socket slot to remember the connection.
667 If keep-alive support is disabled but compiled in, the client's
668 Keep-Alive header is removed.
673 Fixed a bug on mingw32 where downloading large files failed if
674 keep-alive support was enabled.
679 Fixed a bug that (at least theoretically) could cause log
680 timestamps to be occasionally off by about a second.
685 The configure script respects the $PATH variable when searching
691 Compressed content with extra fields couldn't be decompressed
692 and would get passed to the client unfiltered. This problem
693 has only be detected through statical analysis with clang as
694 nobody seems to be using extra fields anyway.
699 If the server resets the Connection after sending only the headers
700 Privoxy forwards what it got to the client. Previously Privoxy
701 would deliver an error message instead.
706 Error messages in case of connection timeouts use the right
712 If spawning a child to handle a request fails, the client
713 gets an error message and Privoxy continues to listen for
714 new requests right away.
719 The error messages in case of server-connection timeouts or
720 prematurely closed server connections are now template-based.
725 If zlib support isn't compiled in, Privoxy no longer tries to
726 filter compressed content unless explicitly asked to do so.
731 In case of connections that are denied based on ACL directives,
732 the memory used for the client IP is no longer leaked.
737 Fixed another small memory leak if the client request times out
738 while waiting for client headers other than the request line.
743 The client socket is kept open until the server socket has
744 been marked as unused. This should increase the chances that
745 the still-open connection will be reused for the client's next
746 request to the same destination. Note that this only matters
747 if connection-sharing is enabled.
752 A TODO list has been added to the source tarball to give potential
753 volunteers a better idea of what the current goals are. Donations
754 are still welcome too: http://www.privoxy.org/faq/general.html#DONATE
759 In case of missing server data, no error message is send to the
760 client if the request arrived on a reused connection. The client
761 is then supposed to silently retry the request without bothering
762 the user. This should significantly reduce the frequency of the
763 "No server or forwarder data received" error message many users
769 More reliable detection of prematurely closed client sockets
770 with keep-alive enabled.
775 FEATURE_CONNECTION_KEEP_ALIVE is decoupled from
776 FEATURE_CONNECTION_SHARING and now available on
782 Improved handling of POST requests on reused connections.
783 Should fix problems with stalled connections after submitting
784 form data with some browser configurations.
789 Fixed various latency calculation issues.
794 Allows the client to pass NTLM authentication requests to a
795 forwarding proxy. This was already assumed and hinted to work
796 in 3.0.13 beta but actually didn't. Now it's confirmed to work
797 with IE, Firefox and Chrome.
798 Thanks to Francois Botha and Wan-Teh Chang
803 Fixed a calculation problem if receiving the server headers
804 takes more than two reads, that could cause Privoxy to terminate
805 the connection prematurely. Reported by Oliver.
810 Compiles again on platforms such as OpenBSD and systems
811 using earlier glibc version that don't support AI_ADDRCONFIG.
812 Anonymously submitted in #2872591.
817 A bunch of MS VC project files and Suse and Redhat RPM spec
818 files have been removed as they were no longer maintained for
824 Overly long action lines are properly rejected with a proper
825 error message. Previously they would be either rejected as
826 invalid or cause a core dump through abort().
831 Already timed-out connections are no longer temporarily remembered.
832 They weren't reused anyway, but wasted a socket slot.
837 len refers to the number of bytes actually read which might
838 differ from the ones received. Adjust log messages accordingly.
843 The optional JavaScript on the CGI page uses encodeURIComponent()
844 instead of escape() which doesn't encode all characters that matter.
845 Anonymously reported in #2832722.
850 Fix gcc45 warnings in decompress_iob().
855 Various log message improvements.
860 Privoxy-Regression-Test supports redirect tests.
865 Privoxy-Log-Parser can gather some connection statistics.
873 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
875 <sect2 id="upgradersnote">
876 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
879 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading from earlier
880 versions of <application>Privoxy</application>:
888 The recommended way to upgrade &my-app; is to backup your old
889 configuration files, install the new ones, verify that &my-app;
890 is working correctly and finally merge back your changes using
891 <application>diff</application> and maybe <application>patch</application>.
894 There are a number of new features in each &my-app; release and
895 most of them have to be explicitly enabled in the configuration
896 files. Old configuration files obviously don't do that and due
897 to syntax changes using old configuration files with a new
898 &my-app; isn't always possible anyway.
903 Note that some installers remove earlier versions completely,
904 including configuration files, therefore you should really save
905 any important configuration files!
910 On the other hand, other installers don't overwrite existing configuration
911 files, thinking you will want to do that yourself.
916 <filename>standard.action</filename> has been merged into
917 the <filename>default.action</filename> file.
922 In the default configuration only fatal errors are logged now.
923 You can change that in the <link linkend="DEBUG">debug section</link>
924 of the configuration file. You may also want to enable more verbose
925 logging until you verified that the new &my-app; version is working
932 Three other config file settings are now off by default:
933 <link linkend="enable-remote-toggle">enable-remote-toggle</link>,
934 <link linkend="enable-remote-http-toggle">enable-remote-http-toggle</link>,
935 and <link linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link>.
936 If you use or want these, you will need to explicitly enable them, and
937 be aware of the security issues involved.
944 What constitutes a <quote>default</quote> configuration has changed,
945 and you may want to review which actions are <quote>on</quote> by
946 default. This is primarily a matter of emphasis, but some features
947 you may have been used to, may now be <quote>off</quote> by default.
948 There are also a number of new actions and filters you may want to
949 consider, most of which are not fully incorporated into the default
950 settings as yet (see above).
957 The default actions setting is now <literal>Cautious</literal>. Previous
958 releases had a default setting of <literal>Medium</literal>. Experienced
959 users may want to adjust this, as it is fairly conservative by &my-app;
960 standards and past practices. See <ulink
961 url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default">
962 http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default</ulink>. New users
963 should try the default settings for a while before turning up the volume.
969 The default setting has filtering turned <emphasis>off</emphasis>, which
970 subsequently means that compression is <emphasis>on</emphasis>. Remember
971 that filtering does not work on compressed pages, so if you use, or want to
972 use, filtering, you will need to force compression off. Example:
976 { +<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{google} +<link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link> }
980 Or if you use a number of filters, or filter many sites, you may just want
981 to turn off compression for all sites in
982 <filename>default.action</filename> (or
983 <filename>user.action</filename>).
990 Also, <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> is
991 off by default now. If you've liked this feature in the past, you may want
992 to turn it back on in <filename>user.action</filename> now.
999 Some installers may not automatically start
1000 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
1011 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1012 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using Privoxy</title>
1018 Install <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
1019 linkend="installation">Installation Section</link> below for platform specific
1026 Advanced users and those who want to offer <application>Privoxy</application>
1027 service to more than just their local machine should check the <link
1028 linkend="config">main config file</link>, especially the <link
1029 linkend="access-control">security-relevant</link> options. These are
1036 Start <application>Privoxy</application>, if the installation program has
1037 not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
1038 <link linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link>.
1044 Set your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application> as HTTP and
1045 HTTPS (SSL) <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>
1046 by setting the proxy configuration for address of
1047 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> and port <literal>8118</literal>.
1048 <emphasis>DO NOT</emphasis> activate proxying for <literal>FTP</literal> or
1049 any protocols besides HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) unless you intend to prevent your
1050 browser from using these protocols.
1056 Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
1057 If using <application>Privoxy</application> to manage
1058 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
1059 you should remove any currently stored cookies too.
1065 A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
1066 most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
1067 configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
1068 to no initial configuration is required in most cases, you may want
1070 <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">web-based action editor</ulink> though.
1071 Be sure to read the warnings first.
1074 See the <link linkend="configuration">Configuration section</link> for more
1075 configuration options, and how to customize your installation.
1076 You might also want to look at the <link
1077 linkend="quickstart-ad-blocking">next section</link> for a quick
1078 introduction to how <application>Privoxy</application> blocks ads and
1085 If you experience ads that slip through, innocent images that are
1086 blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
1087 <application>Privoxy's</application> behavior, take a look at the <link
1088 linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>. As a quick start, you might
1089 find the <link linkend="act-examples">richly commented examples</link>
1090 helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the <ulink
1091 url="http://config.privoxy.org">web-based user interface</ulink>. The
1092 Appendix <quote><link linkend="actionsanat">Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an
1093 Action</link></quote> has hints on how to understand and debug actions that
1094 <quote>misbehave</quote>.
1099 Did anyone test these lately?
1103 For easy access to &my-app;'s most important controls, drag the provided
1104 <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklets</link> into your browser's
1112 Please see the section <link linkend="contact">Contacting the
1113 Developers</link> on how to report bugs, problems with websites or to get
1120 Now enjoy surfing with enhanced control, comfort and privacy!
1128 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1130 <sect2 id="quickstart-ad-blocking">
1131 <title>Quickstart to Ad Blocking</title>
1133 NOTE: This section is deliberately redundant for those that don't
1134 want to read the whole thing (which is getting lengthy).
1137 Ad blocking is but one of <application>Privoxy's</application>
1138 array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
1139 user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody.
1142 This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
1143 you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive
1144 information provided below, though this is highly recommended.
1147 First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
1148 more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
1149 things that were not intended. And the more likely that some things
1150 may not work as intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
1151 extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
1152 <quote>problem</quote> sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
1153 configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
1154 not an easy way to eliminate <emphasis>all</emphasis> ads. Either take
1155 the easy way and settle for <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads blocked with the
1156 default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing
1157 habits and preferences.
1160 Secondly, a brief explanation of <application>Privoxy's </application>
1161 <quote>actions</quote>. <quote>Actions</quote> in this context, are
1162 the directives we use to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to perform
1163 some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell
1164 <application>Privoxy</application> to take some <quote>action</quote>. Each
1165 action has a unique name and function. While there are many potential
1166 <application>actions</application> in <application>Privoxy's</application>
1167 arsenal, only a few are used for ad blocking. <link
1168 linkend="actions">Actions</link>, and <link linkend="actions-file">action
1169 configuration files</link>, are explained in depth below.
1172 Actions are specified in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
1173 followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
1174 can actually be URL type <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> that use
1175 wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs. The
1176 actions, together with the URL patterns are called a section.
1179 When you connect to a website, the full URL will either match one or more
1180 of the sections as defined in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
1181 or not. If so, then <application>Privoxy</application> will perform the
1182 respective actions. If not, then nothing special happens. Furthermore, web
1183 pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your web browser will
1184 use to load additional components of the page, as it parses the
1185 original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just an URL
1186 embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server,
1187 or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many
1188 such embedded URLs. &my-app; can deal with each URL individually, so, for
1189 instance, the main page text is not touched, but images from such-and-such
1194 The most important actions for basic ad blocking are: <literal><link
1195 linkend="block">block</link></literal>, <literal><link
1196 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
1198 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal>,and
1199 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>:
1207 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> - this is perhaps
1208 the single most used action, and is particularly important for ad blocking.
1209 This action stops any contact between your browser and any URL patterns
1210 that match this action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads,
1211 but also anything that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply
1212 stops any communication with the remote server and sends
1213 <application>Privoxy</application>'s own built-in BLOCKED page instead to
1214 let you now what has happened (with some exceptions, see below).
1220 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> -
1221 tells <application>Privoxy</application> to treat this URL as an image.
1222 <application>Privoxy</application>'s default configuration already does this
1223 for all common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this
1224 is not so easy to determine. So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly
1225 important for ad blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of
1226 some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the
1227 <application>Privoxy</application> BLOCKED page (which would only result in
1228 a <quote>broken image</quote> icon). There are some limitations to this
1229 though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an image substitution for
1230 an entire HTML page in most situations.
1236 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> -
1237 sends an empty document instead of <application>Privoxy's</application>
1238 normal BLOCKED HTML page. This is useful for file types that are neither
1239 HTML nor images, such as blocking JavaScript files.
1246 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> - tells
1247 <application>Privoxy</application> what to display in place of an ad image that
1248 has hit a block rule. For this to come into play, the URL must match a
1249 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action somewhere in the
1250 configuration, <emphasis>and</emphasis>, it must also match an
1251 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action.
1254 The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are:
1258 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad
1259 replacement is obvious. This is the default.
1264 <emphasis>blank</emphasis> - A very small empty GIF image is displayed.
1265 This is the so-called <quote>invisible</quote> configuration option.
1270 <emphasis>http://<URL></emphasis> - A redirect to any image anywhere
1271 of the user's choosing (advanced usage).
1280 Advanced users will eventually want to explore &my-app;
1281 <literal><link linkend="filter">filters</link></literal> as well. Filters
1282 are very different from <literal><link
1283 linkend="block">blocks</link></literal>.
1284 A <quote>block</quote> blocks a site, page, or unwanted contented. Filters
1285 are a way of filtering or modifying what is actually on the page. An example
1286 filter usage: a text replacement of <quote>no-no</quote> for
1287 <quote>nasty-word</quote>. That is a very simple example. This process can be
1288 used for ad blocking, but it is more in the realm of advanced usage and has
1289 some pitfalls to be wary off.
1293 The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
1294 the special <application>Privoxy</application> editor at <ulink
1295 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1296 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>). This
1297 is an internal page, and does not require Internet access.
1301 Note that as of <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta the
1302 action editor is disabled by default. Check the
1303 <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions
1304 section in the configuration file</ulink> to learn why and in which
1305 cases it's safe to enable again.
1309 If you decided to enable the action editor, select the appropriate
1310 <quote>actions</quote> file, and click
1311 <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>. It is best to put personal or
1312 local preferences in <filename>user.action</filename> since this is not
1313 meant to be overwritten during upgrades, and will over-ride the settings in
1314 other files. Here you can insert new <quote>actions</quote>, and URLs for ad
1315 blocking or other purposes, and make other adjustments to the configuration.
1316 <application>Privoxy</application> will detect these changes automatically.
1320 A quick and simple step by step example:
1328 Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
1329 <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote> from the
1337 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1342 Find <filename>user.action</filename> in the top section, and click
1343 on <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>:
1346 <!-- image of editor and actions files selections -->
1348 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Actions Files in Use</title>
1351 <imagedata fileref="files-in-use.jpg" format="jpg">
1354 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ]</phrase>
1363 You should have a section with only
1364 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> listed under
1365 <quote>Actions:</quote>.
1366 If not, click a <quote><guibutton>Insert new section below</guibutton></quote>
1367 button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the
1368 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button right under the word <quote>Actions:</quote>.
1369 This will bring up a list of all actions. Find
1370 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> near the top, and click
1371 in the <quote>Enabled</quote> column, then <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote>
1372 just below the list.
1377 Now, in the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> actions section,
1378 click the <quote><guibutton>Add</guibutton></quote> button, and paste the URL the
1379 browser got from <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote>.
1380 Remove the <literal>http://</literal> at the beginning of the URL. Then, click
1381 <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote> (or
1382 <quote><guibutton>OK</guibutton></quote> if in a pop-up window).
1387 Now go back to the original page, and press <keycap>SHIFT-Reload</keycap>
1388 (or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now.
1396 This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
1397 wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same
1398 site. For a more extensive explanation of <quote>patterns</quote>, and
1399 the entire actions concept, see <link linkend="actions-file">the Actions
1404 For advanced users who want to hand edit their config files, you might want
1405 to now go to the <link linkend="act-examples">Actions Files Tutorial</link>.
1406 The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor.
1409 There are also various
1410 <link linkend="filter">filters</link> that can be used for ad blocking
1411 (filters are a special subset of actions). These
1412 fall into the <quote>advanced</quote> usage category, and are explained in
1413 depth in later sections.
1420 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1423 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1424 <sect1 id="startup">
1425 <title>Starting Privoxy</title>
1427 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
1428 will want to configure your browser(s) to use
1429 <application>Privoxy</application> as a HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)
1430 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>. The default is
1431 127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions
1432 used port 8000). This is the one configuration step <emphasis>that must be done
1436 Please note that <application>Privoxy</application> can only proxy HTTP and
1437 HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols.
1440 <!-- image of Mozilla Proxy configuration -->
1442 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
1443 Mozilla/Netscape HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) Settings</title>
1446 <imagedata fileref="proxy_setup.jpg" format="jpg">
1449 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
1457 With <application>Firefox</application>, this is typically set under:
1461 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Network</guibutton> -><guibutton>Connection</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Settings</guibutton>
1466 Or optionally on some platforms:
1470 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>General</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connection Settings</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Manual Proxy Configuration</guibutton>
1476 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
1477 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under:
1482 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
1483 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
1484 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Proxies</guibutton> -> <guibutton>HTTP Proxy</guibutton>
1489 For <application>Internet Explorer v.5-7</application>:
1493 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Internet Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connections</guibutton> -> <guibutton>LAN Settings</guibutton>
1497 Then, check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info
1498 (Address: 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include HTTPS (SSL), if you want HTTPS
1499 proxy support too (sometimes labeled <quote>Secure</quote>). Make sure any
1500 checkboxes like <quote>Use the same proxy server for all protocols</quote> is
1501 <emphasis>UNCHECKED</emphasis>. You want only HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)!
1504 <!-- image of IE Proxy configuration -->
1506 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
1507 Internet Explorer HTTP and HTTPS (Secure) Settings</title>
1510 <imagedata fileref="proxy2.jpg" format="jpg">
1513 <phrase>[ Screenshot of IE Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
1521 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
1522 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. Remove
1523 any <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
1524 if you want <application>Privoxy</application> to manage that. You are now
1525 ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
1526 <application>Privoxy</application>!
1530 <application>Privoxy</application> itself is typically started by specifying the
1531 main configuration file to be used on the command line. If no configuration
1532 file is specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application>
1533 will look for a file named <filename>config</filename> in the current
1534 directory. Except on Win32 where it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>.
1537 <sect2 id="start-redhat">
1538 <title>Red Hat and Fedora</title>
1540 A default Red Hat installation may not start &my-app; upon boot. It will use
1541 the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
1546 # /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
1554 # service privoxy start
1559 <sect2 id="start-debian">
1560 <title>Debian</title>
1562 We use a script. Note that Debian typically starts &my-app; upon booting per
1563 default. It will use the file
1564 <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
1569 # /etc/init.d/privoxy start
1574 <sect2 id="start-windows">
1575 <title>Windows</title>
1577 Click on the &my-app; Icon to start <application>Privoxy</application>. If no configuration file is
1578 specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application> will look
1579 for a file named <filename>config.txt</filename>. Note that Windows will
1580 automatically start &my-app; when the system starts if you chose that option
1584 <application>Privoxy</application> can run with full Windows service functionality.
1585 On Windows only, the &my-app; program has two new command line arguments
1586 to install and uninstall &my-app; as a service. See the
1587 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Windows Installation
1588 instructions</link> for details.
1592 <sect2 id="start-unices">
1593 <title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others</title>
1595 Example Unix startup command:
1599 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
1604 <sect2 id="start-os2">
1607 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
1608 start automatically when the system restarts. You can start it manually by
1609 double-clicking on the <application>Privoxy</application> icon in the
1610 <application>Privoxy</application> folder.
1614 <sect2 id="start-macosx">
1615 <title>Mac OS X</title>
1617 After downloading the privoxy software, unzip the downloaded file by
1618 double-clicking on the zip file icon. Then, double-click on the
1619 installer package icon and follow the installation process.
1622 The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful
1623 installation. In addition, the privoxy service will automatically
1624 start every time your computer starts up.
1627 To prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your
1628 computer starts up, remove or rename the folder named
1629 /Library/StartupItems/Privoxy.
1632 A simple application named Privoxy Utility has been created which
1633 enables administrators to easily start and stop the privoxy service.
1636 In addition, the Privoxy Utility presents a simple way for
1637 administrators to edit the various privoxy config files. A method
1638 to uninstall the software is also available.
1641 An administrator username and password must be supplied in order for
1642 the Privoxy Utility to perform any of the tasks.
1647 <sect2 id="start-amigaos">
1648 <title>AmigaOS</title>
1650 Start <application>Privoxy</application> (with RUN <>NIL:) in your
1651 <filename>startnet</filename> script (AmiTCP), in
1652 <filename>s:user-startup</filename> (RoadShow), as startup program in your
1653 startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
1654 <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically quit when you quit your
1655 TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that
1656 <application>Privoxy</application> is still running).
1660 <sect2 id="start-gentoo">
1661 <title>Gentoo</title>
1663 A script is again used. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config
1664 </filename> as its main configuration file.
1668 /etc/init.d/privoxy start
1672 Note that <application>Privoxy</application> is not automatically started at
1673 boot time by default. You can change this with the <literal>rc-update</literal>
1678 rc-update add privoxy default
1686 See the section <link linkend="cmdoptions">Command line options</link> for
1690 must find a better place for this paragraph
1693 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
1694 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
1695 <ulink url="actions-file.html"><quote>actions</quote></ulink> files. These are
1696 where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking, and other
1697 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several
1698 such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
1702 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites for which you may prefer
1703 persistent cookies, and add these to your actions configuration as needed. By
1704 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
1705 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), unless you add them to the
1706 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
1707 to edit <filename>user.action</filename> (or through the web based interface)
1708 and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser, it would make
1709 more sense to let <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which
1710 case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
1714 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
1715 sites is the popup-killing (through <ulink
1716 url="actions-file.html#FILTER-POPUPS"><quote>+filter{popups}</quote></ulink>),
1717 because your favorite shopping, banking, or leisure site may need
1718 popups (explained below).
1722 <application>Privoxy</application> does not support all of the optional HTTP/1.1
1723 features yet. In the unlikely event that you experience inexplicable problems
1724 with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
1725 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
1726 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
1727 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
1728 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote> config option in
1729 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
1730 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
1734 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
1735 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
1736 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
1737 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote>
1738 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
1739 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1740 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1741 and then follow the link to <quote>View & Change the Current Configuration</quote>.
1742 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
1746 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
1747 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
1748 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
1749 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
1750 to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
1751 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
1752 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
1756 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
1757 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
1758 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
1759 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
1760 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
1761 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
1766 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <link
1767 linkend="actions-file">read more about the actions concept</link>
1768 or even dive deep into the <link linkend="actionsanat">Appendix
1773 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
1774 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
1775 section <link linkend="contact"><quote>Contacting the
1776 Developers</quote></link> below.
1781 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1782 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
1783 <title>Command Line Options</title>
1785 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
1786 command-line options:
1794 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
1797 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
1802 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
1805 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
1810 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
1813 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
1814 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
1819 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
1822 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
1823 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
1824 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
1825 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
1830 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
1833 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
1834 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
1835 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
1840 <emphasis>--chroot</emphasis>
1843 Before changing to the user ID given in the <emphasis>--user</emphasis> option,
1844 chroot to that user's home directory, i.e. make the kernel pretend to the &my-app;
1845 process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit
1846 the impact of possible vulnerabilities in &my-app; to the files contained in that hierarchy.
1852 <emphasis>--pre-chroot-nslookup hostname</emphasis>
1855 Specifies a hostname to look up before doing a chroot. On some systems, initializing the
1856 resolver library involves reading config files from /etc and/or loading additional shared
1857 libraries from /lib. On these systems, doing a hostname lookup before the chroot reduces
1858 the number of files that must be copied into the chroot tree.
1861 For fastest startup speed, a good value is a hostname that is not in /etc/hosts but that
1862 your local name server (listed in /etc/resolv.conf) can resolve without recursion
1863 (that is, without having to ask any other name servers). The hostname need not exist,
1864 but if it doesn't, an error message (which can be ignored) will be output.
1870 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
1873 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
1874 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
1875 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
1876 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
1877 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
1878 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
1886 On <application>MS Windows</application> only there are two additional
1887 command-line options to allow <application>Privoxy</application> to install and
1888 run as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>. See the
1889 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Window Installation section</link>
1897 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1900 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1901 <sect1 id="configuration"><title>Privoxy Configuration</title>
1903 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
1904 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
1905 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
1906 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
1910 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1913 <title>Controlling Privoxy with Your Web Browser</title>
1915 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
1916 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1917 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1918 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
1919 You will see the following section:
1923 <!-- Needs to be put in a table and colorized -->
1926 <bridgehead renderas="sect2"> Privoxy Menu</bridgehead>
1930 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View & change the current configuration</ulink>
1933 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">View the source code version numbers</ulink>
1936 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">View the request headers.</ulink>
1939 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">Look up which actions apply to a URL and why</ulink>
1942 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">Toggle Privoxy on or off</ulink>
1945 ▪ <ulink
1946 url="http://www.privoxy.org/&p-version;/user-manual/">Documentation</ulink>
1954 This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the
1955 <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, which is where the ad, banner,
1956 cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
1957 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
1958 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
1959 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
1963 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
1964 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
1965 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
1966 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
1967 to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e.
1968 <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There
1969 is even a toggle <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklet</link> offered, so
1970 that you can toggle <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from
1975 Note that several of the features described above are disabled by default
1976 in <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta and later.
1978 <ulink url="config.html">configuration file</ulink> to learn why
1979 and in which cases it's safe to enable them again.
1984 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1989 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1991 <sect2 id="confoverview">
1992 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
1994 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
1995 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
1996 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
1997 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
1998 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
1999 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
2003 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
2004 some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
2005 principle configuration files are:
2013 The <link linkend="config">main configuration file</link> is named <filename>config</filename>
2014 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
2015 on Windows. This is a required file.
2021 <filename>match-all.action</filename> is used to define which <quote>actions</quote>
2022 relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups, content modification, cookie handling
2023 etc should be applied by default. It should be the first actions file loaded.
2026 <filename>default.action</filename> defines many exceptions (both positive and negative)
2027 from the default set of actions that's configured in <filename>match-all.action</filename>.
2028 It should be the second actions file loaded and shouldn't be edited by the user.
2031 Multiple actions files may be defined in <filename>config</filename>. These
2032 are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
2033 preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
2034 <filename>match-all.action</filename> (which you will most probably want
2035 to define sooner or later) are best applied in <filename>user.action</filename>,
2036 where you can preserve them across upgrades. The file isn't installed by all
2037 installers, but you can easily create it yourself with a text editor.
2040 There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
2042 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
2044 url="http://p.p/show-status">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>) for the
2045 various actions files.
2051 <quote>Filter files</quote> (the <link linkend="filter-file">filter
2052 file</link>) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
2053 viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
2054 lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
2055 whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
2056 <filename>default.filter</filename> includes various filters made
2057 available for use by the developers. Some are much more intrusive than
2058 others, and all should be used with caution. You may define additional
2059 filter files in <filename>config</filename> as you can with
2060 actions files. We suggest <filename>user.filter</filename> for any
2061 locally defined filters or customizations.
2069 The syntax of the configuration and filter files may change between different
2070 Privoxy versions, unfortunately some enhancements cost backwards compatibility.
2071 <!-- Add link to documentation-->
2075 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
2076 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
2077 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
2078 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
2079 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
2080 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
2081 out" that line. Blank lines are ignored.
2085 The actions files and filter files
2086 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
2087 maximum flexibility.
2091 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
2092 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
2093 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
2094 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
2095 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
2096 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
2097 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
2102 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
2103 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
2104 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
2105 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
2111 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2114 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
2116 <!-- **************************************************** -->
2117 <!-- Include config.sgml here -->
2118 <!-- This is where the entire config file is detailed. -->
2120 <!-- end include -->
2123 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2127 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
2129 <sect1 id="actions-file"><title>Actions Files</title>
2133 XXX: similar descriptions are in the Configuration Files sections.
2134 We should only describe them at one place.
2137 The actions files are used to define what <emphasis>actions</emphasis>
2138 <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which URLs, and thus determines
2139 how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
2140 transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof).
2141 There are a number of such actions, with a wide range of functionality.
2142 Each action does something a little different.
2143 These actions give us a veritable arsenal of tools with which to exert
2144 our control, preferences and independence. Actions can be combined so that
2145 their effects are aggregated when applied against a given set of URLs.
2149 are three action files included with <application>Privoxy</application> with
2156 <filename>match-all.action</filename> - is used to define which
2157 <quote>actions</quote> relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups,
2158 content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default.
2159 It should be the first actions file loaded
2164 <filename>default.action</filename> - defines many exceptions (both
2165 positive and negative) from the default set of actions that's configured
2166 in <filename>match-all.action</filename>. It is a set of rules that should
2167 work reasonably well as-is for most users. This file is only supposed to
2168 be edited by the developers. It should be the second actions file loaded.
2173 <filename>user.action</filename> - is intended to be for local site
2174 preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank
2175 has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
2176 thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded.
2181 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Cautious</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Medium</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Advanced</guibutton>
2184 These have increasing levels of aggressiveness <emphasis>and have no
2185 influence on your browsing unless you select them explicitly in the
2186 editor</emphasis>. A default installation should be pre-set to
2187 <literal>Cautious</literal>. New users should try this for a while before
2188 adjusting the settings to more aggressive levels. The more aggressive
2189 the settings, then the more likelihood there is of problems such as sites
2190 not working as they should.
2193 The <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button allows you to turn each
2194 action on/off individually for fine-tuning. The <guibutton>Cautious</guibutton>
2195 button changes the actions list to low/safe settings which will activate
2196 ad blocking and a minimal set of &my-app;'s features, and subsequently
2197 there will be less of a chance for accidental problems. The
2198 <guibutton>Medium</guibutton> button sets the list to a medium level of
2199 other features and a low level set of privacy features. The
2200 <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> button sets the list to a high level of
2201 ad blocking and medium level of privacy. See the chart below. The latter
2202 three buttons over-ride any changes via with the
2203 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button. More fine-tuning can be done in the
2204 lower sections of this internal page.
2207 While the actions file editor allows to enable these settings in all
2208 actions files, they are only supposed to be enabled in the first one
2209 to make sure you don't unintentionally overrule earlier rules.
2212 The default profiles, and their associated actions, as pre-defined in
2213 <filename>default.action</filename> are:
2216 <table frame=all><title>Default Configurations</title>
2217 <tgroup cols=4 align=left colsep=1 rowsep=1>
2218 <colspec colname=c1>
2219 <colspec colname=c2>
2220 <colspec colname=c3>
2221 <colspec colname=c4>
2224 <entry>Feature</entry>
2225 <entry>Cautious</entry>
2226 <entry>Medium</entry>
2227 <entry>Advanced</entry>
2232 <!-- <entry>f1</entry> -->
2233 <!-- <entry>f2</entry> -->
2234 <!-- <entry>f3</entry> -->
2235 <!-- <entry>f4</entry> -->
2241 <entry>Ad-blocking Aggressiveness</entry>
2242 <entry>medium</entry>
2248 <entry>Ad-filtering by size</entry>
2255 <entry>Ad-filtering by link</entry>
2261 <entry>Pop-up killing</entry>
2262 <entry>blocks only</entry>
2263 <entry>blocks only</entry>
2264 <entry>blocks only</entry>
2268 <entry>Privacy Features</entry>
2270 <entry>medium</entry>
2271 <entry>medium/high</entry>
2275 <entry>Cookie handling</entry>
2277 <entry>session-only</entry>
2282 <entry>Referer forging</entry>
2289 <entry>GIF de-animation</entry>
2296 <entry>Fast redirects</entry>
2303 <entry>HTML taming</entry>
2310 <entry>JavaScript taming</entry>
2317 <entry>Web-bug killing</entry>
2324 <entry>Image tag reordering</entry>
2340 The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
2341 file, and are processed in the order they are defined (e.g.
2342 <filename>default.action</filename> is typically processed before
2343 <filename>user.action</filename>). The content of these can all be viewed and
2345 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
2346 The over-riding principle when applying actions, is that the last action that
2347 matches a given URL wins. The broadest, most general rules go first
2348 (defined in <filename>default.action</filename>),
2349 followed by any exceptions (typically also in
2350 <filename>default.action</filename>), which are then followed lastly by any
2351 local preferences (typically in <emphasis>user</emphasis><filename>.action</filename>).
2352 Generally, <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word.
2356 An actions file typically has multiple sections. If you want to use
2357 <quote>aliases</quote> in an actions file, you have to place the (optional)
2358 <link linkend="aliases">alias section</link> at the top of that file.
2359 Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all
2360 sites and pages (be <emphasis>very careful</emphasis> with using such a
2361 universal set in <filename>user.action</filename> or any other actions file after
2362 <filename>default.action</filename>, because it will override the result
2363 from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
2364 exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
2365 <filename>user.action</filename> as an appendix to <filename>default.action</filename>,
2366 with the advantage that it is a separate file, which makes preserving your
2367 personal settings across <application>Privoxy</application> upgrades easier.
2371 Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
2372 just some obnoxious URL whose content you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
2373 or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
2374 written to disk), content can be modified, some JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking
2375 fooled, and much more. See below for a <link linkend="actions">complete list
2379 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2381 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
2383 Note that some <link linkend="actions">actions</link>, like cookie suppression
2384 or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these
2385 techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and
2386 certainly a matter of personal taste. And, things can always change, requiring
2387 refinements in the configuration. In general, it can be said that the more
2388 <quote>aggressive</quote> your default settings (in the top section of the
2389 actions file) are, the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you
2390 will have to make later. If, for example, you want to crunch all cookies per
2391 default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you
2392 regularly use and that require cookies for actually useful purposes, like maybe
2393 your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
2397 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
2398 distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
2399 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
2400 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :).
2404 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2406 <title>How to Edit</title>
2408 The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by
2409 using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from <ulink
2410 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
2411 Note: the config file option <link
2412 linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link> must be enabled for
2413 this to work. The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single
2414 feature on a per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults
2415 like <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> or
2416 <quote>Advanced</quote>. Warning: the <quote>Advanced</quote> setting is more
2417 aggressive, and will be more likely to cause problems for some sites.
2418 Experienced users only!
2422 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
2423 the actions files with your favorite text editor. Look at
2424 <filename>default.action</filename> which is richly commented with many
2430 <sect2 id="actions-apply">
2431 <title>How Actions are Applied to Requests</title>
2433 Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections,
2434 like the <quote><link linkend="aliases">alias</link></quote> sections which will
2435 be discussed later. For now let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a
2436 heading line (often split up to multiple lines for readability) which consist
2437 of a list of actions, separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces.
2438 Below that, there is a list of URL and tag patterns, each on a separate line.
2442 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
2443 compared to all URL patterns in each <quote>action file</quote>.
2444 Every time it matches, the list of applicable actions for the request is
2445 incrementally updated, using the heading of the section in which the
2446 pattern is located. The same is done again for tags and tag patterns later on.
2450 If multiple applying sections set the same action differently,
2451 the last match wins. If not, the effects are aggregated.
2452 E.g. a URL might match a regular section with a heading line of <literal>{
2453 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link> }</literal>,
2454 then later another one with just <literal>{
2455 +<link linkend="block">block</link> }</literal>, resulting
2456 in <emphasis>both</emphasis> actions to apply. And there may well be
2457 cases where you will want to combine actions together. Such a section then
2463 { +<literal>handle-as-image</literal> +<literal>block{Banner ads.}</literal> }
2464 # Block these as if they were images. Send no block page.
2466 media.example.com/.*banners
2467 .example.com/images/ads/</screen>
2471 You can trace this process for URL patterns and any given URL by visiting <ulink
2472 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
2476 Examples and more detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
2477 Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</link> section.
2481 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2482 <sect2 id="af-patterns">
2483 <title>Patterns</title>
2485 As mentioned, <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>patterns</quote>
2486 to determine what <emphasis>actions</emphasis> might apply to which sites and
2487 pages your browser attempts to access. These <quote>patterns</quote> use wild
2488 card type <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> matching to achieve a high degree of
2489 flexibility. This allows one expression to be expanded and potentially match
2490 against many similar patterns.
2494 Generally, an URL pattern has the form
2495 <literal><domain><port>/<path></literal>, where the
2496 <literal><domain></literal>, the <literal><port></literal>
2497 and the <literal><path></literal> are optional. (This is why the special
2498 <literal>/</literal> pattern matches all URLs). Note that the protocol
2499 portion of the URL pattern (e.g. <literal>http://</literal>) should
2500 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be included in the pattern. This is assumed already!
2503 The pattern matching syntax is different for the domain and path parts of
2504 the URL. The domain part uses a simple globbing type matching technique,
2505 while the path part uses more flexible
2506 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2507 Expressions</quote></ulink> (POSIX 1003.2).
2510 The port part of a pattern is a decimal port number preceded by a colon
2511 (<literal>:</literal>). If the domain part contains a numerical IPv6 address,
2512 it has to be put into angle brackets
2513 (<literal><</literal>, <literal>></literal>).
2518 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
2521 is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2522 regardless of which document on that server is requested. So ALL pages in
2523 this domain would be covered by the scope of this action. Note that a
2524 simple <literal>example.com</literal> is different and would NOT match.
2529 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
2532 means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
2538 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
2541 matches all the documents on <literal>www.example.com</literal>
2542 whose name starts with <literal>/index.html</literal>.
2547 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html$</literal></term>
2550 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
2551 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
2556 <term><literal>/index.html$</literal></term>
2559 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
2560 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server anywhere.
2565 <term><literal>/</literal></term>
2568 Matches any URL because there's no requirement for either the
2569 domain or the path to match anything.
2574 <term><literal>:8000/</literal></term>
2577 Matches any URL pointing to TCP port 8000.
2582 <term><literal><2001:db8::1>/</literal></term>
2585 Matches any URL with the host address <literal>2001:db8::1</literal>.
2586 (Note that the real URL uses plain brackets, not angle brackets.)
2591 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
2594 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
2595 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>. So its
2603 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2604 <sect3><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
2607 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
2608 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
2614 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
2617 matches any domain with first-level domain <literal>com</literal>
2618 and second-level domain <literal>example</literal>.
2619 For example <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2620 <literal>example.com</literal> and <literal>foo.bar.baz.example.com</literal>.
2621 Note that it wouldn't match if the second-level domain was <literal>another-example</literal>.
2626 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
2629 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
2630 <literal>www.</literal> (It also matches the domain
2631 <literal>www</literal> but most of the time that doesn't matter.)
2636 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
2639 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>.
2640 And, by the way, also included would be any files or documents that exist
2641 within that domain since no path limitations are specified. (Correctly
2642 speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as
2643 a domain.) This might be <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2644 <literal>news.example.de</literal>, or
2645 <literal>www.example.net/cgi/testing.pl</literal> for instance. All these
2653 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
2654 themselves. These work similarly to shell globbing type wild-cards:
2655 <quote>*</quote> represents zero or more arbitrary characters (this is
2657 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2658 Expression</quote></ulink> based syntax of <quote>.*</quote>),
2659 <quote>?</quote> represents any single character (this is equivalent to the
2660 regular expression syntax of a simple <quote>.</quote>), and you can define
2661 <quote>character classes</quote> in square brackets which is similar to
2662 the same regular expression technique. All of this can be freely mixed:
2667 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2670 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
2671 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
2676 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2679 matches all of the above, and then some.
2684 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
2687 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
2688 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
2693 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
2696 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
2697 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
2698 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
2699 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
2706 While flexible, this is not the sophistication of full regular expression based syntax.
2711 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2714 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2715 <sect3><title>The Path Pattern</title>
2718 <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>modern</quote> POSIX 1003.2
2719 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2720 Expressions</quote></ulink> for matching the path portion (after the slash),
2721 and is thus more flexible.
2725 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
2726 expressions, you also might want to have a look at your operating system's documentation
2727 on regular expressions (try <literal>man re_format</literal>).
2731 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
2732 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote> (regular expression speak
2733 for the beginning of a line).
2737 Please also note that matching in the path is <emphasis>CASE INSENSITIVE</emphasis>
2738 by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
2739 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch: <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match
2740 only documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
2741 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
2746 <term><literal>.example.com/.*</literal></term>
2749 Is equivalent to just <quote>.example.com</quote>, since any documents
2750 within that domain are matched with or without the <quote>.*</quote>
2751 regular expression. This is redundant
2756 <term><literal>.example.com/.*/index.html$</literal></term>
2759 Will match any page in the domain of <quote>example.com</quote> that is
2760 named <quote>index.html</quote>, and that is part of some path. For
2761 example, it matches <quote>www.example.com/testing/index.html</quote> but
2762 NOT <quote>www.example.com/index.html</quote> because the regular
2763 expression called for at least two <quote>/'s</quote>, thus the path
2764 requirement. It also would match
2765 <quote>www.example.com/testing/index_html</quote>, because of the
2766 special meta-character <quote>.</quote>.
2771 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)?index\.html$</literal></term>
2774 This regular expression is conditional so it will match any page
2775 named <quote>index.html</quote> regardless of path which in this case can
2776 have one or more <quote>/'s</quote>. And this one must contain exactly
2777 <quote>.html</quote> (but does not have to end with that!).
2782 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)</literal></term>
2785 This regular expression will match any path of <quote>example.com</quote>
2786 that contains any of the words <quote>ads</quote>, <quote>banner</quote>,
2787 <quote>banners</quote> (because of the <quote>?</quote>) or <quote>junk</quote>.
2788 The path does not have to end in these words, just contain them.
2793 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)/.*\.(jpe?g|gif|png)$</literal></term>
2796 This is very much the same as above, except now it must end in either
2797 <quote>.jpg</quote>, <quote>.jpeg</quote>, <quote>.gif</quote> or <quote>.png</quote>. So this
2798 one is limited to common image formats.
2805 There are many, many good examples to be found in <filename>default.action</filename>,
2806 and more tutorials below in <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>.
2811 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2814 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2815 <sect3 id="tag-pattern"><title>The Tag Pattern</title>
2818 Tag patterns are used to change the applying actions based on the
2819 request's tags. Tags can be created with either the
2820 <link linkend="CLIENT-HEADER-TAGGER">client-header-tagger</link>
2821 or the <link linkend="SERVER-HEADER-TAGGER">server-header-tagger</link> action.
2825 Tag patterns have to start with <quote>TAG:</quote>, so &my-app;
2826 can tell them apart from URL patterns. Everything after the colon
2827 including white space, is interpreted as a regular expression with
2828 path pattern syntax, except that tag patterns aren't left-anchored
2829 automatically (&my-app; doesn't silently add a <quote>^</quote>,
2830 you have to do it yourself if you need it).
2834 To match all requests that are tagged with <quote>foo</quote>
2835 your pattern line should be <quote>TAG:^foo$</quote>,
2836 <quote>TAG:foo</quote> would work as well, but it would also
2837 match requests whose tags contain <quote>foo</quote> somewhere.
2838 <quote>TAG: foo</quote> wouldn't work as it requires white space.
2842 Sections can contain URL and tag patterns at the same time,
2843 but tag patterns are checked after the URL patterns and thus
2844 always overrule them, even if they are located before the URL patterns.
2848 Once a new tag is added, Privoxy checks right away if it's matched by one
2849 of the tag patterns and updates the action settings accordingly. As a result
2850 tags can be used to activate other tagger actions, as long as these other
2851 taggers look for headers that haven't already be parsed.
2855 For example you could tag client requests which use the
2856 <literal>POST</literal> method,
2857 then use this tag to activate another tagger that adds a tag if cookies
2858 are sent, and then use a block action based on the cookie tag. This allows
2859 the outcome of one action, to be input into a subsequent action. However if
2860 you'd reverse the position of the described taggers, and activated the
2861 method tagger based on the cookie tagger, no method tags would be created.
2862 The method tagger would look for the request line, but at the time
2863 the cookie tag is created, the request line has already been parsed.
2867 While this is a limitation you should be aware of, this kind of
2868 indirection is seldom needed anyway and even the example doesn't
2869 make too much sense.
2876 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2879 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2881 <sect2 id="actions">
2882 <title>Actions</title>
2884 All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
2885 somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
2886 <quote>+</quote>, and turned off if preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. So a
2887 <literal>+action</literal> means <quote>do that action</quote>, e.g.
2888 <literal>+block</literal> means <quote>please block URLs that match the
2889 following patterns</quote>, and <literal>-block</literal> means <quote>don't
2890 block URLs that match the following patterns, even if <literal>+block</literal>
2891 previously applied.</quote>
2896 Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
2897 separated by whitespace, like in
2898 <literal>{+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}}</literal>,
2899 followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
2900 Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
2901 of the actions file.
2905 Actions fall into three categories:
2912 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>enabled</quote> or
2913 <quote>disabled</quote>. Syntax:
2917 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # enable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>
2918 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable></screen>
2921 Example: <literal>+handle-as-image</literal>
2928 Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
2933 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and set parameter to <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>,
2934 # overwriting parameter from previous match if necessary
2935 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action. The parameter can be omitted</screen>
2938 Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action,
2939 the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
2942 Example: <literal>+hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070602 Firefox/2.0.0.4}</literal>
2948 Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions,
2949 but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the
2950 same URL, but with different parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> the parameters
2951 from <emphasis>all</emphasis> matches are remembered. This is used for actions
2952 that can be executed for the same request repeatedly, like adding multiple
2953 headers, or filtering through multiple filters. Syntax:
2957 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and add <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> to the list of parameters
2958 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # remove the parameter <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> from the list of parameters
2959 # If it was the last one left, disable the action.
2960 <replaceable class="parameter">-name</replaceable> # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list</screen>
2963 Examples: <literal>+add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text}</literal> and
2964 <literal>+filter{html-annoyances}</literal>
2972 If nothing is specified in any actions file, no <quote>actions</quote> are
2973 taken. So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
2974 normal, non-blocking, non-filtering proxy. You must specifically enable the
2975 privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions
2976 files will give a good starting point).
2980 Later defined action sections always over-ride earlier ones of the same type.
2981 So exceptions to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
2982 in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files such
2983 as <filename>user.action</filename>). For multi-valued actions, the actions
2984 are applied in the order they are specified. Actions files are processed in
2985 the order they are defined in <filename>config</filename> (the default
2986 installation has three actions files). It also quite possible for any given
2987 URL to match more than one <quote>pattern</quote> (because of wildcards and
2988 regular expressions), and thus to trigger more than one set of actions! Last
2992 <!-- start actions listing -->
2994 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> actions are:
2998 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2999 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
3000 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
3002 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
3005 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3007 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="add-header">
3008 <title>add-header</title>
3012 <term>Typical use:</term>
3014 <para>Confuse log analysis, custom applications</para>
3019 <term>Effect:</term>
3022 Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
3029 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3031 <para>Multi-value.</para>
3036 <term>Parameter:</term>
3039 Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
3040 It is recommended that you use the <quote><literal>X-</literal></quote> prefix
3050 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
3051 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
3052 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
3056 Headers added by this action are not modified by other actions.
3062 <term>Example usage:</term>
3065 <screen>+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}</screen>
3073 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3074 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="block">
3075 <title>block</title>
3079 <term>Typical use:</term>
3081 <para>Block ads or other unwanted content</para>
3086 <term>Effect:</term>
3089 Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the
3090 requests are trapped by &my-app; and the requested URL is never retrieved,
3091 but is answered locally with a substitute page or image, as determined by
3093 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
3095 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>, and
3097 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> actions.
3105 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3107 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3112 <term>Parameter:</term>
3114 <para>A block reason that should be given to the user.</para>
3122 <application>Privoxy</application> sends a special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page
3123 for requests to blocked pages. This page contains the block reason given as
3124 parameter, a link to find out why the block action applies, and a click-through
3125 to the blocked content (the latter only if the force feature is available and
3129 A very important exception occurs if <emphasis>both</emphasis>
3130 <literal>block</literal> and <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
3131 apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If
3132 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
3133 (see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter,
3134 if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent.
3137 It is important to understand this process, in order
3138 to understand how <application>Privoxy</application> deals with
3139 ads and other unwanted content. Blocking is a core feature, and one
3140 upon which various other features depend.
3143 The <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
3144 action can perform a very similar task, by <quote>blocking</quote>
3145 banner images and other content through rewriting the relevant URLs in the
3146 document's HTML source, so they don't get requested in the first place.
3147 Note that this is a totally different technique, and it's easy to confuse the two.
3153 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3156 <screen>{+block{No nasty stuff for you.}}
3157 # Block and replace with "blocked" page
3158 .nasty-stuff.example.com
3160 {+block{Doubleclick banners.} +handle-as-image}
3161 # Block and replace with image
3165 {+block{Layered ads.} +handle-as-empty-document}
3166 # Block and then ignore
3167 adserver.example.net/.*\.js$</screen>
3177 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3178 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="change-x-forwarded-for">
3179 <title>change-x-forwarded-for</title>
3183 <term>Typical use:</term>
3185 <para>Improve privacy by not forwarding the source of the request in the HTTP headers.</para>
3190 <term>Effect:</term>
3193 Deletes the <quote>X-Forwarded-For:</quote> HTTP header from the client request,
3201 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3203 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3208 <term>Parameter:</term>
3212 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header.</para>
3216 <quote>add</quote> to create the header (or append
3217 the client's IP address to an already existing one).
3228 It is safe and recommended to use <literal>block</literal>.
3231 Forwarding the source address of the request may make
3232 sense in some multi-user setups but is also a privacy risk.
3237 <term>Example usage:</term>
3240 <screen>+change-x-forwarded-for{block}</screen>
3247 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3248 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-filter">
3249 <title>client-header-filter</title>
3253 <term>Typical use:</term>
3256 Rewrite or remove single client headers.
3262 <term>Effect:</term>
3265 All client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
3266 the specified regular expression based substitutions.
3273 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3275 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3280 <term>Parameter:</term>
3283 The name of a client-header filter, as defined in one of the
3284 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
3293 Client-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
3294 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
3295 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
3296 You can do that by using tags though.
3299 Client-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
3300 and use their output as input.
3303 If the request URL gets changed, &my-app; will detect that and use the new
3304 one. This can be used to rewrite the request destination behind the client's
3305 back, for example to specify a Tor exit relay for certain requests.
3308 Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
3309 to learn which client-header filters are available by default, and how to
3317 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3321 # Hide Tor exit notation in Host and Referer Headers
3322 {+client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}}
3333 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3334 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-tagger">
3335 <title>client-header-tagger</title>
3339 <term>Typical use:</term>
3342 Block requests based on their headers.
3348 <term>Effect:</term>
3351 Client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
3352 the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
3360 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3362 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3367 <term>Parameter:</term>
3370 The name of a client-header tagger, as defined in one of the
3371 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
3380 Client-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
3381 and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
3385 Client-header taggers are the first actions that are executed
3386 and their tags can be used to control every other action.
3392 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3396 # Tag every request with the User-Agent header
3397 {+client-header-tagger{user-agent}}
3400 # Tagging itself doesn't change the action
3401 # settings, sections with TAG patterns do:
3403 # If it's a download agent, use a different forwarding proxy,
3404 # show the real User-Agent and make sure resume works.
3405 {+forward-override{forward-socks5 10.0.0.2:2222 .} \
3406 -hide-if-modified-since \
3407 -overwrite-last-modified \
3412 TAG:^User-Agent: NetBSD-ftp/
3413 TAG:^User-Agent: Novell ZYPP Installer
3414 TAG:^User-Agent: RPM APT-HTTP/
3415 TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/
3416 TAG:^User-Agent: Ubuntu APT-HTTP/
3417 TAG:^User-Agent: MPlayer/
3427 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3428 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="content-type-overwrite">
3429 <title>content-type-overwrite</title>
3433 <term>Typical use:</term>
3435 <para>Stop useless download menus from popping up, or change the browser's rendering mode</para>
3440 <term>Effect:</term>
3443 Replaces the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header.
3450 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3452 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3457 <term>Parameter:</term>
3469 The <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header is used by the
3470 browser to decide what to do with the document. The value of this
3471 header can cause the browser to open a download menu instead of
3472 displaying the document by itself, even if the document's format is
3473 supported by the browser.
3476 The declared content type can also affect which rendering mode
3477 the browser chooses. If XHTML is delivered as <quote>text/html</quote>,
3478 many browsers treat it as yet another broken HTML document.
3479 If it is send as <quote>application/xml</quote>, browsers with
3480 XHTML support will only display it, if the syntax is correct.
3483 If you see a web site that proudly uses XHTML buttons, but sets
3484 <quote>Content-Type: text/html</quote>, you can use &my-app;
3485 to overwrite it with <quote>application/xml</quote> and validate
3486 the web master's claim inside your XHTML-supporting browser.
3487 If the syntax is incorrect, the browser will complain loudly.
3490 You can also go the opposite direction: if your browser prints
3491 error messages instead of rendering a document falsely declared
3492 as XHTML, you can overwrite the content type with
3493 <quote>text/html</quote> and have it rendered as broken HTML document.
3496 By default <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal> only replaces
3497 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> headers that look like some kind of text.
3498 If you want to overwrite it unconditionally, you have to combine it with
3499 <literal><link linkend="force-text-mode">force-text-mode</link></literal>.
3500 This limitation exists for a reason, think twice before circumventing it.
3503 Most of the time it's easier to replace this action with a custom
3504 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
3505 It allows you to activate it for every document of a certain site and it will still
3506 only replace the content types you aimed at.
3509 Of course you can apply <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal>
3510 to a whole site and then make URL based exceptions, but it's a lot
3511 more work to get the same precision.
3517 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
3520 <screen># Check if www.example.net/ really uses valid XHTML
3521 { +content-type-overwrite{application/xml} }
3524 # but leave the content type unmodified if the URL looks like a style sheet
3525 {-content-type-overwrite}
3526 www.example.net/.*\.css$
3527 www.example.net/.*style
3536 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3537 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-client-header">
3541 <title>crunch-client-header</title>
3545 <term>Typical use:</term>
3547 <para>Remove a client header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
3552 <term>Effect:</term>
3555 Deletes every header sent by the client that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
3562 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3564 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3569 <term>Parameter:</term>
3581 This action allows you to block client headers for which no dedicated
3582 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists.
3583 <application>Privoxy</application> will remove every client header that
3584 contains the string you supplied as parameter.
3587 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
3588 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
3589 they contain the same string.
3592 <literal>crunch-client-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
3593 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
3594 parts of them, you should use a
3595 <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header filter</link></literal>.
3599 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
3606 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3609 <screen># Block the non-existent "Privacy-Violation:" client header
3610 { +crunch-client-header{Privacy-Violation:} }
3620 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3621 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-if-none-match">
3622 <title>crunch-if-none-match</title>
3628 <term>Typical use:</term>
3630 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
3635 <term>Effect:</term>
3638 Deletes the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header.
3645 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3647 <para>Boolean.</para>
3652 <term>Parameter:</term>
3664 Removing the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header
3665 is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
3666 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote> which
3667 would cause the browser to use a cached copy of the page.
3670 It is also useful to make sure the header isn't used as a cookie
3671 replacement (unlikely but possible).
3674 Blocking the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> header shouldn't cause any
3675 caching problems, as long as the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> header
3676 isn't blocked or missing as well.
3679 It is recommended to use this action together with
3680 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hide-if-modified-since</link></literal>
3682 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>.
3688 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3691 <screen># Let the browser revalidate cached documents but don't
3692 # allow the server to use the revalidation headers for user tracking.
3693 {+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
3694 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
3695 +crunch-if-none-match}
3704 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3705 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-incoming-cookies">
3706 <title>crunch-incoming-cookies</title>
3710 <term>Typical use:</term>
3713 Prevent the web server from setting HTTP cookies on your system
3719 <term>Effect:</term>
3722 Deletes any <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from server replies.
3729 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3731 <para>Boolean.</para>
3736 <term>Parameter:</term>
3748 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
3749 <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
3750 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>.
3751 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
3754 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3755 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3756 since it would prevent the session cookies from being set. See also
3757 <literal><link linkend="filter-content-cookies">filter-content-cookies</link></literal>.
3763 <term>Example usage:</term>
3766 <screen>+crunch-incoming-cookies</screen>
3774 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3775 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-server-header">
3776 <title>crunch-server-header</title>
3782 <term>Typical use:</term>
3784 <para>Remove a server header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
3789 <term>Effect:</term>
3792 Deletes every header sent by the server that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
3799 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3801 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3806 <term>Parameter:</term>
3818 This action allows you to block server headers for which no dedicated
3819 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists. <application>Privoxy</application>
3820 will remove every server header that contains the string you supplied as parameter.
3823 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
3824 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
3825 they contain the same string.
3828 <literal>crunch-server-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
3829 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
3830 parts of them, you should use a custom
3831 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
3835 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
3842 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3845 <screen># Crunch server headers that try to prevent caching
3846 { +crunch-server-header{no-cache} }
3855 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3856 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-outgoing-cookies">
3857 <title>crunch-outgoing-cookies</title>
3861 <term>Typical use:</term>
3864 Prevent the web server from reading any HTTP cookies from your system
3870 <term>Effect:</term>
3873 Deletes any <quote>Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from client requests.
3880 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3882 <para>Boolean.</para>
3887 <term>Parameter:</term>
3899 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
3900 <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
3901 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>.
3902 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
3905 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3906 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3907 since it would prevent the session cookies from being read.
3913 <term>Example usage:</term>
3916 <screen>+crunch-outgoing-cookies</screen>
3925 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3926 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="deanimate-gifs">
3927 <title>deanimate-gifs</title>
3931 <term>Typical use:</term>
3933 <para>Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.</para>
3938 <term>Effect:</term>
3941 De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image.
3948 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3950 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3955 <term>Parameter:</term>
3958 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
3967 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
3968 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
3969 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
3970 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
3971 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
3972 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
3975 You can safely use this action with patterns that will also match non-GIF
3976 objects, because no attempt will be made at anything that doesn't look like
3983 <term>Example usage:</term>
3986 <screen>+deanimate-gifs{last}</screen>
3993 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3994 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="downgrade-http-version">
3995 <title>downgrade-http-version</title>
3999 <term>Typical use:</term>
4001 <para>Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1</para>
4006 <term>Effect:</term>
4009 Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0.
4016 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
4018 <para>Boolean.</para>
4023 <term>Parameter:</term>
4035 This is a left-over from the time when <application>Privoxy</application>
4036 didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
4037 unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server
4038 out there. Not all HTTP/1.1 features and requirements are supported yet,
4039 so there is a chance you might need this action.
4045 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4048 <screen>{+downgrade-http-version}
4049 problem-host.example.com</screen>
4057 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4058 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="fast-redirects">
4059 <title>fast-redirects</title>
4063 <term>Typical use:</term>
4065 <para>Fool some click-tracking scripts and speed up indirect links.</para>
4070 <term>Effect:</term>
4073 Detects redirection URLs and redirects the browser without contacting
4074 the redirection server first.
4081 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
4083 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4088 <term>Parameter:</term>
4093 <quote>simple-check</quote> to just search for the string <quote>http://</quote>
4094 to detect redirection URLs.
4099 <quote>check-decoded-url</quote> to decode URLs (if necessary) before searching
4100 for redirection URLs.
4111 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
4112 will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a
4113 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
4114 resulting from this scheme typically look like:
4115 <quote>http://www.example.org/click-tracker.cgi?target=http%3a//www.example.net/</quote>.
4118 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
4119 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
4120 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go
4121 to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your
4122 browser asks the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds
4126 This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement.
4127 If it is enabled by default, you will have to create some exceptions to
4128 this action. It can lead to failures in several ways:
4131 Not every URLs with other URLs as parameters is evil.
4132 Some sites offer a real service that requires this information to work.
4133 For example a validation service needs to know, which document to validate.
4134 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> assumes that every URL parameter that
4135 looks like another URL is a redirection target, and will always redirect to
4136 the last one. Most of the time the assumption is correct, but if it isn't,
4137 the user gets redirected anyway.
4140 Another failure occurs if the URL contains other parameters after the URL parameter.
4142 <quote>http://www.example.org/?redirect=http%3a//www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
4143 contains the redirection URL <quote>http://www.example.net/</quote>,
4144 followed by another parameter. <literal>fast-redirects</literal> doesn't know that
4145 and will cause a redirect to <quote>http://www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
4146 Depending on the target server configuration, the parameter will be silently ignored
4147 or lead to a <quote>page not found</quote> error. You can prevent this problem by
4148 first using the <literal><link linkend="redirect">redirect</link></literal> action
4149 to remove the last part of the URL, but it requires a little effort.
4152 To detect a redirection URL, <literal>fast-redirects</literal> only
4153 looks for the string <quote>http://</quote>, either in plain text
4154 (invalid but often used) or encoded as <quote>http%3a//</quote>.
4155 Some sites use their own URL encoding scheme, encrypt the address
4156 of the target server or replace it with a database id. In theses cases
4157 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> is fooled and the request reaches the
4158 redirection server where it probably gets logged.
4164 <term>Example usage:</term>
4168 { +fast-redirects{simple-check} }
4171 { +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} }
4172 another.example.com/testing</screen>
4181 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4182 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter">
4183 <title>filter</title>
4187 <term>Typical use:</term>
4189 <para>Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size),
4190 do fun text replacements, add personalized effects, etc.</para>
4195 <term>Effect:</term>
4198 All instances of text-based type, most notably HTML and JavaScript, to which
4199 this action applies, can be filtered on-the-fly through the specified regular
4200 expression based substitutions. (Note: as of version 3.0.3 plain text documents
4201 are exempted from filtering, because web servers often use the
4202 <literal>text/plain</literal> MIME type for all files whose type they don't know.)
4209 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
4211 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4216 <term>Parameter:</term>
4219 The name of a content filter, as defined in the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>.
4220 Filters can be defined in one or more files as defined by the
4221 <literal><link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal>
4222 option in the <link linkend="config">config file</link>.
4223 <filename>default.filter</filename> is the collection of filters
4224 supplied by the developers. Locally defined filters should go
4225 in their own file, such as <filename>user.filter</filename>.
4228 When used in its negative form,
4229 and without parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> filtering is completely disabled.
4238 For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available
4239 in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the examples below for
4243 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
4244 slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
4245 passed the filters. (The total time until the page is completely rendered
4246 doesn't change much, but it may be perceived as slower since the page is
4247 not incrementally displayed.)
4248 This effect will be more noticeable on slower connections.
4251 <quote>Rolling your own</quote>
4252 filters requires a knowledge of
4253 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
4254 Expressions</quote></ulink> and
4255 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html"><quote>HTML</quote></ulink>.
4256 This is very powerful feature, and potentially very intrusive.
4257 Filters should be used with caution, and where an equivalent
4258 <quote>action</quote> is not available.
4261 The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the
4262 <literal><link linkend="buffer-limit">buffer-limit</link></literal>
4263 option in the main <link linkend="config">config file</link>. The
4264 default is 4096 KB (4 Megs). Once this limit is exceeded, the buffered
4265 data, and all pending data, is passed through unfiltered.
4268 Inappropriate MIME types, such as zipped files, are not filtered at all.
4269 (Again, only text-based types except plain text). Encrypted SSL data
4270 (from HTTPS servers) cannot be filtered either, since this would violate
4271 the integrity of the secure transaction. In some situations it might
4272 be necessary to protect certain text, like source code, from filtering
4273 by defining appropriate <literal>-filter</literal> exceptions.
4276 Compressed content can't be filtered either, unless &my-app;
4277 is compiled with zlib support (requires at least &my-app; 3.0.7),
4278 in which case &my-app; will decompress the content before filtering
4282 If you use a &my-app; version without zlib support, but want filtering to work on
4283 as much documents as possible, even those that would normally be sent compressed,
4284 you must use the <literal><link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link></literal>
4285 action in conjunction with <literal>filter</literal>.
4288 Content filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
4289 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
4290 action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism
4291 works quite differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners
4292 based on their size (see below), since many of these seem to be somewhat
4296 <link linkend="contact">Feedback</link> with suggestions for new or
4297 improved filters is particularly welcome!
4300 The below list has only the names and a one-line description of each
4301 predefined filter. There are <link linkend="predefined-filters">more
4302 verbose explanations</link> of what these filters do in the <link
4303 linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>.
4309 <term>Example usage (with filters from the distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file).
4310 See <link linkend="PREDEFINED-FILTERS">the Predefined Filters section</link> for
4311 more explanation on each:</term>
4314 <anchor id="filter-js-annoyances">
4315 <screen>+filter{js-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse.</screen>
4318 <anchor id="filter-js-events">
4319 <screen>+filter{js-events} # Kill all JS event bindings and timers (Radically destructive! Only for extra nasty sites).</screen>
4322 <anchor id="filter-html-annoyances">
4323 <screen>+filter{html-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse.</screen>
4326 <anchor id="filter-content-cookies">
4327 <screen>+filter{content-cookies} # Kill cookies that come in the HTML or JS content.</screen>
4330 <anchor id="filter-refresh-tags">
4331 <screen>+filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups).</screen>
4334 <anchor id="filter-unsolicited-popups">
4335 <screen>+filter{unsolicited-popups} # Disable only unsolicited pop-up windows. Useful if your browser lacks this ability.</screen>
4338 <anchor id="filter-all-popups">
4339 <screen>+filter{all-popups} # Kill all popups in JavaScript and HTML. Useful if your browser lacks this ability.</screen>
4342 <anchor id="filter-img-reorder">
4343 <screen>+filter{img-reorder} # Reorder attributes in <img> tags to make the banners-by-* filters more effective.</screen>
4346 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-size">
4347 <screen>+filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners by size.</screen>
4350 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-link">
4351 <screen>+filter{banners-by-link} # Kill banners by their links to known clicktrackers.</screen>
4354 <anchor id="filter-webbugs">
4355 <screen>+filter{webbugs} # Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking).</screen>
4358 <anchor id="filter-tiny-textforms">
4359 <screen>+filter{tiny-textforms} # Extend those tiny textareas up to 40x80 and kill the hard wrap.</screen>
4362 <anchor id="filter-jumping-windows">
4363 <screen>+filter{jumping-windows} # Prevent windows from resizing and moving themselves.</screen>
4366 <anchor id="filter-frameset-borders">
4367 <screen>+filter{frameset-borders} # Give frames a border and make them resizable.</screen>
4370 <anchor id="filter-demoronizer">
4371 <screen>+filter{demoronizer} # Fix MS's non-standard use of standard charsets.</screen>
4374 <anchor id="filter-shockwave-flash">
4375 <screen>+filter{shockwave-flash} # Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects.</screen>
4378 <anchor id="filter-quicktime-kioskmode">
4379 <screen>+filter{quicktime-kioskmode} # Make Quicktime movies saveable.</screen>
4382 <anchor id="filter-fun">
4383 <screen>+filter{fun} # Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!</screen>
4386 <anchor id="filter-crude-parental">
4387 <screen>+filter{crude-parental} # Crude parental filtering. Note that this filter doesn't work reliably.</screen>
4390 <anchor id="filter-ie-exploits">
4391 <screen>+filter{ie-exploits} # Disable some known Internet Explorer bug exploits.</screen>
4394 <anchor id="filter-site-specifics">
4395 <screen>+filter{site-specifics} # Cure for site-specific problems. Don't apply generally!</screen>
4398 <anchor id="filter-no-ping">
4399 <screen>+filter{no-ping} # Removes non-standard ping attributes in <a> and <area> tags.</screen>
4402 <anchor id="filter-google">
4403 <screen>+filter{google} # CSS-based block for Google text ads. Also removes a width limitation and the toolbar advertisement.</screen>
4406 <anchor id="filter-yahoo">
4407 <screen>+filter{yahoo} # CSS-based block for Yahoo text ads. Also removes a width limitation.</screen>
4410 <anchor id="filter-msn">
4411 <screen>+filter{msn} # CSS-based block for MSN text ads. Also removes tracking URLs and a width limitation.</screen>
4414 <anchor id="filter-blogspot">
4415 <screen>+filter{blogspot} # Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this.</screen>
4423 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4424 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="force-text-mode">
4425 <title>force-text-mode</title>
4431 <term>Typical use:</term>
4433 <para>Force <application>Privoxy</application> to treat a document as if it was in some kind of <emphasis>text</emphasis> format. </para>
4438 <term>Effect:</term>
4441 Declares a document as text, even if the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> isn't detected as such.
4448 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4450 <para>Boolean.</para>
4455 <term>Parameter:</term>
4467 As explained <literal><link linkend="filter">above</link></literal>,
4468 <application>Privoxy</application> tries to only filter files that are
4469 in some kind of text format. The same restrictions apply to
4470 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite</link></literal>.
4471 <literal>force-text-mode</literal> declares a document as text,
4472 without looking at the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> first.
4476 Think twice before activating this action. Filtering binary data
4477 with regular expressions can cause file damage.
4484 <term>Example usage:</term>
4497 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4498 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="forward-override">
4499 <title>forward-override</title>
4505 <term>Typical use:</term>
4507 <para>Change the forwarding settings based on User-Agent or request origin</para>
4512 <term>Effect:</term>
4515 Overrules the forward directives in the configuration file.
4522 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4524 <para>Multi-value.</para>
4529 <term>Parameter:</term>
4533 <para><quote>forward .</quote> to use a direct connection without any additional proxies.</para>
4537 <quote>forward 127.0.0.1:8123</quote> to use the HTTP proxy listening at 127.0.0.1 port 8123.
4542 <quote>forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 .</quote> to use the socks4a proxy listening at
4543 127.0.0.1 port 9050. Replace <quote>forward-socks4a</quote> with <quote>forward-socks4</quote>
4544 to use a socks4 connection (with local DNS resolution) instead, use <quote>forward-socks5</quote>
4545 for socks5 connections (with remote DNS resolution).
4550 <quote>forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 proxy.example.org:8000</quote> to use the socks4a proxy
4551 listening at 127.0.0.1 port 9050 to reach the HTTP proxy listening at proxy.example.org port 8000.
4552 Replace <quote>forward-socks4a</quote> with <quote>forward-socks4</quote> to use a socks4 connection
4553 (with local DNS resolution) instead, use <quote>forward-socks5</quote>
4554 for socks5 connections (with remote DNS resolution).
4565 This action takes parameters similar to the
4566 <link linkend="forwarding">forward</link> directives in the configuration
4567 file, but without the URL pattern. It can be used as replacement, but normally it's only
4568 used in cases where matching based on the request URL isn't sufficient.
4572 Please read the description for the <link linkend="forwarding">forward</link> directives before
4573 using this action. Forwarding to the wrong people will reduce your privacy and increase the
4574 chances of man-in-the-middle attacks.
4577 If the ports are missing or invalid, default values will be used. This might change
4578 in the future and you shouldn't rely on it. Otherwise incorrect syntax causes Privoxy
4582 Use the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">show-url-info CGI page</ulink>
4583 to verify that your forward settings do what you thought the do.
4590 <term>Example usage:</term>
4594 # Always use direct connections for requests previously tagged as
4595 # <quote>User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2.0</quote> and make sure
4596 # resuming downloads continues to work.
4597 # This way you can continue to use Tor for your normal browsing,
4598 # without overloading the Tor network with your FreeBSD ports updates
4599 # or downloads of bigger files like ISOs.
4600 # Note that HTTP headers are easy to fake and therefore their
4601 # values are as (un)trustworthy as your clients and users.
4602 {+forward-override{forward .} \
4603 -hide-if-modified-since \
4604 -overwrite-last-modified \
4606 TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2\.0$
4615 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4616 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-empty-document">
4617 <title>handle-as-empty-document</title>
4623 <term>Typical use:</term>
4625 <para>Mark URLs that should be replaced by empty documents <emphasis>if they get blocked</emphasis></para>
4630 <term>Effect:</term>
4633 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs.
4634 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
4635 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote>
4636 page, or an empty document will be sent to the client as a substitute for the blocked content.
4637 The <emphasis>empty</emphasis> document isn't literally empty, but actually contains a single space.
4644 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4646 <para>Boolean.</para>
4651 <term>Parameter:</term>
4663 Some browsers complain about syntax errors if JavaScript documents
4664 are blocked with <application>Privoxy's</application>
4665 default HTML page; this option can be used to silence them.
4666 And of course this action can also be used to eliminate the &my-app;
4667 BLOCKED message in frames.
4670 The content type for the empty document can be specified with
4671 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite{}</link></literal>,
4672 but usually this isn't necessary.
4678 <term>Example usage:</term>
4681 <screen># Block all documents on example.org that end with ".js",
4682 # but send an empty document instead of the usual HTML message.
4683 {+block{Blocked JavaScript} +handle-as-empty-document}
4693 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4694 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-image">
4695 <title>handle-as-image</title>
4699 <term>Typical use:</term>
4701 <para>Mark URLs as belonging to images (so they'll be replaced by images <emphasis>if they do get blocked</emphasis>, rather than HTML pages)</para>
4706 <term>Effect:</term>
4709 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs as images.
4710 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
4711 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>blocked</quote>
4712 page, or a replacement image (as determined by the <literal><link
4713 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> action) will be sent to the
4714 client as a substitute for the blocked content.
4721 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4723 <para>Boolean.</para>
4728 <term>Parameter:</term>
4740 The below generic example section is actually part of <filename>default.action</filename>.
4741 It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should
4745 Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with
4746 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>, to block sources of banners, whose URLs don't
4747 reflect the file type, like in the second example section.
4750 Note that you cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, (in-line) ad
4751 frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they won't display properly.
4752 Forcing <literal>handle-as-image</literal> in this situation will not replace the
4753 ad frame with an image, but lead to error messages.
4759 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
4762 <screen># Generic image extensions:
4765 /.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)$
4767 # These don't look like images, but they're banners and should be
4768 # blocked as images:
4770 {+block{Nasty banners.} +handle-as-image}
4771 nasty-banner-server.example.com/junk.cgi\?output=trash
4780 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4781 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-accept-language">
4782 <title>hide-accept-language</title>
4788 <term>Typical use:</term>
4790 <para>Pretend to use different language settings.</para>
4795 <term>Effect:</term>
4798 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> HTTP header in client requests.
4805 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4807 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4812 <term>Parameter:</term>
4815 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4824 Faking the browser's language settings can be useful to make a
4825 foreign User-Agent set with
4826 <literal><link linkend="hide-user-agent">hide-user-agent</link></literal>
4830 However some sites with content in different languages check the
4831 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> to decide which one to take by default.
4832 Sometimes it isn't possible to later switch to another language without
4833 changing the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header first.
4836 Therefore it's a good idea to either only change the
4837 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header to languages you understand,
4838 or to languages that aren't wide spread.
4841 Before setting the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header
4842 to a rare language, you should consider that it helps to
4843 make your requests unique and thus easier to trace.
4844 If you don't plan to change this header frequently,
4845 you should stick to a common language.
4851 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4854 <screen># Pretend to use Canadian language settings.
4855 {+hide-accept-language{en-ca} \
4856 +hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; OpenBSD i386; en-CA; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060628 Firefox/1.5.0.4} \
4866 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4867 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-content-disposition">
4868 <title>hide-content-disposition</title>
4874 <term>Typical use:</term>
4876 <para>Prevent download menus for content you prefer to view inside the browser.</para>
4881 <term>Effect:</term>
4884 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header set by some servers.
4891 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4893 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4898 <term>Parameter:</term>
4901 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4910 Some servers set the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header for
4911 documents they assume you want to save locally before viewing them.
4912 The <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header contains the file name
4913 the browser is supposed to use by default.
4916 In most browsers that understand this header, it makes it impossible to
4917 <emphasis>just view</emphasis> the document, without downloading it first,
4918 even if it's just a simple text file or an image.
4921 Removing the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header helps
4922 to prevent this annoyance, but some browsers additionally check the
4923 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> header, before they decide if they can
4924 display a document without saving it first. In these cases, you have
4925 to change this header as well, before the browser stops displaying
4929 It is also possible to change the server's file name suggestion
4930 to another one, but in most cases it isn't worth the time to set
4934 This action will probably be removed in the future,
4935 use server-header filters instead.
4941 <term>Example usage:</term>
4944 <screen># Disarm the download link in Sourceforge's patch tracker
4946 +content-type-overwrite{text/plain}\
4947 +hide-content-disposition{block} }
4948 .sourceforge.net/tracker/download\.php</screen>
4956 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4957 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-if-modified-since">
4958 <title>hide-if-modified-since</title>
4964 <term>Typical use:</term>
4966 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
4971 <term>Effect:</term>
4974 Deletes the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> HTTP client header or modifies its value.
4981 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4983 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4988 <term>Parameter:</term>
4991 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or a user defined value that specifies a range of hours.
5000 Removing this header is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
5001 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the
5002 browser to use a cached copy of the page.
5005 Instead of removing the header, <literal>hide-if-modified-since</literal> can
5006 also add or subtract a random amount of time to/from the header's value.
5007 You specify a range of minutes where the random factor should be chosen from and
5008 <application>Privoxy</application> does the rest. A negative value means
5009 subtracting, a positive value adding.
5012 Randomizing the value of the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> makes
5013 it less likely that the server can use the time as a cookie replacement,
5014 but you will run into caching problems if the random range is too high.
5017 It is a good idea to only use a small negative value and let
5018 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>
5019 handle the greater changes.
5022 It is also recommended to use this action together with
5023 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>,
5024 otherwise it's more or less pointless.
5030 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5033 <screen># Let the browser revalidate but make tracking based on the time less likely.
5034 {+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
5035 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
5036 +crunch-if-none-match}
5045 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5046 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-from-header">
5047 <title>hide-from-header</title>
5051 <term>Typical use:</term>
5053 <para>Keep your (old and ill) browser from telling web servers your email address</para>
5058 <term>Effect:</term>
5061 Deletes any existing <quote>From:</quote> HTTP header, or replaces it with the
5069 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5071 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5076 <term>Parameter:</term>
5079 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
5088 The keyword <quote>block</quote> will completely remove the header
5089 (not to be confused with the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
5093 Alternately, you can specify any value you prefer to be sent to the web
5094 server. If you do, it is a matter of fairness not to use any address that
5095 is actually used by a real person.
5098 This action is rarely needed, as modern web browsers don't send
5099 <quote>From:</quote> headers anymore.
5105 <term>Example usage:</term>
5108 <screen>+hide-from-header{block}</screen> or
5109 <screen>+hide-from-header{spam-me-senseless@sittingduck.example.com}</screen>
5117 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5118 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-referrer">
5119 <title>hide-referrer</title>
5120 <anchor id="hide-referer">
5123 <term>Typical use:</term>
5125 <para>Conceal which link you followed to get to a particular site</para>
5130 <term>Effect:</term>
5133 Deletes the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) HTTP header from the client request,
5134 or replaces it with a forged one.
5141 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5143 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5148 <term>Parameter:</term>
5152 <para><quote>conditional-block</quote> to delete the header completely if the host has changed.</para>
5155 <para><quote>conditional-forge</quote> to forge the header if the host has changed.</para>
5158 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header unconditionally.</para>
5161 <para><quote>forge</quote> to pretend to be coming from the homepage of the server we are talking to.</para>
5164 <para>Any other string to set a user defined referrer.</para>
5174 <literal>conditional-block</literal> is the only parameter,
5175 that isn't easily detected in the server's log file. If it blocks the
5176 referrer, the request will look like the visitor used a bookmark or
5177 typed in the address directly.
5180 Leaving the referrer unmodified for requests on the same host
5181 allows the server owner to see the visitor's <quote>click path</quote>,
5182 but in most cases she could also get that information by comparing
5183 other parts of the log file: for example the User-Agent if it isn't
5184 a very common one, or the user's IP address if it doesn't change between
5188 Always blocking the referrer, or using a custom one, can lead to
5189 failures on servers that check the referrer before they answer any
5190 requests, in an attempt to prevent their content from being
5191 embedded or linked to elsewhere.
5194 Both <literal>conditional-block</literal> and <literal>forge</literal>
5195 will work with referrer checks, as long as content and valid referring page
5196 are on the same host. Most of the time that's the case.
5199 <literal>hide-referer</literal> is an alternate spelling of
5200 <literal>hide-referrer</literal> and the two can be can be freely
5201 substituted with each other. (<quote>referrer</quote> is the
5202 correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
5203 requires it to be spelled as <quote>referer</quote>.)
5209 <term>Example usage:</term>
5212 <screen>+hide-referrer{forge}</screen> or
5213 <screen>+hide-referrer{http://www.yahoo.com/}</screen>
5221 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5222 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-user-agent">
5223 <title>hide-user-agent</title>
5227 <term>Typical use:</term>
5229 <para>Try to conceal your type of browser and client operating system</para>
5234 <term>Effect:</term>
5237 Replaces the value of the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> HTTP header
5238 in client requests with the specified value.
5245 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5247 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5252 <term>Parameter:</term>
5255 Any user-defined string.
5265 This can lead to problems on web sites that depend on looking at this header in
5266 order to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the
5267 way, is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the right thing to do: good web sites
5268 work browser-independently).
5272 Using this action in multi-user setups or wherever different types of
5273 browsers will access the same <application>Privoxy</application> is
5274 <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>. In single-user, single-browser
5275 setups, you might use it to delete your OS version information from
5276 the headers, because it is an invitation to exploit known bugs for your
5277 OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
5278 sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
5279 reason in some cases). Example of this: some MSN sites will not
5280 let <application>Mozilla</application> enter, yet forging to a
5281 <application>Netscape 6.1</application> user-agent works just fine.
5282 (Must be just a silly MS goof, I'm sure :-).
5285 More information on known user-agent strings can be found at
5286 <ulink url="http://www.user-agents.org/">http://www.user-agents.org/</ulink>
5288 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent</ulink>.
5294 <term>Example usage:</term>
5297 <screen>+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}</screen>
5305 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5306 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="limit-connect">
5307 <title>limit-connect</title>
5311 <term>Typical use:</term>
5313 <para>Prevent abuse of <application>Privoxy</application> as a TCP proxy relay or disable SSL for untrusted sites</para>
5318 <term>Effect:</term>
5321 Specifies to which ports HTTP CONNECT requests are allowable.
5328 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5330 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5335 <term>Parameter:</term>
5338 A comma-separated list of ports or port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum
5339 defaulting to 0 and the maximum to 65K).
5348 By default, i.e. if no <literal>limit-connect</literal> action applies,
5349 <application>Privoxy</application> allows HTTP CONNECT requests to all
5350 ports. Use <literal>limit-connect</literal> if fine-grained control
5351 is desired for some or all destinations.
5354 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
5355 (<quote>https://</quote> URLs) through proxies. It works very simply:
5356 the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then
5357 short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote server.
5358 This means CONNECT-enabled proxies can be used as TCP relays very easily.
5361 <application>Privoxy</application> relays HTTPS traffic without seeing
5362 the decoded content. Websites can leverage this limitation to circumvent &my-app;'s
5363 filters. By specifying an invalid port range you can disable HTTPS entirely.
5369 <term>Example usages:</term>
5371 <!-- I had trouble getting the spacing to look right in my browser -->
5372 <!-- I probably have the wrong font setup, bollocks. -->
5373 <!-- Apparently the emphasis tag uses a proportional font no matter what -->
5375 <screen>+limit-connect{443} # Port 443 is OK.
5376 +limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
5377 +limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Ports less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
5378 +limit-connect{-} # All ports are OK
5379 +limit-connect{,} # No HTTPS/SSL traffic is allowed</screen>
5386 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5387 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="prevent-compression">
5388 <title>prevent-compression</title>
5392 <term>Typical use:</term>
5395 Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be
5396 passed through <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>s.
5402 <term>Effect:</term>
5405 Removes the Accept-Encoding header which can be used to ask for compressed transfer.
5412 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5414 <para>Boolean.</para>
5419 <term>Parameter:</term>
5431 More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which
5432 is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But the <literal><link
5433 linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> and
5434 <literal><link linkend="deanimate-gifs">deanimate-gifs</link></literal>
5435 actions need access to the uncompressed data.
5438 When compiled with zlib support (available since &my-app; 3.0.7), content that should be
5439 filtered is decompressed on-the-fly and you don't have to worry about this action.
5440 If you are using an older &my-app; version, or one that hasn't been compiled with zlib
5441 support, this action can be used to convince the server to send the content uncompressed.
5444 Most text-based instances compress very well, the size is seldom decreased by less than 50%,
5445 for markup-heavy instances like news feeds saving more than 90% of the original size isn't
5449 Not using compression will therefore slow down the transfer, and you should only
5450 enable this action if you really need it. As of &my-app; 3.0.7 it's disabled in all
5451 predefined action settings.
5454 Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed
5455 documents correctly. Broken PHP applications tend to send an empty document body,
5456 some IIS versions only send the beginning of the content. If you enable
5457 <literal>prevent-compression</literal> per default, you might want to add
5458 exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
5464 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
5468 # Selectively turn off compression, and enable a filter
5470 { +filter{tiny-textforms} +prevent-compression }
5471 # Match only these sites
5476 # Or instead, we could set a universal default:
5478 { +prevent-compression }
5481 # Then maybe make exceptions for broken sites:
5483 { -prevent-compression }
5484 .compusa.com/</screen>
5493 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5494 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="overwrite-last-modified">
5495 <title>overwrite-last-modified</title>
5501 <term>Typical use:</term>
5503 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
5508 <term>Effect:</term>
5511 Deletes the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> HTTP server header or modifies its value.
5518 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5520 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5525 <term>Parameter:</term>
5528 One of the keywords: <quote>block</quote>, <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote>
5529 and <quote>randomize</quote>
5538 Removing the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header is useful for filter
5539 testing, where you want to force a real reload instead of getting status
5540 code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the browser to reuse the old
5541 version of the page.
5544 The <quote>randomize</quote> option overwrites the value of the
5545 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with a randomly chosen time
5546 between the original value and the current time. In theory the server
5547 could send each document with a different <quote>Last-Modified:</quote>
5548 header to track visits without using cookies. <quote>Randomize</quote>
5549 makes it impossible and the browser can still revalidate cached documents.
5552 <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote> overwrites the value of the
5553 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with the current time. You could use
5554 this option together with
5555 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hide-if-modified-since</link></literal>
5556 to further customize your random range.
5559 The preferred parameter here is <quote>randomize</quote>. It is safe
5560 to use, as long as the time settings are more or less correct.
5561 If the server sets the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header to the time
5562 of the request, the random range becomes zero and the value stays the same.
5563 Therefore you should later randomize it a second time with
5564 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hided-if-modified-since</link></literal>,
5568 It is also recommended to use this action together with
5569 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>.
5575 <term>Example usage:</term>
5578 <screen># Let the browser revalidate without being tracked across sessions
5579 { +hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
5580 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
5581 +crunch-if-none-match}
5590 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5591 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="redirect">
5592 <title>redirect</title>
5598 <term>Typical use:</term>
5601 Redirect requests to other sites.
5607 <term>Effect:</term>
5610 Convinces the browser that the requested document has been moved
5611 to another location and the browser should get it from there.
5618 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5620 <para>Parameterized</para>
5625 <term>Parameter:</term>
5628 An absolute URL or a single pcrs command.
5637 Requests to which this action applies are answered with a
5638 HTTP redirect to URLs of your choosing. The new URL is
5639 either provided as parameter, or derived by applying a
5640 single pcrs command to the original URL.
5643 This action will be ignored if you use it together with
5644 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>.
5645 It can be combined with
5646 <literal><link linkend="fast-redirects">fast-redirects{check-decoded-url}</link></literal>
5647 to redirect to a decoded version of a rewritten URL.
5650 Use this action carefully, make sure not to create redirection loops
5651 and be aware that using your own redirects might make it
5652 possible to fingerprint your requests.
5655 In case of problems with your redirects, or simply to watch
5656 them working, enable <link linkend="DEBUG">debug 128</link>.
5662 <term>Example usages:</term>
5665 <screen># Replace example.com's style sheet with another one
5666 { +redirect{http://localhost/css-replacements/example.com.css} }
5667 example.com/stylesheet\.css
5669 # Create a short, easy to remember nickname for a favorite site
5670 # (relies on the browser accept and forward invalid URLs to &my-app;)
5671 { +redirect{http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/actions-file.html} }
5674 # Always use the expanded view for Undeadly.org articles
5675 # (Note the $ at the end of the URL pattern to make sure
5676 # the request for the rewritten URL isn't redirected as well)
5677 {+redirect{s@$@&mode=expanded@}}
5678 undeadly.org/cgi\?action=article&sid=\d*$
5680 # Redirect Google search requests to MSN
5681 {+redirect{s@^http://[^/]*/search\?q=([^&]*).*@http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=$1@}}
5684 # Redirect MSN search requests to Yahoo
5685 {+redirect{s@^http://[^/]*/results\.aspx\?q=([^&]*).*@http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=$1@}}
5686 search.msn.com//results\.aspx\?q=
5688 # Redirect remote requests for this manual
5689 # to the local version delivered by Privoxy
5690 {+redirect{s@^http://www@http://config@}}
5691 www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</screen>
5700 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5701 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="server-header-filter">
5702 <title>server-header-filter</title>
5706 <term>Typical use:</term>
5709 Rewrite or remove single server headers.
5715 <term>Effect:</term>
5718 All server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly
5719 through the specified regular expression based substitutions.
5726 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
5728 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5733 <term>Parameter:</term>
5736 The name of a server-header filter, as defined in one of the
5737 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
5746 Server-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
5747 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
5748 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
5749 You can do that by using tags though.
5752 Server-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
5753 and use their output as input.
5756 Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
5757 to learn which server-header filters are available by default, and how to
5764 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5768 {+server-header-filter{html-to-xml}}
5769 example.org/xml-instance-that-is-delivered-as-html
5771 {+server-header-filter{xml-to-html}}
5772 example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
5782 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5783 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="server-header-tagger">
5784 <title>server-header-tagger</title>
5788 <term>Typical use:</term>
5791 Enable or disable filters based on the Content-Type header.
5797 <term>Effect:</term>
5800 Server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
5801 the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
5809 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
5811 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5816 <term>Parameter:</term>
5819 The name of a server-header tagger, as defined in one of the
5820 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
5829 Server-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
5830 and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
5834 Server-header taggers are executed before all other header actions
5835 that modify server headers. Their tags can be used to control
5836 all of the other server-header actions, the content filters
5837 and the crunch actions (<link linkend="redirect">redirect</link>
5838 and <link linkend="block">block</link>).
5841 Obviously crunching based on tags created by server-header taggers
5842 doesn't prevent the request from showing up in the server's log file.
5849 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5853 # Tag every request with the content type declared by the server
5854 {+server-header-tagger{content-type}}
5865 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5866 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="session-cookies-only">
5867 <title>session-cookies-only</title>
5871 <term>Typical use:</term>
5874 Allow only temporary <quote>session</quote> cookies (for the current
5875 browser session <emphasis>only</emphasis>).
5881 <term>Effect:</term>
5884 Deletes the <quote>expires</quote> field from <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote>
5885 server headers. Most browsers will not store such cookies permanently and
5886 forget them in between sessions.
5893 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5895 <para>Boolean.</para>
5900 <term>Parameter:</term>
5912 This is less strict than <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> /
5913 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal> and allows you to browse
5914 websites that insist or rely on setting cookies, without compromising your privacy too badly.
5917 Most browsers will not permanently store cookies that have been processed by
5918 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal> and will forget about them between sessions.
5919 This makes profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
5920 that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
5921 sites, and is the recommended setting.
5924 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>
5925 together with <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> or
5926 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>. If you do, cookies
5927 will be plainly killed.
5930 Note that it is up to the browser how it handles such cookies without an <quote>expires</quote>
5931 field. If you use an exotic browser, you might want to try it out to be sure.
5934 This setting also has no effect on cookies that may have been stored
5935 previously by the browser before starting <application>Privoxy</application>.
5936 These would have to be removed manually.
5939 <application>Privoxy</application> also uses
5940 the <link linkend="filter-content-cookies">content-cookies filter</link>
5941 to block some types of cookies. Content cookies are not effected by
5942 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>.
5948 <term>Example usage:</term>
5951 <screen>+session-cookies-only</screen>
5959 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5960 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="set-image-blocker">
5961 <title>set-image-blocker</title>
5965 <term>Typical use:</term>
5967 <para>Choose the replacement for blocked images</para>
5972 <term>Effect:</term>
5975 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. If <emphasis>both</emphasis>
5976 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><link
5977 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> <emphasis>also</emphasis>
5978 apply, i.e. if the request is to be blocked as an image,
5979 <emphasis>then</emphasis> the parameter of this action decides what will be
5980 sent as a replacement.
5987 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5989 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5994 <term>Parameter:</term>
5999 <quote>pattern</quote> to send a built-in checkerboard pattern image. The image is visually
6000 decent, scales very well, and makes it obvious where banners were busted.
6005 <quote>blank</quote> to send a built-in transparent image. This makes banners disappear
6006 completely, but makes it hard to detect where <application>Privoxy</application> has blocked
6007 images on a given page and complicates troubleshooting if <application>Privoxy</application>
6008 has blocked innocent images, like navigation icons.
6013 <quote><replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable></quote> to
6014 send a redirect to <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>. You can redirect
6015 to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem via <quote>file:///</quote> URL.
6016 (But note that not all browsers support redirecting to a local file system).
6019 A good application of redirects is to use special <application>Privoxy</application>-built-in
6020 URLs, which send the built-in images, as <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>.
6021 This has the same visual effect as specifying <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote> in
6022 the first place, but enables your browser to cache the replacement image, instead of requesting
6023 it over and over again.
6034 The URLs for the built-in images are <quote>http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=<replaceable
6035 class="parameter">type</replaceable></quote>, where <replaceable class="parameter">type</replaceable> is
6036 either <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote>.
6039 There is a third (advanced) type, called <quote>auto</quote>. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> to be
6040 used in <literal>set-image-blocker</literal>, but meant for use from <link linkend="filter-file">filters</link>.
6041 Auto will select the type of image that would have applied to the referring page, had it been an image.
6047 <term>Example usage:</term>
6053 <screen>+set-image-blocker{pattern}</screen>
6056 Redirect to the BSD daemon:
6059 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://www.freebsd.org/gifs/dae_up3.gif}</screen>
6062 Redirect to the built-in pattern for better caching:
6065 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=pattern}</screen>
6073 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6075 <title>Summary</title>
6077 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
6078 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
6079 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
6080 content, and other criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard
6081 and fast rules for all sites. See the <link
6082 linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link> for a brief example on troubleshooting
6088 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6089 <sect2 id="aliases">
6090 <title>Aliases</title>
6092 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
6093 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other actions.
6094 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in actions.
6095 Currently, an alias name can contain any character except space, tab,
6097 <quote>{</quote> and <quote>}</quote>, but we <emphasis>strongly
6098 recommend</emphasis> that you only use <quote>a</quote> to <quote>z</quote>,
6099 <quote>0</quote> to <quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and <quote>-</quote>.
6100 Alias names are not case sensitive, and are not required to start with a
6101 <quote>+</quote> or <quote>-</quote> sign, since they are merely textually
6105 Aliases can be used throughout the actions file, but they <emphasis>must be
6106 defined in a special section at the top of the file!</emphasis>
6107 And there can only be one such section per actions file. Each actions file may
6108 have its own alias section, and the aliases defined in it are only visible
6112 There are two main reasons to use aliases: One is to save typing for frequently
6113 used combinations of actions, the other one is a gain in flexibility: If you
6114 decide once how you want to handle shops by defining an alias called
6115 <quote>shop</quote>, you can later change your policy on shops in
6116 <emphasis>one</emphasis> place, and your changes will take effect everywhere
6117 in the actions file where the <quote>shop</quote> alias is used. Calling aliases
6118 by their purpose also makes your actions files more readable.
6121 Currently, there is one big drawback to using aliases, though:
6122 <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in web-based action file
6123 editor honors aliases when reading the actions files, but it expands
6124 them before writing. So the effects of your aliases are of course preserved,
6125 but the aliases themselves are lost when you edit sections that use aliases
6130 Now let's define some aliases...
6135 # Useful custom aliases we can use later.
6137 # Note the (required!) section header line and that this section
6138 # must be at the top of the actions file!
6142 # These aliases just save typing later:
6143 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
6145 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6146 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6147 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked image.} +handle-as-image
6148 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
6150 # These aliases define combinations of actions
6151 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
6153 fragile = -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer</link> -<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link>
6155 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link>
6157 # Short names for other aliases, for really lazy people ;-)
6159 c0 = +crunch-all-cookies
6160 c1 = -crunch-all-cookies</screen>
6164 ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
6165 actions file and define exceptions to the default actions (as specified further
6166 up for the <quote>/</quote> pattern):
6171 # These sites are either very complex or very keen on
6172 # user data and require minimal interference to work:
6175 .office.microsoft.com
6176 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
6177 # Gmail is really mail.google.com, not gmail.com
6181 # Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data)
6185 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
6188 # These shops require pop-ups:
6190 {-filter{all-popups} -filter{unsolicited-popups}}
6192 .overclockers.co.uk</screen>
6196 Aliases like <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> are typically used for
6197 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require more than one action to be disabled
6198 in order to function properly.
6204 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6205 <sect2 id="act-examples">
6206 <title>Actions Files Tutorial</title>
6208 The above chapters have shown <link linkend="actions-file">which actions files
6209 there are and how they are organized</link>, how actions are <link
6210 linkend="actions">specified</link> and <link linkend="actions-apply">applied
6211 to URLs</link>, how <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> work, and how to
6212 define and use <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link>. Now, let's look at an
6213 example <filename>match-all.action</filename>, <filename>default.action</filename>
6214 and <filename>user.action</filename> file and see how all these pieces come together:
6218 <title>match-all.action</title>
6220 Remember <emphasis>all actions are disabled when matching starts</emphasis>,
6221 so we have to explicitly enable the ones we want.
6225 While the <filename>match-all.action</filename> file only contains a
6226 single section, it is probably the most important one. It has only one
6227 pattern, <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, but this pattern
6228 <link linkend="af-patterns">matches all URLs</link>. Therefore, the set of
6229 actions used in this <quote>default</quote> section <emphasis>will
6230 be applied to all requests as a start</emphasis>. It can be partly or
6231 wholly overridden by other actions files like <filename>default.action</filename>
6232 and <filename>user.action</filename>, but it will still be largely responsible
6233 for your overall browsing experience.
6237 Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is
6238 no need to disable any actions here. (Remember: a <quote>+</quote>
6239 preceding the action name enables the action, a <quote>-</quote> disables!).
6240 Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into
6241 multiple lines with line continuation.
6247 +<link linkend="CHANGE-X-FORWARDED-FOR">change-x-forwarded-for{block}</link> \
6248 +<link linkend="HIDE-FROM-HEADER">hide-from-header{block}</link> \
6249 +<link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER">set-image-blocker{pattern}</link> \
6256 The default behavior is now set.
6261 <title>default.action</title>
6264 If you aren't a developer, there's no need for you to edit the
6265 <filename>default.action</filename> file. It is maintained by
6266 the &my-app; developers and if you disagree with some of the
6267 sections, you should overrule them in your <filename>user.action</filename>.
6271 Understanding the <filename>default.action</filename> file can
6272 help you with your <filename>user.action</filename>, though.
6276 The first section in this file is a special section for internal use
6277 that prevents older &my-app; versions from reading the file:
6282 ##########################################################################
6283 # Settings -- Don't change! For internal Privoxy use ONLY.
6284 ##########################################################################
6286 for-privoxy-version=3.0.11</screen>
6290 After that comes the (optional) alias section. We'll use the example
6291 section from the above <link linkend="aliases">chapter on aliases</link>,
6292 that also explains why and how aliases are used:
6297 ##########################################################################
6299 ##########################################################################
6302 # These aliases just save typing later:
6303 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
6305 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6306 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6307 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked image.} +handle-as-image
6308 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
6310 # These aliases define combinations of actions
6311 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
6313 fragile = -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer</link>
6314 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link></screen>
6318 The first of our specialized sections is concerned with <quote>fragile</quote>
6319 sites, i.e. sites that require minimum interference, because they are either
6320 very complex or very keen on tracking you (and have mechanisms in place that
6321 make them unusable for people who avoid being tracked). We will simply use
6322 our pre-defined <literal>fragile</literal> alias instead of stating the list
6323 of actions explicitly:
6328 ##########################################################################
6329 # Exceptions for sites that'll break under the default action set:
6330 ##########################################################################
6332 # "Fragile" Use a minimum set of actions for these sites (see alias above):
6335 .office.microsoft.com # surprise, surprise!
6336 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
6337 mail.google.com</screen>
6341 Shopping sites are not as fragile, but they typically
6342 require cookies to log in, and pop-up windows for shopping
6343 carts or item details. Again, we'll use a pre-defined alias:
6352 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
6354 .scan.co.uk</screen>
6358 The <literal><link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link></literal>
6359 action, which may have been enabled in <filename>match-all.action</filename>,
6360 breaks some sites. So disable it for popular sites where we know it misbehaves:
6365 { -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> }
6369 .altavista.com/.*(like|url|link):http
6370 .altavista.com/trans.*urltext=http
6371 .nytimes.com</screen>
6375 It is important that <application>Privoxy</application> knows which
6376 URLs belong to images, so that <emphasis>if</emphasis> they are to
6377 be blocked, a substitute image can be sent, rather than an HTML page.
6378 Contacting the remote site to find out is not an option, since it
6379 would destroy the loading time advantage of banner blocking, and it
6380 would feed the advertisers information about you. We can mark any
6381 URL as an image with the <literal><link
6382 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action,
6383 and marking all URLs that end in a known image file extension is a
6389 ##########################################################################
6391 ##########################################################################
6393 # Define which file types will be treated as images, in case they get
6394 # blocked further down this file:
6396 { +<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> }
6397 /.*\.(gif|jpe?g|png|bmp|ico)$</screen>
6401 And then there are known banner sources. They often use scripts to
6402 generate the banners, so it won't be visible from the URL that the
6403 request is for an image. Hence we block them <emphasis>and</emphasis>
6404 mark them as images in one go, with the help of our
6405 <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above. (We could of
6406 course just as well use <literal>+<link linkend="block">block</link>
6407 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> here.)
6408 Remember that the type of the replacement image is chosen by the
6409 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
6410 action. Since all URLs have matched the default section with its
6411 <literal>+<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link>{pattern}</literal>
6412 action before, it still applies and needn't be repeated:
6417 # Known ad generators:
6422 .ad.*.doubleclick.net
6423 .a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
6424 .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
6430 One of the most important jobs of <application>Privoxy</application>
6431 is to block banners. Many of these can be <quote>blocked</quote>
6432 by the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{banners-by-size}</literal>
6433 action, which we enabled above, and which deletes the references to banner
6434 images from the pages while they are loaded, so the browser doesn't request
6435 them anymore, and hence they don't need to be blocked here. But this naturally
6436 doesn't catch all banners, and some people choose not to use filters, so we
6437 need a comprehensive list of patterns for banner URLs here, and apply the
6438 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action to them.
6441 First comes many generic patterns, which do most of the work, by
6442 matching typical domain and path name components of banners. Then comes
6443 a list of individual patterns for specific sites, which is omitted here
6444 to keep the example short:
6449 ##########################################################################
6450 # Block these fine banners:
6451 ##########################################################################
6452 { <link linkend="BLOCK">+block{Banner ads.}</link> }
6460 /.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?)
6461 /(?:.*/)?(publicite|werbung|rekla(ma|me|am)|annonse|maino(kset|nta|s)?)/
6463 # Site-specific patterns (abbreviated):
6465 .hitbox.com</screen>
6469 It's quite remarkable how many advertisers actually call their banner
6470 servers ads.<replaceable>company</replaceable>.com, or call the directory
6471 in which the banners are stored simply <quote>banners</quote>. So the above
6472 generic patterns are surprisingly effective.
6475 But being very generic, they necessarily also catch URLs that we don't want
6476 to block. The pattern <literal>.*ads.</literal> e.g. catches
6477 <quote>nasty-<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.nasty-corp.com</quote> as intended,
6478 but also <quote>downlo<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.sourcefroge.net</quote> or
6479 <quote><emphasis>ads</emphasis>l.some-provider.net.</quote> So here come some
6480 well-known exceptions to the <literal>+<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
6484 Note that these are exceptions to exceptions from the default! Consider the URL
6485 <quote>downloads.sourcefroge.net</quote>: Initially, all actions are deactivated,
6486 so it wouldn't get blocked. Then comes the defaults section, which matches the
6487 URL, but just deactivates the <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
6488 action once again. Then it matches <literal>.*ads.</literal>, an exception to the
6489 general non-blocking policy, and suddenly
6490 <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link></literal> applies. And now, it'll match
6491 <literal>.*loads.</literal>, where <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">-block</link></literal>
6492 applies, so (unless it matches <emphasis>again</emphasis> further down) it ends up
6493 with no <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal> action applying.
6498 ##########################################################################
6499 # Save some innocent victims of the above generic block patterns:
6500 ##########################################################################
6504 { -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
6505 adv[io]*. # (for advogato.org and advice.*)
6506 adsl. # (has nothing to do with ads)
6507 adobe. # (has nothing to do with ads either)
6508 ad[ud]*. # (adult.* and add.*)
6509 .edu # (universities don't host banners (yet!))
6510 .*loads. # (downloads, uploads etc)
6518 www.globalintersec.com/adv # (adv = advanced)
6519 www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv</screen>
6523 Filtering source code can have nasty side effects,
6524 so make an exception for our friends at sourceforge.net,
6525 and all paths with <quote>cvs</quote> in them. Note that
6526 <literal>-<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link></literal>
6527 disables <emphasis>all</emphasis> filters in one fell swoop!
6532 # Don't filter code!
6534 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
6539 .sourceforge.net</screen>
6543 The actual <filename>default.action</filename> is of course much more
6544 comprehensive, but we hope this example made clear how it works.
6549 <sect3><title>user.action</title>
6552 So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies,
6553 which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
6554 you might want to be more specific and have customized rules that
6555 are more suitable to your personal habits and preferences. These would
6556 be for narrowly defined situations like your ISP or your bank, and should
6557 be placed in <filename>user.action</filename>, which is parsed after all other
6558 actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding any previously
6559 defined actions. <filename>user.action</filename> is also a
6560 <emphasis>safe</emphasis> place for your personal settings, since
6561 <filename>default.action</filename> is actively maintained by the
6562 <application>Privoxy</application> developers and you'll probably want
6563 to install updated versions from time to time.
6567 So let's look at a few examples of things that one might typically do in
6568 <filename>user.action</filename>:
6572 <!-- brief sample user.action here -->
6576 # My user.action file. <fred@example.com></screen>
6580 As <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link> are local to the actions
6581 file that they are defined in, you can't use the ones from
6582 <filename>default.action</filename>, unless you repeat them here:
6587 # Aliases are local to the file they are defined in.
6588 # (Re-)define aliases for this file:
6592 # These aliases just save typing later, and the alias names should
6593 # be self explanatory.
6595 +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
6596 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
6597 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
6598 allow-popups = -filter{all-popups}
6599 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked as image.} +handle-as-image
6600 -block-as-image = -block
6602 # These aliases define combinations of actions that are useful for
6603 # certain types of sites:
6605 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referrer
6606 shop = -crunch-all-cookies allow-popups
6608 # Allow ads for selected useful free sites:
6610 allow-ads = -block -filter{banners-by-size} -filter{banners-by-link}
6612 # Alias for specific file types that are text, but might have conflicting
6613 # MIME types. We want the browser to force these to be text documents.
6614 handle-as-text = -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> +-<link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite{text/plain}</link> +-<link linkend="FORCE-TEXT-MODE">force-text-mode</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-CONTENT-DISPOSITION">hide-content-disposition</link></screen>
6619 Say you have accounts on some sites that you visit regularly, and
6620 you don't want to have to log in manually each time. So you'd like
6621 to allow persistent cookies for these sites. The
6622 <literal>allow-all-cookies</literal> alias defined above does exactly
6623 that, i.e. it disables crunching of cookies in any direction, and the
6624 processing of cookies to make them only temporary.
6629 { allow-all-cookies }
6633 .redhat.com</screen>
6637 Your bank is allergic to some filter, but you don't know which, so you disable them all:
6642 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
6643 .your-home-banking-site.com</screen>
6647 Some file types you may not want to filter for various reasons:
6652 # Technical documentation is likely to contain strings that might
6653 # erroneously get altered by the JavaScript-oriented filters:
6658 # And this stupid host sends streaming video with a wrong MIME type,
6659 # so that Privoxy thinks it is getting HTML and starts filtering:
6661 stupid-server.example.com/</screen>
6665 Example of a simple <link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> action. Say you've
6666 seen an ad on your favourite page on example.com that you want to get rid of.
6667 You have right-clicked the image, selected <quote>copy image location</quote>
6668 and pasted the URL below while removing the leading http://, into a
6669 <literal>{ +block{} }</literal> section. Note that <literal>{ +handle-as-image
6670 }</literal> need not be specified, since all URLs ending in
6671 <literal>.gif</literal> will be tagged as images by the general rules as set
6672 in default.action anyway:
6677 { +<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link>{Nasty ads.} }
6678 www.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor\.gif
6679 another.example.net/more/junk/here/</screen>
6683 The URLs of dynamically generated banners, especially from large banner
6684 farms, often don't use the well-known image file name extensions, which
6685 makes it impossible for <application>Privoxy</application> to guess
6686 the file type just by looking at the URL.
6687 You can use the <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above for
6689 Note that objects which match this rule but then turn out NOT to be an
6690 image are typically rendered as a <quote>broken image</quote> icon by the
6691 browser. Use cautiously.
6700 ar.atwola.com/</screen>
6704 Now you noticed that the default configuration breaks Forbes Magazine,
6705 but you were too lazy to find out which action is the culprit, and you
6706 were again too lazy to give <link linkend="contact">feedback</link>, so
6707 you just used the <literal>fragile</literal> alias on the site, and
6708 -- <emphasis>whoa!</emphasis> -- it worked. The <literal>fragile</literal>
6709 aliases disables those actions that are most likely to break a site. Also,
6710 good for testing purposes to see if it is <application>Privoxy</application>
6711 that is causing the problem or not. We later find other regular sites
6712 that misbehave, and add those to our personalized list of troublemakers:
6720 .mybank.com</screen>
6724 You like the <quote>fun</quote> text replacements in <filename>default.filter</filename>,
6725 but it is disabled in the distributed actions file.
6726 So you'd like to turn it on in your private,
6727 update-safe config, once and for all:
6732 { +<link linkend="filter-fun">filter{fun}</link> }
6733 / # For ALL sites!</screen>
6737 Note that the above is not really a good idea: There are exceptions
6738 to the filters in <filename>default.action</filename> for things that
6739 really shouldn't be filtered, like code on CVS->Web interfaces. Since
6740 <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word, these exceptions
6741 won't be valid for the <quote>fun</quote> filtering specified here.
6745 You might also worry about how your favourite free websites are
6746 funded, and find that they rely on displaying banner advertisements
6747 to survive. So you might want to specifically allow banners for those
6748 sites that you feel provide value to you:
6760 Note that <literal>allow-ads</literal> has been aliased to
6761 <literal>-<link linkend="block">block</link></literal>,
6762 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-size">filter{banners-by-size}</link></literal>, and
6763 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-link">filter{banners-by-link}</link></literal> above.
6767 Invoke another alias here to force an over-ride of the MIME type <literal>
6768 application/x-sh</literal> which typically would open a download type
6769 dialog. In my case, I want to look at the shell script, and then I can save
6770 it should I choose to.
6780 <filename>user.action</filename> is generally the best place to define
6781 exceptions and additions to the default policies of
6782 <filename>default.action</filename>. Some actions are safe to have their
6783 default policies set here though. So let's set a default policy to have a
6784 <quote>blank</quote> image as opposed to the checkerboard pattern for
6785 <emphasis>ALL</emphasis> sites. <quote>/</quote> of course matches all URL
6791 { +<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker{blank}</link> }
6792 / # ALL sites</screen>
6798 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6802 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6804 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
6806 <sect1 id="filter-file">
6807 <title>Filter Files</title>
6810 On-the-fly text substitutions need
6811 to be defined in a <quote>filter file</quote>. Once defined, they
6812 can then be invoked as an <quote>action</quote>.
6816 &my-app; supports three different filter actions:
6817 <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> to
6818 rewrite the content that is send to the client,
6819 <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header-filter</link></literal>
6820 to rewrite headers that are send by the client, and
6821 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header-filter</link></literal>
6822 to rewrite headers that are send by the server.
6826 &my-app; also supports two tagger actions:
6827 <literal><link linkend="client-header-tagger">client-header-tagger</link></literal>
6829 <literal><link linkend="server-header-tagger">server-header-tagger</link></literal>.
6830 Taggers and filters use the same syntax in the filter files, the difference
6831 is that taggers don't modify the text they are filtering, but use a rewritten
6832 version of the filtered text as tag. The tags can then be used to change the
6833 applying actions through sections with <link linkend="tag-pattern">tag-patterns</link>.
6838 Multiple filter files can be defined through the <literal> <link
6839 linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal> config directive. The filters
6840 as supplied by the developers are located in
6841 <filename>default.filter</filename>. It is recommended that any locally
6842 defined or modified filters go in a separately defined file such as
6843 <filename>user.filter</filename>.
6847 Common tasks for content filters are to eliminate common annoyances in
6848 HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows,
6849 exit consoles, crippled windows without navigation tools, the
6850 infamous <BLINK> tag etc, to suppress images with certain
6851 width and height attributes (standard banner sizes or web-bugs),
6852 or just to have fun.
6856 Enabled content filters are applied to any content whose
6857 <quote>Content Type</quote> header is recognised as a sign
6858 of text-based content, with the exception of <literal>text/plain</literal>.
6859 Use the <link linkend="FORCE-TEXT-MODE">force-text-mode</link> action
6860 to also filter other content.
6864 Substitutions are made at the source level, so if you want to <quote>roll
6865 your own</quote> filters, you should first be familiar with HTML syntax,
6866 and, of course, regular expressions.
6870 Just like the <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, the
6871 filter file is organized in sections, which are called <emphasis>filters</emphasis>
6872 here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with one of the
6873 <emphasis>keywords</emphasis> <literal>FILTER:</literal>,
6874 <literal>CLIENT-HEADER-FILTER:</literal> or <literal>SERVER-HEADER-FILTER:</literal>
6875 followed by the filter's <emphasis>name</emphasis>, and a short (one line)
6876 <emphasis>description</emphasis> of what it does. Below that line
6877 come the <emphasis>jobs</emphasis>, i.e. lines that define the actual
6878 text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter
6879 should describe what the filter <emphasis>eliminates</emphasis>. The
6880 comment is used in the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
6881 user interface</ulink>.
6885 Once a filter called <replaceable>name</replaceable> has been defined
6886 in the filter file, it can be invoked by using an action of the form
6887 +<literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>name</replaceable>}</literal>
6888 in any <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>.
6892 Filter definitions start with a header line that contains the filter
6893 type, the filter name and the filter description.
6894 A content filter header line for a filter called <quote>foo</quote> could look
6899 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"</screen>
6903 Below that line, and up to the next header line, come the jobs that
6904 define what text replacements the filter executes. They are specified
6905 in a syntax that imitates <ulink url="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</ulink>'s
6906 <literal>s///</literal> operator. If you are familiar with Perl, you
6907 will find this to be quite intuitive, and may want to look at the
6908 PCRS documentation for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour. Most
6909 notably, the non-standard option letter <literal>U</literal> is supported,
6910 which turns the default to ungreedy matching.
6915 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
6916 Expressions</quote></ulink>, you might want to take a look at
6917 the <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>, and
6918 see the <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">Perl
6920 <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlop.html">the
6921 <literal>s///</literal> operator's syntax</ulink> and <ulink
6922 url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">Perl-style regular
6923 expressions</ulink> in general.
6924 The below examples might also help to get you started.
6928 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
6930 <sect2><title>Filter File Tutorial</title>
6932 Now, let's complete our <quote>foo</quote> content filter. We have already defined
6933 the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace
6934 <quote>foo</quote> with <quote>bar</quote>, there is only one (trivial) job
6939 <screen>s/foo/bar/</screen>
6943 But wait! Didn't the comment say that <emphasis>all</emphasis> occurrences
6944 of <quote>foo</quote> should be replaced? Our current job will only take
6945 care of the first <quote>foo</quote> on each page. For global substitution,
6946 we'll need to add the <literal>g</literal> option:
6950 <screen>s/foo/bar/g</screen>
6954 Our complete filter now looks like this:
6957 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"
6958 s/foo/bar/g</screen>
6962 Let's look at some real filters for more interesting examples. Here you see
6963 a filter that protects against some common annoyances that arise from JavaScript
6964 abuse. Let's look at its jobs one after the other:
6970 FILTER: js-annoyances Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
6972 # Get rid of JavaScript referrer tracking. Test page: http://www.randomoddness.com/untitled.htm
6974 s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|Usg</screen>
6978 Following the header line and a comment, you see the job. Note that it uses
6979 <literal>|</literal> as the delimiter instead of <literal>/</literal>, because
6980 the pattern contains a forward slash, which would otherwise have to be escaped
6981 by a backslash (<literal>\</literal>).
6985 Now, let's examine the pattern: it starts with the text <literal><script.*</literal>
6986 enclosed in parentheses. Since the dot matches any character, and <literal>*</literal>
6987 means: <quote>Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself</quote>, this
6988 matches <quote><script</quote>, followed by <emphasis>any</emphasis> text, i.e.
6989 it matches the whole page, from the start of the first <script> tag.
6993 That's more than we want, but the pattern continues: <literal>document\.referrer</literal>
6994 matches only the exact string <quote>document.referrer</quote>. The dot needed to
6995 be <emphasis>escaped</emphasis>, i.e. preceded by a backslash, to take away its
6996 special meaning as a joker, and make it just a regular dot. So far, the meaning is:
6997 Match from the start of the first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including,
6998 the text <quote>document.referrer</quote>, if <emphasis>both</emphasis> are present
6999 in the page (and appear in that order).
7003 But there's still more pattern to go. The next element, again enclosed in parentheses,
7004 is <literal>.*</script></literal>. You already know what <literal>.*</literal>
7005 means, so the whole pattern translates to: Match from the start of the first <script>
7006 tag in a page to the end of the last <script> tag, provided that the text
7007 <quote>document.referrer</quote> appears somewhere in between.
7011 This is still not the whole story, since we have ignored the options and the parentheses:
7012 The portions of the page matched by sub-patterns that are enclosed in parentheses, will be
7013 remembered and be available through the variables <literal>$1, $2, ...</literal> in
7014 the substitute. The <literal>U</literal> option switches to ungreedy matching, which means
7015 that the first <literal>.*</literal> in the pattern will only <quote>eat up</quote> all
7016 text in between <quote><script</quote> and the <emphasis>first</emphasis> occurrence
7017 of <quote>document.referrer</quote>, and that the second <literal>.*</literal> will
7018 only span the text up to the <emphasis>first</emphasis> <quote></script></quote>
7019 tag. Furthermore, the <literal>s</literal> option says that the match may span
7020 multiple lines in the page, and the <literal>g</literal> option again means that the
7021 substitution is global.
7025 So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text
7026 <quote>document.referrer</quote>. Remember the parts of the script from
7027 (and including) the start tag up to (and excluding) the string
7028 <quote>document.referrer</quote> as <literal>$1</literal>, and the part following
7029 that string, up to and including the closing tag, as <literal>$2</literal>.
7033 Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So
7034 lets look at the substitute: <literal>$1"Not Your Business!"$2</literal> is
7035 easy to read: The text remembered as <literal>$1</literal>, followed by
7036 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> (<emphasis>including</emphasis>
7037 the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as <literal>$2</literal>.
7038 This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part
7039 (the <quote>document.referrer</quote>) replaced by <literal>"Not Your
7040 Business!"</literal>.
7044 The whole job now reads: Replace <quote>document.referrer</quote> by
7045 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> wherever it appears inside a
7046 <script> tag. Note that this job won't break JavaScript syntax,
7047 since both the original and the replacement are syntactically valid
7048 string objects. The script just won't have access to the referrer
7049 information anymore.
7053 We'll show you two other jobs from the JavaScript taming department, but
7054 this time only point out the constructs of special interest:
7059 # The status bar is for displaying link targets, not pointless blahblah
7061 s/window\.status\s*=\s*(['"]).*?\1/dUmMy=1/ig</screen>
7065 <literal>\s</literal> stands for whitespace characters (space, tab, newline,
7066 carriage return, form feed), so that <literal>\s*</literal> means: <quote>zero
7067 or more whitespace</quote>. The <literal>?</literal> in <literal>.*?</literal>
7068 makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the <literal>U</literal>
7069 option is not set). The <literal>['"]</literal> construct means: <quote>a single
7070 <emphasis>or</emphasis> a double quote</quote>. Finally, <literal>\1</literal> is
7071 a back-reference to the first parenthesis just like <literal>$1</literal> above,
7072 with the difference that in the <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>, a backslash indicates
7073 a back-reference, whereas in the <emphasis>substitute</emphasis>, it's the dollar.
7077 So what does this job do? It replaces assignments of single- or double-quoted
7078 strings to the <quote>window.status</quote> object with a dummy assignment
7079 (using a variable name that is hopefully odd enough not to conflict with
7080 real variables in scripts). Thus, it catches many cases where e.g. pointless
7081 descriptions are displayed in the status bar instead of the link target when
7082 you move your mouse over links.
7087 # Kill OnUnload popups. Yummy. Test: http://www.zdnet.com/zdsubs/yahoo/tree/yfs.html
7089 s/(<body [^>]*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU</screen>
7094 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">OnUnload
7095 event binding</ulink> in the HTML DOM was a <emphasis>CRIME</emphasis>.
7096 When I close a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta.
7097 This job replaces the <quote>onunload</quote> attribute in
7098 <quote><body></quote> tags with the dummy word <literal>never</literal>.
7099 Note that the <literal>i</literal> option makes the pattern matching
7100 case-insensitive. Also note that ungreedy matching alone doesn't always guarantee
7101 a minimal match: In the first parenthesis, we had to use <literal>[^>]*</literal>
7102 instead of <literal>.*</literal> to prevent the match from exceeding the
7103 <body> tag if it doesn't contain <quote>OnUnload</quote>, but the page's
7108 The last example is from the fun department:
7113 FILTER: fun Fun text replacements
7115 # Spice the daily news:
7117 s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig</screen>
7121 Note the <literal>(?!\.com)</literal> part (a so-called negative lookahead)
7122 in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
7123 <quote>.com</quote> appears directly following <quote>microsoft</quote>
7124 in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being trashed, while
7125 still replacing the word everywhere else.
7130 # Buzzword Bingo (example for extended regex syntax)
7132 s* industry[ -]leading \
7134 | customer[ -]focused \
7135 | market[ -]driven \
7136 | award[ -]winning # Comments are OK, too! \
7137 | high[ -]performance \
7138 | solutions[ -]based \
7142 *<font color="red"><b>BINGO!</b></font> \
7147 The <literal>x</literal> option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for
7148 e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
7156 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
7158 <sect2 id="predefined-filters"><title>The Pre-defined Filters</title>
7162 Note each filter is also listed in the +filter action section above. Please
7163 keep these listings in sync.
7168 The distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file contains a selection of
7169 pre-defined filters for your convenience:
7174 <term><emphasis>js-annoyances</emphasis></term>
7177 The purpose of this filter is to get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse.
7182 replaces JavaScript references to the browser's referrer information
7183 with the string "Not Your Business!". This compliments the <literal><link
7184 linkend="hide-referrer">hide-referrer</link></literal> action on the content level.
7189 removes the bindings to the DOM's
7190 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">unload
7191 event</ulink> which we feel has no right to exist and is responsible for most <quote>exit consoles</quote>, i.e.
7192 nasty windows that pop up when you close another one.
7197 removes code that causes new windows to be opened with undesired properties, such as being
7198 full-screen, non-resizeable, without location, status or menu bar etc.
7204 Use with caution. This is an aggressive filter, and can break sites that
7205 rely heavily on JavaScript.
7211 <term><emphasis>js-events</emphasis></term>
7214 This is a very radical measure. It removes virtually all JavaScript event bindings, which
7215 means that scripts can not react to user actions such as mouse movements or clicks, window
7216 resizing etc, anymore. Use with caution!
7219 We <emphasis>strongly discourage</emphasis> using this filter as a default since it breaks
7220 many legitimate scripts. It is meant for use only on extra-nasty sites (should you really
7227 <term><emphasis>html-annoyances</emphasis></term>
7230 This filter will undo many common instances of HTML based abuse.
7233 The <literal>BLINK</literal> and <literal>MARQUEE</literal> tags
7234 are neutralized (yeah baby!), and browser windows will be created as
7235 resizeable (as of course they should be!), and will have location,
7236 scroll and menu bars -- even if specified otherwise.
7242 <term><emphasis>content-cookies</emphasis></term>
7245 Most cookies are set in the HTTP dialog, where they can be intercepted
7247 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>
7248 and <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>
7249 actions. But web sites increasingly make use of HTML meta tags and JavaScript
7250 to sneak cookies to the browser on the content level.
7253 This filter disables most HTML and JavaScript code that reads or sets
7254 cookies. It cannot detect all clever uses of these types of code, so it
7255 should not be relied on as an absolute fix. Use it wherever you would also
7256 use the cookie crunch actions.
7262 <term><emphasis>refresh tags</emphasis></term>
7265 Disable any refresh tags if the interval is greater than nine seconds (so
7266 that redirections done via refresh tags are not destroyed). This is useful
7267 for dial-on-demand setups, or for those who find this HTML feature
7274 <term><emphasis>unsolicited-popups</emphasis></term>
7277 This filter attempts to prevent only <quote>unsolicited</quote> pop-up
7278 windows from opening, yet still allow pop-up windows that the user
7279 has explicitly chosen to open. It was added in version 3.0.1,
7280 as an improvement over earlier such filters.
7283 Technical note: The filter works by redefining the window.open JavaScript
7284 function to a dummy function, <literal>PrivoxyWindowOpen()</literal>,
7285 during the loading and rendering phase of each HTML page access, and
7286 restoring the function afterward.
7289 This is recommended only for browsers that cannot perform this function
7290 reliably themselves. And be aware that some sites require such windows
7291 in order to function normally. Use with caution.
7297 <term><emphasis>all-popups</emphasis></term>
7300 Attempt to prevent <emphasis>all</emphasis> pop-up windows from opening.
7301 Note this should be used with even more discretion than the above, since
7302 it is more likely to break some sites that require pop-ups for normal
7303 usage. Use with caution.
7309 <term><emphasis>img-reorder</emphasis></term>
7312 This is a helper filter that has no value if used alone. It makes the
7313 <literal>banners-by-size</literal> and <literal>banners-by-link</literal>
7314 (see below) filters more effective and should be enabled together with them.
7320 <term><emphasis>banners-by-size</emphasis></term>
7323 This filter removes image tags purely based on what size they are. Fortunately
7324 for us, many ads and banner images tend to conform to certain standardized
7325 sizes, which makes this filter quite effective for ad stripping purposes.
7328 Occasionally this filter will cause false positives on images that are not ads,
7329 but just happen to be of one of the standard banner sizes.
7332 Recommended only for those who require extreme ad blocking. The default
7333 block rules should catch 95+% of all ads <emphasis>without</emphasis> this filter enabled.
7339 <term><emphasis>banners-by-link</emphasis></term>
7342 This is an experimental filter that attempts to kill any banners if
7343 their URLs seem to point to known or suspected click trackers. It is currently
7344 not of much value and is not recommended for use by default.
7350 <term><emphasis>webbugs</emphasis></term>
7353 Webbugs are small, invisible images (technically 1X1 GIF images), that
7354 are used to track users across websites, and collect information on them.
7355 As an HTML page is loaded by the browser, an embedded image tag causes the
7356 browser to contact a third-party site, disclosing the tracking information
7357 through the requested URL and/or cookies for that third-party domain, without
7358 the user ever becoming aware of the interaction with the third-party site.
7359 HTML-ized spam also uses a similar technique to verify email addresses.
7362 This filter removes the HTML code that loads such <quote>webbugs</quote>.
7368 <term><emphasis>tiny-textforms</emphasis></term>
7371 A rather special-purpose filter that can be used to enlarge textareas (those
7372 multi-line text boxes in web forms) and turn off hard word wrap in them.
7373 It was written for the sourceforge.net tracker system where such boxes are
7374 a nuisance, but it can be handy on other sites, too.
7377 It is not recommended to use this filter as a default.
7383 <term><emphasis>jumping-windows</emphasis></term>
7386 Many consider windows that move, or resize themselves to be abusive. This filter
7387 neutralizes the related JavaScript code. Note that some sites might not display
7388 or behave as intended when using this filter. Use with caution.
7394 <term><emphasis>frameset-borders</emphasis></term>
7397 Some web designers seem to assume that everyone in the world will view their
7398 web sites using the same browser brand and version, screen resolution etc,
7399 because only that assumption could explain why they'd use static frame sizes,
7400 yet prevent their frames from being resized by the user, should they be too
7401 small to show their whole content.
7404 This filter removes the related HTML code. It should only be applied to sites
7411 <term><emphasis>demoronizer</emphasis></term>
7414 Many Microsoft products that generate HTML use non-standard extensions (read:
7415 violations) of the ISO 8859-1 aka Latin-1 character set. This can cause those
7416 HTML documents to display with errors on standard-compliant platforms.
7419 This filter translates the MS-only characters into Latin-1 equivalents.
7420 It is not necessary when using MS products, and will cause corruption of
7421 all documents that use 8-bit character sets other than Latin-1. It's mostly
7422 worthwhile for Europeans on non-MS platforms, if weird garbage characters
7423 sometimes appear on some pages, or user agents that don't correct for this on
7426 My version of Mozilla (ancient) shows litte square boxes for quote
7427 characters, and apostrophes on moronized pages. So many pages have this, I
7428 can read them fine now. HB 08/27/06
7435 <term><emphasis>shockwave-flash</emphasis></term>
7438 A filter for shockwave haters. As the name suggests, this filter strips code
7439 out of web pages that is used to embed shockwave flash objects.
7447 <term><emphasis>quicktime-kioskmode</emphasis></term>
7450 Change HTML code that embeds Quicktime objects so that kioskmode, which
7451 prevents saving, is disabled.
7457 <term><emphasis>fun</emphasis></term>
7460 Text replacements for subversive browsing fun. Make fun of your favorite
7461 Monopolist or play buzzword bingo.
7467 <term><emphasis>crude-parental</emphasis></term>
7470 A demonstration-only filter that shows how <application>Privoxy</application>
7471 can be used to delete web content on a keyword basis.
7477 <term><emphasis>ie-exploits</emphasis></term>
7480 An experimental collection of text replacements to disable malicious HTML and JavaScript
7481 code that exploits known security holes in Internet Explorer.
7484 Presently, it only protects against Nimda and a cross-site scripting bug, and
7485 would need active maintenance to provide more substantial protection.
7491 <term><emphasis>site-specifics</emphasis></term>
7494 Some web sites have very specific problems, the cure for which doesn't apply
7495 anywhere else, or could even cause damage on other sites.
7498 This is a collection of such site-specific cures which should only be applied
7499 to the sites they were intended for, which is what the supplied
7500 <filename>default.action</filename> file does. Users shouldn't need to change
7501 anything regarding this filter.
7507 <term><emphasis>google</emphasis></term>
7510 A CSS based block for Google text ads. Also removes a width limitation
7511 and the toolbar advertisement.
7517 <term><emphasis>yahoo</emphasis></term>
7520 Another CSS based block, this time for Yahoo text ads. And removes
7521 a width limitation as well.
7527 <term><emphasis>msn</emphasis></term>
7530 Another CSS based block, this time for MSN text ads. And removes
7531 tracking URLs, as well as a width limitation.
7537 <term><emphasis>blogspot</emphasis></term>
7540 Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this one!
7543 This filter also intentionally removes some navigation stuff and sets the
7544 page width to 100%. As a result, some rounded <quote>corners</quote> would
7545 appear to early or not at all and as fixing this would require a browser
7546 that understands background-size (CSS3), they are removed instead.
7552 <term><emphasis>xml-to-html</emphasis></term>
7555 Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from xml to html.
7561 <term><emphasis>html-to-xml</emphasis></term>
7564 Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from html to xml.
7570 <term><emphasis>no-ping</emphasis></term>
7573 Removes the non-standard <literal>ping</literal> attribute from
7574 anchor and area HTML tags.
7580 <term><emphasis>hide-tor-exit-notation</emphasis></term>
7583 Client-header filter to remove the <command>Tor</command> exit node notation
7584 found in Host and Referer headers.
7587 If &my-app; and <command>Tor</command> are chained and &my-app;
7588 is configured to use socks4a, one can use <quote>http://www.example.org.foobar.exit/</quote>
7589 to access the host <quote>www.example.org</quote> through the
7590 <command>Tor</command> exit node <quote>foobar</quote>.
7593 As the HTTP client isn't aware of this notation, it treats the
7594 whole string <quote>www.example.org.foobar.exit</quote> as host and uses it
7595 for the <quote>Host</quote> and <quote>Referer</quote> headers. From the
7596 server's point of view the resulting headers are invalid and can cause problems.
7599 An invalid <quote>Referer</quote> header can trigger <quote>hot-linking</quote>
7600 protections, an invalid <quote>Host</quote> header will make it impossible for
7601 the server to find the right vhost (several domains hosted on the same IP address).
7604 This client-header filter removes the <quote>foo.exit</quote> part in those headers
7605 to prevent the mentioned problems. Note that it only modifies
7606 the HTTP headers, it doesn't make it impossible for the server
7607 to detect your <command>Tor</command> exit node based on the IP address
7608 the request is coming from.
7615 <term><emphasis> </emphasis></term>
7629 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7633 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7635 <sect1 id="templates">
7636 <title>Privoxy's Template Files</title>
7638 All <application>Privoxy</application> built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
7639 <ulink url="http://show-the-404-error.page"><quote>404 - No Such Domain</quote>
7640 error page</ulink>, the <ulink
7641 url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
7643 and all pages of its <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
7644 user interface</ulink>, are generated from <emphasis>templates</emphasis>.
7645 (<application>Privoxy</application> must be running for the above links to work as
7650 These templates are stored in a subdirectory of the <link linkend="confdir">configuration
7651 directory</link> called <filename>templates</filename>. On Unixish platforms,
7653 <ulink url="file:///etc/privoxy/templates/"><filename>/etc/privoxy/templates/</filename></ulink>.
7657 The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols
7658 or exports), which <application>Privoxy</application> fills at run time. It
7659 is possible to edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want
7660 to customize them. (<emphasis>Not recommended for the casual
7661 user</emphasis>). Should you create your own custom templates, you should use
7662 the <filename>config</filename> setting <link linkend="templdir">templdir</link>
7663 to specify an alternate location, so your templates do not get overwritten
7667 Note that just like in configuration files, lines starting
7668 with <literal>#</literal> are ignored when the templates are filled in.
7672 The place-holders are of the form <literal>@name@</literal>, and you will
7673 find a list of available symbols, which vary from template to template,
7674 in the comments at the start of each file. Note that these comments are not
7675 always accurate, and that it's probably best to look at the existing HTML
7676 code to find out which symbols are supported and what they are filled in with.
7680 A special application of this substitution mechanism is to make whole
7681 blocks of HTML code disappear when a specific symbol is set. We use this
7682 for many purposes, one of them being to include the beta warning in all
7683 our user interface (CGI) pages when <application>Privoxy</application>
7684 is in an alpha or beta development stage:
7689 <!-- @if-unstable-start -->
7691 ... beta warning HTML code goes here ...
7693 <!-- if-unstable-end@ --></screen>
7697 If the "unstable" symbol is set, everything in between and including
7698 <literal>@if-unstable-start</literal> and <literal>if-unstable-end@</literal>
7699 will disappear, leaving nothing but an empty comment:
7703 <screen><!-- --></screen>
7707 There's also an if-then-else construct and an <literal>#include</literal>
7708 mechanism, but you'll sure find out if you are inclined to edit the
7713 All templates refer to a style located at
7714 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet"><literal>http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet</literal></ulink>.
7715 This is, of course, locally served by <application>Privoxy</application>
7716 and the source for it can be found and edited in the
7717 <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> template.
7722 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7726 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7728 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
7731 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
7733 <!-- end boilerplate -->
7737 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7740 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7741 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Privoxy Copyright, License and History</title>
7743 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
7745 <!-- end copyright -->
7747 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7748 <sect2><title>License</title>
7749 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
7751 <!-- end copyright -->
7753 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7756 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7758 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
7759 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
7761 <!-- end history -->
7764 <sect2 id="authors"><title>Authors</title>
7765 <!-- Include p-authors.sgml: -->
7767 <!-- end authors -->
7772 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7775 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7776 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
7777 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
7779 <!-- end seealso -->
7784 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7785 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
7788 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7790 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
7792 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl-style <quote>regular
7793 expressions</quote> in its <link linkend="actions-file">actions
7794 files</link> and <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>,
7795 through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> and
7798 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/">PCRS</ulink> libraries.
7800 <application>PCRS</application> libraries.
7804 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
7805 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
7806 introduction only. A full explanation would require a <ulink
7807 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/">book</ulink> ;-)
7811 Regular expressions provide a language to describe patterns that can be
7812 run against strings of characters (letter, numbers, etc), to see if they
7813 match the string or not. The patterns are themselves (sometimes complex)
7814 strings of literal characters, combined with wild-cards, and other special
7815 characters, called meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have
7816 special meanings and are used to build complex patterns to be matched against.
7817 Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are an especially convenient
7818 <quote>dialect</quote> of the regular expression language.
7822 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
7823 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
7824 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
7825 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
7826 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
7827 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
7828 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
7829 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
7833 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
7834 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
7835 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
7836 and then some examples:
7841 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
7842 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
7844 </simplelist></para>
7848 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
7851 </simplelist></para>
7855 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
7858 </simplelist></para>
7862 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
7865 </simplelist></para>
7869 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
7870 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
7871 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
7872 not as a special meta-character. Example: <quote>example\.com</quote>, makes
7873 sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
7874 meta-character meaning of any single character).
7876 </simplelist></para>
7880 <emphasis>[ ]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
7881 any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, <quote>[0-9]</quote>
7882 matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
7883 this with <quote>+</quote> to match any digit one of more times: <quote>[0-9]+</quote>.
7885 </simplelist></para>
7889 <emphasis>( )</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
7890 or multiple sub-expressions.
7892 </simplelist></para>
7896 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
7897 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
7898 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches. As an example:
7899 <quote>/(this|that) example/</quote> uses grouping and the bar character
7900 and would match either <quote>this example</quote> or <quote>that
7901 example</quote>, and nothing else.
7903 </simplelist></para>
7906 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
7907 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
7908 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
7909 be more illuminating:
7913 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
7914 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
7915 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
7916 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
7917 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
7918 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
7919 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
7920 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
7921 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
7922 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
7923 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
7924 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
7925 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
7926 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
7931 And now something a little more complex:
7935 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
7936 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
7937 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
7938 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
7939 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
7940 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
7941 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
7946 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
7947 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
7948 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
7949 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
7950 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
7951 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
7952 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
7953 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
7954 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
7955 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
7956 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
7957 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
7958 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
7959 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
7960 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
7961 changing our regular expression to:
7962 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
7967 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
7968 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
7969 <quote>[ ]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
7970 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
7971 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
7972 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
7973 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
7974 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
7975 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
7976 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
7977 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
7978 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
7979 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
7980 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
7981 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
7982 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
7983 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
7984 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
7985 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
7986 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
7987 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
7988 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
7989 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
7990 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
7991 in the expression anywhere).
7995 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
7996 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
7997 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
7998 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
7999 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
8004 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
8005 <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html</ulink>
8009 For information on regular expression based substitutions and their applications
8010 in filters, please see the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file tutorial</link>
8015 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
8018 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8020 <title>Privoxy's Internal Pages</title>
8023 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
8024 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
8025 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
8026 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
8027 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
8028 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
8029 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
8035 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
8036 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
8037 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
8038 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
8051 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
8055 There is a shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> (But it
8056 doesn't provide a fall-back to a real page, in case the request is not
8057 sent through <application>Privoxy</application>)
8063 Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
8064 editing of actions files:
8068 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
8075 Show the source code version numbers:
8079 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
8086 Show the browser's request headers:
8090 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
8097 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
8101 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
8108 Toggle Privoxy on or off. This feature can be turned off/on in the main
8109 <filename>config</filename> file. When toggled <quote>off</quote>, <quote>Privoxy</quote>
8110 continues to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking
8115 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
8119 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
8123 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
8128 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
8137 These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
8141 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
8142 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
8144 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
8145 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
8146 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
8147 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
8148 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
8149 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
8152 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
8153 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
8154 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
8155 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
8156 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
8157 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
8166 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>
8173 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>
8180 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)
8187 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>
8193 <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>
8199 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info?url='+escape(location.href),'Why').focus());">Privoxy - Why?</ulink>
8206 Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
8207 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com/">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
8208 have more information about bookmarklets.
8217 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8219 <title>Chain of Events</title>
8221 Let's take a quick look at how some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
8222 core features are triggered, and the ensuing sequence of events when a web
8223 page is requested by your browser:
8230 First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
8231 the request to <application>Privoxy</application>, which will in turn,
8232 relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
8238 <application>Privoxy</application> traps any request for its own internal CGI
8239 pages (e.g <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
8244 Next, <application>Privoxy</application> checks to see if the URL
8246 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link> patterns. If
8247 so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
8248 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>
8250 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-EMPTY-DOCUMENT"><quote>+handle-as-empty-document</quote></link>
8251 are then checked, and if there is no match, an
8252 HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page is sent back to the browser. Otherwise, if
8253 it does match, an image is returned for the former, and an empty text
8254 document for the latter. The type of image would depend on the setting of
8255 <link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></link>
8256 (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
8261 Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
8262 <filename>trust</filename> file, then that is done.
8267 If the URL pattern matches the <link
8268 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link> action,
8269 it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
8274 Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
8275 of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. <link
8276 linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT"><quote>+hide-user-agent</quote></link>,
8277 etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
8283 Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web
8289 First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
8290 things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
8291 filtered as determined by the
8292 <link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES"><quote>+crunch-incoming-cookies</quote></link>,
8293 <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>,
8294 and <link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION"><quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote></link>
8300 If any <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
8302 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
8303 action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
8304 read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from
8305 <filename>default.filter</filename> and any other filter files) are
8306 processed against the buffered content. Filters are applied in the order
8307 they are specified in one of the filter files. Animated GIFs, if present,
8308 are reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
8309 setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
8310 <application>Privoxy</application> back to your browser.
8313 If neither a <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
8315 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
8316 matches, then <application>Privoxy</application> passes the raw data through
8317 to the client browser as it becomes available.
8322 As the browser receives the now (possibly filtered) page content, it
8323 reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
8324 source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
8325 frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a
8326 separate request (this is easily viewable in <application>Privoxy's</application>
8327 logs). And each such request is in turn processed just as above. Note that a
8328 complex web page will have many, many such embedded URLs. If these
8329 secondary requests are to a different server, then quite possibly a very
8330 differing set of actions is triggered.
8337 NOTE: This is somewhat of a simplistic overview of what happens with each URL
8338 request. For the sake of brevity and simplicity, we have focused on
8339 <application>Privoxy's</application> core features only.
8345 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8346 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
8347 <title>Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</title>
8350 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies
8351 <link linkend="ACTIONS">actions</link> and <link linkend="FILTER">filters</link>
8352 to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
8353 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
8354 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
8355 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
8356 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
8357 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
8358 <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> whose consequences are not
8363 One quick test to see if <application>Privoxy</application> is causing a problem
8364 or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
8365 step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
8366 and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!). Looking at the
8367 logs is a good idea too. (Note that both the toggle feature and logging are
8368 enabled via <filename>config</filename> file settings, and may need to be
8369 turned <quote>on</quote>.)
8372 Another easy troubleshooting step to try is if you have done any
8373 customization of your installation, revert back to the installed
8374 defaults and see if that helps. There are times the developers get complaints
8375 about one thing or another, and the problem is more related to a customized
8376 configuration issue.
8380 <application>Privoxy</application> also provides the
8381 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
8382 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
8383 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
8387 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
8388 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
8389 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
8390 help with filtering effects (i.e. the <link
8391 linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action) from
8392 one of the filter files since this is handled very
8393 differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other
8394 URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images
8395 such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So
8396 you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area
8397 -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you
8398 will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View
8399 Page Source</quote> option for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the
8404 Let's try an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
8405 and look at it one section at a time in a sample configuration (your real
8406 configuration may vary):
8411 Matches for http://www.google.com:
8413 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8415 {+change-x-forwarded-for{block}
8416 +deanimate-gifs {last}
8417 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
8418 +filter {refresh-tags}
8419 +filter {img-reorder}
8420 +filter {banners-by-size}
8422 +filter {jumping-windows}
8423 +filter {ie-exploits}
8424 +hide-from-header {block}
8425 +hide-referrer {forge}
8426 +session-cookies-only
8427 +set-image-blocker {pattern}
8430 { -session-cookies-only }
8436 In file: user.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8437 (no matches in this file)
8442 This is telling us how we have defined our
8443 <link linkend="ACTIONS"><quote>actions</quote></link>, and
8444 which ones match for our test case, <quote>google.com</quote>.
8445 Displayed is all the actions that are available to us. Remember,
8446 the <literal>+</literal> sign denotes <quote>on</quote>. <literal>-</literal>
8447 denotes <quote>off</quote>. So some are <quote>on</quote> here, but many
8448 are <quote>off</quote>. Each example we try may provide a slightly different
8449 end result, depending on our configuration directives.
8453 is for our <filename>default.action</filename> file. The large, multi-line
8454 listing, is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default
8455 settings. If you look at your <quote>actions</quote> file, this would be the
8456 section just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section near the top. This
8457 will apply to all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end
8458 of the listing -- <quote> / </quote>.
8462 But we have defined additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
8463 rules, and then we list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions
8464 would apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit
8465 matches for <quote>.google.com</quote>. The first is negating our previous
8466 cookie setting, which was for <link
8467 linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>
8468 (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google, at
8469 least that is how it is in this example. The second turns
8470 <emphasis>off</emphasis> any <link
8471 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link>
8472 action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading
8473 dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will match any hosts and
8474 sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
8475 <quote>www.google.com</quote> or <quote>mail.google.com</quote>. But it would not
8476 match <quote>www.google.de</quote>! So, apparently, we have these two actions
8477 defined as exceptions to the general rules at the top somewhere in the lower
8478 part of our <filename>default.action</filename> file, and
8479 <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced somewhere in these latter sections.
8483 Then, for our <filename>user.action</filename> file, we again have no hits.
8484 So there is nothing google-specific that we might have added to our own, local
8485 configuration. If there was, those actions would over-rule any actions from
8486 previously processed files, such as <filename>default.action</filename>.
8487 <filename>user.action</filename> typically has the last word. This is the
8488 best place to put hard and fast exceptions,
8492 And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
8493 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
8494 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
8505 +change-x-forwarded-for{block}
8506 -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
8507 -content-type-overwrite
8508 -crunch-client-header
8509 -crunch-if-none-match
8510 -crunch-incoming-cookies
8511 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
8512 -crunch-server-header
8513 +deanimate-gifs {last}
8514 -downgrade-http-version
8517 -filter {content-cookies}
8518 -filter {all-popups}
8519 -filter {banners-by-link}
8520 -filter {tiny-textforms}
8521 -filter {frameset-borders}
8522 -filter {demoronizer}
8523 -filter {shockwave-flash}
8524 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
8526 -filter {crude-parental}
8527 -filter {site-specifics}
8528 -filter {js-annoyances}
8529 -filter {html-annoyances}
8530 +filter {refresh-tags}
8531 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
8532 +filter {img-reorder}
8533 +filter {banners-by-size}
8535 +filter {jumping-windows}
8536 +filter {ie-exploits}
8543 -handle-as-empty-document
8545 -hide-accept-language
8546 -hide-content-disposition
8547 +hide-from-header {block}
8548 -hide-if-modified-since
8549 +hide-referrer {forge}
8552 -overwrite-last-modified
8553 -prevent-compression
8555 -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
8556 -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
8557 -session-cookies-only
8558 +set-image-blocker {pattern} </screen>
8562 Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
8563 <quote>fast-redirects</quote> and <quote>session-cookies-only</quote>,
8564 which are activated specifically for this site in our configuration,
8565 and thus show in the <quote>Final Results</quote>.
8569 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
8575 { +block{Domains starts with "ad"} }
8578 { +block{Domain contains "ad"} }
8581 { +block{Doubleclick banner server} +handle-as-image }
8582 .[a-vx-z]*.doubleclick.net
8587 We'll just show the interesting part here - the explicit matches. It is
8588 matched three different times. Two <quote>+block{}</quote> sections,
8589 and a <quote>+block{} +handle-as-image</quote>,
8590 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
8591 <quote>+block-as-image</quote>. (<link
8592 linkend="ALIASES"><quote>Aliases</quote></link> are defined in
8593 the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
8598 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
8599 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
8600 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
8601 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
8602 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
8603 is done here -- as both a <link
8604 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block{}</quote></link>
8605 <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
8606 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>.
8607 The custom alias <quote><literal>+block-as-image</literal></quote> just
8608 simplifies the process and make it more readable.
8612 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
8613 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm ...
8619 Matches for http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
8621 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8625 +change-x-forwarded-for{block}
8626 -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
8627 -content-type-overwrite
8628 -crunch-client-header
8629 -crunch-if-none-match
8630 -crunch-incoming-cookies
8631 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
8632 -crunch-server-header
8634 -downgrade-http-version
8635 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
8637 -filter {content-cookies}
8638 -filter {all-popups}
8639 -filter {banners-by-link}
8640 -filter {tiny-textforms}
8641 -filter {frameset-borders}
8642 -filter {demoronizer}
8643 -filter {shockwave-flash}
8644 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
8646 -filter {crude-parental}
8647 -filter {site-specifics}
8648 -filter {js-annoyances}
8649 -filter {html-annoyances}
8650 +filter {refresh-tags}
8651 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
8652 +filter {img-reorder}
8653 +filter {banners-by-size}
8655 +filter {jumping-windows}
8656 +filter {ie-exploits}
8663 -handle-as-empty-document
8665 -hide-accept-language
8666 -hide-content-disposition
8667 +hide-from-header{block}
8668 +hide-referer{forge}
8670 -overwrite-last-modified
8671 +prevent-compression
8673 -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
8674 -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
8675 +session-cookies-only
8676 +set-image-blocker{blank} }
8679 { +block{Path contains "ads".} +handle-as-image }
8685 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote> in our
8686 configuration! But we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the
8687 blank page. It is actually triggering two different actions here, and
8688 the effects are aggregated so that the URL is blocked, and &my-app; is told
8689 to treat the block as if it were an image. But this is, of course, all wrong.
8690 We could now add a new action below this (or better in our own
8691 <filename>user.action</filename> file) that explicitly
8692 <emphasis>un</emphasis> blocks (
8693 <link linkend="BLOCK"><quote>{-block}</quote></link>) paths with
8694 <quote>adsl</quote> in them (remember, last match in the configuration
8695 wins). There are various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
8707 Now the page displays ;-)
8708 Remember to flush your browser's caches when making these kinds of changes to
8709 your configuration to insure that you get a freshly delivered page! Or, try
8710 using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
8714 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
8721 { +block{Path starts with "ads".} +handle-as-image }
8727 That actually was very helpful and pointed us quickly to where the problem
8728 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
8729 rules in the first section of <filename>default.action</filename> is causing
8730 the problem. This would require some guesswork, and maybe a little trial and
8731 error to isolate the offending rule. One likely cause would be one of the
8732 <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> actions.
8733 These tend to be harder to troubleshoot.
8734 Try adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off
8735 <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>:
8743 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
8751 <quote><literal>{ shop }</literal></quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
8752 <quote><literal>{ -filter -session-cookies-only }</literal></quote>.
8753 Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
8761 # Disable ALL filter actions for sites in this section
8769 This would turn off all filtering for these sites. This is best
8770 put in <filename>user.action</filename>, for local site
8771 exceptions. Note that when a simple domain pattern is used by itself (without
8772 the subsequent path portion), all sub-pages within that domain are included
8773 automatically in the scope of the action.
8777 Images that are inexplicably being blocked, may well be hitting the
8778 <link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE"><quote>+filter{banners-by-size}</quote></link>
8780 that images of certain sizes are ad banners (works well
8781 <emphasis>most of the time</emphasis> since these tend to be standardized).
8785 <quote><literal>{ fragile }</literal></quote> is an alias that disables most
8786 actions that are the most likely to cause trouble. This can be used as a
8787 last resort for problem sites.
8793 # Handle with care: easy to break
8795 mybank.example.com</screen>
8800 <emphasis>Remember to flush caches!</emphasis> Note that the
8801 <literal>mail.google</literal> reference lacks the TLD portion (e.g.
8802 <quote>.com</quote>). This will effectively match any TLD with
8803 <literal>google</literal> in it, such as <literal>mail.google.de.</literal>,
8807 If this still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining
8808 actions one by one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
8817 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
8818 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
8819 Public License as published by the Free Software
8820 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
8821 your option) any later version.
8823 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
8824 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
8825 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
8826 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
8827 License for more details.
8829 The GNU General Public License should be included with
8830 this file. If not, you can view it at
8831 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
8832 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
8833 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301,
8836 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
8837 Revision 2.124 2010/05/01 18:21:30 fabiankeil
8838 Explicitly mention how to match any URL.
8840 Revision 2.123 2010/02/19 16:00:38 fabiankeil
8843 Revision 2.122 2010/02/19 15:22:47 fabiankeil
8846 Revision 2.121 2010/02/15 15:30:13 fabiankeil
8847 Mention the use of the no-such-domain template for DNS problems with FEATURE_IPV6_SUPPORT enabled.
8849 Revision 2.120 2010/02/13 17:38:39 fabiankeil
8850 Update entities for 3.0.16 stable.
8852 Revision 2.119 2010/02/13 16:37:37 fabiankeil
8853 Update 'What's new?' section.
8855 Revision 2.118 2010/02/11 13:59:48 fabiankeil
8856 Mention that the headers added by the add-header action aren't modified by other actions.
8858 Revision 2.117 2010/01/11 12:56:04 fabiankeil
8859 Bump copyright range as p-config.sgml's copyright line is only used in the config file.
8861 Revision 2.116 2009/11/15 14:24:12 fabiankeil
8862 Prepare to generate docs for 3.0.16 UNRELEASED.
8864 Revision 2.115 2009/10/10 06:19:34 fabiankeil
8865 Ditch a duplicated 'since'.
8867 Revision 2.114 2009/10/10 05:51:48 fabiankeil
8868 Update "What's new" section.
8870 Revision 2.113 2009/10/10 05:48:55 fabiankeil
8871 Prepare for 3.0.15 beta.
8873 Revision 2.112 2009/07/24 12:20:30 fabiankeil
8874 Remove duplicated period.
8876 Revision 2.111 2009/07/18 18:11:11 fabiankeil
8877 Don't claim that NTLM should work when there are multiple reports that it doesn't.
8879 Revision 2.110 2009/07/18 16:25:17 fabiankeil
8880 Fix trailing whitespace.
8882 Revision 2.109 2009/07/18 16:24:39 fabiankeil
8883 Bump entities for 3.0.14 beta.
8885 Revision 2.108 2009/07/18 15:49:23 fabiankeil
8886 Add most of the changes in 3.0.14 to the "What's New" section.
8888 Revision 2.107 2009/06/12 14:30:58 fabiankeil
8889 Update entities for 3.0.13 beta.
8891 Revision 2.106 2009/06/12 11:04:13 fabiankeil
8892 Import ChangeLog for 3.0.13 beta.
8894 Revision 2.105 2009/04/17 11:32:57 fabiankeil
8895 Grammar and spelling fixes.
8897 Revision 2.104 2009/04/17 11:27:49 fabiankeil
8898 Petr Pisar's privoxy-3.0.12-ipv6-3.diff.
8900 Revision 2.103 2009/03/21 10:49:05 fabiankeil
8901 Merge updated ChangeLog.
8903 Revision 2.102 2009/03/15 19:31:36 fabiankeil
8904 Update "What's New in this Release" section.
8906 Revision 2.101 2009/02/25 19:01:56 fabiankeil
8909 Revision 2.100 2009/02/19 17:14:11 fabiankeil
8910 - Copy the release cycle description from announce.txt into
8911 the "What's New" section.
8912 - Stop referring to the ChangeLog for a "complete list of changes".
8913 The "What's New" section already contains the complete list.
8915 Revision 2.99 2009/02/19 02:20:22 hal9
8916 Make some links in seealso conditional. Man page is now privoxy only links.
8918 Revision 2.98 2009/02/16 17:10:33 fabiankeil
8919 Fix entry about shortened log messages. Noticed by Lee.
8921 Revision 2.97 2009/02/14 18:01:00 fabiankeil
8924 Revision 2.96 2009/02/14 13:14:03 fabiankeil
8927 Revision 2.95 2009/02/14 12:51:26 fabiankeil
8928 Mention match-all.action in the "Actions Files Tutorial" section.
8930 Revision 2.94 2009/02/14 11:50:31 fabiankeil
8931 Some indentation fixes.
8933 Revision 2.93 2009/02/14 10:14:42 fabiankeil
8934 Mention match-all.action in the action file descriptions.
8936 Revision 2.92 2009/02/12 16:08:26 fabiankeil
8937 Declare the code stable.
8939 Revision 2.91 2009/01/13 16:50:35 fabiankeil
8940 The standard.action file is gone.
8942 Revision 2.90 2008/09/26 16:53:09 fabiankeil
8943 Update "What's new" section.
8945 Revision 2.89 2008/09/21 15:38:56 fabiankeil
8946 Fix Portage tree sync instructions in Gentoo section.
8947 Anonymously reported at ijbswa-developers@.
8949 Revision 2.88 2008/09/21 14:42:52 fabiankeil
8950 Add documentation for change-x-forwarded-for{},
8951 remove documentation for hide-forwarded-for-headers.
8953 Revision 2.87 2008/08/30 15:37:35 fabiankeil
8956 Revision 2.86 2008/08/16 10:12:23 fabiankeil
8957 Merge two sentences and move the URL to the end of the item.
8959 Revision 2.85 2008/08/16 10:04:59 fabiankeil
8960 Some more syntax fixes. This version actually builds.
8962 Revision 2.84 2008/08/16 09:42:45 fabiankeil
8963 Turns out building docs works better if the syntax is valid.
8965 Revision 2.83 2008/08/16 09:32:02 fabiankeil
8966 Mention changes since 3.0.9 beta.
8968 Revision 2.82 2008/08/16 09:00:52 fabiankeil
8969 Fix example URL pattern (once more with feeling).
8971 Revision 2.81 2008/08/16 08:51:28 fabiankeil
8972 Update version-related entities.
8974 Revision 2.80 2008/07/18 16:54:30 fabiankeil
8975 Remove erroneous whitespace in documentation link.
8976 Reported by John Chronister in #2021611.
8978 Revision 2.79 2008/06/27 18:00:53 markm68k
8979 remove outdated startup information for mac os x
8981 Revision 2.78 2008/06/21 17:03:03 fabiankeil
8984 Revision 2.77 2008/06/14 13:45:22 fabiankeil
8985 Re-add a colon I unintentionally removed a few revisions ago.
8987 Revision 2.76 2008/06/14 13:21:28 fabiankeil
8988 Prepare for the upcoming 3.0.9 beta release.
8990 Revision 2.75 2008/06/13 16:06:48 fabiankeil
8991 Update the "What's New in this Release" section with
8992 the ChangeLog entries changelog2doc.pl could handle.
8994 Revision 2.74 2008/05/26 15:55:46 fabiankeil
8995 - Update "default profiles" table.
8996 - Add some more pcrs redirect examples and note that
8997 enabling debug 128 helps to get redirects working.
8999 Revision 2.73 2008/05/23 14:43:18 fabiankeil
9000 Remove previously out-commented block that caused syntax problems.
9002 Revision 2.72 2008/05/12 10:26:14 fabiankeil
9003 Synchronize content filter descriptions with the ones in default.filter.
9005 Revision 2.71 2008/04/10 17:37:16 fabiankeil
9006 Actually we use "modern" POSIX 1003.2 regular
9007 expressions in path patterns, not PCRE.
9009 Revision 2.70 2008/04/10 15:59:12 fabiankeil
9010 Add another section to the client-header-tagger example that shows
9011 how to actually change the action settings once the tag is created.
9013 Revision 2.69 2008/03/29 12:14:25 fabiankeil
9014 Remove send-wafer and send-vanilla-wafer actions.
9016 Revision 2.68 2008/03/28 15:13:43 fabiankeil
9017 Remove inspect-jpegs action.
9019 Revision 2.67 2008/03/27 18:31:21 fabiankeil
9020 Remove kill-popups action.
9022 Revision 2.66 2008/03/06 16:33:47 fabiankeil
9023 If limit-connect isn't used, don't limit CONNECT requests to port 443.
9025 Revision 2.65 2008/03/04 18:30:40 fabiankeil
9026 Remove the treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks action. We now
9027 use the "blocked" page for forbidden CONNECT requests by default.
9029 Revision 2.64 2008/03/01 14:10:28 fabiankeil
9030 Use new block syntax. Still needs some polishing.
9032 Revision 2.63 2008/02/22 05:50:37 markm68k
9035 Revision 2.62 2008/02/11 11:52:23 hal9
9036 Fix entity ... s/&/&
9038 Revision 2.61 2008/02/11 03:41:47 markm68k
9039 more updates for mac os x
9041 Revision 2.60 2008/02/11 03:40:25 markm68k
9042 more updates for mac os x
9044 Revision 2.59 2008/02/11 00:52:34 markm68k
9045 reflect new changes for mac os x
9047 Revision 2.58 2008/02/03 21:37:40 hal9
9048 Apply patch from Mark: s/OSX/OS X/
9050 Revision 2.57 2008/02/03 19:10:14 fabiankeil
9051 Mention forward-socks5.
9053 Revision 2.56 2008/01/31 19:11:35 fabiankeil
9054 Let the +client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation} example apply
9055 to all requests as "tainted" Referers aren't limited to exit TLDs.
9057 Revision 2.55 2008/01/19 21:26:37 hal9
9058 Add IE7 to configuration section per Gerry.
9060 Revision 2.54 2008/01/19 17:52:39 hal9
9061 Re-commit to fix various minor issues for new release.
9063 Revision 2.53 2008/01/19 15:03:05 hal9
9064 Doc sources tagged for 3.0.8 release.
9066 Revision 2.52 2008/01/17 01:49:51 hal9
9067 Change copyright notice for docs s/2007/2008/. All these will be rebuilt soon
9070 Revision 2.51 2007/12/23 16:48:24 fabiankeil
9071 Use more precise example descriptions for the mysterious domain patterns.
9073 Revision 2.50 2007/12/08 12:44:36 fabiankeil
9074 - Remove already commented out pre-3.0.7 changes.
9075 - Update the "new log defaults" paragraph.
9077 Revision 2.49 2007/12/06 18:21:55 fabiankeil
9078 Update hide-forwarded-for-headers description.
9080 Revision 2.48 2007/11/24 19:07:17 fabiankeil
9081 - Mention request rewriting.
9082 - Enable the conditional-forge paragraph.
9085 Revision 2.47 2007/11/18 14:59:47 fabiankeil
9086 A few "Note to Upgraders" updates.
9088 Revision 2.46 2007/11/17 17:24:44 fabiankeil
9089 - Use new action defaults.
9090 - Minor fixes and rewordings.
9092 Revision 2.45 2007/11/16 11:48:46 hal9
9093 Fix one typo, and add a couple of small refinements.
9095 Revision 2.44 2007/11/15 03:30:20 hal9
9096 Results of spell check.
9098 Revision 2.43 2007/11/14 18:45:39 fabiankeil
9099 - Mention some more contributors in the "New in this Release" list.
9102 Revision 2.42 2007/11/12 03:32:40 hal9
9103 Updates for "What's New" and "Notes to Upgraders". Various other changes in
9104 preparation for new release. User Manual is almost ready.
9106 Revision 2.41 2007/11/11 16:32:11 hal9
9107 This is primarily syncing What's New and Note to Upgraders sections with the many
9108 new features and changes (gleaned from memory but mostly from ChangeLog).
9110 Revision 2.40 2007/11/10 17:10:59 fabiankeil
9111 In the first third of the file, mention several times that
9112 the action editor is disabled by default in 3.0.7 beta and later.
9114 Revision 2.39 2007/11/05 02:34:49 hal9
9115 Various changes in preparation for the upcoming release. Much yet to be done.
9117 Revision 2.38 2007/09/22 16:01:42 fabiankeil
9118 Update embedded show-url-info output.
9120 Revision 2.37 2007/08/27 16:09:55 fabiankeil
9121 Fix pre-chroot-nslookup description which I failed to
9122 copy and paste properly. Reported by Stephen Gildea.
9124 Revision 2.36 2007/08/26 16:47:14 fabiankeil
9125 Add Stephen Gildea's pre-chroot-nslookup patch [#1276666],
9126 extensive comments moved to user manual.
9128 Revision 2.35 2007/08/26 14:59:49 fabiankeil
9129 Minor rewordings and fixes.
9131 Revision 2.34 2007/08/05 15:19:50 fabiankeil
9132 - Don't claim HTTP/1.1 compliance.
9133 - Use $ in some of the path pattern examples.
9134 - Use a hide-user-agent example argument without
9135 leading and trailing space.
9136 - Make it clear that the cookie actions work with
9138 - Rephrase the inspect-jpegs text to underline
9139 that it's only meant to protect against a single
9142 Revision 2.33 2007/07/27 10:57:35 hal9
9143 Add references for user-agent strings for hide-user-agenet
9145 Revision 2.32 2007/06/07 12:36:22 fabiankeil
9146 Apply Roland's 29_usermanual.dpatch to fix a bunch
9147 of syntax errors I collected over the last months.
9149 Revision 2.31 2007/06/02 14:01:37 fabiankeil
9150 Start to document forward-override{}.
9152 Revision 2.30 2007/04/25 15:10:36 fabiankeil
9153 - Describe installation for FreeBSD.
9154 - Start to document taggers and tag patterns.
9155 - Don't confuse devils and daemons.
9157 Revision 2.29 2007/04/05 11:47:51 fabiankeil
9158 Some updates regarding header filtering,
9159 handling of compressed content and redirect's
9160 support for pcrs commands.
9162 Revision 2.28 2006/12/10 23:42:48 hal9
9163 Fix various typos reported by Adam P. Thanks.
9165 Revision 2.27 2006/11/14 01:57:47 hal9
9166 Dump all docs prior to 3.0.6 release. Various minor changes to faq and user
9169 Revision 2.26 2006/10/24 11:16:44 hal9
9172 Revision 2.25 2006/10/18 10:50:33 hal9
9173 Add note that since filters are off in Cautious, compression is ON. Turn off
9174 compression to make filters work on all sites.
9176 Revision 2.24 2006/10/03 11:13:54 hal9
9177 More references to the new filters. Include html this time around.
9179 Revision 2.23 2006/10/02 22:43:53 hal9
9180 Contains new filter definitions from Fabian, and few other miscellaneous
9183 Revision 2.22 2006/09/22 01:27:55 hal9
9184 Final commit of probably various minor changes here and there. Unless
9185 something changes this should be ready for pending release.
9187 Revision 2.21 2006/09/20 03:21:36 david__schmidt
9188 Just the tiniest tweak. Wafer thin!
9190 Revision 2.20 2006/09/10 14:53:54 hal9
9191 Results of spell check. User manual has some updates to standard.actions file
9194 Revision 2.19 2006/09/08 12:19:02 fabiankeil
9195 Adjust hide-if-modified-since example values
9196 to reflect the recent changes.
9198 Revision 2.18 2006/09/08 02:38:57 hal9
9200 -Fix a number of broken links.
9201 -Migrate the new Windows service command line options, and reference as
9203 -Rebuild so that can be used with the new "user-manual" config capabilities.
9206 Revision 2.17 2006/09/05 13:25:12 david__schmidt
9207 Add Windows service invocation stuff (duplicated) in FAQ and in user manual under Windows startup. One probably ought to reference the other.
9209 Revision 2.16 2006/09/02 12:49:37 hal9
9210 Various small updates for new actions, filterfiles, etc.
9212 Revision 2.15 2006/08/30 11:15:22 hal9
9213 More work on the new actions, especially filter-*-headers, and What's New
9214 section. User Manual is close to final form for 3.0.4 release. Some tinkering
9215 and proof reading left to do.
9217 Revision 2.14 2006/08/29 10:59:36 hal9
9218 Add a "Whats New in this release" Section. Further work on multiple filter
9219 files, and assorted other minor changes.
9221 Revision 2.13 2006/08/22 11:04:59 hal9
9222 Silence warnings and errors. This should build now. New filters were only
9223 stubbed in. More to be done.
9225 Revision 2.12 2006/08/14 08:40:39 fabiankeil
9226 Documented new actions that were part of
9227 the "minor Privoxy improvements".
9229 Revision 2.11 2006/07/18 14:48:51 david__schmidt
9230 Reorganizing the repository: swapping out what was HEAD (the old 3.1 branch)
9231 with what was really the latest development (the v_3_0_branch branch)
9233 Revision 1.123.2.43 2005/05/23 09:59:10 hal9
9236 Revision 1.123.2.42 2004/12/04 14:39:57 hal9
9237 Fix two minor typos per bug SF report.
9239 Revision 1.123.2.41 2004/03/23 12:58:42 oes
9242 Revision 1.123.2.40 2004/02/27 12:48:49 hal9
9243 Add comment re: redirecting to local file system for set-image-blocker may
9244 is dependent on browser.
9246 Revision 1.123.2.39 2004/01/30 22:31:40 oes
9247 Added a hint re bookmarklets to Quickstart section
9249 Revision 1.123.2.38 2004/01/30 16:47:51 oes
9250 Some minor clarifications
9252 Revision 1.123.2.37 2004/01/29 22:36:11 hal9
9253 Updates for no longer filtering text/plain, and demoronizer default settings,
9254 and copyright notice dates.
9256 Revision 1.123.2.36 2003/12/10 02:26:26 hal9
9257 Changed the demoronizer filter description.
9259 Revision 1.123.2.35 2003/11/06 13:36:37 oes
9260 Updated link to nightly CVS tarball
9262 Revision 1.123.2.34 2003/06/26 23:50:16 hal9
9263 Add a small bit on filtering and problems re: source code being corrupted.
9265 Revision 1.123.2.33 2003/05/08 18:17:33 roro
9266 Use apt-get instead of dpkg to install Debian package, which is more
9267 solid, uses the correct and most recent Debian version automatically.
9269 Revision 1.123.2.32 2003/04/11 03:13:57 hal9
9270 Add small note about only one filterfile (as opposed to multiple actions
9273 Revision 1.123.2.31 2003/03/26 02:03:43 oes
9274 Updated hard-coded copyright dates
9276 Revision 1.123.2.30 2003/03/24 12:58:56 hal9
9277 Add new section on Predefined Filters.
9279 Revision 1.123.2.29 2003/03/20 02:45:29 hal9
9280 More problems with \-\-chroot causing markup problems :(
9282 Revision 1.123.2.28 2003/03/19 00:35:24 hal9
9283 Manual edit of revision log because 'chroot' (even inside a comment) was
9284 causing Docbook to hang here (due to double hyphen and the processor thinking
9287 Revision 1.123.2.27 2003/03/18 19:37:14 oes
9288 s/Advanced|Radical/Adventuresome/g to avoid complaints re fun filter
9290 Revision 1.123.2.26 2003/03/17 16:50:53 oes
9291 Added documentation for new chroot option
9293 Revision 1.123.2.25 2003/03/15 18:36:55 oes
9294 Adapted to the new filters
9296 Revision 1.123.2.24 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9
9297 Move default profiles table from FAQ to U-M, and other minor related changes.
9300 Revision 1.123.2.23 2002/10/21 02:32:01 hal9
9301 Updates to the user.action examples section. A few new ones.
9303 Revision 1.123.2.22 2002/10/12 00:51:53 hal9
9304 Add demoronizer to filter section.
9306 Revision 1.123.2.21 2002/10/10 04:09:35 hal9
9307 s/Advanced/Radical/ and added very brief note.
9309 Revision 1.123.2.20 2002/10/10 03:49:21 hal9
9310 Add notes to session-cookies-only and Quickstart about pre-existing
9311 cookies. Also, note content-cookies work differently.
9313 Revision 1.123.2.19 2002/09/26 01:25:36 hal9
9314 More explanation on Privoxy patterns, more on content-cookies and SSL.
9316 Revision 1.123.2.18 2002/08/22 23:47:58 hal9
9317 Add 'Documentation' to Privoxy Menu shot in Configuration section to match
9320 Revision 1.123.2.17 2002/08/18 01:13:05 hal9
9321 Spell checked (only one typo this time!).
9323 Revision 1.123.2.16 2002/08/09 19:20:54 david__schmidt
9324 Update to Mac OS X startup script name
9326 Revision 1.123.2.15 2002/08/07 17:32:11 oes
9327 Converted some internal links from ulink to link for PDF creation; no content changed
9329 Revision 1.123.2.14 2002/08/06 09:16:13 oes
9330 Nits re: actions file download
9332 Revision 1.123.2.13 2002/08/02 18:23:19 g_sauthoff
9333 Just 2 small corrections to the Gentoo sections
9335 Revision 1.123.2.12 2002/08/02 18:17:21 g_sauthoff
9336 Added 2 Gentoo sections
9338 Revision 1.123.2.11 2002/07/26 15:20:31 oes
9339 - Added version info to title
9340 - Added info on new filters
9341 - Revised parts of the filter file tutorial
9342 - Added info on where to get updated actions files
9344 Revision 1.123.2.10 2002/07/25 21:42:29 hal9
9345 Add brief notes on not proxying non-HTTP protocols.
9347 Revision 1.123.2.9 2002/07/11 03:40:28 david__schmidt
9349 Updated Mac OS X sections due to installation location change
9351 Revision 1.123.2.8 2002/06/09 16:36:32 hal9
9352 Clarifications on filtering and MIME. Hardcode 'latest release' in index.html.
9354 Revision 1.123.2.7 2002/06/09 00:29:34 hal9
9355 Touch ups on filtering, in actions section and Anatomy.
9357 Revision 1.123.2.6 2002/06/06 23:11:03 hal9
9358 Fix broken link. Linkchecked all docs.
9360 Revision 1.123.2.5 2002/05/29 02:01:02 hal9
9361 This is break out of the entire config section from u-m, so it can
9362 eventually be used to generate the comments, etc in the main config file
9363 so that these are in sync with each other.
9365 Revision 1.123.2.4 2002/05/27 03:28:45 hal9
9366 Ooops missed something from David.
9368 Revision 1.123.2.3 2002/05/27 03:23:17 hal9
9369 Fix FIXMEs for OS2 and Mac OS X startup. Fix Redhat typos (should be Red Hat).
9370 That's a wrap, I think.
9372 Revision 1.123.2.2 2002/05/26 19:02:09 hal9
9373 Move Amiga stuff around to take of FIXME in start up section.
9375 Revision 1.123.2.1 2002/05/26 17:04:25 hal9
9376 -Spellcheck, very minor edits, and sync across branches
9378 Revision 1.123 2002/05/24 23:19:23 hal9
9379 Include new image (Proxy setup). More fun with guibutton.
9380 Minor corrections/clarifications here and there.
9382 Revision 1.122 2002/05/24 13:24:08 oes
9383 Added Bookmarklet for one-click pre-filled access to show-url-info
9385 Revision 1.121 2002/05/23 23:20:17 oes
9386 - Changed more (all?) references to actions to the
9387 <literal><link> style.
9388 - Small fixes in the actions chapter
9389 - Small clarifications in the quickstart to ad blocking
9390 - Removed <emphasis> from <title>s since the new doc CSS
9391 renders them red (bad in TOC).
9393 Revision 1.120 2002/05/23 19:16:43 roro
9394 Correct Debian specials (installation and startup).
9396 Revision 1.119 2002/05/22 17:17:05 oes
9399 Revision 1.118 2002/05/21 04:54:55 hal9
9400 -New Section: Quickstart to Ad Blocking
9401 -Reformat Actions Anatomy to match new CGI layout
9403 Revision 1.117 2002/05/17 13:56:16 oes
9404 - Reworked & extended Templates chapter
9405 - Small changes to Regex appendix
9406 - #included authors.sgml into (C) and hist chapter
9408 Revision 1.116 2002/05/17 03:23:46 hal9
9409 Fixing merge conflict in Quickstart section.
9411 Revision 1.115 2002/05/16 16:25:00 oes
9412 Extended the Filter File chapter & minor fixes
9414 Revision 1.114 2002/05/16 09:42:50 oes
9415 More ulink->link, added some hints to Quickstart section
9417 Revision 1.113 2002/05/15 21:07:25 oes
9418 Extended and further commented the example actions files
9420 Revision 1.112 2002/05/15 03:57:14 hal9
9421 Spell check. A few minor edits here and there for better syntax and
9424 Revision 1.111 2002/05/14 23:01:36 oes
9427 Revision 1.110 2002/05/14 19:10:45 oes
9428 Restored alphabetical order of actions
9430 Revision 1.109 2002/05/14 17:23:11 oes
9431 Renamed the prevent-*-cookies actions, extended aliases section and moved it before the example AFs
9433 Revision 1.108 2002/05/14 15:29:12 oes
9434 Completed proofreading the actions chapter
9436 Revision 1.107 2002/05/12 03:20:41 hal9
9437 Small clarifications for 127.0.0.1 vs localhost for listen-address since this
9438 apparently an important distinction for some OS's.
9440 Revision 1.106 2002/05/10 01:48:20 hal9
9441 This is mostly proposed copyright/licensing additions and changes. Docs
9442 are still GPL, but licensing and copyright are more visible. Also, copyright
9443 changed in doc header comments (eliminate references to JB except FAQ).
9445 Revision 1.105 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
9446 Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
9448 Revision 1.104 2002/05/04 08:44:45 swa
9451 Revision 1.103 2002/05/04 00:40:53 hal9
9452 -Remove the TOC first page kludge. It's fixed proper now in ldp.dsl.in.
9453 -Some minor additions to Quickstart.
9455 Revision 1.102 2002/05/03 17:46:00 oes
9456 Further proofread & reactivated short build instructions
9458 Revision 1.101 2002/05/03 03:58:30 hal9
9459 Move the user-manual config directive to top of section. Add note about
9460 Privoxy needing read permissions for configs, and write for logs.
9462 Revision 1.100 2002/04/29 03:05:55 hal9
9463 Add clarification on differences of new actions files.
9465 Revision 1.99 2002/04/28 16:59:05 swa
9466 more structure in starting section
9468 Revision 1.98 2002/04/28 05:43:59 hal9
9469 This is the break up of configuration.html into multiple files. This
9470 will probably break links elsewhere :(
9472 Revision 1.97 2002/04/27 21:04:42 hal9
9473 -Rewrite of Actions File example.
9474 -Add section for user-manual directive in config.
9476 Revision 1.96 2002/04/27 05:32:00 hal9
9477 -Add short section to Filter Files to tie in with +filter action.
9478 -Start rewrite of examples in Actions Examples (not finished).
9480 Revision 1.95 2002/04/26 17:23:29 swa
9481 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
9483 Revision 1.94 2002/04/26 05:24:36 hal9
9484 -Add most of Andreas suggestions to Chain of Events section.
9485 -A few other minor corrections and touch up.
9487 Revision 1.92 2002/04/25 18:55:13 hal9
9488 More catchups on new actions files, and new actions names.
9489 Other assorted cleanups, and minor modifications.
9491 Revision 1.91 2002/04/24 02:39:31 hal9
9492 Add 'Chain of Events' section.
9494 Revision 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 hal9
9495 Linuxconf is deprecated on RH, substitute chkconfig.
9497 Revision 1.89 2002/04/23 21:05:28 oes
9498 Added hint for startup on Red Hat
9500 Revision 1.88 2002/04/23 05:37:54 hal9
9501 Add AmigaOS install stuff.
9503 Revision 1.87 2002/04/23 02:53:15 david__schmidt
9504 Updated Mac OS X installation section
9505 Added a few English tweaks here an there
9507 Revision 1.86 2002/04/21 01:46:32 hal9
9508 Re-write actions section.
9510 Revision 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9
9511 Fix ugly typo (mine).
9513 Revision 1.84 2002/04/18 21:17:13 hal9
9514 Spell Redhat correctly (ie Red Hat). A few minor grammar corrections.
9516 Revision 1.83 2002/04/18 18:21:12 oes
9517 Added RPM install detail
9519 Revision 1.82 2002/04/18 12:04:50 oes
9522 Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
9523 Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
9525 Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
9526 Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
9528 Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
9529 Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
9531 Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
9534 Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
9535 Proofreading, part one
9537 Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
9538 -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
9539 -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
9541 Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
9542 Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
9544 Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
9545 Add small section on submitting actions.
9547 Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
9550 Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
9551 Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
9553 Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
9554 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
9556 Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
9559 Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
9560 -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
9561 -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
9562 -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
9563 -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
9565 Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
9566 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
9568 Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
9569 more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
9571 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
9572 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
9573 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
9574 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
9575 eventually be set by Makefile.
9576 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
9578 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
9579 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
9581 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
9582 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
9584 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
9585 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
9587 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
9588 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
9589 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
9590 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
9592 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
9595 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
9596 Added more to Anatomy section.
9598 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
9599 Touch up intro for new name.
9601 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
9602 we have a new homepage!
9604 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
9605 A few minor catch ups with name change.
9607 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
9608 configure needs to be generated.
9610 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
9611 we are too lazy to make a block-built
9612 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
9614 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
9615 name change related issue.
9617 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
9618 name change. changed filenames.
9620 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
9623 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
9624 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
9625 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
9626 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
9627 comments and remarks to history untouched.
9629 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
9632 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
9633 New section in Appendix.
9635 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
9636 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
9638 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
9639 correct feedback channels
9641 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
9642 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
9644 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
9647 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
9648 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
9650 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
9651 Added imageblock{pattern}.
9653 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
9656 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
9657 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
9659 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
9660 provide correct feedback channels
9662 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
9663 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
9665 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
9666 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
9668 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
9669 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
9671 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
9672 Add new - - user option.
9674 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
9675 Added section on command line options.
9677 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
9678 Changed default port to 8118
9680 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
9681 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
9683 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
9684 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
9685 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
9688 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
9691 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
9692 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
9694 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
9695 Update OS/2 build section
9697 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
9698 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
9699 will work - no other changes are needed.
9701 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
9702 Added a very short section on Templates
9704 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
9705 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
9707 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
9708 Touch ups for *.action files.
9710 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
9713 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
9714 Updates for recent changes.
9716 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
9717 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
9719 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
9720 Correct 2 minor errors
9722 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
9723 *** empty log message ***
9725 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
9726 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
9728 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
9729 wrong url in documentation
9731 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
9732 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
9734 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
9737 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
9740 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
9743 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
9744 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
9746 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
9747 Some additions, and re-arranging.
9749 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
9752 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
9753 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
9755 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
9758 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
9759 source files for junkbuster documentation
9761 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
9762 first proposal of a structure.
9764 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
9765 docs should have an author.
9767 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
9768 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.