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 "3.0.11">
15 <!entity p-status "stable">
16 <!entity % p-authors-formal "INCLUDE"> <!-- include additional text, etc -->
17 <!entity % p-not-stable "IGNORE">
18 <!entity % p-stable "INCLUDE">
19 <!entity % p-text "IGNORE"> <!-- define we are not a text only doc -->
20 <!entity % p-doc "INCLUDE"> <!-- and we are a formal doc -->
21 <!entity % p-readme "IGNORE">
22 <!entity % user-man "IGNORE">
23 <!entity % config-file "IGNORE">
24 <!entity % p-supp-userman "IGNORE"> <!-- Omit some from supported.sgml -->
25 <!entity my-copy "©"> <!-- kludge for docbook2man -->
26 <!entity % draft "IGNORE"> <!-- WIP stuff -->
27 <!entity my-app "<application>Privoxy</application>">
30 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
33 This file belongs into
34 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
36 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.93 2009/02/14 10:14:42 fabiankeil Exp $
38 Copyright (C) 2001-2009 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org/
41 ========================================================================
42 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
43 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
44 ========================================================================
51 <title>Privoxy &p-version; User Manual</title>
55 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
56 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
57 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001-2009 by
58 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
62 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.93 2009/02/14 10:14:42 fabiankeil Exp $</pubdate>
66 Note: the following should generate a separate page, and a live link to it,
67 all nicely done. But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave
68 commented unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the
69 copyright/license declarations will be in their own sgml.
82 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
83 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
84 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
90 The <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> gives users information on how to
91 install, configure and use <ulink
92 url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy</ulink>.
95 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
97 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
100 You can find the latest version of the <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> at <ulink
101 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
102 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> on how to
103 contact the developers.
107 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
113 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
114 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
116 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
117 <application>Privoxy</application>, v.&p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
118 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
119 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
120 configuration files. Development of a new version is currently nearing
121 completion, and includes significant changes and enhancements over
122 earlier versions. ]]>.
125 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
128 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
129 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
130 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
135 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
136 <sect2 id="features"><title>Features</title>
138 In addition to the core
139 features of ad blocking and
140 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookie</ulink> management,
141 <application>Privoxy</application> provides many supplemental
142 features<![%p-not-stable;[, some of them currently under development]]>,
143 that give the end-user more control, more privacy and more freedom:
145 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
147 <!-- end boilerplate -->
152 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
155 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
156 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
159 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
160 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
161 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
162 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project
168 On some platforms, the installer may remove previously installed versions, if
169 found. (See below for your platform). In any case <emphasis>be sure to backup
170 your old configuration if it is valuable to you.</emphasis> See the <link
171 linkend="upgradersnote">note to upgraders</link> section below.
174 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
175 <sect2 id="installation-packages"><title>Binary Packages</title>
177 How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
180 <!-- XXX: The installation sections should be sorted -->
182 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
183 <sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Red Hat and Fedora RPMs</title>
186 RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm</literal>,
187 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location
188 of configuration files.
192 Note that on Red Hat, <application>Privoxy</application> will
193 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be automatically started on system boot. You will
194 need to enable that using <command>chkconfig</command>,
195 <command>ntsysv</command>, or similar methods.
199 If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM:
200 <literal>rpm --rebuild privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm</literal>. This
201 will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.
205 Also note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
206 on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
207 Otherwise, RPM will try to remove <application>Junkbuster</application>
208 automatically if found, before installing <application>Privoxy</application>.
212 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
213 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian and Ubuntu</title>
215 DEBs can be installed with <literal>apt-get install privoxy</literal>,
216 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location of
221 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
222 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
225 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
226 the installation process. You will find the configuration files
227 in the same directory as you installed <application>Privoxy</application> in.
230 Version 3.0.5 beta introduced full <application>Windows</application> service
231 functionality. On Windows only, the <application>Privoxy</application>
232 program has two new command line arguments to install and uninstall
233 <application>Privoxy</application> as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>.
237 <term>Arguments:</term>
240 <replaceable class="parameter">--install</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
243 <replaceable class="parameter">--uninstall</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
249 After invoking <application>Privoxy</application> with
250 <command>--install</command>, you will need to bring up the
251 <application>Windows</application> service console to assign the user you
252 want <application>Privoxy</application> to run under, and whether or not you
253 want it to run whenever the system starts. You can start the
254 <application>Windows</application> services console with the following
255 command: <command>services.msc</command>. If you do not take the manual step
256 of modifying <application>Privoxy's</application> service settings, it will
257 not start. Note too that you will need to give Privoxy a user account that
258 actually exists, or it will not be permitted to
259 write to its log and configuration files.
264 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
265 <sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris <!--, NetBSD, HP-UX--></title>
268 Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
269 untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
270 things go. <!-- FIXME, more info needed? -->
274 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
275 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
278 First, make sure that no previous installations of
279 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
280 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
281 system. Check that no <application>Junkbuster</application>
282 or <application>Privoxy</application> objects are in
288 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
289 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
290 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
291 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
295 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
296 into will contain all of the configuration files.
300 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
301 <sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Mac OS X</title>
303 Unzip the downloaded file (you can either double-click on the zip file
304 icon from the Finder, or from the desktop if you downloaded it there).
305 Then, double-click on the package installer icon and follow the
306 installation process.
309 The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful
310 installation (in addition to every time your computer starts up). To
311 prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your
312 computer starts up, remove or rename the folder named
313 <literal>/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal>.
316 To manually start or stop the privoxy service, use the Privoxy Utility
317 for Mac OS X. This application controls the privoxy service (e.g.
318 starting and stopping the service as well as uninstalling the software).
322 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
323 <sect3 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
325 Copy and then unpack the <filename>lha</filename> archive to a suitable location.
326 All necessary files will be installed into <application>Privoxy</application>
327 directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just
328 remove this directory.
332 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
333 <sect3 id="installation-tbz"><title>FreeBSD</title>
336 Privoxy is part of FreeBSD's Ports Collection, you can build and install
337 it with <literal>cd /usr/ports/www/privoxy; make install clean</literal>.
340 If you don't use the ports, you can fetch and install
341 the package with <literal>pkg_add -r privoxy</literal>.
344 The port skeleton and the package can also be downloaded from the
345 <ulink url="https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">File Release
346 Page</ulink>, but there's no reason to use them unless you're interested in the
347 beta releases which are only available there.
351 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
352 <sect3 id="installattion-gentoo"><title>Gentoo</title>
354 Gentoo source packages (Ebuilds) for <application>Privoxy</application> are
355 contained in the Gentoo Portage Tree (they are not on the download page,
356 but there is a Gentoo section, where you can see when a new
357 <application>Privoxy</application> Version is added to the Portage Tree).
360 Before installing <application>Privoxy</application> under Gentoo just do
361 first <literal>emerge --sync</literal> to get the latest changes from the
362 Portage tree. With <literal>emerge privoxy</literal> you install the latest
366 Configuration files are in <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename>, the
367 documentation is in <filename>/usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;</filename>
368 and the Log directory is in <filename>/var/log/privoxy</filename>.
374 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
375 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
378 The most convenient way to obtain the <application>Privoxy</application> sources
379 is to download the source tarball from our
380 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&package_id=10571">project download
385 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
386 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
387 version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
388 CVS repository</ulink>.
390 deprecated...out of business.
391 or simply download <ulink
392 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.bz2">the nightly CVS
397 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
399 <!-- end boilerplate -->
402 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
403 <sect2 id="installation-keepupdated"><title>Keeping your Installation Up-to-Date</title>
405 As user feedback comes in and development continues, we will make updated versions
406 of both the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link> (as a <ulink
407 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&release_id=103670">separate
408 package</ulink>) and the software itself (including the actions file) available for
413 If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
414 <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
415 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce/">subscribe
416 to our announce mailing list</ulink>, ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
420 In order not to lose your personal changes and adjustments when updating
421 to the latest <literal>default.action</literal> file we <emphasis>strongly
422 recommend</emphasis> that you use <literal>user.action</literal> and
423 <literal>user.filter</literal> for your local
424 customizations of <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
425 linkend="actions-file">Chapter on actions files</link> for details.
433 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
435 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
436 <sect1 id="whatsnew">
437 <title>What's New in this Release</title>
439 There are only a few improvements and new features since
440 <application>Privoxy 3.0.10</application>, the last stable release:
447 The mingw32 version uses mutex locks now which prevents
448 log message corruption under load. As a side effect,
449 the "no thread-safe PRNG" warning could be removed as well.
454 Support for remote toggling is controlled by the configure
455 option --disable-toggle only. In previous versions it also
456 depended on the action editor and thus configuring with the
457 --disable-editor option would disable remote toggling support
463 The hide-forwarded-for-headers action has been replaced with
464 the change-x-forwarded-for{} action which can also be used to
465 add X-Forwarded-For headers. The latter functionality already
466 existed in Privoxy versions prior to 3.0.7 but has been removed
467 as it was often used unintentionally (by not using the
468 hide-forwarded-for-headers action).
475 For a more detailed list of changes please have a look at the ChangeLog.
478 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
480 <sect2 id="upgradersnote">
481 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
484 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading from earlier
485 versions of <application>Privoxy</application>:
493 The recommended way to upgrade &my-app; is to backup your old
494 configuration files, install the new ones, verify that &my-app;
495 is working correctly and finally merge back your changes using
496 <application>diff</application> and maybe <application>patch</application>.
499 There are a number of new features in each &my-app; release and
500 most of them have to be explicitly enabled in the configuration
501 files. Old configuration files obviously don't do that and due
502 to syntax changes using old configuration files with a new
503 &my-app; isn't always possible anyway.
508 Note that some installers remove earlier versions completely,
509 including configuration files, therefore you should really save
510 any important configuration files!
515 On the other hand, other installers don't overwrite existing configuration
516 files, thinking you will want to do that yourself.
521 <filename>standard.action</filename> has been merged into
522 the <filename>default.action</filename> file.
527 In the default configuration only fatal errors are logged now.
528 You can change that in the <link linkend="DEBUG">debug section</link>
529 of the configuration file. You may also want to enable more verbose
530 logging until you verified that the new &my-app; version is working
537 Three other config file settings are now off by default:
538 <link linkend="enable-remote-toggle">enable-remote-toggle</link>,
539 <link linkend="enable-remote-http-toggle">enable-remote-http-toggle</link>,
540 and <link linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link>.
541 If you use or want these, you will need to explicitly enable them, and
542 be aware of the security issues involved.
548 The <quote>filter-client-headers</quote> and
549 <quote>filter-server-headers</quote> actions that were introduced with
550 <application>Privoxy 3.0.5</application> to apply content filters to
551 the headers have been removed and replaced with new actions.
553 linkend="whatsnew">What's New section</link> above.
561 What constitutes a <quote>default</quote> configuration has changed,
562 and you may want to review which actions are <quote>on</quote> by
563 default. This is primarily a matter of emphasis, but some features
564 you may have been used to, may now be <quote>off</quote> by default.
565 There are also a number of new actions and filters you may want to
566 consider, most of which are not fully incorporated into the default
567 settings as yet (see above).
574 The default actions setting is now <literal>Cautious</literal>. Previous
575 releases had a default setting of <literal>Medium</literal>. Experienced
576 users may want to adjust this, as it is fairly conservative by &my-app;
577 standards and past practices. See <ulink
578 url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default">
579 http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default</ulink>. New users
580 should try the default settings for a while before turning up the volume.
586 The default setting has filtering turned <emphasis>off</emphasis>, which
587 subsequently means that compression is <emphasis>on</emphasis>. Remember
588 that filtering does not work on compressed pages, so if you use, or want to
589 use, filtering, you will need to force compression off. Example:
593 { +<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{google} +<link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link> }
597 Or if you use a number of filters, or filter many sites, you may just want
598 to turn off compression for all sites in
599 <filename>default.action</filename> (or
600 <filename>user.action</filename>).
607 Also, <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> is
608 off by default now. If you've liked this feature in the past, you may want
609 to turn it back on in <filename>user.action</filename> now.
616 Some installers may not automatically start
617 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
628 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
629 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using Privoxy</title>
635 Install <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
636 linkend="installation">Installation Section</link> below for platform specific
643 Advanced users and those who want to offer <application>Privoxy</application>
644 service to more than just their local machine should check the <link
645 linkend="config">main config file</link>, especially the <link
646 linkend="access-control">security-relevant</link> options. These are
653 Start <application>Privoxy</application>, if the installation program has
654 not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
655 <link linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link>.
661 Set your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application> as HTTP and
662 HTTPS (SSL) <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>
663 by setting the proxy configuration for address of
664 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> and port <literal>8118</literal>.
665 <emphasis>DO NOT</emphasis> activate proxying for <literal>FTP</literal> or
666 any protocols besides HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) unless you intend to prevent your
667 browser from using these protocols.
673 Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
674 If using <application>Privoxy</application> to manage
675 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
676 you should remove any currently stored cookies too.
682 A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
683 most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
684 configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
685 to no initial configuration is required in most cases, you may want
687 <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">web-based action editor</ulink> though.
688 Be sure to read the warnings first.
691 See the <link linkend="configuration">Configuration section</link> for more
692 configuration options, and how to customize your installation.
693 You might also want to look at the <link
694 linkend="quickstart-ad-blocking">next section</link> for a quick
695 introduction to how <application>Privoxy</application> blocks ads and
702 If you experience ads that slip through, innocent images that are
703 blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
704 <application>Privoxy's</application> behavior, take a look at the <link
705 linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>. As a quick start, you might
706 find the <link linkend="act-examples">richly commented examples</link>
707 helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the <ulink
708 url="http://config.privoxy.org">web-based user interface</ulink>. The
709 Appendix <quote><link linkend="actionsanat">Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an
710 Action</link></quote> has hints on how to understand and debug actions that
711 <quote>misbehave</quote>.
716 Did anyone test these lately?
720 For easy access to &my-app;'s most important controls, drag the provided
721 <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklets</link> into your browser's
729 Please see the section <link linkend="contact">Contacting the
730 Developers</link> on how to report bugs, problems with websites or to get
737 Now enjoy surfing with enhanced control, comfort and privacy!
745 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
747 <sect2 id="quickstart-ad-blocking">
748 <title>Quickstart to Ad Blocking</title>
750 NOTE: This section is deliberately redundant for those that don't
751 want to read the whole thing (which is getting lengthy).
754 Ad blocking is but one of <application>Privoxy's</application>
755 array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
756 user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody.
759 This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
760 you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive
761 information provided below, though this is highly recommended.
764 First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
765 more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
766 things that were not intended. And the more likely that some things
767 may not work as intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
768 extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
769 <quote>problem</quote> sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
770 configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
771 not an easy way to eliminate <emphasis>all</emphasis> ads. Either take
772 the easy way and settle for <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads blocked with the
773 default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing
774 habits and preferences.
777 Secondly, a brief explanation of <application>Privoxy's </application>
778 <quote>actions</quote>. <quote>Actions</quote> in this context, are
779 the directives we use to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to perform
780 some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell
781 <application>Privoxy</application> to take some <quote>action</quote>. Each
782 action has a unique name and function. While there are many potential
783 <application>actions</application> in <application>Privoxy's</application>
784 arsenal, only a few are used for ad blocking. <link
785 linkend="actions">Actions</link>, and <link linkend="actions-file">action
786 configuration files</link>, are explained in depth below.
789 Actions are specified in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
790 followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
791 can actually be URL type <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> that use
792 wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs. The
793 actions, together with the URL patterns are called a section.
796 When you connect to a website, the full URL will either match one or more
797 of the sections as defined in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
798 or not. If so, then <application>Privoxy</application> will perform the
799 respective actions. If not, then nothing special happens. Furthermore, web
800 pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your web browser will
801 use to load additional components of the page, as it parses the
802 original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just an URL
803 embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server,
804 or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many
805 such embedded URLs. &my-app; can deal with each URL individually, so, for
806 instance, the main page text is not touched, but images from such-and-such
811 The most important actions for basic ad blocking are: <literal><link
812 linkend="block">block</link></literal>, <literal><link
813 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
815 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal>,and
816 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>:
824 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> - this is perhaps
825 the single most used action, and is particularly important for ad blocking.
826 This action stops any contact between your browser and any URL patterns
827 that match this action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads,
828 but also anything that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply
829 stops any communication with the remote server and sends
830 <application>Privoxy</application>'s own built-in BLOCKED page instead to
831 let you now what has happened (with some exceptions, see below).
837 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> -
838 tells <application>Privoxy</application> to treat this URL as an image.
839 <application>Privoxy</application>'s default configuration already does this
840 for all common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this
841 is not so easy to determine. So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly
842 important for ad blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of
843 some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the
844 <application>Privoxy</application> BLOCKED page (which would only result in
845 a <quote>broken image</quote> icon). There are some limitations to this
846 though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an image substitution for
847 an entire HTML page in most situations.
853 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> -
854 sends an empty document instead of <application>Privoxy's</application>
855 normal BLOCKED HTML page. This is useful for file types that are neither
856 HTML nor images, such as blocking JavaScript files.
863 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> - tells
864 <application>Privoxy</application> what to display in place of an ad image that
865 has hit a block rule. For this to come into play, the URL must match a
866 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action somewhere in the
867 configuration, <emphasis>and</emphasis>, it must also match an
868 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action.
871 The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are:
875 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad
876 replacement is obvious. This is the default.
881 <emphasis>blank</emphasis> - A very small empty GIF image is displayed.
882 This is the so-called <quote>invisible</quote> configuration option.
887 <emphasis>http://<URL></emphasis> - A redirect to any image anywhere
888 of the user's choosing (advanced usage).
897 Advanced users will eventually want to explore &my-app;
898 <literal><link linkend="filter">filters</link></literal> as well. Filters
899 are very different from <literal><link
900 linkend="block">blocks</link></literal>.
901 A <quote>block</quote> blocks a site, page, or unwanted contented. Filters
902 are a way of filtering or modifying what is actually on the page. An example
903 filter usage: a text replacement of <quote>no-no</quote> for
904 <quote>nasty-word</quote>. That is a very simple example. This process can be
905 used for ad blocking, but it is more in the realm of advanced usage and has
906 some pitfalls to be wary off.
910 The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
911 the special <application>Privoxy</application> editor at <ulink
912 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
913 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>). This
914 is an internal page, and does not require Internet access.
918 Note that as of <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta the
919 action editor is disabled by default. Check the
920 <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions
921 section in the configuration file</ulink> to learn why and in which
922 cases it's safe to enable again.
926 If you decided to enable the action editor, select the appropriate
927 <quote>actions</quote> file, and click
928 <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>. It is best to put personal or
929 local preferences in <filename>user.action</filename> since this is not
930 meant to be overwritten during upgrades, and will over-ride the settings in
931 other files. Here you can insert new <quote>actions</quote>, and URLs for ad
932 blocking or other purposes, and make other adjustments to the configuration.
933 <application>Privoxy</application> will detect these changes automatically.
937 A quick and simple step by step example:
945 Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
946 <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote> from the
954 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
959 Find <filename>user.action</filename> in the top section, and click
960 on <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>:
963 <!-- image of editor and actions files selections -->
965 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Actions Files in Use</title>
968 <imagedata fileref="files-in-use.jpg" format="jpg">
971 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ]</phrase>
980 You should have a section with only
981 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> listed under
982 <quote>Actions:</quote>.
983 If not, click a <quote><guibutton>Insert new section below</guibutton></quote>
984 button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the
985 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button right under the word <quote>Actions:</quote>.
986 This will bring up a list of all actions. Find
987 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> near the top, and click
988 in the <quote>Enabled</quote> column, then <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote>
994 Now, in the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> actions section,
995 click the <quote><guibutton>Add</guibutton></quote> button, and paste the URL the
996 browser got from <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote>.
997 Remove the <literal>http://</literal> at the beginning of the URL. Then, click
998 <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote> (or
999 <quote><guibutton>OK</guibutton></quote> if in a pop-up window).
1004 Now go back to the original page, and press <keycap>SHIFT-Reload</keycap>
1005 (or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now.
1013 This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
1014 wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same
1015 site. For a more extensive explanation of <quote>patterns</quote>, and
1016 the entire actions concept, see <link linkend="actions-file">the Actions
1021 For advanced users who want to hand edit their config files, you might want
1022 to now go to the <link linkend="act-examples">Actions Files Tutorial</link>.
1023 The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor.
1026 There are also various
1027 <link linkend="filter">filters</link> that can be used for ad blocking
1028 (filters are a special subset of actions). These
1029 fall into the <quote>advanced</quote> usage category, and are explained in
1030 depth in later sections.
1037 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1040 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1041 <sect1 id="startup">
1042 <title>Starting Privoxy</title>
1044 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
1045 will want to configure your browser(s) to use
1046 <application>Privoxy</application> as a HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)
1047 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>. The default is
1048 127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions
1049 used port 8000). This is the one configuration step <emphasis>that must be done
1053 Please note that <application>Privoxy</application> can only proxy HTTP and
1054 HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols.
1057 <!-- image of Mozilla Proxy configuration -->
1059 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
1060 Mozilla/Netscape HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) Settings</title>
1063 <imagedata fileref="proxy_setup.jpg" format="jpg">
1066 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
1074 With <application>Firefox</application>, this is typically set under:
1078 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Network</guibutton> -><guibutton>Connection</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Settings</guibutton>
1083 Or optionally on some platforms:
1087 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>General</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connection Settings</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Manual Proxy Configuration</guibutton>
1093 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
1094 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under:
1099 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
1100 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
1101 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Proxies</guibutton> -> <guibutton>HTTP Proxy</guibutton>
1106 For <application>Internet Explorer v.5-7</application>:
1110 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Internet Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connections</guibutton> -> <guibutton>LAN Settings</guibutton>
1114 Then, check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info
1115 (Address: 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include HTTPS (SSL), if you want HTTPS
1116 proxy support too (sometimes labeled <quote>Secure</quote>). Make sure any
1117 checkboxes like <quote>Use the same proxy server for all protocols</quote> is
1118 <emphasis>UNCHECKED</emphasis>. You want only HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)!
1121 <!-- image of IE Proxy configuration -->
1123 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
1124 Internet Explorer HTTP and HTTPS (Secure) Settings</title>
1127 <imagedata fileref="proxy2.jpg" format="jpg">
1130 <phrase>[ Screenshot of IE Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
1138 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
1139 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. Remove
1140 any <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
1141 if you want <application>Privoxy</application> to manage that. You are now
1142 ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
1143 <application>Privoxy</application>!
1147 <application>Privoxy</application> itself is typically started by specifying the
1148 main configuration file to be used on the command line. If no configuration
1149 file is specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application>
1150 will look for a file named <filename>config</filename> in the current
1151 directory. Except on Win32 where it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>.
1154 <sect2 id="start-redhat">
1155 <title>Red Hat and Fedora</title>
1157 A default Red Hat installation may not start &my-app; upon boot. It will use
1158 the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
1163 # /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
1171 # service privoxy start
1176 <sect2 id="start-debian">
1177 <title>Debian</title>
1179 We use a script. Note that Debian typically starts &my-app; upon booting per
1180 default. It will use the file
1181 <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
1186 # /etc/init.d/privoxy start
1191 <sect2 id="start-windows">
1192 <title>Windows</title>
1194 Click on the &my-app; Icon to start <application>Privoxy</application>. If no configuration file is
1195 specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application> will look
1196 for a file named <filename>config.txt</filename>. Note that Windows will
1197 automatically start &my-app; when the system starts if you chose that option
1201 <application>Privoxy</application> can run with full Windows service functionality.
1202 On Windows only, the &my-app; program has two new command line arguments
1203 to install and uninstall &my-app; as a service. See the
1204 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Windows Installation
1205 instructions</link> for details.
1209 <sect2 id="start-unices">
1210 <title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others</title>
1212 Example Unix startup command:
1216 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
1221 <sect2 id="start-os2">
1224 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
1225 start automatically when the system restarts. You can start it manually by
1226 double-clicking on the <application>Privoxy</application> icon in the
1227 <application>Privoxy</application> folder.
1231 <sect2 id="start-macosx">
1232 <title>Mac OS X</title>
1234 After downloading the privoxy software, unzip the downloaded file by
1235 double-clicking on the zip file icon. Then, double-click on the
1236 installer package icon and follow the installation process.
1239 The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful
1240 installation. In addition, the privoxy service will automatically
1241 start every time your computer starts up.
1244 To prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your
1245 computer starts up, remove or rename the folder named
1246 /Library/StartupItems/Privoxy.
1249 A simple application named Privoxy Utility has been created which
1250 enables administrators to easily start and stop the privoxy service.
1253 In addition, the Privoxy Utility presents a simple way for
1254 administrators to edit the various privoxy config files. A method
1255 to uninstall the software is also available.
1258 An administrator username and password must be supplied in order for
1259 the Privoxy Utility to perform any of the tasks.
1264 <sect2 id="start-amigaos">
1265 <title>AmigaOS</title>
1267 Start <application>Privoxy</application> (with RUN <>NIL:) in your
1268 <filename>startnet</filename> script (AmiTCP), in
1269 <filename>s:user-startup</filename> (RoadShow), as startup program in your
1270 startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
1271 <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically quit when you quit your
1272 TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that
1273 <application>Privoxy</application> is still running).
1277 <sect2 id="start-gentoo">
1278 <title>Gentoo</title>
1280 A script is again used. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config
1281 </filename> as its main configuration file.
1285 /etc/init.d/privoxy start
1289 Note that <application>Privoxy</application> is not automatically started at
1290 boot time by default. You can change this with the <literal>rc-update</literal>
1295 rc-update add privoxy default
1303 See the section <link linkend="cmdoptions">Command line options</link> for
1307 must find a better place for this paragraph
1310 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
1311 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
1312 <ulink url="actions-file.html"><quote>actions</quote></ulink> files. These are
1313 where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking, and other
1314 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several
1315 such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
1319 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites for which you may prefer
1320 persistent cookies, and add these to your actions configuration as needed. By
1321 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
1322 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), unless you add them to the
1323 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
1324 to edit <filename>user.action</filename> (or through the web based interface)
1325 and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser, it would make
1326 more sense to let <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which
1327 case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
1331 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
1332 sites is the popup-killing (through <ulink
1333 url="actions-file.html#FILTER-POPUPS"><quote>+filter{popups}</quote></ulink>),
1334 because your favorite shopping, banking, or leisure site may need
1335 popups (explained below).
1339 <application>Privoxy</application> does not support all of the optional HTTP/1.1
1340 features yet. In the unlikely event that you experience inexplicable problems
1341 with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
1342 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
1343 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
1344 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
1345 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote> config option in
1346 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
1347 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
1351 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
1352 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
1353 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
1354 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote>
1355 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
1356 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1357 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1358 and then follow the link to <quote>View & Change the Current Configuration</quote>.
1359 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
1363 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
1364 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
1365 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
1366 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
1367 to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
1368 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
1369 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
1373 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
1374 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
1375 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
1376 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
1377 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
1378 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
1383 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <link
1384 linkend="actions-file">read more about the actions concept</link>
1385 or even dive deep into the <link linkend="actionsanat">Appendix
1390 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
1391 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
1392 section <link linkend="contact"><quote>Contacting the
1393 Developers</quote></link> below.
1398 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1399 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
1400 <title>Command Line Options</title>
1402 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
1403 command-line options:
1411 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
1414 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
1419 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
1422 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
1427 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
1430 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
1431 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
1436 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
1439 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
1440 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
1441 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
1442 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
1447 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
1450 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
1451 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
1452 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
1457 <emphasis>--chroot</emphasis>
1460 Before changing to the user ID given in the <emphasis>--user</emphasis> option,
1461 chroot to that user's home directory, i.e. make the kernel pretend to the &my-app;
1462 process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit
1463 the impact of possible vulnerabilities in &my-app; to the files contained in that hierarchy.
1469 <emphasis>--pre-chroot-nslookup hostname</emphasis>
1472 Specifies a hostname to look up before doing a chroot. On some systems, initializing the
1473 resolver library involves reading config files from /etc and/or loading additional shared
1474 libraries from /lib. On these systems, doing a hostname lookup before the chroot reduces
1475 the number of files that must be copied into the chroot tree.
1478 For fastest startup speed, a good value is a hostname that is not in /etc/hosts but that
1479 your local name server (listed in /etc/resolv.conf) can resolve without recursion
1480 (that is, without having to ask any other name servers). The hostname need not exist,
1481 but if it doesn't, an error message (which can be ignored) will be output.
1487 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
1490 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
1491 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
1492 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
1493 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
1494 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
1495 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
1503 On <application>MS Windows</application> only there are two additional
1504 command-line options to allow <application>Privoxy</application> to install and
1505 run as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>. See the
1506 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Window Installation section</link>
1514 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1517 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1518 <sect1 id="configuration"><title>Privoxy Configuration</title>
1520 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
1521 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
1522 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
1523 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
1527 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1530 <title>Controlling Privoxy with Your Web Browser</title>
1532 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
1533 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1534 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1535 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
1536 You will see the following section:
1540 <!-- Needs to be put in a table and colorized -->
1543 <bridgehead renderas="sect2"> Privoxy Menu</bridgehead>
1547 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View & change the current configuration</ulink>
1550 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">View the source code version numbers</ulink>
1553 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">View the request headers.</ulink>
1556 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">Look up which actions apply to a URL and why</ulink>
1559 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">Toggle Privoxy on or off</ulink>
1562 ▪ <ulink
1563 url="http://www.privoxy.org/&p-version;/user-manual/">Documentation</ulink>
1571 This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the
1572 <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, which is where the ad, banner,
1573 cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
1574 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
1575 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
1576 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
1580 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
1581 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
1582 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
1583 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
1584 to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e.
1585 <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There
1586 is even a toggle <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklet</link> offered, so
1587 that you can toggle <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from
1592 Note that several of the features described above are disabled by default
1593 in <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta and later.
1595 <ulink url="config.html">configuration file</ulink> to learn why
1596 and in which cases it's safe to enable them again.
1601 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1606 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1608 <sect2 id="confoverview">
1609 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
1611 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
1612 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
1613 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
1614 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
1615 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
1616 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
1620 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
1621 some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
1622 principle configuration files are:
1630 The <link linkend="config">main configuration file</link> is named <filename>config</filename>
1631 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
1632 on Windows. This is a required file.
1638 <filename>match-all.action</filename> is used to define which <quote>actions</quote>
1639 relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups, content modification, cookie handling
1640 etc should be applied by default. It should be the first actions file loaded.
1643 <filename>default.action</filename> defines many exceptions (both positive and negative)
1644 from the default set of actions that's configured in <filename>match-all.action</filename>.
1645 It should be the second actions file loaded and shouldn't be edited by the user.
1648 Multiple actions files may be defined in <filename>config</filename>. These
1649 are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
1650 preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
1651 <filename>match-all.action</filename> (which you will most probably want
1652 to define sooner or later) are best applied in <filename>user.action</filename>,
1653 where you can preserve them across upgrades. The file isn't installed by all
1654 installers, but you can easily create it yourself with a text editor.
1657 There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
1659 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1661 url="http://p.p/show-status">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>) for the
1662 various actions files.
1668 <quote>Filter files</quote> (the <link linkend="filter-file">filter
1669 file</link>) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
1670 viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
1671 lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
1672 whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
1673 <filename>default.filter</filename> includes various filters made
1674 available for use by the developers. Some are much more intrusive than
1675 others, and all should be used with caution. You may define additional
1676 filter files in <filename>config</filename> as you can with
1677 actions files. We suggest <filename>user.filter</filename> for any
1678 locally defined filters or customizations.
1686 The syntax of the configuration and filter files may change between different
1687 Privoxy versions, unfortunately some enhancements cost backwards compatibility.
1688 <!-- Add link to documentation-->
1692 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
1693 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
1694 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
1695 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
1696 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
1697 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
1698 out" that line. Blank lines are ignored.
1702 The actions files and filter files
1703 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
1704 maximum flexibility.
1708 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
1709 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
1710 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
1711 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
1712 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
1713 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
1714 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
1719 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
1720 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
1721 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
1722 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
1728 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1731 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1733 <!-- **************************************************** -->
1734 <!-- Include config.sgml here -->
1735 <!-- This is where the entire config file is detailed. -->
1737 <!-- end include -->
1740 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1744 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1746 <sect1 id="actions-file"><title>Actions Files</title>
1750 XXX: similar descriptions are in the Configuration Files sections.
1751 We should only describe them at one place.
1754 The actions files are used to define what <emphasis>actions</emphasis>
1755 <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which URLs, and thus determines
1756 how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
1757 transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof).
1758 There are a number of such actions, with a wide range of functionality.
1759 Each action does something a little different.
1760 These actions give us a veritable arsenal of tools with which to exert
1761 our control, preferences and independence. Actions can be combined so that
1762 their effects are aggregated when applied against a given set of URLs.
1766 are three action files included with <application>Privoxy</application> with
1773 <filename>match-all.action</filename> - is used to define which
1774 <quote>actions</quote> relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups,
1775 content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default.
1776 It should be the first actions file loaded
1781 <filename>default.action</filename> - defines many exceptions (both
1782 positive and negative) from the default set of actions that's configured
1783 in <filename>match-all.action</filename>. It is a set of rules that should
1784 work reasonably well as-is for most users. This file is only supposed to
1785 be edited by the developers. It should be the second actions file loaded.
1790 <filename>user.action</filename> - is intended to be for local site
1791 preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank
1792 has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
1793 thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded.
1798 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Cautious</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Medium</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Advanced</guibutton>
1801 These have increasing levels of aggressiveness <emphasis>and have no
1802 influence on your browsing unless you select them explicitly in the
1803 editor</emphasis>. A default installation should be pre-set to
1804 <literal>Cautious</literal>. New users should try this for a while before
1805 adjusting the settings to more aggressive levels. The more aggressive
1806 the settings, then the more likelihood there is of problems such as sites
1807 not working as they should.
1810 The <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button allows you to turn each
1811 action on/off individually for fine-tuning. The <guibutton>Cautious</guibutton>
1812 button changes the actions list to low/safe settings which will activate
1813 ad blocking and a minimal set of &my-app;'s features, and subsequently
1814 there will be less of a chance for accidental problems. The
1815 <guibutton>Medium</guibutton> button sets the list to a medium level of
1816 other features and a low level set of privacy features. The
1817 <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> button sets the list to a high level of
1818 ad blocking and medium level of privacy. See the chart below. The latter
1819 three buttons over-ride any changes via with the
1820 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button. More fine-tuning can be done in the
1821 lower sections of this internal page.
1824 While the actions file editor allows to enable these settings in all
1825 actions files, they are only supposed to be enabled in the first one
1826 to make sure you don't unintentionally overrule earlier rules.
1829 The default profiles, and their associated actions, as pre-defined in
1830 <filename>default.action</filename> are:
1833 <table frame=all><title>Default Configurations</title>
1834 <tgroup cols=4 align=left colsep=1 rowsep=1>
1835 <colspec colname=c1>
1836 <colspec colname=c2>
1837 <colspec colname=c3>
1838 <colspec colname=c4>
1841 <entry>Feature</entry>
1842 <entry>Cautious</entry>
1843 <entry>Medium</entry>
1844 <entry>Advanced</entry>
1849 <!-- <entry>f1</entry> -->
1850 <!-- <entry>f2</entry> -->
1851 <!-- <entry>f3</entry> -->
1852 <!-- <entry>f4</entry> -->
1858 <entry>Ad-blocking Aggressiveness</entry>
1859 <entry>medium</entry>
1865 <entry>Ad-filtering by size</entry>
1872 <entry>Ad-filtering by link</entry>
1878 <entry>Pop-up killing</entry>
1879 <entry>blocks only</entry>
1880 <entry>blocks only</entry>
1881 <entry>blocks only</entry>
1885 <entry>Privacy Features</entry>
1887 <entry>medium</entry>
1888 <entry>medium/high</entry>
1892 <entry>Cookie handling</entry>
1894 <entry>session-only</entry>
1899 <entry>Referer forging</entry>
1906 <entry>GIF de-animation</entry>
1913 <entry>Fast redirects</entry>
1920 <entry>HTML taming</entry>
1927 <entry>JavaScript taming</entry>
1934 <entry>Web-bug killing</entry>
1941 <entry>Image tag reordering</entry>
1957 The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
1958 file, and are processed in the order they are defined (e.g.
1959 <filename>default.action</filename> is typically processed before
1960 <filename>user.action</filename>). The content of these can all be viewed and
1962 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
1963 The over-riding principle when applying actions, is that the last action that
1964 matches a given URL wins. The broadest, most general rules go first
1965 (defined in <filename>default.action</filename>),
1966 followed by any exceptions (typically also in
1967 <filename>default.action</filename>), which are then followed lastly by any
1968 local preferences (typically in <emphasis>user</emphasis><filename>.action</filename>).
1969 Generally, <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word.
1973 An actions file typically has multiple sections. If you want to use
1974 <quote>aliases</quote> in an actions file, you have to place the (optional)
1975 <link linkend="aliases">alias section</link> at the top of that file.
1976 Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all
1977 sites and pages (be <emphasis>very careful</emphasis> with using such a
1978 universal set in <filename>user.action</filename> or any other actions file after
1979 <filename>default.action</filename>, because it will override the result
1980 from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
1981 exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
1982 <filename>user.action</filename> as an appendix to <filename>default.action</filename>,
1983 with the advantage that it is a separate file, which makes preserving your
1984 personal settings across <application>Privoxy</application> upgrades easier.
1988 Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
1989 just some obnoxious URL whose content you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
1990 or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
1991 written to disk), content can be modified, some JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking
1992 fooled, and much more. See below for a <link linkend="actions">complete list
1996 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1998 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
2000 Note that some <link linkend="actions">actions</link>, like cookie suppression
2001 or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these
2002 techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and
2003 certainly a matter of personal taste. And, things can always change, requiring
2004 refinements in the configuration. In general, it can be said that the more
2005 <quote>aggressive</quote> your default settings (in the top section of the
2006 actions file) are, the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you
2007 will have to make later. If, for example, you want to crunch all cookies per
2008 default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you
2009 regularly use and that require cookies for actually useful purposes, like maybe
2010 your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
2014 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
2015 distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
2016 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
2017 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :).
2021 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2023 <title>How to Edit</title>
2025 The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by
2026 using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from <ulink
2027 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
2028 Note: the config file option <link
2029 linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link> must be enabled for
2030 this to work. The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single
2031 feature on a per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults
2032 like <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> or
2033 <quote>Advanced</quote>. Warning: the <quote>Advanced</quote> setting is more
2034 aggressive, and will be more likely to cause problems for some sites.
2035 Experienced users only!
2039 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
2040 the actions files with your favorite text editor. Look at
2041 <filename>default.action</filename> which is richly commented with many
2047 <sect2 id="actions-apply">
2048 <title>How Actions are Applied to Requests</title>
2050 Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections,
2051 like the <quote><link linkend="aliases">alias</link></quote> sections which will
2052 be discussed later. For now let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a
2053 heading line (often split up to multiple lines for readability) which consist
2054 of a list of actions, separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces.
2055 Below that, there is a list of URL and tag patterns, each on a separate line.
2059 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
2060 compared to all URL patterns in each <quote>action file</quote>.
2061 Every time it matches, the list of applicable actions for the request is
2062 incrementally updated, using the heading of the section in which the
2063 pattern is located. The same is done again for tags and tag patterns later on.
2067 If multiple applying sections set the same action differently,
2068 the last match wins. If not, the effects are aggregated.
2069 E.g. a URL might match a regular section with a heading line of <literal>{
2070 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link> }</literal>,
2071 then later another one with just <literal>{
2072 +<link linkend="block">block</link> }</literal>, resulting
2073 in <emphasis>both</emphasis> actions to apply. And there may well be
2074 cases where you will want to combine actions together. Such a section then
2080 { +<literal>handle-as-image</literal> +<literal>block{Banner ads.}</literal> }
2081 # Block these as if they were images. Send no block page.
2083 media.example.com/.*banners
2084 .example.com/images/ads/</screen>
2088 You can trace this process for URL patterns and any given URL by visiting <ulink
2089 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
2093 Examples and more detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
2094 Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</link> section.
2098 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2099 <sect2 id="af-patterns">
2100 <title>Patterns</title>
2102 As mentioned, <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>patterns</quote>
2103 to determine what <emphasis>actions</emphasis> might apply to which sites and
2104 pages your browser attempts to access. These <quote>patterns</quote> use wild
2105 card type <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> matching to achieve a high degree of
2106 flexibility. This allows one expression to be expanded and potentially match
2107 against many similar patterns.
2111 Generally, an URL pattern has the form
2112 <literal><domain>/<path></literal>, where both the
2113 <literal><domain></literal> and <literal><path></literal> are
2114 optional. (This is why the special <literal>/</literal> pattern matches all
2115 URLs). Note that the protocol portion of the URL pattern (e.g.
2116 <literal>http://</literal>) should <emphasis>not</emphasis> be included in
2117 the pattern. This is assumed already!
2120 The pattern matching syntax is different for the domain and path parts of
2121 the URL. The domain part uses a simple globbing type matching technique,
2122 while the path part uses more flexible
2123 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2124 Expressions</quote></ulink> (POSIX 1003.2).
2129 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
2132 is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2133 regardless of which document on that server is requested. So ALL pages in
2134 this domain would be covered by the scope of this action. Note that a
2135 simple <literal>example.com</literal> is different and would NOT match.
2140 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
2143 means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
2149 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
2152 matches all the documents on <literal>www.example.com</literal>
2153 whose name starts with <literal>/index.html</literal>.
2158 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html$</literal></term>
2161 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
2162 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
2167 <term><literal>/index.html$</literal></term>
2170 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
2171 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server anywhere.
2176 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
2179 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
2180 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>. So its
2188 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2189 <sect3><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
2192 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
2193 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
2199 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
2202 matches any domain with first-level domain <literal>com</literal>
2203 and second-level domain <literal>example</literal>.
2204 For example <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2205 <literal>example.com</literal> and <literal>foo.bar.baz.example.com</literal>.
2206 Note that it wouldn't match if the second-level domain was <literal>another-example</literal>.
2211 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
2214 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
2215 <literal>www.</literal> (It also matches the domain
2216 <literal>www</literal> but most of the time that doesn't matter.)
2221 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
2224 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>.
2225 And, by the way, also included would be any files or documents that exist
2226 within that domain since no path limitations are specified. (Correctly
2227 speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as
2228 a domain.) This might be <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2229 <literal>news.example.de</literal>, or
2230 <literal>www.example.net/cgi/testing.pl</literal> for instance. All these
2238 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
2239 themselves. These work similarly to shell globbing type wild-cards:
2240 <quote>*</quote> represents zero or more arbitrary characters (this is
2242 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2243 Expression</quote></ulink> based syntax of <quote>.*</quote>),
2244 <quote>?</quote> represents any single character (this is equivalent to the
2245 regular expression syntax of a simple <quote>.</quote>), and you can define
2246 <quote>character classes</quote> in square brackets which is similar to
2247 the same regular expression technique. All of this can be freely mixed:
2252 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2255 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
2256 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
2261 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2264 matches all of the above, and then some.
2269 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
2272 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
2273 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
2278 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
2281 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
2282 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
2283 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
2284 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
2291 While flexible, this is not the sophistication of full regular expression based syntax.
2296 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2299 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2300 <sect3><title>The Path Pattern</title>
2303 <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>modern</quote> POSIX 1003.2
2304 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2305 Expressions</quote></ulink> for matching the path portion (after the slash),
2306 and is thus more flexible.
2310 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
2311 expressions, you also might want to have a look at your operating system's documentation
2312 on regular expressions (try <literal>man re_format</literal>).
2316 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
2317 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote> (regular expression speak
2318 for the beginning of a line).
2322 Please also note that matching in the path is <emphasis>CASE INSENSITIVE</emphasis>
2323 by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
2324 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch: <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match
2325 only documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
2326 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
2331 <term><literal>.example.com/.*</literal></term>
2334 Is equivalent to just <quote>.example.com</quote>, since any documents
2335 within that domain are matched with or without the <quote>.*</quote>
2336 regular expression. This is redundant
2341 <term><literal>.example.com/.*/index.html$</literal></term>
2344 Will match any page in the domain of <quote>example.com</quote> that is
2345 named <quote>index.html</quote>, and that is part of some path. For
2346 example, it matches <quote>www.example.com/testing/index.html</quote> but
2347 NOT <quote>www.example.com/index.html</quote> because the regular
2348 expression called for at least two <quote>/'s</quote>, thus the path
2349 requirement. It also would match
2350 <quote>www.example.com/testing/index_html</quote>, because of the
2351 special meta-character <quote>.</quote>.
2356 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)?index\.html$</literal></term>
2359 This regular expression is conditional so it will match any page
2360 named <quote>index.html</quote> regardless of path which in this case can
2361 have one or more <quote>/'s</quote>. And this one must contain exactly
2362 <quote>.html</quote> (but does not have to end with that!).
2367 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)</literal></term>
2370 This regular expression will match any path of <quote>example.com</quote>
2371 that contains any of the words <quote>ads</quote>, <quote>banner</quote>,
2372 <quote>banners</quote> (because of the <quote>?</quote>) or <quote>junk</quote>.
2373 The path does not have to end in these words, just contain them.
2378 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)/.*\.(jpe?g|gif|png)$</literal></term>
2381 This is very much the same as above, except now it must end in either
2382 <quote>.jpg</quote>, <quote>.jpeg</quote>, <quote>.gif</quote> or <quote>.png</quote>. So this
2383 one is limited to common image formats.
2390 There are many, many good examples to be found in <filename>default.action</filename>,
2391 and more tutorials below in <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>.
2396 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2399 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2400 <sect3 id="tag-pattern"><title>The Tag Pattern</title>
2403 Tag patterns are used to change the applying actions based on the
2404 request's tags. Tags can be created with either the
2405 <link linkend="CLIENT-HEADER-TAGGER">client-header-tagger</link>
2406 or the <link linkend="SERVER-HEADER-TAGGER">server-header-tagger</link> action.
2410 Tag patterns have to start with <quote>TAG:</quote>, so &my-app;
2411 can tell them apart from URL patterns. Everything after the colon
2412 including white space, is interpreted as a regular expression with
2413 path pattern syntax, except that tag patterns aren't left-anchored
2414 automatically (&my-app; doesn't silently add a <quote>^</quote>,
2415 you have to do it yourself if you need it).
2419 To match all requests that are tagged with <quote>foo</quote>
2420 your pattern line should be <quote>TAG:^foo$</quote>,
2421 <quote>TAG:foo</quote> would work as well, but it would also
2422 match requests whose tags contain <quote>foo</quote> somewhere.
2423 <quote>TAG: foo</quote> wouldn't work as it requires white space.
2427 Sections can contain URL and tag patterns at the same time,
2428 but tag patterns are checked after the URL patterns and thus
2429 always overrule them, even if they are located before the URL patterns.
2433 Once a new tag is added, Privoxy checks right away if it's matched by one
2434 of the tag patterns and updates the action settings accordingly. As a result
2435 tags can be used to activate other tagger actions, as long as these other
2436 taggers look for headers that haven't already be parsed.
2440 For example you could tag client requests which use the
2441 <literal>POST</literal> method,
2442 then use this tag to activate another tagger that adds a tag if cookies
2443 are sent, and then use a block action based on the cookie tag. This allows
2444 the outcome of one action, to be input into a subsequent action. However if
2445 you'd reverse the position of the described taggers, and activated the
2446 method tagger based on the cookie tagger, no method tags would be created.
2447 The method tagger would look for the request line, but at the time
2448 the cookie tag is created, the request line has already been parsed.
2452 While this is a limitation you should be aware of, this kind of
2453 indirection is seldom needed anyway and even the example doesn't
2454 make too much sense.
2461 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2464 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2466 <sect2 id="actions">
2467 <title>Actions</title>
2469 All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
2470 somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
2471 <quote>+</quote>, and turned off if preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. So a
2472 <literal>+action</literal> means <quote>do that action</quote>, e.g.
2473 <literal>+block</literal> means <quote>please block URLs that match the
2474 following patterns</quote>, and <literal>-block</literal> means <quote>don't
2475 block URLs that match the following patterns, even if <literal>+block</literal>
2476 previously applied.</quote>
2481 Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
2482 separated by whitespace, like in
2483 <literal>{+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}}</literal>,
2484 followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
2485 Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
2486 of the actions file.
2490 Actions fall into three categories:
2497 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>enabled</quote> or
2498 <quote>disabled</quote>. Syntax:
2502 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # enable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>
2503 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable></screen>
2506 Example: <literal>+handle-as-image</literal>
2513 Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
2518 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and set parameter to <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>,
2519 # overwriting parameter from previous match if necessary
2520 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action. The parameter can be omitted</screen>
2523 Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action,
2524 the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
2527 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>
2533 Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions,
2534 but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the
2535 same URL, but with different parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> the parameters
2536 from <emphasis>all</emphasis> matches are remembered. This is used for actions
2537 that can be executed for the same request repeatedly, like adding multiple
2538 headers, or filtering through multiple filters. Syntax:
2542 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and add <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> to the list of parameters
2543 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # remove the parameter <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> from the list of parameters
2544 # If it was the last one left, disable the action.
2545 <replaceable class="parameter">-name</replaceable> # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list</screen>
2548 Examples: <literal>+add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text}</literal> and
2549 <literal>+filter{html-annoyances}</literal>
2557 If nothing is specified in any actions file, no <quote>actions</quote> are
2558 taken. So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
2559 normal, non-blocking, non-filtering proxy. You must specifically enable the
2560 privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions
2561 files will give a good starting point).
2565 Later defined action sections always over-ride earlier ones of the same type.
2566 So exceptions to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
2567 in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files such
2568 as <filename>user.action</filename>). For multi-valued actions, the actions
2569 are applied in the order they are specified. Actions files are processed in
2570 the order they are defined in <filename>config</filename> (the default
2571 installation has three actions files). It also quite possible for any given
2572 URL to match more than one <quote>pattern</quote> (because of wildcards and
2573 regular expressions), and thus to trigger more than one set of actions! Last
2577 <!-- start actions listing -->
2579 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> actions are:
2583 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2584 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
2585 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
2587 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2590 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2592 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="add-header">
2593 <title>add-header</title>
2597 <term>Typical use:</term>
2599 <para>Confuse log analysis, custom applications</para>
2604 <term>Effect:</term>
2607 Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
2614 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2616 <para>Multi-value.</para>
2621 <term>Parameter:</term>
2624 Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
2625 It is recommended that you use the <quote><literal>X-</literal></quote> prefix
2635 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
2636 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
2637 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
2644 <term>Example usage:</term>
2647 <screen>+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}</screen>
2655 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2656 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="block">
2657 <title>block</title>
2661 <term>Typical use:</term>
2663 <para>Block ads or other unwanted content</para>
2668 <term>Effect:</term>
2671 Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the
2672 requests are trapped by &my-app; and the requested URL is never retrieved,
2673 but is answered locally with a substitute page or image, as determined by
2675 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
2677 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>, and
2679 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> actions.
2687 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2689 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2694 <term>Parameter:</term>
2696 <para>A block reason that should be given to the user.</para>
2704 <application>Privoxy</application> sends a special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page
2705 for requests to blocked pages. This page contains the block reason given as
2706 parameter, a link to find out why the block action applies, and a click-through
2707 to the blocked content (the latter only if the force feature is available and
2711 A very important exception occurs if <emphasis>both</emphasis>
2712 <literal>block</literal> and <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
2713 apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If
2714 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
2715 (see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter,
2716 if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent.
2719 It is important to understand this process, in order
2720 to understand how <application>Privoxy</application> deals with
2721 ads and other unwanted content. Blocking is a core feature, and one
2722 upon which various other features depend.
2725 The <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
2726 action can perform a very similar task, by <quote>blocking</quote>
2727 banner images and other content through rewriting the relevant URLs in the
2728 document's HTML source, so they don't get requested in the first place.
2729 Note that this is a totally different technique, and it's easy to confuse the two.
2735 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2738 <screen>{+block{No nasty stuff for you.}}
2739 # Block and replace with "blocked" page
2740 .nasty-stuff.example.com
2742 {+block{Doubleclick banners.} +handle-as-image}
2743 # Block and replace with image
2747 {+block{Layered ads.} +handle-as-empty-document}
2748 # Block and then ignore
2749 adserver.example.net/.*\.js$</screen>
2759 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2760 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="change-x-forwarded-for">
2761 <title>change-x-forwarded-for</title>
2765 <term>Typical use:</term>
2767 <para>Improve privacy by not forwarding the source of the request in the HTTP headers.</para>
2772 <term>Effect:</term>
2775 Deletes the <quote>X-Forwarded-For:</quote> HTTP header from the client request,
2783 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2785 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2790 <term>Parameter:</term>
2794 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header.</para>
2798 <quote>add</quote> to create the header (or append
2799 the client's IP address to an already existing one).
2810 It is safe and recommended to use <literal>block</literal>.
2813 Forwarding the source address of the request may make
2814 sense in some multi-user setups but is also a privacy risk.
2819 <term>Example usage:</term>
2822 <screen>+change-x-forwarded-for{block}</screen>
2829 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2830 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-filter">
2831 <title>client-header-filter</title>
2835 <term>Typical use:</term>
2838 Rewrite or remove single client headers.
2844 <term>Effect:</term>
2847 All client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
2848 the specified regular expression based substitutions.
2855 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2857 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2862 <term>Parameter:</term>
2865 The name of a client-header filter, as defined in one of the
2866 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
2875 Client-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
2876 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
2877 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
2878 You can do that by using tags though.
2881 Client-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
2882 and use their output as input.
2885 If the request URL gets changed, &my-app; will detect that and use the new
2886 one. This can be used to rewrite the request destination behind the client's
2887 back, for example to specify a Tor exit relay for certain requests.
2890 Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
2891 to learn which client-header filters are available by default, and how to
2899 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2903 # Hide Tor exit notation in Host and Referer Headers
2904 {+client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}}
2915 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2916 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-tagger">
2917 <title>client-header-tagger</title>
2921 <term>Typical use:</term>
2924 Block requests based on their headers.
2930 <term>Effect:</term>
2933 Client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
2934 the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
2942 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2944 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2949 <term>Parameter:</term>
2952 The name of a client-header tagger, as defined in one of the
2953 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
2962 Client-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
2963 and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
2967 Client-header taggers are the first actions that are executed
2968 and their tags can be used to control every other action.
2974 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2978 # Tag every request with the User-Agent header
2979 {+client-header-tagger{user-agent}}
2982 # Tagging itself doesn't change the action
2983 # settings, sections with TAG patterns do:
2985 # If it's a download agent, use a different forwarding proxy,
2986 # show the real User-Agent and make sure resume works.
2987 {+forward-override{forward-socks5 10.0.0.2:2222 .} \
2988 -hide-if-modified-since \
2989 -overwrite-last-modified \
2994 TAG:^User-Agent: NetBSD-ftp/
2995 TAG:^User-Agent: Novell ZYPP Installer
2996 TAG:^User-Agent: RPM APT-HTTP/
2997 TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/
2998 TAG:^User-Agent: Ubuntu APT-HTTP/
2999 TAG:^User-Agent: MPlayer/
3009 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3010 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="content-type-overwrite">
3011 <title>content-type-overwrite</title>
3015 <term>Typical use:</term>
3017 <para>Stop useless download menus from popping up, or change the browser's rendering mode</para>
3022 <term>Effect:</term>
3025 Replaces the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header.
3032 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3034 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3039 <term>Parameter:</term>
3051 The <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header is used by the
3052 browser to decide what to do with the document. The value of this
3053 header can cause the browser to open a download menu instead of
3054 displaying the document by itself, even if the document's format is
3055 supported by the browser.
3058 The declared content type can also affect which rendering mode
3059 the browser chooses. If XHTML is delivered as <quote>text/html</quote>,
3060 many browsers treat it as yet another broken HTML document.
3061 If it is send as <quote>application/xml</quote>, browsers with
3062 XHTML support will only display it, if the syntax is correct.
3065 If you see a web site that proudly uses XHTML buttons, but sets
3066 <quote>Content-Type: text/html</quote>, you can use &my-app;
3067 to overwrite it with <quote>application/xml</quote> and validate
3068 the web master's claim inside your XHTML-supporting browser.
3069 If the syntax is incorrect, the browser will complain loudly.
3072 You can also go the opposite direction: if your browser prints
3073 error messages instead of rendering a document falsely declared
3074 as XHTML, you can overwrite the content type with
3075 <quote>text/html</quote> and have it rendered as broken HTML document.
3078 By default <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal> only replaces
3079 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> headers that look like some kind of text.
3080 If you want to overwrite it unconditionally, you have to combine it with
3081 <literal><link linkend="force-text-mode">force-text-mode</link></literal>.
3082 This limitation exists for a reason, think twice before circumventing it.
3085 Most of the time it's easier to replace this action with a custom
3086 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
3087 It allows you to activate it for every document of a certain site and it will still
3088 only replace the content types you aimed at.
3091 Of course you can apply <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal>
3092 to a whole site and then make URL based exceptions, but it's a lot
3093 more work to get the same precision.
3099 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
3102 <screen># Check if www.example.net/ really uses valid XHTML
3103 { +content-type-overwrite{application/xml} }
3106 # but leave the content type unmodified if the URL looks like a style sheet
3107 {-content-type-overwrite}
3108 www.example.net/.*\.css$
3109 www.example.net/.*style
3118 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3119 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-client-header">
3123 <title>crunch-client-header</title>
3127 <term>Typical use:</term>
3129 <para>Remove a client header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
3134 <term>Effect:</term>
3137 Deletes every header sent by the client that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
3144 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3146 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3151 <term>Parameter:</term>
3163 This action allows you to block client headers for which no dedicated
3164 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists.
3165 <application>Privoxy</application> will remove every client header that
3166 contains the string you supplied as parameter.
3169 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
3170 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
3171 they contain the same string.
3174 <literal>crunch-client-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
3175 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
3176 parts of them, you should use a
3177 <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header filter</link></literal>.
3181 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
3188 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3191 <screen># Block the non-existent "Privacy-Violation:" client header
3192 { +crunch-client-header{Privacy-Violation:} }
3202 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3203 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-if-none-match">
3204 <title>crunch-if-none-match</title>
3210 <term>Typical use:</term>
3212 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
3217 <term>Effect:</term>
3220 Deletes the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header.
3227 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3229 <para>Boolean.</para>
3234 <term>Parameter:</term>
3246 Removing the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header
3247 is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
3248 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote> which
3249 would cause the browser to use a cached copy of the page.
3252 It is also useful to make sure the header isn't used as a cookie
3253 replacement (unlikely but possible).
3256 Blocking the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> header shouldn't cause any
3257 caching problems, as long as the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> header
3258 isn't blocked or missing as well.
3261 It is recommended to use this action together with
3262 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hide-if-modified-since</link></literal>
3264 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>.
3270 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3273 <screen># Let the browser revalidate cached documents but don't
3274 # allow the server to use the revalidation headers for user tracking.
3275 {+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
3276 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
3277 +crunch-if-none-match}
3286 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3287 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-incoming-cookies">
3288 <title>crunch-incoming-cookies</title>
3292 <term>Typical use:</term>
3295 Prevent the web server from setting HTTP cookies on your system
3301 <term>Effect:</term>
3304 Deletes any <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from server replies.
3311 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3313 <para>Boolean.</para>
3318 <term>Parameter:</term>
3330 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
3331 <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
3332 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>.
3333 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
3336 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3337 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3338 since it would prevent the session cookies from being set. See also
3339 <literal><link linkend="filter-content-cookies">filter-content-cookies</link></literal>.
3345 <term>Example usage:</term>
3348 <screen>+crunch-incoming-cookies</screen>
3356 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3357 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-server-header">
3358 <title>crunch-server-header</title>
3364 <term>Typical use:</term>
3366 <para>Remove a server header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
3371 <term>Effect:</term>
3374 Deletes every header sent by the server that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
3381 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3383 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3388 <term>Parameter:</term>
3400 This action allows you to block server headers for which no dedicated
3401 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists. <application>Privoxy</application>
3402 will remove every server header that contains the string you supplied as parameter.
3405 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
3406 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
3407 they contain the same string.
3410 <literal>crunch-server-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
3411 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
3412 parts of them, you should use a custom
3413 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
3417 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
3424 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3427 <screen># Crunch server headers that try to prevent caching
3428 { +crunch-server-header{no-cache} }
3437 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3438 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-outgoing-cookies">
3439 <title>crunch-outgoing-cookies</title>
3443 <term>Typical use:</term>
3446 Prevent the web server from reading any HTTP cookies from your system
3452 <term>Effect:</term>
3455 Deletes any <quote>Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from client requests.
3462 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3464 <para>Boolean.</para>
3469 <term>Parameter:</term>
3481 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
3482 <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
3483 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>.
3484 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
3487 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3488 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3489 since it would prevent the session cookies from being read.
3495 <term>Example usage:</term>
3498 <screen>+crunch-outgoing-cookies</screen>
3507 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3508 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="deanimate-gifs">
3509 <title>deanimate-gifs</title>
3513 <term>Typical use:</term>
3515 <para>Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.</para>
3520 <term>Effect:</term>
3523 De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image.
3530 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3532 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3537 <term>Parameter:</term>
3540 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
3549 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
3550 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
3551 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
3552 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
3553 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
3554 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
3557 You can safely use this action with patterns that will also match non-GIF
3558 objects, because no attempt will be made at anything that doesn't look like
3565 <term>Example usage:</term>
3568 <screen>+deanimate-gifs{last}</screen>
3575 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3576 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="downgrade-http-version">
3577 <title>downgrade-http-version</title>
3581 <term>Typical use:</term>
3583 <para>Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1</para>
3588 <term>Effect:</term>
3591 Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0.
3598 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3600 <para>Boolean.</para>
3605 <term>Parameter:</term>
3617 This is a left-over from the time when <application>Privoxy</application>
3618 didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
3619 unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server
3620 out there. Not all HTTP/1.1 features and requirements are supported yet,
3621 so there is a chance you might need this action.
3627 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3630 <screen>{+downgrade-http-version}
3631 problem-host.example.com</screen>
3639 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3640 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="fast-redirects">
3641 <title>fast-redirects</title>
3645 <term>Typical use:</term>
3647 <para>Fool some click-tracking scripts and speed up indirect links.</para>
3652 <term>Effect:</term>
3655 Detects redirection URLs and redirects the browser without contacting
3656 the redirection server first.
3663 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3665 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3670 <term>Parameter:</term>
3675 <quote>simple-check</quote> to just search for the string <quote>http://</quote>
3676 to detect redirection URLs.
3681 <quote>check-decoded-url</quote> to decode URLs (if necessary) before searching
3682 for redirection URLs.
3693 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
3694 will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a
3695 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
3696 resulting from this scheme typically look like:
3697 <quote>http://www.example.org/click-tracker.cgi?target=http%3a//www.example.net/</quote>.
3700 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
3701 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
3702 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go
3703 to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your
3704 browser asks the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds
3708 This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement.
3709 If it is enabled by default, you will have to create some exceptions to
3710 this action. It can lead to failures in several ways:
3713 Not every URLs with other URLs as parameters is evil.
3714 Some sites offer a real service that requires this information to work.
3715 For example a validation service needs to know, which document to validate.
3716 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> assumes that every URL parameter that
3717 looks like another URL is a redirection target, and will always redirect to
3718 the last one. Most of the time the assumption is correct, but if it isn't,
3719 the user gets redirected anyway.
3722 Another failure occurs if the URL contains other parameters after the URL parameter.
3724 <quote>http://www.example.org/?redirect=http%3a//www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
3725 contains the redirection URL <quote>http://www.example.net/</quote>,
3726 followed by another parameter. <literal>fast-redirects</literal> doesn't know that
3727 and will cause a redirect to <quote>http://www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
3728 Depending on the target server configuration, the parameter will be silently ignored
3729 or lead to a <quote>page not found</quote> error. You can prevent this problem by
3730 first using the <literal><link linkend="redirect">redirect</link></literal> action
3731 to remove the last part of the URL, but it requires a little effort.
3734 To detect a redirection URL, <literal>fast-redirects</literal> only
3735 looks for the string <quote>http://</quote>, either in plain text
3736 (invalid but often used) or encoded as <quote>http%3a//</quote>.
3737 Some sites use their own URL encoding scheme, encrypt the address
3738 of the target server or replace it with a database id. In theses cases
3739 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> is fooled and the request reaches the
3740 redirection server where it probably gets logged.
3746 <term>Example usage:</term>
3750 { +fast-redirects{simple-check} }
3753 { +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} }
3754 another.example.com/testing</screen>
3763 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3764 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter">
3765 <title>filter</title>
3769 <term>Typical use:</term>
3771 <para>Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size),
3772 do fun text replacements, add personalized effects, etc.</para>
3777 <term>Effect:</term>
3780 All instances of text-based type, most notably HTML and JavaScript, to which
3781 this action applies, can be filtered on-the-fly through the specified regular
3782 expression based substitutions. (Note: as of version 3.0.3 plain text documents
3783 are exempted from filtering, because web servers often use the
3784 <literal>text/plain</literal> MIME type for all files whose type they don't know.)
3791 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3793 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3798 <term>Parameter:</term>
3801 The name of a content filter, as defined in the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>.
3802 Filters can be defined in one or more files as defined by the
3803 <literal><link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal>
3804 option in the <link linkend="config">config file</link>.
3805 <filename>default.filter</filename> is the collection of filters
3806 supplied by the developers. Locally defined filters should go
3807 in their own file, such as <filename>user.filter</filename>.
3810 When used in its negative form,
3811 and without parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> filtering is completely disabled.
3820 For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available
3821 in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the examples below for
3825 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
3826 slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
3827 passed the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way
3828 since the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more
3829 noticeable on slower connections.
3832 <quote>Rolling your own</quote>
3833 filters requires a knowledge of
3834 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
3835 Expressions</quote></ulink> and
3836 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html"><quote>HTML</quote></ulink>.
3837 This is very powerful feature, and potentially very intrusive.
3838 Filters should be used with caution, and where an equivalent
3839 <quote>action</quote> is not available.
3842 The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the
3843 <literal><link linkend="buffer-limit">buffer-limit</link></literal>
3844 option in the main <link linkend="config">config file</link>. The
3845 default is 4096 KB (4 Megs). Once this limit is exceeded, the buffered
3846 data, and all pending data, is passed through unfiltered.
3849 Inappropriate MIME types, such as zipped files, are not filtered at all.
3850 (Again, only text-based types except plain text). Encrypted SSL data
3851 (from HTTPS servers) cannot be filtered either, since this would violate
3852 the integrity of the secure transaction. In some situations it might
3853 be necessary to protect certain text, like source code, from filtering
3854 by defining appropriate <literal>-filter</literal> exceptions.
3857 Compressed content can't be filtered either, unless &my-app;
3858 is compiled with zlib support (requires at least &my-app; 3.0.7),
3859 in which case &my-app; will decompress the content before filtering
3863 If you use a &my-app; version without zlib support, but want filtering to work on
3864 as much documents as possible, even those that would normally be sent compressed,
3865 you must use the <literal><link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link></literal>
3866 action in conjunction with <literal>filter</literal>.
3869 Content filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
3870 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
3871 action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism
3872 works quite differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners
3873 based on their size (see below), since many of these seem to be somewhat
3877 <link linkend="contact">Feedback</link> with suggestions for new or
3878 improved filters is particularly welcome!
3881 The below list has only the names and a one-line description of each
3882 predefined filter. There are <link linkend="predefined-filters">more
3883 verbose explanations</link> of what these filters do in the <link
3884 linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>.
3890 <term>Example usage (with filters from the distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file).
3891 See <link linkend="PREDEFINED-FILTERS">the Predefined Filters section</link> for
3892 more explanation on each:</term>
3895 <anchor id="filter-js-annoyances">
3896 <screen>+filter{js-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse.</screen>
3899 <anchor id="filter-js-events">
3900 <screen>+filter{js-events} # Kill all JS event bindings and timers (Radically destructive! Only for extra nasty sites).</screen>
3903 <anchor id="filter-html-annoyances">
3904 <screen>+filter{html-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse.</screen>
3907 <anchor id="filter-content-cookies">
3908 <screen>+filter{content-cookies} # Kill cookies that come in the HTML or JS content.</screen>
3911 <anchor id="filter-refresh-tags">
3912 <screen>+filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups).</screen>
3915 <anchor id="filter-unsolicited-popups">
3916 <screen>+filter{unsolicited-popups} # Disable only unsolicited pop-up windows. Useful if your browser lacks this ability.</screen>
3919 <anchor id="filter-all-popups">
3920 <screen>+filter{all-popups} # Kill all popups in JavaScript and HTML. Useful if your browser lacks this ability.</screen>
3923 <anchor id="filter-img-reorder">
3924 <screen>+filter{img-reorder} # Reorder attributes in <img> tags to make the banners-by-* filters more effective.</screen>
3927 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-size">
3928 <screen>+filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners by size.</screen>
3931 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-link">
3932 <screen>+filter{banners-by-link} # Kill banners by their links to known clicktrackers.</screen>
3935 <anchor id="filter-webbugs">
3936 <screen>+filter{webbugs} # Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking).</screen>
3939 <anchor id="filter-tiny-textforms">
3940 <screen>+filter{tiny-textforms} # Extend those tiny textareas up to 40x80 and kill the hard wrap.</screen>
3943 <anchor id="filter-jumping-windows">
3944 <screen>+filter{jumping-windows} # Prevent windows from resizing and moving themselves.</screen>
3947 <anchor id="filter-frameset-borders">
3948 <screen>+filter{frameset-borders} # Give frames a border and make them resizable.</screen>
3951 <anchor id="filter-demoronizer">
3952 <screen>+filter{demoronizer} # Fix MS's non-standard use of standard charsets.</screen>
3955 <anchor id="filter-shockwave-flash">
3956 <screen>+filter{shockwave-flash} # Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects.</screen>
3959 <anchor id="filter-quicktime-kioskmode">
3960 <screen>+filter{quicktime-kioskmode} # Make Quicktime movies saveable.</screen>
3963 <anchor id="filter-fun">
3964 <screen>+filter{fun} # Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!</screen>
3967 <anchor id="filter-crude-parental">
3968 <screen>+filter{crude-parental} # Crude parental filtering. Note that this filter doesn't work reliably.</screen>
3971 <anchor id="filter-ie-exploits">
3972 <screen>+filter{ie-exploits} # Disable some known Internet Explorer bug exploits.</screen>
3975 <anchor id="filter-site-specifics">
3976 <screen>+filter{site-specifics} # Cure for site-specific problems. Don't apply generally!</screen>
3979 <anchor id="filter-no-ping">
3980 <screen>+filter{no-ping} # Removes non-standard ping attributes in <a> and <area> tags.</screen>
3983 <anchor id="filter-google">
3984 <screen>+filter{google} # CSS-based block for Google text ads. Also removes a width limitation and the toolbar advertisement.</screen>
3987 <anchor id="filter-yahoo">
3988 <screen>+filter{yahoo} # CSS-based block for Yahoo text ads. Also removes a width limitation.</screen>
3991 <anchor id="filter-msn">
3992 <screen>+filter{msn} # CSS-based block for MSN text ads. Also removes tracking URLs and a width limitation.</screen>
3995 <anchor id="filter-blogspot">
3996 <screen>+filter{blogspot} # Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this.</screen>
4004 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4005 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="force-text-mode">
4006 <title>force-text-mode</title>
4012 <term>Typical use:</term>
4014 <para>Force <application>Privoxy</application> to treat a document as if it was in some kind of <emphasis>text</emphasis> format. </para>
4019 <term>Effect:</term>
4022 Declares a document as text, even if the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> isn't detected as such.
4029 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4031 <para>Boolean.</para>
4036 <term>Parameter:</term>
4048 As explained <literal><link linkend="filter">above</link></literal>,
4049 <application>Privoxy</application> tries to only filter files that are
4050 in some kind of text format. The same restrictions apply to
4051 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite</link></literal>.
4052 <literal>force-text-mode</literal> declares a document as text,
4053 without looking at the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> first.
4057 Think twice before activating this action. Filtering binary data
4058 with regular expressions can cause file damage.
4065 <term>Example usage:</term>
4078 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4079 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="forward-override">
4080 <title>forward-override</title>
4086 <term>Typical use:</term>
4088 <para>Change the forwarding settings based on User-Agent or request origin</para>
4093 <term>Effect:</term>
4096 Overrules the forward directives in the configuration file.
4103 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4105 <para>Multi-value.</para>
4110 <term>Parameter:</term>
4114 <para><quote>forward .</quote> to use a direct connection without any additional proxies.</para>
4118 <quote>forward 127.0.0.1:8123</quote> to use the HTTP proxy listening at 127.0.0.1 port 8123.
4123 <quote>forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 .</quote> to use the socks4a proxy listening at
4124 127.0.0.1 port 9050. Replace <quote>forward-socks4a</quote> with <quote>forward-socks4</quote>
4125 to use a socks4 connection (with local DNS resolution) instead, use <quote>forward-socks5</quote>
4126 for socks5 connections (with remote DNS resolution).
4131 <quote>forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 proxy.example.org:8000</quote> to use the socks4a proxy
4132 listening at 127.0.0.1 port 9050 to reach the HTTP proxy listening at proxy.example.org port 8000.
4133 Replace <quote>forward-socks4a</quote> with <quote>forward-socks4</quote> to use a socks4 connection
4134 (with local DNS resolution) instead, use <quote>forward-socks5</quote>
4135 for socks5 connections (with remote DNS resolution).
4146 This action takes parameters similar to the
4147 <link linkend="forwarding">forward</link> directives in the configuration
4148 file, but without the URL pattern. It can be used as replacement, but normally it's only
4149 used in cases where matching based on the request URL isn't sufficient.
4153 Please read the description for the <link linkend="forwarding">forward</link> directives before
4154 using this action. Forwarding to the wrong people will reduce your privacy and increase the
4155 chances of man-in-the-middle attacks.
4158 If the ports are missing or invalid, default values will be used. This might change
4159 in the future and you shouldn't rely on it. Otherwise incorrect syntax causes Privoxy
4163 Use the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">show-url-info CGI page</ulink>
4164 to verify that your forward settings do what you thought the do.
4171 <term>Example usage:</term>
4175 # Always use direct connections for requests previously tagged as
4176 # <quote>User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2.0</quote> and make sure
4177 # resuming downloads continues to work.
4178 # This way you can continue to use Tor for your normal browsing,
4179 # without overloading the Tor network with your FreeBSD ports updates
4180 # or downloads of bigger files like ISOs.
4181 # Note that HTTP headers are easy to fake and therefore their
4182 # values are as (un)trustworthy as your clients and users.
4183 {+forward-override{forward .} \
4184 -hide-if-modified-since \
4185 -overwrite-last-modified \
4187 TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2\.0$
4196 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4197 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-empty-document">
4198 <title>handle-as-empty-document</title>
4204 <term>Typical use:</term>
4206 <para>Mark URLs that should be replaced by empty documents <emphasis>if they get blocked</emphasis></para>
4211 <term>Effect:</term>
4214 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs.
4215 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
4216 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote>
4217 page, or an empty document will be sent to the client as a substitute for the blocked content.
4218 The <emphasis>empty</emphasis> document isn't literally empty, but actually contains a single space.
4225 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4227 <para>Boolean.</para>
4232 <term>Parameter:</term>
4244 Some browsers complain about syntax errors if JavaScript documents
4245 are blocked with <application>Privoxy's</application>
4246 default HTML page; this option can be used to silence them.
4247 And of course this action can also be used to eliminate the &my-app;
4248 BLOCKED message in frames.
4251 The content type for the empty document can be specified with
4252 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite{}</link></literal>,
4253 but usually this isn't necessary.
4259 <term>Example usage:</term>
4262 <screen># Block all documents on example.org that end with ".js",
4263 # but send an empty document instead of the usual HTML message.
4264 {+block{Blocked JavaScript} +handle-as-empty-document}
4274 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4275 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-image">
4276 <title>handle-as-image</title>
4280 <term>Typical use:</term>
4282 <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>
4287 <term>Effect:</term>
4290 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs as images.
4291 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
4292 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>blocked</quote>
4293 page, or a replacement image (as determined by the <literal><link
4294 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> action) will be sent to the
4295 client as a substitute for the blocked content.
4302 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4304 <para>Boolean.</para>
4309 <term>Parameter:</term>
4321 The below generic example section is actually part of <filename>default.action</filename>.
4322 It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should
4326 Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with
4327 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>, to block sources of banners, whose URLs don't
4328 reflect the file type, like in the second example section.
4331 Note that you cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, (in-line) ad
4332 frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they won't display properly.
4333 Forcing <literal>handle-as-image</literal> in this situation will not replace the
4334 ad frame with an image, but lead to error messages.
4340 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
4343 <screen># Generic image extensions:
4346 /.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)$
4348 # These don't look like images, but they're banners and should be
4349 # blocked as images:
4351 {+block{Nasty banners.} +handle-as-image}
4352 nasty-banner-server.example.com/junk.cgi\?output=trash
4361 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4362 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-accept-language">
4363 <title>hide-accept-language</title>
4369 <term>Typical use:</term>
4371 <para>Pretend to use different language settings.</para>
4376 <term>Effect:</term>
4379 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> HTTP header in client requests.
4386 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4388 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4393 <term>Parameter:</term>
4396 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4405 Faking the browser's language settings can be useful to make a
4406 foreign User-Agent set with
4407 <literal><link linkend="hide-user-agent">hide-user-agent</link></literal>
4411 However some sites with content in different languages check the
4412 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> to decide which one to take by default.
4413 Sometimes it isn't possible to later switch to another language without
4414 changing the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header first.
4417 Therefore it's a good idea to either only change the
4418 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header to languages you understand,
4419 or to languages that aren't wide spread.
4422 Before setting the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header
4423 to a rare language, you should consider that it helps to
4424 make your requests unique and thus easier to trace.
4425 If you don't plan to change this header frequently,
4426 you should stick to a common language.
4432 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4435 <screen># Pretend to use Canadian language settings.
4436 {+hide-accept-language{en-ca} \
4437 +hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; OpenBSD i386; en-CA; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060628 Firefox/1.5.0.4} \
4447 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4448 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-content-disposition">
4449 <title>hide-content-disposition</title>
4455 <term>Typical use:</term>
4457 <para>Prevent download menus for content you prefer to view inside the browser.</para>
4462 <term>Effect:</term>
4465 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header set by some servers.
4472 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4474 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4479 <term>Parameter:</term>
4482 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4491 Some servers set the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header for
4492 documents they assume you want to save locally before viewing them.
4493 The <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header contains the file name
4494 the browser is supposed to use by default.
4497 In most browsers that understand this header, it makes it impossible to
4498 <emphasis>just view</emphasis> the document, without downloading it first,
4499 even if it's just a simple text file or an image.
4502 Removing the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header helps
4503 to prevent this annoyance, but some browsers additionally check the
4504 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> header, before they decide if they can
4505 display a document without saving it first. In these cases, you have
4506 to change this header as well, before the browser stops displaying
4510 It is also possible to change the server's file name suggestion
4511 to another one, but in most cases it isn't worth the time to set
4515 This action will probably be removed in the future,
4516 use server-header filters instead.
4522 <term>Example usage:</term>
4525 <screen># Disarm the download link in Sourceforge's patch tracker
4527 +content-type-overwrite{text/plain}\
4528 +hide-content-disposition{block} }
4529 .sourceforge.net/tracker/download\.php</screen>
4537 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4538 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-if-modified-since">
4539 <title>hide-if-modified-since</title>
4545 <term>Typical use:</term>
4547 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
4552 <term>Effect:</term>
4555 Deletes the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> HTTP client header or modifies its value.
4562 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4564 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4569 <term>Parameter:</term>
4572 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or a user defined value that specifies a range of hours.
4581 Removing this header is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
4582 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the
4583 browser to use a cached copy of the page.
4586 Instead of removing the header, <literal>hide-if-modified-since</literal> can
4587 also add or subtract a random amount of time to/from the header's value.
4588 You specify a range of minutes where the random factor should be chosen from and
4589 <application>Privoxy</application> does the rest. A negative value means
4590 subtracting, a positive value adding.
4593 Randomizing the value of the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> makes
4594 it less likely that the server can use the time as a cookie replacement,
4595 but you will run into caching problems if the random range is too high.
4598 It is a good idea to only use a small negative value and let
4599 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>
4600 handle the greater changes.
4603 It is also recommended to use this action together with
4604 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>,
4605 otherwise it's more or less pointless.
4611 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4614 <screen># Let the browser revalidate but make tracking based on the time less likely.
4615 {+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
4616 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
4617 +crunch-if-none-match}
4626 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4627 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-from-header">
4628 <title>hide-from-header</title>
4632 <term>Typical use:</term>
4634 <para>Keep your (old and ill) browser from telling web servers your email address</para>
4639 <term>Effect:</term>
4642 Deletes any existing <quote>From:</quote> HTTP header, or replaces it with the
4650 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4652 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4657 <term>Parameter:</term>
4660 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4669 The keyword <quote>block</quote> will completely remove the header
4670 (not to be confused with the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
4674 Alternately, you can specify any value you prefer to be sent to the web
4675 server. If you do, it is a matter of fairness not to use any address that
4676 is actually used by a real person.
4679 This action is rarely needed, as modern web browsers don't send
4680 <quote>From:</quote> headers anymore.
4686 <term>Example usage:</term>
4689 <screen>+hide-from-header{block}</screen> or
4690 <screen>+hide-from-header{spam-me-senseless@sittingduck.example.com}</screen>
4698 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4699 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-referrer">
4700 <title>hide-referrer</title>
4701 <anchor id="hide-referer">
4704 <term>Typical use:</term>
4706 <para>Conceal which link you followed to get to a particular site</para>
4711 <term>Effect:</term>
4714 Deletes the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) HTTP header from the client request,
4715 or replaces it with a forged one.
4722 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4724 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4729 <term>Parameter:</term>
4733 <para><quote>conditional-block</quote> to delete the header completely if the host has changed.</para>
4736 <para><quote>conditional-forge</quote> to forge the header if the host has changed.</para>
4739 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header unconditionally.</para>
4742 <para><quote>forge</quote> to pretend to be coming from the homepage of the server we are talking to.</para>
4745 <para>Any other string to set a user defined referrer.</para>
4755 <literal>conditional-block</literal> is the only parameter,
4756 that isn't easily detected in the server's log file. If it blocks the
4757 referrer, the request will look like the visitor used a bookmark or
4758 typed in the address directly.
4761 Leaving the referrer unmodified for requests on the same host
4762 allows the server owner to see the visitor's <quote>click path</quote>,
4763 but in most cases she could also get that information by comparing
4764 other parts of the log file: for example the User-Agent if it isn't
4765 a very common one, or the user's IP address if it doesn't change between
4769 Always blocking the referrer, or using a custom one, can lead to
4770 failures on servers that check the referrer before they answer any
4771 requests, in an attempt to prevent their content from being
4772 embedded or linked to elsewhere.
4775 Both <literal>conditional-block</literal> and <literal>forge</literal>
4776 will work with referrer checks, as long as content and valid referring page
4777 are on the same host. Most of the time that's the case.
4780 <literal>hide-referer</literal> is an alternate spelling of
4781 <literal>hide-referrer</literal> and the two can be can be freely
4782 substituted with each other. (<quote>referrer</quote> is the
4783 correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
4784 requires it to be spelled as <quote>referer</quote>.)
4790 <term>Example usage:</term>
4793 <screen>+hide-referrer{forge}</screen> or
4794 <screen>+hide-referrer{http://www.yahoo.com/}</screen>
4802 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4803 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-user-agent">
4804 <title>hide-user-agent</title>
4808 <term>Typical use:</term>
4810 <para>Try to conceal your type of browser and client operating system</para>
4815 <term>Effect:</term>
4818 Replaces the value of the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> HTTP header
4819 in client requests with the specified value.
4826 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4828 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4833 <term>Parameter:</term>
4836 Any user-defined string.
4846 This can lead to problems on web sites that depend on looking at this header in
4847 order to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the
4848 way, is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the right thing to do: good web sites
4849 work browser-independently).
4853 Using this action in multi-user setups or wherever different types of
4854 browsers will access the same <application>Privoxy</application> is
4855 <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>. In single-user, single-browser
4856 setups, you might use it to delete your OS version information from
4857 the headers, because it is an invitation to exploit known bugs for your
4858 OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
4859 sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
4860 reason in some cases). Example of this: some MSN sites will not
4861 let <application>Mozilla</application> enter, yet forging to a
4862 <application>Netscape 6.1</application> user-agent works just fine.
4863 (Must be just a silly MS goof, I'm sure :-).
4866 More information on known user-agent strings can be found at
4867 <ulink url="http://www.user-agents.org/">http://www.user-agents.org/</ulink>
4869 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent</ulink>.
4875 <term>Example usage:</term>
4878 <screen>+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}</screen>
4886 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4887 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="limit-connect">
4888 <title>limit-connect</title>
4892 <term>Typical use:</term>
4894 <para>Prevent abuse of <application>Privoxy</application> as a TCP proxy relay or disable SSL for untrusted sites</para>
4899 <term>Effect:</term>
4902 Specifies to which ports HTTP CONNECT requests are allowable.
4909 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4911 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4916 <term>Parameter:</term>
4919 A comma-separated list of ports or port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum
4920 defaulting to 0 and the maximum to 65K).
4929 By default, i.e. if no <literal>limit-connect</literal> action applies,
4930 <application>Privoxy</application> allows HTTP CONNECT requests to all
4931 ports. Use <literal>limit-connect</literal> if fine-grained control
4932 is desired for some or all destinations.
4935 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
4936 (<quote>https://</quote> URLs) through proxies. It works very simply:
4937 the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then
4938 short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote server.
4939 This means CONNECT-enabled proxies can be used as TCP relays very easily.
4942 <application>Privoxy</application> relays HTTPS traffic without seeing
4943 the decoded content. Websites can leverage this limitation to circumvent &my-app;'s
4944 filters. By specifying an invalid port range you can disable HTTPS entirely.
4950 <term>Example usages:</term>
4952 <!-- I had trouble getting the spacing to look right in my browser -->
4953 <!-- I probably have the wrong font setup, bollocks. -->
4954 <!-- Apparently the emphasis tag uses a proportional font no matter what -->
4956 <screen>+limit-connect{443} # Port 443 is OK.
4957 +limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
4958 +limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Ports less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
4959 +limit-connect{-} # All ports are OK
4960 +limit-connect{,} # No HTTPS/SSL traffic is allowed</screen>
4967 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4968 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="prevent-compression">
4969 <title>prevent-compression</title>
4973 <term>Typical use:</term>
4976 Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be
4977 passed through <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>s.
4983 <term>Effect:</term>
4986 Removes the Accept-Encoding header which can be used to ask for compressed transfer.
4993 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4995 <para>Boolean.</para>
5000 <term>Parameter:</term>
5012 More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which
5013 is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But the <literal><link
5014 linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> and
5015 <literal><link linkend="deanimate-gifs">deanimate-gifs</link></literal>
5016 actions need access to the uncompressed data.
5019 When compiled with zlib support (available since &my-app; 3.0.7), content that should be
5020 filtered is decompressed on-the-fly and you don't have to worry about this action.
5021 If you are using an older &my-app; version, or one that hasn't been compiled with zlib
5022 support, this action can be used to convince the server to send the content uncompressed.
5025 Most text-based instances compress very well, the size is seldom decreased by less than 50%,
5026 for markup-heavy instances like news feeds saving more than 90% of the original size isn't
5030 Not using compression will therefore slow down the transfer, and you should only
5031 enable this action if you really need it. As of &my-app; 3.0.7 it's disabled in all
5032 predefined action settings.
5035 Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed
5036 documents correctly. Broken PHP applications tend to send an empty document body,
5037 some IIS versions only send the beginning of the content. If you enable
5038 <literal>prevent-compression</literal> per default, you might want to add
5039 exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
5045 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
5049 # Selectively turn off compression, and enable a filter
5051 { +filter{tiny-textforms} +prevent-compression }
5052 # Match only these sites
5057 # Or instead, we could set a universal default:
5059 { +prevent-compression }
5062 # Then maybe make exceptions for broken sites:
5064 { -prevent-compression }
5065 .compusa.com/</screen>
5074 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5075 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="overwrite-last-modified">
5076 <title>overwrite-last-modified</title>
5082 <term>Typical use:</term>
5084 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
5089 <term>Effect:</term>
5092 Deletes the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> HTTP server header or modifies its value.
5099 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5101 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5106 <term>Parameter:</term>
5109 One of the keywords: <quote>block</quote>, <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote>
5110 and <quote>randomize</quote>
5119 Removing the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header is useful for filter
5120 testing, where you want to force a real reload instead of getting status
5121 code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the browser to reuse the old
5122 version of the page.
5125 The <quote>randomize</quote> option overwrites the value of the
5126 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with a randomly chosen time
5127 between the original value and the current time. In theory the server
5128 could send each document with a different <quote>Last-Modified:</quote>
5129 header to track visits without using cookies. <quote>Randomize</quote>
5130 makes it impossible and the browser can still revalidate cached documents.
5133 <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote> overwrites the value of the
5134 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with the current time. You could use
5135 this option together with
5136 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hided-if-modified-since</link></literal>
5137 to further customize your random range.
5140 The preferred parameter here is <quote>randomize</quote>. It is safe
5141 to use, as long as the time settings are more or less correct.
5142 If the server sets the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header to the time
5143 of the request, the random range becomes zero and the value stays the same.
5144 Therefore you should later randomize it a second time with
5145 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hided-if-modified-since</link></literal>,
5149 It is also recommended to use this action together with
5150 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>.
5156 <term>Example usage:</term>
5159 <screen># Let the browser revalidate without being tracked across sessions
5160 { +hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
5161 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
5162 +crunch-if-none-match}
5171 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5172 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="redirect">
5173 <title>redirect</title>
5179 <term>Typical use:</term>
5182 Redirect requests to other sites.
5188 <term>Effect:</term>
5191 Convinces the browser that the requested document has been moved
5192 to another location and the browser should get it from there.
5199 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5201 <para>Parameterized</para>
5206 <term>Parameter:</term>
5209 An absolute URL or a single pcrs command.
5218 Requests to which this action applies are answered with a
5219 HTTP redirect to URLs of your choosing. The new URL is
5220 either provided as parameter, or derived by applying a
5221 single pcrs command to the original URL.
5224 This action will be ignored if you use it together with
5225 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>.
5226 It can be combined with
5227 <literal><link linkend="fast-redirects">fast-redirects{check-decoded-url}</link></literal>
5228 to redirect to a decoded version of a rewritten URL.
5231 Use this action carefully, make sure not to create redirection loops
5232 and be aware that using your own redirects might make it
5233 possible to fingerprint your requests.
5236 In case of problems with your redirects, or simply to watch
5237 them working, enable <link linkend="DEBUG">debug 128</link>.
5243 <term>Example usages:</term>
5246 <screen># Replace example.com's style sheet with another one
5247 { +redirect{http://localhost/css-replacements/example.com.css} }
5248 example.com/stylesheet\.css
5250 # Create a short, easy to remember nickname for a favorite site
5251 # (relies on the browser accept and forward invalid URLs to &my-app;)
5252 { +redirect{http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/actions-file.html} }
5255 # Always use the expanded view for Undeadly.org articles
5256 # (Note the $ at the end of the URL pattern to make sure
5257 # the request for the rewritten URL isn't redirected as well)
5258 {+redirect{s@$@&mode=expanded@}}
5259 undeadly.org/cgi\?action=article&sid=\d*$
5261 # Redirect Google search requests to MSN
5262 {+redirect{s@^http://[^/]*/search\?q=([^&]*).*@http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=$1@}}
5265 # Redirect MSN search requests to Yahoo
5266 {+redirect{s@^http://[^/]*/results\.aspx\?q=([^&]*).*@http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=$1@}}
5267 search.msn.com//results\.aspx\?q=
5269 # Redirect remote requests for this manual
5270 # to the local version delivered by Privoxy
5271 {+redirect{s@^http://www@http://config@}}
5272 www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</screen>
5281 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5282 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="server-header-filter">
5283 <title>server-header-filter</title>
5287 <term>Typical use:</term>
5290 Rewrite or remove single server headers.
5296 <term>Effect:</term>
5299 All server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly
5300 through the specified regular expression based substitutions.
5307 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
5309 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5314 <term>Parameter:</term>
5317 The name of a server-header filter, as defined in one of the
5318 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
5327 Server-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
5328 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
5329 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
5330 You can do that by using tags though.
5333 Server-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
5334 and use their output as input.
5337 Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
5338 to learn which server-header filters are available by default, and how to
5345 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5349 {+server-header-filter{html-to-xml}}
5350 example.org/xml-instance-that-is-delivered-as-html
5352 {+server-header-filter{xml-to-html}}
5353 example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
5363 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5364 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="server-header-tagger">
5365 <title>server-header-tagger</title>
5369 <term>Typical use:</term>
5372 Enable or disable filters based on the Content-Type header.
5378 <term>Effect:</term>
5381 Server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
5382 the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
5390 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
5392 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5397 <term>Parameter:</term>
5400 The name of a server-header tagger, as defined in one of the
5401 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
5410 Server-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
5411 and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
5415 Server-header taggers are executed before all other header actions
5416 that modify server headers. Their tags can be used to control
5417 all of the other server-header actions, the content filters
5418 and the crunch actions (<link linkend="redirect">redirect</link>
5419 and <link linkend="block">block</link>).
5422 Obviously crunching based on tags created by server-header taggers
5423 doesn't prevent the request from showing up in the server's log file.
5430 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5434 # Tag every request with the content type declared by the server
5435 {+server-header-tagger{content-type}}
5446 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5447 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="session-cookies-only">
5448 <title>session-cookies-only</title>
5452 <term>Typical use:</term>
5455 Allow only temporary <quote>session</quote> cookies (for the current
5456 browser session <emphasis>only</emphasis>).
5462 <term>Effect:</term>
5465 Deletes the <quote>expires</quote> field from <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote>
5466 server headers. Most browsers will not store such cookies permanently and
5467 forget them in between sessions.
5474 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5476 <para>Boolean.</para>
5481 <term>Parameter:</term>
5493 This is less strict than <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> /
5494 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal> and allows you to browse
5495 websites that insist or rely on setting cookies, without compromising your privacy too badly.
5498 Most browsers will not permanently store cookies that have been processed by
5499 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal> and will forget about them between sessions.
5500 This makes profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
5501 that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
5502 sites, and is the recommended setting.
5505 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>
5506 together with <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> or
5507 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>. If you do, cookies
5508 will be plainly killed.
5511 Note that it is up to the browser how it handles such cookies without an <quote>expires</quote>
5512 field. If you use an exotic browser, you might want to try it out to be sure.
5515 This setting also has no effect on cookies that may have been stored
5516 previously by the browser before starting <application>Privoxy</application>.
5517 These would have to be removed manually.
5520 <application>Privoxy</application> also uses
5521 the <link linkend="filter-content-cookies">content-cookies filter</link>
5522 to block some types of cookies. Content cookies are not effected by
5523 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>.
5529 <term>Example usage:</term>
5532 <screen>+session-cookies-only</screen>
5540 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5541 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="set-image-blocker">
5542 <title>set-image-blocker</title>
5546 <term>Typical use:</term>
5548 <para>Choose the replacement for blocked images</para>
5553 <term>Effect:</term>
5556 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. If <emphasis>both</emphasis>
5557 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><link
5558 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> <emphasis>also</emphasis>
5559 apply, i.e. if the request is to be blocked as an image,
5560 <emphasis>then</emphasis> the parameter of this action decides what will be
5561 sent as a replacement.
5568 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5570 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5575 <term>Parameter:</term>
5580 <quote>pattern</quote> to send a built-in checkerboard pattern image. The image is visually
5581 decent, scales very well, and makes it obvious where banners were busted.
5586 <quote>blank</quote> to send a built-in transparent image. This makes banners disappear
5587 completely, but makes it hard to detect where <application>Privoxy</application> has blocked
5588 images on a given page and complicates troubleshooting if <application>Privoxy</application>
5589 has blocked innocent images, like navigation icons.
5594 <quote><replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable></quote> to
5595 send a redirect to <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>. You can redirect
5596 to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem via <quote>file:///</quote> URL.
5597 (But note that not all browsers support redirecting to a local file system).
5600 A good application of redirects is to use special <application>Privoxy</application>-built-in
5601 URLs, which send the built-in images, as <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>.
5602 This has the same visual effect as specifying <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote> in
5603 the first place, but enables your browser to cache the replacement image, instead of requesting
5604 it over and over again.
5615 The URLs for the built-in images are <quote>http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=<replaceable
5616 class="parameter">type</replaceable></quote>, where <replaceable class="parameter">type</replaceable> is
5617 either <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote>.
5620 There is a third (advanced) type, called <quote>auto</quote>. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> to be
5621 used in <literal>set-image-blocker</literal>, but meant for use from <link linkend="filter-file">filters</link>.
5622 Auto will select the type of image that would have applied to the referring page, had it been an image.
5628 <term>Example usage:</term>
5634 <screen>+set-image-blocker{pattern}</screen>
5637 Redirect to the BSD daemon:
5640 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://www.freebsd.org/gifs/dae_up3.gif}</screen>
5643 Redirect to the built-in pattern for better caching:
5646 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=pattern}</screen>
5654 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5656 <title>Summary</title>
5658 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
5659 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
5660 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
5661 content, and other criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard
5662 and fast rules for all sites. See the <link
5663 linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link> for a brief example on troubleshooting
5669 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5670 <sect2 id="aliases">
5671 <title>Aliases</title>
5673 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
5674 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other actions.
5675 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in actions.
5676 Currently, an alias name can contain any character except space, tab,
5678 <quote>{</quote> and <quote>}</quote>, but we <emphasis>strongly
5679 recommend</emphasis> that you only use <quote>a</quote> to <quote>z</quote>,
5680 <quote>0</quote> to <quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and <quote>-</quote>.
5681 Alias names are not case sensitive, and are not required to start with a
5682 <quote>+</quote> or <quote>-</quote> sign, since they are merely textually
5686 Aliases can be used throughout the actions file, but they <emphasis>must be
5687 defined in a special section at the top of the file!</emphasis>
5688 And there can only be one such section per actions file. Each actions file may
5689 have its own alias section, and the aliases defined in it are only visible
5693 There are two main reasons to use aliases: One is to save typing for frequently
5694 used combinations of actions, the other one is a gain in flexibility: If you
5695 decide once how you want to handle shops by defining an alias called
5696 <quote>shop</quote>, you can later change your policy on shops in
5697 <emphasis>one</emphasis> place, and your changes will take effect everywhere
5698 in the actions file where the <quote>shop</quote> alias is used. Calling aliases
5699 by their purpose also makes your actions files more readable.
5702 Currently, there is one big drawback to using aliases, though:
5703 <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in web-based action file
5704 editor honors aliases when reading the actions files, but it expands
5705 them before writing. So the effects of your aliases are of course preserved,
5706 but the aliases themselves are lost when you edit sections that use aliases
5711 Now let's define some aliases...
5716 # Useful custom aliases we can use later.
5718 # Note the (required!) section header line and that this section
5719 # must be at the top of the actions file!
5723 # These aliases just save typing later:
5724 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
5726 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
5727 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
5728 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked image.} +handle-as-image
5729 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
5731 # These aliases define combinations of actions
5732 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
5734 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>
5736 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link>
5738 # Short names for other aliases, for really lazy people ;-)
5740 c0 = +crunch-all-cookies
5741 c1 = -crunch-all-cookies</screen>
5745 ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
5746 actions file and define exceptions to the default actions (as specified further
5747 up for the <quote>/</quote> pattern):
5752 # These sites are either very complex or very keen on
5753 # user data and require minimal interference to work:
5756 .office.microsoft.com
5757 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
5758 # Gmail is really mail.google.com, not gmail.com
5762 # Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data)
5766 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
5769 # These shops require pop-ups:
5771 {-filter{all-popups} -filter{unsolicited-popups}}
5773 .overclockers.co.uk</screen>
5777 Aliases like <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> are typically used for
5778 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require more than one action to be disabled
5779 in order to function properly.
5785 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5786 <sect2 id="act-examples">
5787 <title>Actions Files Tutorial</title>
5789 The above chapters have shown <link linkend="actions-file">which actions files
5790 there are and how they are organized</link>, how actions are <link
5791 linkend="actions">specified</link> and <link linkend="actions-apply">applied
5792 to URLs</link>, how <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> work, and how to
5793 define and use <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link>. Now, let's look at an
5794 example <filename>default.action</filename> and <filename>user.action</filename>
5795 file and see how all these pieces come together:
5798 <sect3><title>default.action</title>
5801 Every config file should start with a short comment stating its purpose:
5805 <screen># Sample default.action file <ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net></screen>
5809 Then, since this is the <filename>default.action</filename> file, the
5810 first section is a special section for internal use that you needn't
5811 change or worry about:
5816 ##########################################################################
5817 # Settings -- Don't change! For internal Privoxy use ONLY.
5818 ##########################################################################
5821 for-privoxy-version=3.0</screen>
5825 After that comes the (optional) alias section. We'll use the example
5826 section from the above <link linkend="aliases">chapter on aliases</link>,
5827 that also explains why and how aliases are used:
5832 ##########################################################################
5834 ##########################################################################
5837 # These aliases just save typing later:
5838 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
5840 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
5841 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
5842 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked image.} +handle-as-image
5843 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
5845 # These aliases define combinations of actions
5846 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
5848 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>
5849 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link></screen>
5853 Now come the regular sections, i.e. sets of actions, accompanied
5854 by URL patterns to which they apply. Remember <emphasis>all actions
5855 are disabled when matching starts</emphasis>, so we have to explicitly
5856 enable the ones we want.
5860 The first regular section is probably the most important. It has only
5861 one pattern, <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, but this pattern
5862 <link linkend="af-patterns">matches all URLs</link>. Therefore, the
5863 set of actions used in this <quote>default</quote> section <emphasis>will
5864 be applied to all requests as a start</emphasis>. It can be partly or
5865 wholly overridden by later matches further down this file, or in user.action,
5866 but it will still be largely responsible for your overall browsing
5871 Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is
5872 no need to disable any actions here. (Remember: a <quote>+</quote>
5873 preceding the action name enables the action, a <quote>-</quote> disables!).
5874 Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into
5875 multiple lines with line continuation.
5880 ##########################################################################
5881 # "Defaults" section:
5882 ##########################################################################
5884 +<link linkend="CHANGE-X-FORWARDED-FOR">change-x-forwarded-for{block}</link> \
5885 +<link linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</link> \
5886 +<link linkend="FILTER-HTML-ANNOYANCES">filter{html-annoyances}</link> \
5887 +<link linkend="FILTER-REFRESH-TAGS">filter{refresh-tags}</link> \
5888 +<link linkend="FILTER-WEBBUGS">filter{webbugs}</link> \
5889 +<link linkend="FILTER-IE-EXPLOITS">filter{ie-exploits}</link> \
5890 +<link linkend="HIDE-FROM-HEADER">hide-from-header{block}</link> \
5891 +<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer{forge}</link> \
5892 +<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link> \
5893 +<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> \
5894 +<link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER">set-image-blocker{pattern}</link> \
5896 / # forward slash will match *all* potential URL patterns.</screen>
5900 The default behavior is now set.
5902 This needs rewording, but it can wait for now.
5905 Note that some actions, like not hiding
5906 the user agent, are part of a <quote>general policy</quote> that applies
5907 universally and won't get any exceptions defined later. Other choices,
5908 like not blocking (which is <emphasis>understandably</emphasis> the
5909 default!) need exceptions, i.e. we need to specify explicitly what we
5910 want to block in later sections.
5915 The first of our specialized sections is concerned with <quote>fragile</quote>
5916 sites, i.e. sites that require minimum interference, because they are either
5917 very complex or very keen on tracking you (and have mechanisms in place that
5918 make them unusable for people who avoid being tracked). We will simply use
5919 our pre-defined <literal>fragile</literal> alias instead of stating the list
5920 of actions explicitly:
5925 ##########################################################################
5926 # Exceptions for sites that'll break under the default action set:
5927 ##########################################################################
5929 # "Fragile" Use a minimum set of actions for these sites (see alias above):
5932 .office.microsoft.com # surprise, surprise!
5933 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
5934 mail.google.com</screen>
5938 Shopping sites are not as fragile, but they typically
5939 require cookies to log in, and pop-up windows for shopping
5940 carts or item details. Again, we'll use a pre-defined alias:
5949 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
5951 .scan.co.uk</screen>
5954 <!-- No longer needed BEGIN OF COMMENTED OUT BLOCK
5957 Then, there are sites which rely on pop-up windows (yuck!) to work.
5958 Since we made pop-up-killing our default above, we need to make exceptions
5959 now. <ulink url="http://www.mozilla.org/">Mozilla</ulink> users, who
5960 can turn on smart handling of unwanted pop-ups in their browsers, can
5962 -<literal><link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link></literal> above
5963 and hence don't need this section. Anyway, disabling an already disabled
5964 action doesn't hurt, so we'll define our exceptions regardless of what was
5965 chosen in the defaults section:
5970 # These sites require pop-ups too :(
5972 { -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link> }
5975 .deutsche-bank-24.de</screen>
5978 END OF COMMENTED OUT BLOCK -->
5981 The <literal><link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link></literal>
5982 action, which we enabled per default above, breaks some sites. So disable
5983 it for popular sites where we know it misbehaves:
5988 { -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> }
5992 .altavista.com/.*(like|url|link):http
5993 .altavista.com/trans.*urltext=http
5994 .nytimes.com</screen>
5998 It is important that <application>Privoxy</application> knows which
5999 URLs belong to images, so that <emphasis>if</emphasis> they are to
6000 be blocked, a substitute image can be sent, rather than an HTML page.
6001 Contacting the remote site to find out is not an option, since it
6002 would destroy the loading time advantage of banner blocking, and it
6003 would feed the advertisers (in terms of money <emphasis>and</emphasis>
6004 information). We can mark any URL as an image with the <literal><link
6005 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action,
6006 and marking all URLs that end in a known image file extension is a
6012 ##########################################################################
6014 ##########################################################################
6016 # Define which file types will be treated as images, in case they get
6017 # blocked further down this file:
6019 { +<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> }
6020 /.*\.(gif|jpe?g|png|bmp|ico)$</screen>
6024 And then there are known banner sources. They often use scripts to
6025 generate the banners, so it won't be visible from the URL that the
6026 request is for an image. Hence we block them <emphasis>and</emphasis>
6027 mark them as images in one go, with the help of our
6028 <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above. (We could of
6029 course just as well use <literal>+<link linkend="block">block</link>
6030 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> here.)
6031 Remember that the type of the replacement image is chosen by the
6032 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
6033 action. Since all URLs have matched the default section with its
6034 <literal>+<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link>{pattern}</literal>
6035 action before, it still applies and needn't be repeated:
6040 # Known ad generators:
6045 .ad.*.doubleclick.net
6046 .a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
6047 .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
6053 One of the most important jobs of <application>Privoxy</application>
6054 is to block banners. Many of these can be <quote>blocked</quote>
6055 by the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{banners-by-size}</literal>
6056 action, which we enabled above, and which deletes the references to banner
6057 images from the pages while they are loaded, so the browser doesn't request
6058 them anymore, and hence they don't need to be blocked here. But this naturally
6059 doesn't catch all banners, and some people choose not to use filters, so we
6060 need a comprehensive list of patterns for banner URLs here, and apply the
6061 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action to them.
6064 First comes many generic patterns, which do most of the work, by
6065 matching typical domain and path name components of banners. Then comes
6066 a list of individual patterns for specific sites, which is omitted here
6067 to keep the example short:
6072 ##########################################################################
6073 # Block these fine banners:
6074 ##########################################################################
6075 { <link linkend="BLOCK">+block{Banner ads.}</link> }
6083 /.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?)
6084 /(?:.*/)?(publicite|werbung|rekla(ma|me|am)|annonse|maino(kset|nta|s)?)/
6086 # Site-specific patterns (abbreviated):
6088 .hitbox.com</screen>
6092 It's quite remarkable how many advertisers actually call their banner
6093 servers ads.<replaceable>company</replaceable>.com, or call the directory
6094 in which the banners are stored simply <quote>banners</quote>. So the above
6095 generic patterns are surprisingly effective.
6098 But being very generic, they necessarily also catch URLs that we don't want
6099 to block. The pattern <literal>.*ads.</literal> e.g. catches
6100 <quote>nasty-<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.nasty-corp.com</quote> as intended,
6101 but also <quote>downlo<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.sourcefroge.net</quote> or
6102 <quote><emphasis>ads</emphasis>l.some-provider.net.</quote> So here come some
6103 well-known exceptions to the <literal>+<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
6107 Note that these are exceptions to exceptions from the default! Consider the URL
6108 <quote>downloads.sourcefroge.net</quote>: Initially, all actions are deactivated,
6109 so it wouldn't get blocked. Then comes the defaults section, which matches the
6110 URL, but just deactivates the <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
6111 action once again. Then it matches <literal>.*ads.</literal>, an exception to the
6112 general non-blocking policy, and suddenly
6113 <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link></literal> applies. And now, it'll match
6114 <literal>.*loads.</literal>, where <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">-block</link></literal>
6115 applies, so (unless it matches <emphasis>again</emphasis> further down) it ends up
6116 with no <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal> action applying.
6121 ##########################################################################
6122 # Save some innocent victims of the above generic block patterns:
6123 ##########################################################################
6127 { -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
6128 adv[io]*. # (for advogato.org and advice.*)
6129 adsl. # (has nothing to do with ads)
6130 adobe. # (has nothing to do with ads either)
6131 ad[ud]*. # (adult.* and add.*)
6132 .edu # (universities don't host banners (yet!))
6133 .*loads. # (downloads, uploads etc)
6141 www.globalintersec.com/adv # (adv = advanced)
6142 www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv</screen>
6146 Filtering source code can have nasty side effects,
6147 so make an exception for our friends at sourceforge.net,
6148 and all paths with <quote>cvs</quote> in them. Note that
6149 <literal>-<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link></literal>
6150 disables <emphasis>all</emphasis> filters in one fell swoop!
6155 # Don't filter code!
6157 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
6162 .sourceforge.net</screen>
6166 The actual <filename>default.action</filename> is of course much more
6167 comprehensive, but we hope this example made clear how it works.
6172 <sect3><title>user.action</title>
6175 So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies,
6176 which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
6177 you might want to be more specific and have customized rules that
6178 are more suitable to your personal habits and preferences. These would
6179 be for narrowly defined situations like your ISP or your bank, and should
6180 be placed in <filename>user.action</filename>, which is parsed after all other
6181 actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding any previously
6182 defined actions. <filename>user.action</filename> is also a
6183 <emphasis>safe</emphasis> place for your personal settings, since
6184 <filename>default.action</filename> is actively maintained by the
6185 <application>Privoxy</application> developers and you'll probably want
6186 to install updated versions from time to time.
6190 So let's look at a few examples of things that one might typically do in
6191 <filename>user.action</filename>:
6195 <!-- brief sample user.action here -->
6199 # My user.action file. <fred@example.com></screen>
6203 As <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link> are local to the actions
6204 file that they are defined in, you can't use the ones from
6205 <filename>default.action</filename>, unless you repeat them here:
6210 # Aliases are local to the file they are defined in.
6211 # (Re-)define aliases for this file:
6215 # These aliases just save typing later, and the alias names should
6216 # be self explanatory.
6218 +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
6219 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
6220 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
6221 allow-popups = -filter{all-popups}
6222 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked as image.} +handle-as-image
6223 -block-as-image = -block
6225 # These aliases define combinations of actions that are useful for
6226 # certain types of sites:
6228 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referrer
6229 shop = -crunch-all-cookies allow-popups
6231 # Allow ads for selected useful free sites:
6233 allow-ads = -block -filter{banners-by-size} -filter{banners-by-link}
6235 # Alias for specific file types that are text, but might have conflicting
6236 # MIME types. We want the browser to force these to be text documents.
6237 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>
6242 Say you have accounts on some sites that you visit regularly, and
6243 you don't want to have to log in manually each time. So you'd like
6244 to allow persistent cookies for these sites. The
6245 <literal>allow-all-cookies</literal> alias defined above does exactly
6246 that, i.e. it disables crunching of cookies in any direction, and the
6247 processing of cookies to make them only temporary.
6252 { allow-all-cookies }
6256 .redhat.com</screen>
6260 Your bank is allergic to some filter, but you don't know which, so you disable them all:
6265 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
6266 .your-home-banking-site.com</screen>
6270 Some file types you may not want to filter for various reasons:
6275 # Technical documentation is likely to contain strings that might
6276 # erroneously get altered by the JavaScript-oriented filters:
6281 # And this stupid host sends streaming video with a wrong MIME type,
6282 # so that Privoxy thinks it is getting HTML and starts filtering:
6284 stupid-server.example.com/</screen>
6288 Example of a simple <link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> action. Say you've
6289 seen an ad on your favourite page on example.com that you want to get rid of.
6290 You have right-clicked the image, selected <quote>copy image location</quote>
6291 and pasted the URL below while removing the leading http://, into a
6292 <literal>{ +block{} }</literal> section. Note that <literal>{ +handle-as-image
6293 }</literal> need not be specified, since all URLs ending in
6294 <literal>.gif</literal> will be tagged as images by the general rules as set
6295 in default.action anyway:
6300 { +<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link>{Nasty ads.} }
6301 www.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor\.gif
6302 another.example.net/more/junk/here/</screen>
6306 The URLs of dynamically generated banners, especially from large banner
6307 farms, often don't use the well-known image file name extensions, which
6308 makes it impossible for <application>Privoxy</application> to guess
6309 the file type just by looking at the URL.
6310 You can use the <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above for
6312 Note that objects which match this rule but then turn out NOT to be an
6313 image are typically rendered as a <quote>broken image</quote> icon by the
6314 browser. Use cautiously.
6323 ar.atwola.com/</screen>
6327 Now you noticed that the default configuration breaks Forbes Magazine,
6328 but you were too lazy to find out which action is the culprit, and you
6329 were again too lazy to give <link linkend="contact">feedback</link>, so
6330 you just used the <literal>fragile</literal> alias on the site, and
6331 -- <emphasis>whoa!</emphasis> -- it worked. The <literal>fragile</literal>
6332 aliases disables those actions that are most likely to break a site. Also,
6333 good for testing purposes to see if it is <application>Privoxy</application>
6334 that is causing the problem or not. We later find other regular sites
6335 that misbehave, and add those to our personalized list of troublemakers:
6343 .mybank.com</screen>
6347 You like the <quote>fun</quote> text replacements in <filename>default.filter</filename>,
6348 but it is disabled in the distributed actions file.
6349 So you'd like to turn it on in your private,
6350 update-safe config, once and for all:
6355 { +<link linkend="filter-fun">filter{fun}</link> }
6356 / # For ALL sites!</screen>
6360 Note that the above is not really a good idea: There are exceptions
6361 to the filters in <filename>default.action</filename> for things that
6362 really shouldn't be filtered, like code on CVS->Web interfaces. Since
6363 <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word, these exceptions
6364 won't be valid for the <quote>fun</quote> filtering specified here.
6368 You might also worry about how your favourite free websites are
6369 funded, and find that they rely on displaying banner advertisements
6370 to survive. So you might want to specifically allow banners for those
6371 sites that you feel provide value to you:
6383 Note that <literal>allow-ads</literal> has been aliased to
6384 <literal>-<link linkend="block">block</link></literal>,
6385 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-size">filter{banners-by-size}</link></literal>, and
6386 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-link">filter{banners-by-link}</link></literal> above.
6390 Invoke another alias here to force an over-ride of the MIME type <literal>
6391 application/x-sh</literal> which typically would open a download type
6392 dialog. In my case, I want to look at the shell script, and then I can save
6393 it should I choose to.
6403 <filename>user.action</filename> is generally the best place to define
6404 exceptions and additions to the default policies of
6405 <filename>default.action</filename>. Some actions are safe to have their
6406 default policies set here though. So let's set a default policy to have a
6407 <quote>blank</quote> image as opposed to the checkerboard pattern for
6408 <emphasis>ALL</emphasis> sites. <quote>/</quote> of course matches all URL
6414 { +<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker{blank}</link> }
6415 / # ALL sites</screen>
6421 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6425 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6427 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
6429 <sect1 id="filter-file">
6430 <title>Filter Files</title>
6433 On-the-fly text substitutions need
6434 to be defined in a <quote>filter file</quote>. Once defined, they
6435 can then be invoked as an <quote>action</quote>.
6439 &my-app; supports three different filter actions:
6440 <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> to
6441 rewrite the content that is send to the client,
6442 <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header-filter</link></literal>
6443 to rewrite headers that are send by the client, and
6444 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header-filter</link></literal>
6445 to rewrite headers that are send by the server.
6449 &my-app; also supports two tagger actions:
6450 <literal><link linkend="client-header-tagger">client-header-tagger</link></literal>
6452 <literal><link linkend="server-header-tagger">server-header-tagger</link></literal>.
6453 Taggers and filters use the same syntax in the filter files, the difference
6454 is that taggers don't modify the text they are filtering, but use a rewritten
6455 version of the filtered text as tag. The tags can then be used to change the
6456 applying actions through sections with <link linkend="tag-pattern">tag-patterns</link>.
6461 Multiple filter files can be defined through the <literal> <link
6462 linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal> config directive. The filters
6463 as supplied by the developers are located in
6464 <filename>default.filter</filename>. It is recommended that any locally
6465 defined or modified filters go in a separately defined file such as
6466 <filename>user.filter</filename>.
6470 Common tasks for content filters are to eliminate common annoyances in
6471 HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows,
6472 exit consoles, crippled windows without navigation tools, the
6473 infamous <BLINK> tag etc, to suppress images with certain
6474 width and height attributes (standard banner sizes or web-bugs),
6475 or just to have fun.
6479 Enabled content filters are applied to any content whose
6480 <quote>Content Type</quote> header is recognised as a sign
6481 of text-based content, with the exception of <literal>text/plain</literal>.
6482 Use the <link linkend="FORCE-TEXT-MODE">force-text-mode</link> action
6483 to also filter other content.
6487 Substitutions are made at the source level, so if you want to <quote>roll
6488 your own</quote> filters, you should first be familiar with HTML syntax,
6489 and, of course, regular expressions.
6493 Just like the <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, the
6494 filter file is organized in sections, which are called <emphasis>filters</emphasis>
6495 here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with one of the
6496 <emphasis>keywords</emphasis> <literal>FILTER:</literal>,
6497 <literal>CLIENT-HEADER-FILTER:</literal> or <literal>SERVER-HEADER-FILTER:</literal>
6498 followed by the filter's <emphasis>name</emphasis>, and a short (one line)
6499 <emphasis>description</emphasis> of what it does. Below that line
6500 come the <emphasis>jobs</emphasis>, i.e. lines that define the actual
6501 text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter
6502 should describe what the filter <emphasis>eliminates</emphasis>. The
6503 comment is used in the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
6504 user interface</ulink>.
6508 Once a filter called <replaceable>name</replaceable> has been defined
6509 in the filter file, it can be invoked by using an action of the form
6510 +<literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>name</replaceable>}</literal>
6511 in any <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>.
6515 Filter definitions start with a header line that contains the filter
6516 type, the filter name and the filter description.
6517 A content filter header line for a filter called <quote>foo</quote> could look
6522 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"</screen>
6526 Below that line, and up to the next header line, come the jobs that
6527 define what text replacements the filter executes. They are specified
6528 in a syntax that imitates <ulink url="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</ulink>'s
6529 <literal>s///</literal> operator. If you are familiar with Perl, you
6530 will find this to be quite intuitive, and may want to look at the
6531 PCRS documentation for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour. Most
6532 notably, the non-standard option letter <literal>U</literal> is supported,
6533 which turns the default to ungreedy matching.
6538 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
6539 Expressions</quote></ulink>, you might want to take a look at
6540 the <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>, and
6541 see the <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">Perl
6543 <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlop.html">the
6544 <literal>s///</literal> operator's syntax</ulink> and <ulink
6545 url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">Perl-style regular
6546 expressions</ulink> in general.
6547 The below examples might also help to get you started.
6551 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
6553 <sect2><title>Filter File Tutorial</title>
6555 Now, let's complete our <quote>foo</quote> content filter. We have already defined
6556 the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace
6557 <quote>foo</quote> with <quote>bar</quote>, there is only one (trivial) job
6562 <screen>s/foo/bar/</screen>
6566 But wait! Didn't the comment say that <emphasis>all</emphasis> occurrences
6567 of <quote>foo</quote> should be replaced? Our current job will only take
6568 care of the first <quote>foo</quote> on each page. For global substitution,
6569 we'll need to add the <literal>g</literal> option:
6573 <screen>s/foo/bar/g</screen>
6577 Our complete filter now looks like this:
6580 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"
6581 s/foo/bar/g</screen>
6585 Let's look at some real filters for more interesting examples. Here you see
6586 a filter that protects against some common annoyances that arise from JavaScript
6587 abuse. Let's look at its jobs one after the other:
6593 FILTER: js-annoyances Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
6595 # Get rid of JavaScript referrer tracking. Test page: http://www.randomoddness.com/untitled.htm
6597 s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|Usg</screen>
6601 Following the header line and a comment, you see the job. Note that it uses
6602 <literal>|</literal> as the delimiter instead of <literal>/</literal>, because
6603 the pattern contains a forward slash, which would otherwise have to be escaped
6604 by a backslash (<literal>\</literal>).
6608 Now, let's examine the pattern: it starts with the text <literal><script.*</literal>
6609 enclosed in parentheses. Since the dot matches any character, and <literal>*</literal>
6610 means: <quote>Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself</quote>, this
6611 matches <quote><script</quote>, followed by <emphasis>any</emphasis> text, i.e.
6612 it matches the whole page, from the start of the first <script> tag.
6616 That's more than we want, but the pattern continues: <literal>document\.referrer</literal>
6617 matches only the exact string <quote>document.referrer</quote>. The dot needed to
6618 be <emphasis>escaped</emphasis>, i.e. preceded by a backslash, to take away its
6619 special meaning as a joker, and make it just a regular dot. So far, the meaning is:
6620 Match from the start of the first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including,
6621 the text <quote>document.referrer</quote>, if <emphasis>both</emphasis> are present
6622 in the page (and appear in that order).
6626 But there's still more pattern to go. The next element, again enclosed in parentheses,
6627 is <literal>.*</script></literal>. You already know what <literal>.*</literal>
6628 means, so the whole pattern translates to: Match from the start of the first <script>
6629 tag in a page to the end of the last <script> tag, provided that the text
6630 <quote>document.referrer</quote> appears somewhere in between.
6634 This is still not the whole story, since we have ignored the options and the parentheses:
6635 The portions of the page matched by sub-patterns that are enclosed in parentheses, will be
6636 remembered and be available through the variables <literal>$1, $2, ...</literal> in
6637 the substitute. The <literal>U</literal> option switches to ungreedy matching, which means
6638 that the first <literal>.*</literal> in the pattern will only <quote>eat up</quote> all
6639 text in between <quote><script</quote> and the <emphasis>first</emphasis> occurrence
6640 of <quote>document.referrer</quote>, and that the second <literal>.*</literal> will
6641 only span the text up to the <emphasis>first</emphasis> <quote></script></quote>
6642 tag. Furthermore, the <literal>s</literal> option says that the match may span
6643 multiple lines in the page, and the <literal>g</literal> option again means that the
6644 substitution is global.
6648 So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text
6649 <quote>document.referrer</quote>. Remember the parts of the script from
6650 (and including) the start tag up to (and excluding) the string
6651 <quote>document.referrer</quote> as <literal>$1</literal>, and the part following
6652 that string, up to and including the closing tag, as <literal>$2</literal>.
6656 Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So
6657 lets look at the substitute: <literal>$1"Not Your Business!"$2</literal> is
6658 easy to read: The text remembered as <literal>$1</literal>, followed by
6659 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> (<emphasis>including</emphasis>
6660 the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as <literal>$2</literal>.
6661 This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part
6662 (the <quote>document.referrer</quote>) replaced by <literal>"Not Your
6663 Business!"</literal>.
6667 The whole job now reads: Replace <quote>document.referrer</quote> by
6668 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> wherever it appears inside a
6669 <script> tag. Note that this job won't break JavaScript syntax,
6670 since both the original and the replacement are syntactically valid
6671 string objects. The script just won't have access to the referrer
6672 information anymore.
6676 We'll show you two other jobs from the JavaScript taming department, but
6677 this time only point out the constructs of special interest:
6682 # The status bar is for displaying link targets, not pointless blahblah
6684 s/window\.status\s*=\s*(['"]).*?\1/dUmMy=1/ig</screen>
6688 <literal>\s</literal> stands for whitespace characters (space, tab, newline,
6689 carriage return, form feed), so that <literal>\s*</literal> means: <quote>zero
6690 or more whitespace</quote>. The <literal>?</literal> in <literal>.*?</literal>
6691 makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the <literal>U</literal>
6692 option is not set). The <literal>['"]</literal> construct means: <quote>a single
6693 <emphasis>or</emphasis> a double quote</quote>. Finally, <literal>\1</literal> is
6694 a back-reference to the first parenthesis just like <literal>$1</literal> above,
6695 with the difference that in the <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>, a backslash indicates
6696 a back-reference, whereas in the <emphasis>substitute</emphasis>, it's the dollar.
6700 So what does this job do? It replaces assignments of single- or double-quoted
6701 strings to the <quote>window.status</quote> object with a dummy assignment
6702 (using a variable name that is hopefully odd enough not to conflict with
6703 real variables in scripts). Thus, it catches many cases where e.g. pointless
6704 descriptions are displayed in the status bar instead of the link target when
6705 you move your mouse over links.
6710 # Kill OnUnload popups. Yummy. Test: http://www.zdnet.com/zdsubs/yahoo/tree/yfs.html
6712 s/(<body [^>]*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU</screen>
6717 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">OnUnload
6718 event binding</ulink> in the HTML DOM was a <emphasis>CRIME</emphasis>.
6719 When I close a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta.
6720 This job replaces the <quote>onunload</quote> attribute in
6721 <quote><body></quote> tags with the dummy word <literal>never</literal>.
6722 Note that the <literal>i</literal> option makes the pattern matching
6723 case-insensitive. Also note that ungreedy matching alone doesn't always guarantee
6724 a minimal match: In the first parenthesis, we had to use <literal>[^>]*</literal>
6725 instead of <literal>.*</literal> to prevent the match from exceeding the
6726 <body> tag if it doesn't contain <quote>OnUnload</quote>, but the page's
6731 The last example is from the fun department:
6736 FILTER: fun Fun text replacements
6738 # Spice the daily news:
6740 s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig</screen>
6744 Note the <literal>(?!\.com)</literal> part (a so-called negative lookahead)
6745 in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
6746 <quote>.com</quote> appears directly following <quote>microsoft</quote>
6747 in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being trashed, while
6748 still replacing the word everywhere else.
6753 # Buzzword Bingo (example for extended regex syntax)
6755 s* industry[ -]leading \
6757 | customer[ -]focused \
6758 | market[ -]driven \
6759 | award[ -]winning # Comments are OK, too! \
6760 | high[ -]performance \
6761 | solutions[ -]based \
6765 *<font color="red"><b>BINGO!</b></font> \
6770 The <literal>x</literal> option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for
6771 e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
6779 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
6781 <sect2 id="predefined-filters"><title>The Pre-defined Filters</title>
6785 Note each filter is also listed in the +filter action section above. Please
6786 keep these listings in sync.
6791 The distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file contains a selection of
6792 pre-defined filters for your convenience:
6797 <term><emphasis>js-annoyances</emphasis></term>
6800 The purpose of this filter is to get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse.
6805 replaces JavaScript references to the browser's referrer information
6806 with the string "Not Your Business!". This compliments the <literal><link
6807 linkend="hide-referrer">hide-referrer</link></literal> action on the content level.
6812 removes the bindings to the DOM's
6813 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">unload
6814 event</ulink> which we feel has no right to exist and is responsible for most <quote>exit consoles</quote>, i.e.
6815 nasty windows that pop up when you close another one.
6820 removes code that causes new windows to be opened with undesired properties, such as being
6821 full-screen, non-resizeable, without location, status or menu bar etc.
6827 Use with caution. This is an aggressive filter, and can break sites that
6828 rely heavily on JavaScript.
6834 <term><emphasis>js-events</emphasis></term>
6837 This is a very radical measure. It removes virtually all JavaScript event bindings, which
6838 means that scripts can not react to user actions such as mouse movements or clicks, window
6839 resizing etc, anymore. Use with caution!
6842 We <emphasis>strongly discourage</emphasis> using this filter as a default since it breaks
6843 many legitimate scripts. It is meant for use only on extra-nasty sites (should you really
6850 <term><emphasis>html-annoyances</emphasis></term>
6853 This filter will undo many common instances of HTML based abuse.
6856 The <literal>BLINK</literal> and <literal>MARQUEE</literal> tags
6857 are neutralized (yeah baby!), and browser windows will be created as
6858 resizeable (as of course they should be!), and will have location,
6859 scroll and menu bars -- even if specified otherwise.
6865 <term><emphasis>content-cookies</emphasis></term>
6868 Most cookies are set in the HTTP dialog, where they can be intercepted
6870 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>
6871 and <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>
6872 actions. But web sites increasingly make use of HTML meta tags and JavaScript
6873 to sneak cookies to the browser on the content level.
6876 This filter disables most HTML and JavaScript code that reads or sets
6877 cookies. It cannot detect all clever uses of these types of code, so it
6878 should not be relied on as an absolute fix. Use it wherever you would also
6879 use the cookie crunch actions.
6885 <term><emphasis>refresh tags</emphasis></term>
6888 Disable any refresh tags if the interval is greater than nine seconds (so
6889 that redirections done via refresh tags are not destroyed). This is useful
6890 for dial-on-demand setups, or for those who find this HTML feature
6897 <term><emphasis>unsolicited-popups</emphasis></term>
6900 This filter attempts to prevent only <quote>unsolicited</quote> pop-up
6901 windows from opening, yet still allow pop-up windows that the user
6902 has explicitly chosen to open. It was added in version 3.0.1,
6903 as an improvement over earlier such filters.
6906 Technical note: The filter works by redefining the window.open JavaScript
6907 function to a dummy function, <literal>PrivoxyWindowOpen()</literal>,
6908 during the loading and rendering phase of each HTML page access, and
6909 restoring the function afterward.
6912 This is recommended only for browsers that cannot perform this function
6913 reliably themselves. And be aware that some sites require such windows
6914 in order to function normally. Use with caution.
6920 <term><emphasis>all-popups</emphasis></term>
6923 Attempt to prevent <emphasis>all</emphasis> pop-up windows from opening.
6924 Note this should be used with even more discretion than the above, since
6925 it is more likely to break some sites that require pop-ups for normal
6926 usage. Use with caution.
6932 <term><emphasis>img-reorder</emphasis></term>
6935 This is a helper filter that has no value if used alone. It makes the
6936 <literal>banners-by-size</literal> and <literal>banners-by-link</literal>
6937 (see below) filters more effective and should be enabled together with them.
6943 <term><emphasis>banners-by-size</emphasis></term>
6946 This filter removes image tags purely based on what size they are. Fortunately
6947 for us, many ads and banner images tend to conform to certain standardized
6948 sizes, which makes this filter quite effective for ad stripping purposes.
6951 Occasionally this filter will cause false positives on images that are not ads,
6952 but just happen to be of one of the standard banner sizes.
6955 Recommended only for those who require extreme ad blocking. The default
6956 block rules should catch 95+% of all ads <emphasis>without</emphasis> this filter enabled.
6962 <term><emphasis>banners-by-link</emphasis></term>
6965 This is an experimental filter that attempts to kill any banners if
6966 their URLs seem to point to known or suspected click trackers. It is currently
6967 not of much value and is not recommended for use by default.
6973 <term><emphasis>webbugs</emphasis></term>
6976 Webbugs are small, invisible images (technically 1X1 GIF images), that
6977 are used to track users across websites, and collect information on them.
6978 As an HTML page is loaded by the browser, an embedded image tag causes the
6979 browser to contact a third-party site, disclosing the tracking information
6980 through the requested URL and/or cookies for that third-party domain, without
6981 the user ever becoming aware of the interaction with the third-party site.
6982 HTML-ized spam also uses a similar technique to verify email addresses.
6985 This filter removes the HTML code that loads such <quote>webbugs</quote>.
6991 <term><emphasis>tiny-textforms</emphasis></term>
6994 A rather special-purpose filter that can be used to enlarge textareas (those
6995 multi-line text boxes in web forms) and turn off hard word wrap in them.
6996 It was written for the sourceforge.net tracker system where such boxes are
6997 a nuisance, but it can be handy on other sites, too.
7000 It is not recommended to use this filter as a default.
7006 <term><emphasis>jumping-windows</emphasis></term>
7009 Many consider windows that move, or resize themselves to be abusive. This filter
7010 neutralizes the related JavaScript code. Note that some sites might not display
7011 or behave as intended when using this filter. Use with caution.
7017 <term><emphasis>frameset-borders</emphasis></term>
7020 Some web designers seem to assume that everyone in the world will view their
7021 web sites using the same browser brand and version, screen resolution etc,
7022 because only that assumption could explain why they'd use static frame sizes,
7023 yet prevent their frames from being resized by the user, should they be too
7024 small to show their whole content.
7027 This filter removes the related HTML code. It should only be applied to sites
7034 <term><emphasis>demoronizer</emphasis></term>
7037 Many Microsoft products that generate HTML use non-standard extensions (read:
7038 violations) of the ISO 8859-1 aka Latin-1 character set. This can cause those
7039 HTML documents to display with errors on standard-compliant platforms.
7042 This filter translates the MS-only characters into Latin-1 equivalents.
7043 It is not necessary when using MS products, and will cause corruption of
7044 all documents that use 8-bit character sets other than Latin-1. It's mostly
7045 worthwhile for Europeans on non-MS platforms, if weird garbage characters
7046 sometimes appear on some pages, or user agents that don't correct for this on
7049 My version of Mozilla (ancient) shows litte square boxes for quote
7050 characters, and apostrophes on moronized pages. So many pages have this, I
7051 can read them fine now. HB 08/27/06
7058 <term><emphasis>shockwave-flash</emphasis></term>
7061 A filter for shockwave haters. As the name suggests, this filter strips code
7062 out of web pages that is used to embed shockwave flash objects.
7070 <term><emphasis>quicktime-kioskmode</emphasis></term>
7073 Change HTML code that embeds Quicktime objects so that kioskmode, which
7074 prevents saving, is disabled.
7080 <term><emphasis>fun</emphasis></term>
7083 Text replacements for subversive browsing fun. Make fun of your favorite
7084 Monopolist or play buzzword bingo.
7090 <term><emphasis>crude-parental</emphasis></term>
7093 A demonstration-only filter that shows how <application>Privoxy</application>
7094 can be used to delete web content on a keyword basis.
7100 <term><emphasis>ie-exploits</emphasis></term>
7103 An experimental collection of text replacements to disable malicious HTML and JavaScript
7104 code that exploits known security holes in Internet Explorer.
7107 Presently, it only protects against Nimda and a cross-site scripting bug, and
7108 would need active maintenance to provide more substantial protection.
7114 <term><emphasis>site-specifics</emphasis></term>
7117 Some web sites have very specific problems, the cure for which doesn't apply
7118 anywhere else, or could even cause damage on other sites.
7121 This is a collection of such site-specific cures which should only be applied
7122 to the sites they were intended for, which is what the supplied
7123 <filename>default.action</filename> file does. Users shouldn't need to change
7124 anything regarding this filter.
7130 <term><emphasis>google</emphasis></term>
7133 A CSS based block for Google text ads. Also removes a width limitation
7134 and the toolbar advertisement.
7140 <term><emphasis>yahoo</emphasis></term>
7143 Another CSS based block, this time for Yahoo text ads. And removes
7144 a width limitation as well.
7150 <term><emphasis>msn</emphasis></term>
7153 Another CSS based block, this time for MSN text ads. And removes
7154 tracking URLs, as well as a width limitation.
7160 <term><emphasis>blogspot</emphasis></term>
7163 Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this one!
7166 This filter also intentionally removes some navigation stuff and sets the
7167 page width to 100%. As a result, some rounded <quote>corners</quote> would
7168 appear to early or not at all and as fixing this would require a browser
7169 that understands background-size (CSS3), they are removed instead.
7175 <term><emphasis>xml-to-html</emphasis></term>
7178 Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from xml to html.
7184 <term><emphasis>html-to-xml</emphasis></term>
7187 Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from html to xml.
7193 <term><emphasis>no-ping</emphasis></term>
7196 Removes the non-standard <literal>ping</literal> attribute from
7197 anchor and area HTML tags.
7203 <term><emphasis>hide-tor-exit-notation</emphasis></term>
7206 Client-header filter to remove the <command>Tor</command> exit node notation
7207 found in Host and Referer headers.
7210 If &my-app; and <command>Tor</command> are chained and &my-app;
7211 is configured to use socks4a, one can use <quote>http://www.example.org.foobar.exit/</quote>
7212 to access the host <quote>www.example.org</quote> through the
7213 <command>Tor</command> exit node <quote>foobar</quote>.
7216 As the HTTP client isn't aware of this notation, it treats the
7217 whole string <quote>www.example.org.foobar.exit</quote> as host and uses it
7218 for the <quote>Host</quote> and <quote>Referer</quote> headers. From the
7219 server's point of view the resulting headers are invalid and can cause problems.
7222 An invalid <quote>Referer</quote> header can trigger <quote>hot-linking</quote>
7223 protections, an invalid <quote>Host</quote> header will make it impossible for
7224 the server to find the right vhost (several domains hosted on the same IP address).
7227 This client-header filter removes the <quote>foo.exit</quote> part in those headers
7228 to prevent the mentioned problems. Note that it only modifies
7229 the HTTP headers, it doesn't make it impossible for the server
7230 to detect your <command>Tor</command> exit node based on the IP address
7231 the request is coming from.
7238 <term><emphasis> </emphasis></term>
7252 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7256 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7258 <sect1 id="templates">
7259 <title>Privoxy's Template Files</title>
7261 All <application>Privoxy</application> built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
7262 <ulink url="http://show-the-404-error.page"><quote>404 - No Such Domain</quote>
7263 error page</ulink>, the <ulink
7264 url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
7266 and all pages of its <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
7267 user interface</ulink>, are generated from <emphasis>templates</emphasis>.
7268 (<application>Privoxy</application> must be running for the above links to work as
7273 These templates are stored in a subdirectory of the <link linkend="confdir">configuration
7274 directory</link> called <filename>templates</filename>. On Unixish platforms,
7276 <ulink url="file:///etc/privoxy/templates/"><filename>/etc/privoxy/templates/</filename></ulink>.
7280 The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols
7281 or exports), which <application>Privoxy</application> fills at run time. It
7282 is possible to edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want
7283 to customize them. (<emphasis>Not recommended for the casual
7284 user</emphasis>). Should you create your own custom templates, you should use
7285 the <filename>config</filename> setting <link linkend="templdir">templdir</link>
7286 to specify an alternate location, so your templates do not get overwritten
7290 Note that just like in configuration files, lines starting
7291 with <literal>#</literal> are ignored when the templates are filled in.
7295 The place-holders are of the form <literal>@name@</literal>, and you will
7296 find a list of available symbols, which vary from template to template,
7297 in the comments at the start of each file. Note that these comments are not
7298 always accurate, and that it's probably best to look at the existing HTML
7299 code to find out which symbols are supported and what they are filled in with.
7303 A special application of this substitution mechanism is to make whole
7304 blocks of HTML code disappear when a specific symbol is set. We use this
7305 for many purposes, one of them being to include the beta warning in all
7306 our user interface (CGI) pages when <application>Privoxy</application>
7307 is in an alpha or beta development stage:
7312 <!-- @if-unstable-start -->
7314 ... beta warning HTML code goes here ...
7316 <!-- if-unstable-end@ --></screen>
7320 If the "unstable" symbol is set, everything in between and including
7321 <literal>@if-unstable-start</literal> and <literal>if-unstable-end@</literal>
7322 will disappear, leaving nothing but an empty comment:
7326 <screen><!-- --></screen>
7330 There's also an if-then-else construct and an <literal>#include</literal>
7331 mechanism, but you'll sure find out if you are inclined to edit the
7336 All templates refer to a style located at
7337 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet"><literal>http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet</literal></ulink>.
7338 This is, of course, locally served by <application>Privoxy</application>
7339 and the source for it can be found and edited in the
7340 <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> template.
7345 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7349 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7351 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
7354 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
7356 <!-- end boilerplate -->
7360 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7363 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7364 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Privoxy Copyright, License and History</title>
7366 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
7368 <!-- end copyright -->
7370 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7371 <sect2><title>License</title>
7372 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
7374 <!-- end copyright -->
7376 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7379 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7381 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
7382 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
7384 <!-- end history -->
7387 <sect2 id="authors"><title>Authors</title>
7388 <!-- Include p-authors.sgml: -->
7390 <!-- end authors -->
7395 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7398 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7399 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
7400 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
7402 <!-- end seealso -->
7407 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7408 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
7411 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7413 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
7415 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl-style <quote>regular
7416 expressions</quote> in its <link linkend="actions-file">actions
7417 files</link> and <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>,
7418 through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> and
7421 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/">PCRS</ulink> libraries.
7423 <application>PCRS</application> libraries.
7427 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
7428 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
7429 introduction only. A full explanation would require a <ulink
7430 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/">book</ulink> ;-)
7434 Regular expressions provide a language to describe patterns that can be
7435 run against strings of characters (letter, numbers, etc), to see if they
7436 match the string or not. The patterns are themselves (sometimes complex)
7437 strings of literal characters, combined with wild-cards, and other special
7438 characters, called meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have
7439 special meanings and are used to build complex patterns to be matched against.
7440 Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are an especially convenient
7441 <quote>dialect</quote> of the regular expression language.
7445 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
7446 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
7447 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
7448 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
7449 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
7450 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
7451 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
7452 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
7456 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
7457 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
7458 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
7459 and then some examples:
7464 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
7465 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
7467 </simplelist></para>
7471 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
7474 </simplelist></para>
7478 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
7481 </simplelist></para>
7485 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
7488 </simplelist></para>
7492 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
7493 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
7494 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
7495 not as a special meta-character. Example: <quote>example\.com</quote>, makes
7496 sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
7497 meta-character meaning of any single character).
7499 </simplelist></para>
7503 <emphasis>[ ]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
7504 any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, <quote>[0-9]</quote>
7505 matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
7506 this with <quote>+</quote> to match any digit one of more times: <quote>[0-9]+</quote>.
7508 </simplelist></para>
7512 <emphasis>( )</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
7513 or multiple sub-expressions.
7515 </simplelist></para>
7519 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
7520 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
7521 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches. As an example:
7522 <quote>/(this|that) example/</quote> uses grouping and the bar character
7523 and would match either <quote>this example</quote> or <quote>that
7524 example</quote>, and nothing else.
7526 </simplelist></para>
7529 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
7530 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
7531 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
7532 be more illuminating:
7536 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
7537 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
7538 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
7539 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
7540 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
7541 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
7542 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
7543 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
7544 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
7545 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
7546 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
7547 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
7548 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
7549 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
7554 And now something a little more complex:
7558 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
7559 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
7560 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
7561 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
7562 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
7563 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
7564 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
7569 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
7570 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
7571 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
7572 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
7573 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
7574 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
7575 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
7576 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
7577 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
7578 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
7579 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
7580 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
7581 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
7582 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
7583 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
7584 changing our regular expression to:
7585 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
7590 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
7591 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
7592 <quote>[ ]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
7593 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
7594 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
7595 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
7596 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
7597 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
7598 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
7599 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
7600 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
7601 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
7602 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
7603 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
7604 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
7605 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
7606 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
7607 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
7608 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
7609 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
7610 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
7611 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
7612 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
7613 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
7614 in the expression anywhere).
7618 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
7619 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
7620 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
7621 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
7622 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
7627 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
7628 <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html</ulink>
7632 For information on regular expression based substitutions and their applications
7633 in filters, please see the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file tutorial</link>
7638 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7641 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7643 <title>Privoxy's Internal Pages</title>
7646 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
7647 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
7648 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
7649 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
7650 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
7651 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
7652 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
7658 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
7659 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
7660 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
7661 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
7674 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
7678 There is a shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> (But it
7679 doesn't provide a fall-back to a real page, in case the request is not
7680 sent through <application>Privoxy</application>)
7686 Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
7687 editing of actions files:
7691 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
7698 Show the source code version numbers:
7702 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
7709 Show the browser's request headers:
7713 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
7720 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
7724 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
7731 Toggle Privoxy on or off. This feature can be turned off/on in the main
7732 <filename>config</filename> file. When toggled <quote>off</quote>, <quote>Privoxy</quote>
7733 continues to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking
7738 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
7742 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
7746 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
7751 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
7760 These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
7764 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
7765 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
7767 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
7768 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
7769 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
7770 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
7771 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
7772 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
7775 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
7776 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
7777 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
7778 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
7779 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
7780 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
7789 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>
7796 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>
7803 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)
7810 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>
7816 <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>
7822 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info?url='+escape(location.href),'Why').focus());">Privoxy - Why?</ulink>
7829 Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
7830 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com/">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
7831 have more information about bookmarklets.
7840 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7842 <title>Chain of Events</title>
7844 Let's take a quick look at how some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
7845 core features are triggered, and the ensuing sequence of events when a web
7846 page is requested by your browser:
7853 First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
7854 the request to <application>Privoxy</application>, which will in turn,
7855 relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
7861 <application>Privoxy</application> traps any request for its own internal CGI
7862 pages (e.g <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
7867 Next, <application>Privoxy</application> checks to see if the URL
7869 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link> patterns. If
7870 so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
7871 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>
7873 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-EMPTY-DOCUMENT"><quote>+handle-as-empty-document</quote></link>
7874 are then checked, and if there is no match, an
7875 HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page is sent back to the browser. Otherwise, if
7876 it does match, an image is returned for the former, and an empty text
7877 document for the latter. The type of image would depend on the setting of
7878 <link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></link>
7879 (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
7884 Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
7885 <filename>trust</filename> file, then that is done.
7890 If the URL pattern matches the <link
7891 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link> action,
7892 it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
7897 Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
7898 of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. <link
7899 linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT"><quote>+hide-user-agent</quote></link>,
7900 etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
7906 Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web
7912 First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
7913 things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
7914 filtered as determined by the
7915 <link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES"><quote>+crunch-incoming-cookies</quote></link>,
7916 <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>,
7917 and <link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION"><quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote></link>
7923 If any <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
7925 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
7926 action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
7927 read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from
7928 <filename>default.filter</filename> and any other filter files) are
7929 processed against the buffered content. Filters are applied in the order
7930 they are specified in one of the filter files. Animated GIFs, if present,
7931 are reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
7932 setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
7933 <application>Privoxy</application> back to your browser.
7936 If neither a <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
7938 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
7939 matches, then <application>Privoxy</application> passes the raw data through
7940 to the client browser as it becomes available.
7945 As the browser receives the now (possibly filtered) page content, it
7946 reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
7947 source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
7948 frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a
7949 separate request (this is easily viewable in <application>Privoxy's</application>
7950 logs). And each such request is in turn processed just as above. Note that a
7951 complex web page will have many, many such embedded URLs. If these
7952 secondary requests are to a different server, then quite possibly a very
7953 differing set of actions is triggered.
7960 NOTE: This is somewhat of a simplistic overview of what happens with each URL
7961 request. For the sake of brevity and simplicity, we have focused on
7962 <application>Privoxy's</application> core features only.
7968 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7969 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
7970 <title>Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</title>
7973 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies
7974 <link linkend="ACTIONS">actions</link> and <link linkend="FILTER">filters</link>
7975 to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
7976 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
7977 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
7978 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
7979 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
7980 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
7981 <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> whose consequences are not
7986 One quick test to see if <application>Privoxy</application> is causing a problem
7987 or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
7988 step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
7989 and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!). Looking at the
7990 logs is a good idea too. (Note that both the toggle feature and logging are
7991 enabled via <filename>config</filename> file settings, and may need to be
7992 turned <quote>on</quote>.)
7995 Another easy troubleshooting step to try is if you have done any
7996 customization of your installation, revert back to the installed
7997 defaults and see if that helps. There are times the developers get complaints
7998 about one thing or another, and the problem is more related to a customized
7999 configuration issue.
8003 <application>Privoxy</application> also provides the
8004 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
8005 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
8006 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
8010 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
8011 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
8012 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
8013 help with filtering effects (i.e. the <link
8014 linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action) from
8015 one of the filter files since this is handled very
8016 differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other
8017 URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images
8018 such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So
8019 you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area
8020 -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you
8021 will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View
8022 Page Source</quote> option for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the
8027 Let's try an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
8028 and look at it one section at a time in a sample configuration (your real
8029 configuration may vary):
8034 Matches for http://www.google.com:
8036 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8038 {+change-x-forwarded-for{block}
8039 +deanimate-gifs {last}
8040 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
8041 +filter {refresh-tags}
8042 +filter {img-reorder}
8043 +filter {banners-by-size}
8045 +filter {jumping-windows}
8046 +filter {ie-exploits}
8047 +hide-from-header {block}
8048 +hide-referrer {forge}
8049 +session-cookies-only
8050 +set-image-blocker {pattern}
8053 { -session-cookies-only }
8059 In file: user.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8060 (no matches in this file)
8065 This is telling us how we have defined our
8066 <link linkend="ACTIONS"><quote>actions</quote></link>, and
8067 which ones match for our test case, <quote>google.com</quote>.
8068 Displayed is all the actions that are available to us. Remember,
8069 the <literal>+</literal> sign denotes <quote>on</quote>. <literal>-</literal>
8070 denotes <quote>off</quote>. So some are <quote>on</quote> here, but many
8071 are <quote>off</quote>. Each example we try may provide a slightly different
8072 end result, depending on our configuration directives.
8076 is for our <filename>default.action</filename> file. The large, multi-line
8077 listing, is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default
8078 settings. If you look at your <quote>actions</quote> file, this would be the
8079 section just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section near the top. This
8080 will apply to all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end
8081 of the listing -- <quote> / </quote>.
8085 But we have defined additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
8086 rules, and then we list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions
8087 would apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit
8088 matches for <quote>.google.com</quote>. The first is negating our previous
8089 cookie setting, which was for <link
8090 linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>
8091 (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google, at
8092 least that is how it is in this example. The second turns
8093 <emphasis>off</emphasis> any <link
8094 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link>
8095 action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading
8096 dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will match any hosts and
8097 sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
8098 <quote>www.google.com</quote> or <quote>mail.google.com</quote>. But it would not
8099 match <quote>www.google.de</quote>! So, apparently, we have these two actions
8100 defined as exceptions to the general rules at the top somewhere in the lower
8101 part of our <filename>default.action</filename> file, and
8102 <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced somewhere in these latter sections.
8106 Then, for our <filename>user.action</filename> file, we again have no hits.
8107 So there is nothing google-specific that we might have added to our own, local
8108 configuration. If there was, those actions would over-rule any actions from
8109 previously processed files, such as <filename>default.action</filename>.
8110 <filename>user.action</filename> typically has the last word. This is the
8111 best place to put hard and fast exceptions,
8115 And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
8116 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
8117 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
8128 +change-x-forwarded-for{block}
8129 -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
8130 -content-type-overwrite
8131 -crunch-client-header
8132 -crunch-if-none-match
8133 -crunch-incoming-cookies
8134 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
8135 -crunch-server-header
8136 +deanimate-gifs {last}
8137 -downgrade-http-version
8140 -filter {content-cookies}
8141 -filter {all-popups}
8142 -filter {banners-by-link}
8143 -filter {tiny-textforms}
8144 -filter {frameset-borders}
8145 -filter {demoronizer}
8146 -filter {shockwave-flash}
8147 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
8149 -filter {crude-parental}
8150 -filter {site-specifics}
8151 -filter {js-annoyances}
8152 -filter {html-annoyances}
8153 +filter {refresh-tags}
8154 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
8155 +filter {img-reorder}
8156 +filter {banners-by-size}
8158 +filter {jumping-windows}
8159 +filter {ie-exploits}
8166 -handle-as-empty-document
8168 -hide-accept-language
8169 -hide-content-disposition
8170 +hide-from-header {block}
8171 -hide-if-modified-since
8172 +hide-referrer {forge}
8175 -overwrite-last-modified
8176 -prevent-compression
8178 -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
8179 -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
8180 -session-cookies-only
8181 +set-image-blocker {pattern} </screen>
8185 Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
8186 <quote>fast-redirects</quote> and <quote>session-cookies-only</quote>,
8187 which are activated specifically for this site in our configuration,
8188 and thus show in the <quote>Final Results</quote>.
8192 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
8198 { +block{Domains starts with "ad"} }
8201 { +block{Domain contains "ad"} }
8204 { +block{Doubleclick banner server} +handle-as-image }
8205 .[a-vx-z]*.doubleclick.net
8210 We'll just show the interesting part here - the explicit matches. It is
8211 matched three different times. Two <quote>+block{}</quote> sections,
8212 and a <quote>+block{} +handle-as-image</quote>,
8213 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
8214 <quote>+block-as-image</quote>. (<link
8215 linkend="ALIASES"><quote>Aliases</quote></link> are defined in
8216 the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
8221 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
8222 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
8223 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
8224 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
8225 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
8226 is done here -- as both a <link
8227 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block{}</quote></link>
8228 <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
8229 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>.
8230 The custom alias <quote><literal>+block-as-image</literal></quote> just
8231 simplifies the process and make it more readable.
8235 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
8236 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm ...
8242 Matches for http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
8244 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8248 +change-x-forwarded-for{block}
8249 -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
8250 -content-type-overwrite
8251 -crunch-client-header
8252 -crunch-if-none-match
8253 -crunch-incoming-cookies
8254 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
8255 -crunch-server-header
8257 -downgrade-http-version
8258 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
8260 -filter {content-cookies}
8261 -filter {all-popups}
8262 -filter {banners-by-link}
8263 -filter {tiny-textforms}
8264 -filter {frameset-borders}
8265 -filter {demoronizer}
8266 -filter {shockwave-flash}
8267 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
8269 -filter {crude-parental}
8270 -filter {site-specifics}
8271 -filter {js-annoyances}
8272 -filter {html-annoyances}
8273 +filter {refresh-tags}
8274 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
8275 +filter {img-reorder}
8276 +filter {banners-by-size}
8278 +filter {jumping-windows}
8279 +filter {ie-exploits}
8286 -handle-as-empty-document
8288 -hide-accept-language
8289 -hide-content-disposition
8290 +hide-from-header{block}
8291 +hide-referer{forge}
8293 -overwrite-last-modified
8294 +prevent-compression
8296 -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
8297 -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
8298 +session-cookies-only
8299 +set-image-blocker{blank} }
8302 { +block{Path contains "ads".} +handle-as-image }
8308 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote> in our
8309 configuration! But we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the
8310 blank page. It is actually triggering two different actions here, and
8311 the effects are aggregated so that the URL is blocked, and &my-app; is told
8312 to treat the block as if it were an image. But this is, of course, all wrong.
8313 We could now add a new action below this (or better in our own
8314 <filename>user.action</filename> file) that explicitly
8315 <emphasis>un</emphasis> blocks (
8316 <link linkend="BLOCK"><quote>{-block}</quote></link>) paths with
8317 <quote>adsl</quote> in them (remember, last match in the configuration
8318 wins). There are various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
8330 Now the page displays ;-)
8331 Remember to flush your browser's caches when making these kinds of changes to
8332 your configuration to insure that you get a freshly delivered page! Or, try
8333 using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
8337 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
8344 { +block{Path starts with "ads".} +handle-as-image }
8350 That actually was very helpful and pointed us quickly to where the problem
8351 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
8352 rules in the first section of <filename>default.action</filename> is causing
8353 the problem. This would require some guesswork, and maybe a little trial and
8354 error to isolate the offending rule. One likely cause would be one of the
8355 <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> actions.
8356 These tend to be harder to troubleshoot.
8357 Try adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off
8358 <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>:
8366 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
8374 <quote><literal>{ shop }</literal></quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
8375 <quote><literal>{ -filter -session-cookies-only }</literal></quote>.
8376 Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
8384 # Disable ALL filter actions for sites in this section
8392 This would turn off all filtering for these sites. This is best
8393 put in <filename>user.action</filename>, for local site
8394 exceptions. Note that when a simple domain pattern is used by itself (without
8395 the subsequent path portion), all sub-pages within that domain are included
8396 automatically in the scope of the action.
8400 Images that are inexplicably being blocked, may well be hitting the
8401 <link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE"><quote>+filter{banners-by-size}</quote></link>
8403 that images of certain sizes are ad banners (works well
8404 <emphasis>most of the time</emphasis> since these tend to be standardized).
8408 <quote><literal>{ fragile }</literal></quote> is an alias that disables most
8409 actions that are the most likely to cause trouble. This can be used as a
8410 last resort for problem sites.
8416 # Handle with care: easy to break
8418 mybank.example.com</screen>
8423 <emphasis>Remember to flush caches!</emphasis> Note that the
8424 <literal>mail.google</literal> reference lacks the TLD portion (e.g.
8425 <quote>.com</quote>). This will effectively match any TLD with
8426 <literal>google</literal> in it, such as <literal>mail.google.de.</literal>,
8430 If this still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining
8431 actions one by one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
8440 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
8441 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
8442 Public License as published by the Free Software
8443 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
8444 your option) any later version.
8446 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
8447 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
8448 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
8449 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
8450 License for more details.
8452 The GNU General Public License should be included with
8453 this file. If not, you can view it at
8454 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
8455 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
8456 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301,
8459 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
8460 Revision 2.93 2009/02/14 10:14:42 fabiankeil
8461 Mention match-all.action in the action file descriptions.
8463 Revision 2.92 2009/02/12 16:08:26 fabiankeil
8464 Declare the code stable.
8466 Revision 2.91 2009/01/13 16:50:35 fabiankeil
8467 The standard.action file is gone.
8469 Revision 2.90 2008/09/26 16:53:09 fabiankeil
8470 Update "What's new" section.
8472 Revision 2.89 2008/09/21 15:38:56 fabiankeil
8473 Fix Portage tree sync instructions in Gentoo section.
8474 Anonymously reported at ijbswa-developers@.
8476 Revision 2.88 2008/09/21 14:42:52 fabiankeil
8477 Add documentation for change-x-forwarded-for{},
8478 remove documentation for hide-forwarded-for-headers.
8480 Revision 2.87 2008/08/30 15:37:35 fabiankeil
8483 Revision 2.86 2008/08/16 10:12:23 fabiankeil
8484 Merge two sentences and move the URL to the end of the item.
8486 Revision 2.85 2008/08/16 10:04:59 fabiankeil
8487 Some more syntax fixes. This version actually builds.
8489 Revision 2.84 2008/08/16 09:42:45 fabiankeil
8490 Turns out building docs works better if the syntax is valid.
8492 Revision 2.83 2008/08/16 09:32:02 fabiankeil
8493 Mention changes since 3.0.9 beta.
8495 Revision 2.82 2008/08/16 09:00:52 fabiankeil
8496 Fix example URL pattern (once more with feeling).
8498 Revision 2.81 2008/08/16 08:51:28 fabiankeil
8499 Update version-related entities.
8501 Revision 2.80 2008/07/18 16:54:30 fabiankeil
8502 Remove erroneous whitespace in documentation link.
8503 Reported by John Chronister in #2021611.
8505 Revision 2.79 2008/06/27 18:00:53 markm68k
8506 remove outdated startup information for mac os x
8508 Revision 2.78 2008/06/21 17:03:03 fabiankeil
8511 Revision 2.77 2008/06/14 13:45:22 fabiankeil
8512 Re-add a colon I unintentionally removed a few revisions ago.
8514 Revision 2.76 2008/06/14 13:21:28 fabiankeil
8515 Prepare for the upcoming 3.0.9 beta release.
8517 Revision 2.75 2008/06/13 16:06:48 fabiankeil
8518 Update the "What's New in this Release" section with
8519 the ChangeLog entries changelog2doc.pl could handle.
8521 Revision 2.74 2008/05/26 15:55:46 fabiankeil
8522 - Update "default profiles" table.
8523 - Add some more pcrs redirect examples and note that
8524 enabling debug 128 helps to get redirects working.
8526 Revision 2.73 2008/05/23 14:43:18 fabiankeil
8527 Remove previously out-commented block that caused syntax problems.
8529 Revision 2.72 2008/05/12 10:26:14 fabiankeil
8530 Synchronize content filter descriptions with the ones in default.filter.
8532 Revision 2.71 2008/04/10 17:37:16 fabiankeil
8533 Actually we use "modern" POSIX 1003.2 regular
8534 expressions in path patterns, not PCRE.
8536 Revision 2.70 2008/04/10 15:59:12 fabiankeil
8537 Add another section to the client-header-tagger example that shows
8538 how to actually change the action settings once the tag is created.
8540 Revision 2.69 2008/03/29 12:14:25 fabiankeil
8541 Remove send-wafer and send-vanilla-wafer actions.
8543 Revision 2.68 2008/03/28 15:13:43 fabiankeil
8544 Remove inspect-jpegs action.
8546 Revision 2.67 2008/03/27 18:31:21 fabiankeil
8547 Remove kill-popups action.
8549 Revision 2.66 2008/03/06 16:33:47 fabiankeil
8550 If limit-connect isn't used, don't limit CONNECT requests to port 443.
8552 Revision 2.65 2008/03/04 18:30:40 fabiankeil
8553 Remove the treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks action. We now
8554 use the "blocked" page for forbidden CONNECT requests by default.
8556 Revision 2.64 2008/03/01 14:10:28 fabiankeil
8557 Use new block syntax. Still needs some polishing.
8559 Revision 2.63 2008/02/22 05:50:37 markm68k
8562 Revision 2.62 2008/02/11 11:52:23 hal9
8563 Fix entity ... s/&/&
8565 Revision 2.61 2008/02/11 03:41:47 markm68k
8566 more updates for mac os x
8568 Revision 2.60 2008/02/11 03:40:25 markm68k
8569 more updates for mac os x
8571 Revision 2.59 2008/02/11 00:52:34 markm68k
8572 reflect new changes for mac os x
8574 Revision 2.58 2008/02/03 21:37:40 hal9
8575 Apply patch from Mark: s/OSX/OS X/
8577 Revision 2.57 2008/02/03 19:10:14 fabiankeil
8578 Mention forward-socks5.
8580 Revision 2.56 2008/01/31 19:11:35 fabiankeil
8581 Let the +client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation} example apply
8582 to all requests as "tainted" Referers aren't limited to exit TLDs.
8584 Revision 2.55 2008/01/19 21:26:37 hal9
8585 Add IE7 to configuration section per Gerry.
8587 Revision 2.54 2008/01/19 17:52:39 hal9
8588 Re-commit to fix various minor issues for new release.
8590 Revision 2.53 2008/01/19 15:03:05 hal9
8591 Doc sources tagged for 3.0.8 release.
8593 Revision 2.52 2008/01/17 01:49:51 hal9
8594 Change copyright notice for docs s/2007/2008/. All these will be rebuilt soon
8597 Revision 2.51 2007/12/23 16:48:24 fabiankeil
8598 Use more precise example descriptions for the mysterious domain patterns.
8600 Revision 2.50 2007/12/08 12:44:36 fabiankeil
8601 - Remove already commented out pre-3.0.7 changes.
8602 - Update the "new log defaults" paragraph.
8604 Revision 2.49 2007/12/06 18:21:55 fabiankeil
8605 Update hide-forwarded-for-headers description.
8607 Revision 2.48 2007/11/24 19:07:17 fabiankeil
8608 - Mention request rewriting.
8609 - Enable the conditional-forge paragraph.
8612 Revision 2.47 2007/11/18 14:59:47 fabiankeil
8613 A few "Note to Upgraders" updates.
8615 Revision 2.46 2007/11/17 17:24:44 fabiankeil
8616 - Use new action defaults.
8617 - Minor fixes and rewordings.
8619 Revision 2.45 2007/11/16 11:48:46 hal9
8620 Fix one typo, and add a couple of small refinements.
8622 Revision 2.44 2007/11/15 03:30:20 hal9
8623 Results of spell check.
8625 Revision 2.43 2007/11/14 18:45:39 fabiankeil
8626 - Mention some more contributors in the "New in this Release" list.
8629 Revision 2.42 2007/11/12 03:32:40 hal9
8630 Updates for "What's New" and "Notes to Upgraders". Various other changes in
8631 preparation for new release. User Manual is almost ready.
8633 Revision 2.41 2007/11/11 16:32:11 hal9
8634 This is primarily syncing What's New and Note to Upgraders sections with the many
8635 new features and changes (gleaned from memory but mostly from ChangeLog).
8637 Revision 2.40 2007/11/10 17:10:59 fabiankeil
8638 In the first third of the file, mention several times that
8639 the action editor is disabled by default in 3.0.7 beta and later.
8641 Revision 2.39 2007/11/05 02:34:49 hal9
8642 Various changes in preparation for the upcoming release. Much yet to be done.
8644 Revision 2.38 2007/09/22 16:01:42 fabiankeil
8645 Update embedded show-url-info output.
8647 Revision 2.37 2007/08/27 16:09:55 fabiankeil
8648 Fix pre-chroot-nslookup description which I failed to
8649 copy and paste properly. Reported by Stephen Gildea.
8651 Revision 2.36 2007/08/26 16:47:14 fabiankeil
8652 Add Stephen Gildea's pre-chroot-nslookup patch [#1276666],
8653 extensive comments moved to user manual.
8655 Revision 2.35 2007/08/26 14:59:49 fabiankeil
8656 Minor rewordings and fixes.
8658 Revision 2.34 2007/08/05 15:19:50 fabiankeil
8659 - Don't claim HTTP/1.1 compliance.
8660 - Use $ in some of the path pattern examples.
8661 - Use a hide-user-agent example argument without
8662 leading and trailing space.
8663 - Make it clear that the cookie actions work with
8665 - Rephrase the inspect-jpegs text to underline
8666 that it's only meant to protect against a single
8669 Revision 2.33 2007/07/27 10:57:35 hal9
8670 Add references for user-agent strings for hide-user-agenet
8672 Revision 2.32 2007/06/07 12:36:22 fabiankeil
8673 Apply Roland's 29_usermanual.dpatch to fix a bunch
8674 of syntax errors I collected over the last months.
8676 Revision 2.31 2007/06/02 14:01:37 fabiankeil
8677 Start to document forward-override{}.
8679 Revision 2.30 2007/04/25 15:10:36 fabiankeil
8680 - Describe installation for FreeBSD.
8681 - Start to document taggers and tag patterns.
8682 - Don't confuse devils and daemons.
8684 Revision 2.29 2007/04/05 11:47:51 fabiankeil
8685 Some updates regarding header filtering,
8686 handling of compressed content and redirect's
8687 support for pcrs commands.
8689 Revision 2.28 2006/12/10 23:42:48 hal9
8690 Fix various typos reported by Adam P. Thanks.
8692 Revision 2.27 2006/11/14 01:57:47 hal9
8693 Dump all docs prior to 3.0.6 release. Various minor changes to faq and user
8696 Revision 2.26 2006/10/24 11:16:44 hal9
8699 Revision 2.25 2006/10/18 10:50:33 hal9
8700 Add note that since filters are off in Cautious, compression is ON. Turn off
8701 compression to make filters work on all sites.
8703 Revision 2.24 2006/10/03 11:13:54 hal9
8704 More references to the new filters. Include html this time around.
8706 Revision 2.23 2006/10/02 22:43:53 hal9
8707 Contains new filter definitions from Fabian, and few other miscellaneous
8710 Revision 2.22 2006/09/22 01:27:55 hal9
8711 Final commit of probably various minor changes here and there. Unless
8712 something changes this should be ready for pending release.
8714 Revision 2.21 2006/09/20 03:21:36 david__schmidt
8715 Just the tiniest tweak. Wafer thin!
8717 Revision 2.20 2006/09/10 14:53:54 hal9
8718 Results of spell check. User manual has some updates to standard.actions file
8721 Revision 2.19 2006/09/08 12:19:02 fabiankeil
8722 Adjust hide-if-modified-since example values
8723 to reflect the recent changes.
8725 Revision 2.18 2006/09/08 02:38:57 hal9
8727 -Fix a number of broken links.
8728 -Migrate the new Windows service command line options, and reference as
8730 -Rebuild so that can be used with the new "user-manual" config capabilities.
8733 Revision 2.17 2006/09/05 13:25:12 david__schmidt
8734 Add Windows service invocation stuff (duplicated) in FAQ and in user manual under Windows startup. One probably ought to reference the other.
8736 Revision 2.16 2006/09/02 12:49:37 hal9
8737 Various small updates for new actions, filterfiles, etc.
8739 Revision 2.15 2006/08/30 11:15:22 hal9
8740 More work on the new actions, especially filter-*-headers, and What's New
8741 section. User Manual is close to final form for 3.0.4 release. Some tinkering
8742 and proof reading left to do.
8744 Revision 2.14 2006/08/29 10:59:36 hal9
8745 Add a "Whats New in this release" Section. Further work on multiple filter
8746 files, and assorted other minor changes.
8748 Revision 2.13 2006/08/22 11:04:59 hal9
8749 Silence warnings and errors. This should build now. New filters were only
8750 stubbed in. More to be done.
8752 Revision 2.12 2006/08/14 08:40:39 fabiankeil
8753 Documented new actions that were part of
8754 the "minor Privoxy improvements".
8756 Revision 2.11 2006/07/18 14:48:51 david__schmidt
8757 Reorganizing the repository: swapping out what was HEAD (the old 3.1 branch)
8758 with what was really the latest development (the v_3_0_branch branch)
8760 Revision 1.123.2.43 2005/05/23 09:59:10 hal9
8763 Revision 1.123.2.42 2004/12/04 14:39:57 hal9
8764 Fix two minor typos per bug SF report.
8766 Revision 1.123.2.41 2004/03/23 12:58:42 oes
8769 Revision 1.123.2.40 2004/02/27 12:48:49 hal9
8770 Add comment re: redirecting to local file system for set-image-blocker may
8771 is dependent on browser.
8773 Revision 1.123.2.39 2004/01/30 22:31:40 oes
8774 Added a hint re bookmarklets to Quickstart section
8776 Revision 1.123.2.38 2004/01/30 16:47:51 oes
8777 Some minor clarifications
8779 Revision 1.123.2.37 2004/01/29 22:36:11 hal9
8780 Updates for no longer filtering text/plain, and demoronizer default settings,
8781 and copyright notice dates.
8783 Revision 1.123.2.36 2003/12/10 02:26:26 hal9
8784 Changed the demoronizer filter description.
8786 Revision 1.123.2.35 2003/11/06 13:36:37 oes
8787 Updated link to nightly CVS tarball
8789 Revision 1.123.2.34 2003/06/26 23:50:16 hal9
8790 Add a small bit on filtering and problems re: source code being corrupted.
8792 Revision 1.123.2.33 2003/05/08 18:17:33 roro
8793 Use apt-get instead of dpkg to install Debian package, which is more
8794 solid, uses the correct and most recent Debian version automatically.
8796 Revision 1.123.2.32 2003/04/11 03:13:57 hal9
8797 Add small note about only one filterfile (as opposed to multiple actions
8800 Revision 1.123.2.31 2003/03/26 02:03:43 oes
8801 Updated hard-coded copyright dates
8803 Revision 1.123.2.30 2003/03/24 12:58:56 hal9
8804 Add new section on Predefined Filters.
8806 Revision 1.123.2.29 2003/03/20 02:45:29 hal9
8807 More problems with \-\-chroot causing markup problems :(
8809 Revision 1.123.2.28 2003/03/19 00:35:24 hal9
8810 Manual edit of revision log because 'chroot' (even inside a comment) was
8811 causing Docbook to hang here (due to double hyphen and the processor thinking
8814 Revision 1.123.2.27 2003/03/18 19:37:14 oes
8815 s/Advanced|Radical/Adventuresome/g to avoid complaints re fun filter
8817 Revision 1.123.2.26 2003/03/17 16:50:53 oes
8818 Added documentation for new chroot option
8820 Revision 1.123.2.25 2003/03/15 18:36:55 oes
8821 Adapted to the new filters
8823 Revision 1.123.2.24 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9
8824 Move default profiles table from FAQ to U-M, and other minor related changes.
8827 Revision 1.123.2.23 2002/10/21 02:32:01 hal9
8828 Updates to the user.action examples section. A few new ones.
8830 Revision 1.123.2.22 2002/10/12 00:51:53 hal9
8831 Add demoronizer to filter section.
8833 Revision 1.123.2.21 2002/10/10 04:09:35 hal9
8834 s/Advanced/Radical/ and added very brief note.
8836 Revision 1.123.2.20 2002/10/10 03:49:21 hal9
8837 Add notes to session-cookies-only and Quickstart about pre-existing
8838 cookies. Also, note content-cookies work differently.
8840 Revision 1.123.2.19 2002/09/26 01:25:36 hal9
8841 More explanation on Privoxy patterns, more on content-cookies and SSL.
8843 Revision 1.123.2.18 2002/08/22 23:47:58 hal9
8844 Add 'Documentation' to Privoxy Menu shot in Configuration section to match
8847 Revision 1.123.2.17 2002/08/18 01:13:05 hal9
8848 Spell checked (only one typo this time!).
8850 Revision 1.123.2.16 2002/08/09 19:20:54 david__schmidt
8851 Update to Mac OS X startup script name
8853 Revision 1.123.2.15 2002/08/07 17:32:11 oes
8854 Converted some internal links from ulink to link for PDF creation; no content changed
8856 Revision 1.123.2.14 2002/08/06 09:16:13 oes
8857 Nits re: actions file download
8859 Revision 1.123.2.13 2002/08/02 18:23:19 g_sauthoff
8860 Just 2 small corrections to the Gentoo sections
8862 Revision 1.123.2.12 2002/08/02 18:17:21 g_sauthoff
8863 Added 2 Gentoo sections
8865 Revision 1.123.2.11 2002/07/26 15:20:31 oes
8866 - Added version info to title
8867 - Added info on new filters
8868 - Revised parts of the filter file tutorial
8869 - Added info on where to get updated actions files
8871 Revision 1.123.2.10 2002/07/25 21:42:29 hal9
8872 Add brief notes on not proxying non-HTTP protocols.
8874 Revision 1.123.2.9 2002/07/11 03:40:28 david__schmidt
8876 Updated Mac OS X sections due to installation location change
8878 Revision 1.123.2.8 2002/06/09 16:36:32 hal9
8879 Clarifications on filtering and MIME. Hardcode 'latest release' in index.html.
8881 Revision 1.123.2.7 2002/06/09 00:29:34 hal9
8882 Touch ups on filtering, in actions section and Anatomy.
8884 Revision 1.123.2.6 2002/06/06 23:11:03 hal9
8885 Fix broken link. Linkchecked all docs.
8887 Revision 1.123.2.5 2002/05/29 02:01:02 hal9
8888 This is break out of the entire config section from u-m, so it can
8889 eventually be used to generate the comments, etc in the main config file
8890 so that these are in sync with each other.
8892 Revision 1.123.2.4 2002/05/27 03:28:45 hal9
8893 Ooops missed something from David.
8895 Revision 1.123.2.3 2002/05/27 03:23:17 hal9
8896 Fix FIXMEs for OS2 and Mac OS X startup. Fix Redhat typos (should be Red Hat).
8897 That's a wrap, I think.
8899 Revision 1.123.2.2 2002/05/26 19:02:09 hal9
8900 Move Amiga stuff around to take of FIXME in start up section.
8902 Revision 1.123.2.1 2002/05/26 17:04:25 hal9
8903 -Spellcheck, very minor edits, and sync across branches
8905 Revision 1.123 2002/05/24 23:19:23 hal9
8906 Include new image (Proxy setup). More fun with guibutton.
8907 Minor corrections/clarifications here and there.
8909 Revision 1.122 2002/05/24 13:24:08 oes
8910 Added Bookmarklet for one-click pre-filled access to show-url-info
8912 Revision 1.121 2002/05/23 23:20:17 oes
8913 - Changed more (all?) references to actions to the
8914 <literal><link> style.
8915 - Small fixes in the actions chapter
8916 - Small clarifications in the quickstart to ad blocking
8917 - Removed <emphasis> from <title>s since the new doc CSS
8918 renders them red (bad in TOC).
8920 Revision 1.120 2002/05/23 19:16:43 roro
8921 Correct Debian specials (installation and startup).
8923 Revision 1.119 2002/05/22 17:17:05 oes
8926 Revision 1.118 2002/05/21 04:54:55 hal9
8927 -New Section: Quickstart to Ad Blocking
8928 -Reformat Actions Anatomy to match new CGI layout
8930 Revision 1.117 2002/05/17 13:56:16 oes
8931 - Reworked & extended Templates chapter
8932 - Small changes to Regex appendix
8933 - #included authors.sgml into (C) and hist chapter
8935 Revision 1.116 2002/05/17 03:23:46 hal9
8936 Fixing merge conflict in Quickstart section.
8938 Revision 1.115 2002/05/16 16:25:00 oes
8939 Extended the Filter File chapter & minor fixes
8941 Revision 1.114 2002/05/16 09:42:50 oes
8942 More ulink->link, added some hints to Quickstart section
8944 Revision 1.113 2002/05/15 21:07:25 oes
8945 Extended and further commented the example actions files
8947 Revision 1.112 2002/05/15 03:57:14 hal9
8948 Spell check. A few minor edits here and there for better syntax and
8951 Revision 1.111 2002/05/14 23:01:36 oes
8954 Revision 1.110 2002/05/14 19:10:45 oes
8955 Restored alphabetical order of actions
8957 Revision 1.109 2002/05/14 17:23:11 oes
8958 Renamed the prevent-*-cookies actions, extended aliases section and moved it before the example AFs
8960 Revision 1.108 2002/05/14 15:29:12 oes
8961 Completed proofreading the actions chapter
8963 Revision 1.107 2002/05/12 03:20:41 hal9
8964 Small clarifications for 127.0.0.1 vs localhost for listen-address since this
8965 apparently an important distinction for some OS's.
8967 Revision 1.106 2002/05/10 01:48:20 hal9
8968 This is mostly proposed copyright/licensing additions and changes. Docs
8969 are still GPL, but licensing and copyright are more visible. Also, copyright
8970 changed in doc header comments (eliminate references to JB except FAQ).
8972 Revision 1.105 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
8973 Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
8975 Revision 1.104 2002/05/04 08:44:45 swa
8978 Revision 1.103 2002/05/04 00:40:53 hal9
8979 -Remove the TOC first page kludge. It's fixed proper now in ldp.dsl.in.
8980 -Some minor additions to Quickstart.
8982 Revision 1.102 2002/05/03 17:46:00 oes
8983 Further proofread & reactivated short build instructions
8985 Revision 1.101 2002/05/03 03:58:30 hal9
8986 Move the user-manual config directive to top of section. Add note about
8987 Privoxy needing read permissions for configs, and write for logs.
8989 Revision 1.100 2002/04/29 03:05:55 hal9
8990 Add clarification on differences of new actions files.
8992 Revision 1.99 2002/04/28 16:59:05 swa
8993 more structure in starting section
8995 Revision 1.98 2002/04/28 05:43:59 hal9
8996 This is the break up of configuration.html into multiple files. This
8997 will probably break links elsewhere :(
8999 Revision 1.97 2002/04/27 21:04:42 hal9
9000 -Rewrite of Actions File example.
9001 -Add section for user-manual directive in config.
9003 Revision 1.96 2002/04/27 05:32:00 hal9
9004 -Add short section to Filter Files to tie in with +filter action.
9005 -Start rewrite of examples in Actions Examples (not finished).
9007 Revision 1.95 2002/04/26 17:23:29 swa
9008 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
9010 Revision 1.94 2002/04/26 05:24:36 hal9
9011 -Add most of Andreas suggestions to Chain of Events section.
9012 -A few other minor corrections and touch up.
9014 Revision 1.92 2002/04/25 18:55:13 hal9
9015 More catchups on new actions files, and new actions names.
9016 Other assorted cleanups, and minor modifications.
9018 Revision 1.91 2002/04/24 02:39:31 hal9
9019 Add 'Chain of Events' section.
9021 Revision 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 hal9
9022 Linuxconf is deprecated on RH, substitute chkconfig.
9024 Revision 1.89 2002/04/23 21:05:28 oes
9025 Added hint for startup on Red Hat
9027 Revision 1.88 2002/04/23 05:37:54 hal9
9028 Add AmigaOS install stuff.
9030 Revision 1.87 2002/04/23 02:53:15 david__schmidt
9031 Updated Mac OS X installation section
9032 Added a few English tweaks here an there
9034 Revision 1.86 2002/04/21 01:46:32 hal9
9035 Re-write actions section.
9037 Revision 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9
9038 Fix ugly typo (mine).
9040 Revision 1.84 2002/04/18 21:17:13 hal9
9041 Spell Redhat correctly (ie Red Hat). A few minor grammar corrections.
9043 Revision 1.83 2002/04/18 18:21:12 oes
9044 Added RPM install detail
9046 Revision 1.82 2002/04/18 12:04:50 oes
9049 Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
9050 Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
9052 Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
9053 Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
9055 Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
9056 Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
9058 Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
9061 Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
9062 Proofreading, part one
9064 Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
9065 -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
9066 -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
9068 Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
9069 Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
9071 Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
9072 Add small section on submitting actions.
9074 Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
9077 Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
9078 Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
9080 Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
9081 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
9083 Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
9086 Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
9087 -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
9088 -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
9089 -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
9090 -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
9092 Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
9093 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
9095 Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
9096 more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
9098 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
9099 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
9100 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
9101 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
9102 eventually be set by Makefile.
9103 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
9105 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
9106 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
9108 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
9109 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
9111 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
9112 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
9114 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
9115 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
9116 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
9117 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
9119 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
9122 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
9123 Added more to Anatomy section.
9125 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
9126 Touch up intro for new name.
9128 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
9129 we have a new homepage!
9131 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
9132 A few minor catch ups with name change.
9134 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
9135 configure needs to be generated.
9137 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
9138 we are too lazy to make a block-built
9139 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
9141 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
9142 name change related issue.
9144 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
9145 name change. changed filenames.
9147 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
9150 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
9151 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
9152 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
9153 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
9154 comments and remarks to history untouched.
9156 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
9159 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
9160 New section in Appendix.
9162 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
9163 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
9165 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
9166 correct feedback channels
9168 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
9169 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
9171 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
9174 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
9175 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
9177 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
9178 Added imageblock{pattern}.
9180 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
9183 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
9184 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
9186 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
9187 provide correct feedback channels
9189 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
9190 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
9192 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
9193 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
9195 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
9196 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
9198 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
9199 Add new - - user option.
9201 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
9202 Added section on command line options.
9204 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
9205 Changed default port to 8118
9207 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
9208 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
9210 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
9211 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
9212 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
9215 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
9218 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
9219 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
9221 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
9222 Update OS/2 build section
9224 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
9225 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
9226 will work - no other changes are needed.
9228 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
9229 Added a very short section on Templates
9231 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
9232 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
9234 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
9235 Touch ups for *.action files.
9237 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
9240 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
9241 Updates for recent changes.
9243 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
9244 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
9246 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
9247 Correct 2 minor errors
9249 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
9250 *** empty log message ***
9252 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
9253 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
9255 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
9256 wrong url in documentation
9258 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
9259 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
9261 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
9264 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
9267 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
9270 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
9271 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
9273 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
9274 Some additions, and re-arranging.
9276 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
9279 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
9280 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
9282 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
9285 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
9286 source files for junkbuster documentation
9288 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
9289 first proposal of a structure.
9291 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
9292 docs should have an author.
9294 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
9295 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.