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 "3.0.17">
15 <!entity p-status "stable">
16 <!entity % p-authors-formal "INCLUDE"> <!-- include additional text, etc -->
17 <!entity % p-not-stable "IGNORE">
18 <!entity % p-stable "INCLUDE">
19 <!entity % p-text "IGNORE"> <!-- define we are not a text only doc -->
20 <!entity % p-doc "INCLUDE"> <!-- and we are a formal doc -->
21 <!entity % p-readme "IGNORE">
22 <!entity % user-man "IGNORE">
23 <!entity % config-file "IGNORE">
24 <!entity % p-supp-userman "IGNORE"> <!-- Omit some from supported.sgml -->
25 <!entity my-copy "©"> <!-- kludge for docbook2man -->
26 <!entity % draft "IGNORE"> <!-- WIP stuff -->
27 <!entity % seealso-extra "INCLUDE"> <!-- extra stuff from seealso.sgml -->
28 <!entity my-app "<application>Privoxy</application>">
31 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
34 This file belongs into
35 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
37 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.128 2010/11/10 22:00:13 fabiankeil Exp $
39 Copyright (C) 2001-2010 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org/
42 ========================================================================
43 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
44 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
45 ========================================================================
52 <title>Privoxy &p-version; User Manual</title>
56 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
57 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
58 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001-2010 by
59 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
63 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.128 2010/11/10 22:00:13 fabiankeil Exp $</pubdate>
67 Note: the following should generate a separate page, and a live link to it,
68 all nicely done. But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave
69 commented unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the
70 copyright/license declarations will be in their own sgml.
83 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
84 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
85 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
91 The <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> gives users information on how to
92 install, configure and use <ulink
93 url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy</ulink>.
96 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
98 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
101 You can find the latest version of the <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> at <ulink
102 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
103 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> on how to
104 contact the developers.
108 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
114 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
115 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
117 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
118 <application>Privoxy</application>, v.&p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
119 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
120 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
121 configuration files. Development of a new version is currently nearing
122 completion, and includes significant changes and enhancements over
126 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
129 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
130 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
131 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
136 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
137 <sect2 id="features"><title>Features</title>
139 In addition to the core
140 features of ad blocking and
141 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookie</ulink> management,
142 <application>Privoxy</application> provides many supplemental
143 features<![%p-not-stable;[, some of them currently under development]]>,
144 that give the end-user more control, more privacy and more freedom:
146 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
148 <!-- end boilerplate -->
153 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
156 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
157 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
160 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
161 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
162 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
163 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project
169 On some platforms, the installer may remove previously installed versions, if
170 found. (See below for your platform). In any case <emphasis>be sure to backup
171 your old configuration if it is valuable to you.</emphasis> See the <link
172 linkend="upgradersnote">note to upgraders</link> section below.
175 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
176 <sect2 id="installation-packages"><title>Binary Packages</title>
178 How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
181 <!-- XXX: The installation sections should be sorted -->
183 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
184 <sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Red Hat and Fedora RPMs</title>
187 RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm</literal>,
188 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location
189 of configuration files.
193 Note that on Red Hat, <application>Privoxy</application> will
194 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be automatically started on system boot. You will
195 need to enable that using <command>chkconfig</command>,
196 <command>ntsysv</command>, or similar methods.
200 If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM:
201 <literal>rpm --rebuild privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm</literal>. This
202 will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.
206 Also note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
207 on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
208 Otherwise, RPM will try to remove <application>Junkbuster</application>
209 automatically if found, before installing <application>Privoxy</application>.
213 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
214 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian and Ubuntu</title>
216 DEBs can be installed with <literal>apt-get install privoxy</literal>,
217 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location of
222 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
223 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
226 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
227 the installation process. You will find the configuration files
228 in the same directory as you installed <application>Privoxy</application> in.
231 Version 3.0.5 beta introduced full <application>Windows</application> service
232 functionality. On Windows only, the <application>Privoxy</application>
233 program has two new command line arguments to install and uninstall
234 <application>Privoxy</application> as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>.
238 <term>Arguments:</term>
241 <replaceable class="parameter">--install</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
244 <replaceable class="parameter">--uninstall</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
250 After invoking <application>Privoxy</application> with
251 <command>--install</command>, you will need to bring up the
252 <application>Windows</application> service console to assign the user you
253 want <application>Privoxy</application> to run under, and whether or not you
254 want it to run whenever the system starts. You can start the
255 <application>Windows</application> services console with the following
256 command: <command>services.msc</command>. If you do not take the manual step
257 of modifying <application>Privoxy's</application> service settings, it will
258 not start. Note too that you will need to give Privoxy a user account that
259 actually exists, or it will not be permitted to
260 write to its log and configuration files.
265 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
266 <sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris <!--, NetBSD, HP-UX--></title>
269 Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
270 untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
271 things go. <!-- FIXME, more info needed? -->
275 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
276 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
279 First, make sure that no previous installations of
280 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
281 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
282 system. Check that no <application>Junkbuster</application>
283 or <application>Privoxy</application> objects are in
289 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
290 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
291 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
292 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
296 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
297 into will contain all of the configuration files.
301 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
302 <sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Mac OS X</title>
304 Unzip the downloaded file (you can either double-click on the zip file
305 icon from the Finder, or from the desktop if you downloaded it there).
306 Then, double-click on the package installer icon and follow the
307 installation process.
310 The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful
311 installation (in addition to every time your computer starts up). To
312 prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your
313 computer starts up, remove or rename the folder named
314 <literal>/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal>.
317 To manually start or stop the privoxy service, use the Privoxy Utility
318 for Mac OS X. This application controls the privoxy service (e.g.
319 starting and stopping the service as well as uninstalling the software).
323 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
324 <sect3 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
326 Copy and then unpack the <filename>lha</filename> archive to a suitable location.
327 All necessary files will be installed into <application>Privoxy</application>
328 directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just
329 remove this directory.
333 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
334 <sect3 id="installation-tbz"><title>FreeBSD</title>
337 Privoxy is part of FreeBSD's Ports Collection, you can build and install
338 it with <literal>cd /usr/ports/www/privoxy; make install clean</literal>.
341 If you don't use the ports, you can fetch and install
342 the package with <literal>pkg_add -r privoxy</literal>.
345 The port skeleton and the package can also be downloaded from the
346 <ulink url="https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">File Release
347 Page</ulink>, but there's no reason to use them unless you're interested in the
348 beta releases which are only available there.
352 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
353 <sect3 id="installattion-gentoo"><title>Gentoo</title>
355 Gentoo source packages (Ebuilds) for <application>Privoxy</application> are
356 contained in the Gentoo Portage Tree (they are not on the download page,
357 but there is a Gentoo section, where you can see when a new
358 <application>Privoxy</application> Version is added to the Portage Tree).
361 Before installing <application>Privoxy</application> under Gentoo just do
362 first <literal>emerge --sync</literal> to get the latest changes from the
363 Portage tree. With <literal>emerge privoxy</literal> you install the latest
367 Configuration files are in <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename>, the
368 documentation is in <filename>/usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;</filename>
369 and the Log directory is in <filename>/var/log/privoxy</filename>.
375 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
376 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
379 The most convenient way to obtain the <application>Privoxy</application> sources
380 is to download the source tarball from our
381 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&package_id=10571">project download
386 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
387 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
388 version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
389 CVS repository</ulink>.
391 deprecated...out of business.
392 or simply download <ulink
393 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.bz2">the nightly CVS
398 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
400 <!-- end boilerplate -->
403 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
404 <sect2 id="installation-keepupdated"><title>Keeping your Installation Up-to-Date</title>
406 As user feedback comes in and development continues, we will make updated versions
407 of both the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link> (as a <ulink
408 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&release_id=103670">separate
409 package</ulink>) and the software itself (including the actions file) available for
414 If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
415 <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
416 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce/">subscribe
417 to our announce mailing list</ulink>, ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
421 In order not to lose your personal changes and adjustments when updating
422 to the latest <literal>default.action</literal> file we <emphasis>strongly
423 recommend</emphasis> that you use <literal>user.action</literal> and
424 <literal>user.filter</literal> for your local
425 customizations of <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
426 linkend="actions-file">Chapter on actions files</link> for details.
434 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
436 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
437 <sect1 id="whatsnew">
438 <title>What's New in this Release</title>
440 <application>Privoxy 3.0.17</application> is a stable release.
441 The changes since 3.0.16 stable are:
448 Fixed last-chunk-detection for responses where the content was small
449 enough to be read with the body, causing Privoxy to wait for the
450 end of the content until the server closed the connection or the
451 request timed out. Reported by "Karsten" in #3028326.
456 Responses with status code 204 weren't properly detected as body-less
457 like RFC2616 mandates. Like the previous bug, this caused Privoxy to
458 wait for the end of the content until the server closed the connection
459 or the request timed out. Fixes #3022042 and #3025553, reported by a
460 user with no visible name. Most likely also fixes a bunch of other
461 AJAX-related problem reports that got closed in the past due to
462 insufficient information and lack of feedback.
467 Fixed an ACL bug that made it impossible to build a blacklist.
468 Usually the ACL directives are used in a whitelist, which worked
469 as expected, but blacklisting is still useful for public proxies
470 where one only needs to deny known abusers access.
475 Added LOG_LEVEL_RECEIVED to log the not-yet-parsed data read from the
476 network. This should make debugging various parsing issues a lot easier.
481 The IPv6 code is enabled by default on Windows versions that support it.
482 Patch submitted by oCameLo in #2942729.
487 In mingw32 versions, the user.filter file is reachable through the
488 GUI, just like default.filter is. Feature request 3040263.
493 Added the configure option --enable-large-file-support to set a few
494 defines that are required by platforms like GNU/Linux to support files
495 larger then 2GB. Mainly interesting for users without proper logfile
501 Logging with "debug 16" no longer stops at the first nul byte which is
502 pretty useless. Non-printable characters are replaced with their hex value
503 so the result can't span multiple lines making parsing them harder then
509 Privoxy logs when reading an action, filter or trust file.
514 Fixed incorrect regression test markup which caused a test in
515 3.0.16 to fail while Privoxy itself was working correctly.
516 While Privoxy accepts hide-referer, too, the action name is actually
517 hide-referrer which is also the name used one the final results page,
518 where the test expected the alias.
523 CGI interface improvements:
527 In finish_http_response(), continue to add the 'Connection: close'
528 header if the client connection will not be kept alive.
529 Anonymously pointed out in #2987454.
534 Apostrophes in block messages no longer cause parse errors
535 when the blocked page is viewed with JavaScript enabled.
536 Reported by dg1727 in #3062296.
541 Fix a bunch of anchors that used underscores instead of dashes.
546 Allow to keep the client connection alive after crunching the previous request.
547 Already opened server connections can be kept alive, too.
552 In cgi_show_url_info(), don't forget to prefix URLs that only contain
553 http:// or https:// in the path. Fixes #2975765 reported by Adam Piggott.
558 Show the 404 CGI page if cgi_send_user_manual() is called while
559 local user manual delivery is disabled.
566 Action file improvements:
570 Enable user.filter by default. Suggested by David White in #3001830.
575 Block .sitestat.com/. Reported by johnd16 in #3002725.
580 Block .atemda.com/. Reported by johnd16 in #3002723.
585 Block js.adlink.net/. Reported by johnd16 in #3002720.
590 Block .analytics.yahoo.com/. Reported by johnd16 in #3002713.
595 Block sb.scorecardresearch.com, too. Reported by dg1727 in #2992652.
600 Fix problems noticed on Yahoo mail and news pages.
605 Remove the too broad yahoo section, only keeping the
606 fast-redirects exception as discussed on ijbswa-devel@.
611 Don't block adesklets.sourceforge.net. Reported in #2974204.
616 Block chartbeat ping tracking. Reported in #2975895.
621 Tag CSS and image requests with cautious and medium settings, too.
626 Don't handle view.atdmt.com as image. It's used for click-throughs
627 so users should be able to "go there anyway".
628 Reported by Adam Piggott in #2975927.
633 Also let the refresh-tags filter remove invalid refresh tags where
634 the 'url=' part is missing. Anonymously reported in #2986382.
635 While at it, update the description to mention the fact that only
636 refresh tags with refresh times above 9 seconds are covered.
641 javascript needs to be blocked with +handle-as-empty-document to
642 work around Firefox bug 492459. So move .js blockers from
643 +block{Might be a web-bug.} -handle-as-empty-document to
644 +block{Might be a web-bug.} +handle-as-empty-document.
649 ijbswa-Feature Requests-3006719 - Block 160x578 Banners.
654 Block another omniture tracking domain.
659 Added a range-requests tagger.
664 Added two sections to get Flickr's Ajax interface working with
665 default pre-settings. If you change the configuration to block
666 cookies by default, you'll need additional exceptions.
667 Reported by Mathias Homann in #3101419 and by Patrick on ijbswa-users@.
674 Documentation improvements:
678 Explicitly mention how to match all URLs.
683 Consistently recommend socks5 in the Tor FAQ entry and mention
684 its advantage compared to socks4a. Reported by David in #2960129.
689 Slightly improve the explanation of why filtering may appear
695 Grammar fixes for the ACL section.
700 Fixed a link to the 'intercepting' entry and add another one.
705 Rename the 'Other' section to 'Mailing Lists' and reword it
706 to make it clear that nobody is forced to use the trackers
711 Note that 'anonymously' posting on the trackers may not always
717 Suggest to enable debug 32768 when suspecting parsing problems.
724 Privoxy-Log-Parser improvements:
728 Gather statistics for ressources, methods, and HTTP versions
734 Also gather statistics for blocked and redirected requests.
739 Provide the percentage of keep-alive offers the client accepted.
744 Add a --url-statistics-threshold option.
749 Add a --host-statistics-threshold option to also gather
750 statistics about how many request where made per host.
755 Fix a bug in handle_loglevel_header() where a 'scan: ' got lost.
760 Add a --shorten-thread-ids option to replace the thread id with
766 Accept and ignore: Looks like we got the last chunk together
767 with the server headers. We better stop reading.
772 Accept and ignore: Continue hack in da house.
777 Accept and higlight: Rejecting connection from 10.0.0.2.
778 Maximum number of connections reached.
783 Accept and highlight: Loading actions file: /usr/local/etc/privoxy/default.action
788 Accept and highlight: Loading filter file: /usr/local/etc/privoxy/default.filter
793 Accept and highlight: Killed all-caps Host header line: HOST: bestproxydb.com
798 Accept and highlight: Reducing expected bytes to 0. Marking
799 the server socket tainted after throwing 4 bytes away.
804 Accept: Merged multiple header lines to: 'X-FORWARDED-PROTO: http X-HOST: 127.0.0.1'
815 Remove the next member from the client_state struct. Only the main
816 thread needs access to all client states so give it its own struct.
821 Garbage-collect request_contains_null_bytes().
826 Ditch redundant code in unload_configfile().
831 Ditch LogGetURLUnderCursor() which doesn't seem to be used anywhere.
836 In write_socket(), remove the write-only variable write_len in
837 an ifdef __OS2__ block. Spotted by cppcheck.
842 In connect_to(), don't declare the variable 'flags' on OS/2 where
843 it isn't used. Spotted by cppcheck.
848 Limit the scope of various variables. Spotted by cppcheck.
853 In add_to_iob(), turn an interestingly looking for loop into a
859 Code cleanup in preparation for external filters.
864 In listen_loop(), mention the socket on which we accepted the
865 connection, not just the source IP address.
870 In write_socket(), also log the socket we're writing to.
875 In log_error(), assert that escaped characters get logged
876 completely or not at all.
881 In log_error(), assert that ival and sval have reasonable values.
882 There's no reason not to abort() if they don't.
887 Remove an incorrect cgi_error_unknown() call in a
888 cannnot-happen-situation in send_crunch_response().
893 Clean up white-space in http_response definition and
894 move the crunch_reason to the beginning.
899 Turn http_response.reason into an enum and rename it
900 to http_response.crunch_reason.
905 Silence a 'gcc (Debian 4.3.2-1.1) 4.3.2' warning on i686 GNU/Linux.
910 Fix white-space in a log message in remove_chunked_transfer_coding().
911 While at it, add a note that the message doesn't seem to
912 be entirely correct and should be improved later on.
919 GNUmakefile improvements:
923 Use $(SSH) instead of ssh, so one only needs to specify a username once.
928 Removed references to the action feedback thingy that hasn't been
934 Consistently use shell.sourceforge.net instead of shell.sf.net so
935 one doesn't need to check server fingerprints twice.
940 Removed GNUisms in the webserver and webactions targets so they
941 work with standard tar.
950 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
952 <sect2 id="upgradersnote">
953 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
956 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading from earlier
957 versions of <application>Privoxy</application>:
965 The recommended way to upgrade &my-app; is to backup your old
966 configuration files, install the new ones, verify that &my-app;
967 is working correctly and finally merge back your changes using
968 <application>diff</application> and maybe <application>patch</application>.
971 There are a number of new features in each &my-app; release and
972 most of them have to be explicitly enabled in the configuration
973 files. Old configuration files obviously don't do that and due
974 to syntax changes using old configuration files with a new
975 &my-app; isn't always possible anyway.
980 Note that some installers remove earlier versions completely,
981 including configuration files, therefore you should really save
982 any important configuration files!
987 On the other hand, other installers don't overwrite existing configuration
988 files, thinking you will want to do that yourself.
993 <filename>standard.action</filename> has been merged into
994 the <filename>default.action</filename> file.
999 In the default configuration only fatal errors are logged now.
1000 You can change that in the <link linkend="DEBUG">debug section</link>
1001 of the configuration file. You may also want to enable more verbose
1002 logging until you verified that the new &my-app; version is working
1009 Three other config file settings are now off by default:
1010 <link linkend="enable-remote-toggle">enable-remote-toggle</link>,
1011 <link linkend="enable-remote-http-toggle">enable-remote-http-toggle</link>,
1012 and <link linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link>.
1013 If you use or want these, you will need to explicitly enable them, and
1014 be aware of the security issues involved.
1021 What constitutes a <quote>default</quote> configuration has changed,
1022 and you may want to review which actions are <quote>on</quote> by
1023 default. This is primarily a matter of emphasis, but some features
1024 you may have been used to, may now be <quote>off</quote> by default.
1025 There are also a number of new actions and filters you may want to
1026 consider, most of which are not fully incorporated into the default
1027 settings as yet (see above).
1034 The default actions setting is now <literal>Cautious</literal>. Previous
1035 releases had a default setting of <literal>Medium</literal>. Experienced
1036 users may want to adjust this, as it is fairly conservative by &my-app;
1037 standards and past practices. See <ulink
1038 url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default">
1039 http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default</ulink>. New users
1040 should try the default settings for a while before turning up the volume.
1046 The default setting has filtering turned <emphasis>off</emphasis>, which
1047 subsequently means that compression is <emphasis>on</emphasis>. Remember
1048 that filtering does not work on compressed pages, so if you use, or want to
1049 use, filtering, you will need to force compression off. Example:
1053 { +<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{google} +<link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link> }
1057 Or if you use a number of filters, or filter many sites, you may just want
1058 to turn off compression for all sites in
1059 <filename>default.action</filename> (or
1060 <filename>user.action</filename>).
1067 Also, <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> is
1068 off by default now. If you've liked this feature in the past, you may want
1069 to turn it back on in <filename>user.action</filename> now.
1076 Some installers may not automatically start
1077 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
1088 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1089 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using Privoxy</title>
1095 Install <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
1096 linkend="installation">Installation Section</link> below for platform specific
1103 Advanced users and those who want to offer <application>Privoxy</application>
1104 service to more than just their local machine should check the <link
1105 linkend="config">main config file</link>, especially the <link
1106 linkend="access-control">security-relevant</link> options. These are
1113 Start <application>Privoxy</application>, if the installation program has
1114 not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
1115 <link linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link>.
1121 Set your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application> as HTTP and
1122 HTTPS (SSL) <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>
1123 by setting the proxy configuration for address of
1124 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> and port <literal>8118</literal>.
1125 <emphasis>DO NOT</emphasis> activate proxying for <literal>FTP</literal> or
1126 any protocols besides HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) unless you intend to prevent your
1127 browser from using these protocols.
1133 Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
1134 If using <application>Privoxy</application> to manage
1135 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
1136 you should remove any currently stored cookies too.
1142 A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
1143 most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
1144 configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
1145 to no initial configuration is required in most cases, you may want
1147 <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">web-based action editor</ulink> though.
1148 Be sure to read the warnings first.
1151 See the <link linkend="configuration">Configuration section</link> for more
1152 configuration options, and how to customize your installation.
1153 You might also want to look at the <link
1154 linkend="quickstart-ad-blocking">next section</link> for a quick
1155 introduction to how <application>Privoxy</application> blocks ads and
1162 If you experience ads that slip through, innocent images that are
1163 blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
1164 <application>Privoxy's</application> behavior, take a look at the <link
1165 linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>. As a quick start, you might
1166 find the <link linkend="act-examples">richly commented examples</link>
1167 helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the <ulink
1168 url="http://config.privoxy.org">web-based user interface</ulink>. The
1169 Appendix <quote><link linkend="actionsanat">Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an
1170 Action</link></quote> has hints on how to understand and debug actions that
1171 <quote>misbehave</quote>.
1176 Did anyone test these lately?
1180 For easy access to &my-app;'s most important controls, drag the provided
1181 <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklets</link> into your browser's
1189 Please see the section <link linkend="contact">Contacting the
1190 Developers</link> on how to report bugs, problems with websites or to get
1197 Now enjoy surfing with enhanced control, comfort and privacy!
1205 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1207 <sect2 id="quickstart-ad-blocking">
1208 <title>Quickstart to Ad Blocking</title>
1210 NOTE: This section is deliberately redundant for those that don't
1211 want to read the whole thing (which is getting lengthy).
1214 Ad blocking is but one of <application>Privoxy's</application>
1215 array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
1216 user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody.
1219 This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
1220 you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive
1221 information provided below, though this is highly recommended.
1224 First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
1225 more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
1226 things that were not intended. And the more likely that some things
1227 may not work as intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
1228 extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
1229 <quote>problem</quote> sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
1230 configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
1231 not an easy way to eliminate <emphasis>all</emphasis> ads. Either take
1232 the easy way and settle for <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads blocked with the
1233 default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing
1234 habits and preferences.
1237 Secondly, a brief explanation of <application>Privoxy's </application>
1238 <quote>actions</quote>. <quote>Actions</quote> in this context, are
1239 the directives we use to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to perform
1240 some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell
1241 <application>Privoxy</application> to take some <quote>action</quote>. Each
1242 action has a unique name and function. While there are many potential
1243 <application>actions</application> in <application>Privoxy's</application>
1244 arsenal, only a few are used for ad blocking. <link
1245 linkend="actions">Actions</link>, and <link linkend="actions-file">action
1246 configuration files</link>, are explained in depth below.
1249 Actions are specified in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
1250 followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
1251 can actually be URL type <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> that use
1252 wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs. The
1253 actions, together with the URL patterns are called a section.
1256 When you connect to a website, the full URL will either match one or more
1257 of the sections as defined in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
1258 or not. If so, then <application>Privoxy</application> will perform the
1259 respective actions. If not, then nothing special happens. Furthermore, web
1260 pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your web browser will
1261 use to load additional components of the page, as it parses the
1262 original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just an URL
1263 embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server,
1264 or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many
1265 such embedded URLs. &my-app; can deal with each URL individually, so, for
1266 instance, the main page text is not touched, but images from such-and-such
1271 The most important actions for basic ad blocking are: <literal><link
1272 linkend="block">block</link></literal>, <literal><link
1273 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
1275 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal>,and
1276 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>:
1284 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> - this is perhaps
1285 the single most used action, and is particularly important for ad blocking.
1286 This action stops any contact between your browser and any URL patterns
1287 that match this action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads,
1288 but also anything that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply
1289 stops any communication with the remote server and sends
1290 <application>Privoxy</application>'s own built-in BLOCKED page instead to
1291 let you now what has happened (with some exceptions, see below).
1297 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> -
1298 tells <application>Privoxy</application> to treat this URL as an image.
1299 <application>Privoxy</application>'s default configuration already does this
1300 for all common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this
1301 is not so easy to determine. So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly
1302 important for ad blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of
1303 some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the
1304 <application>Privoxy</application> BLOCKED page (which would only result in
1305 a <quote>broken image</quote> icon). There are some limitations to this
1306 though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an image substitution for
1307 an entire HTML page in most situations.
1313 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> -
1314 sends an empty document instead of <application>Privoxy's</application>
1315 normal BLOCKED HTML page. This is useful for file types that are neither
1316 HTML nor images, such as blocking JavaScript files.
1323 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> - tells
1324 <application>Privoxy</application> what to display in place of an ad image that
1325 has hit a block rule. For this to come into play, the URL must match a
1326 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action somewhere in the
1327 configuration, <emphasis>and</emphasis>, it must also match an
1328 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action.
1331 The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are:
1335 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad
1336 replacement is obvious. This is the default.
1341 <emphasis>blank</emphasis> - A very small empty GIF image is displayed.
1342 This is the so-called <quote>invisible</quote> configuration option.
1347 <emphasis>http://<URL></emphasis> - A redirect to any image anywhere
1348 of the user's choosing (advanced usage).
1357 Advanced users will eventually want to explore &my-app;
1358 <literal><link linkend="filter">filters</link></literal> as well. Filters
1359 are very different from <literal><link
1360 linkend="block">blocks</link></literal>.
1361 A <quote>block</quote> blocks a site, page, or unwanted contented. Filters
1362 are a way of filtering or modifying what is actually on the page. An example
1363 filter usage: a text replacement of <quote>no-no</quote> for
1364 <quote>nasty-word</quote>. That is a very simple example. This process can be
1365 used for ad blocking, but it is more in the realm of advanced usage and has
1366 some pitfalls to be wary off.
1370 The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
1371 the special <application>Privoxy</application> editor at <ulink
1372 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1373 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>). This
1374 is an internal page, and does not require Internet access.
1378 Note that as of <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta the
1379 action editor is disabled by default. Check the
1380 <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions
1381 section in the configuration file</ulink> to learn why and in which
1382 cases it's safe to enable again.
1386 If you decided to enable the action editor, select the appropriate
1387 <quote>actions</quote> file, and click
1388 <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>. It is best to put personal or
1389 local preferences in <filename>user.action</filename> since this is not
1390 meant to be overwritten during upgrades, and will over-ride the settings in
1391 other files. Here you can insert new <quote>actions</quote>, and URLs for ad
1392 blocking or other purposes, and make other adjustments to the configuration.
1393 <application>Privoxy</application> will detect these changes automatically.
1397 A quick and simple step by step example:
1405 Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
1406 <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote> from the
1414 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1419 Find <filename>user.action</filename> in the top section, and click
1420 on <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>:
1423 <!-- image of editor and actions files selections -->
1425 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Actions Files in Use</title>
1428 <imagedata fileref="files-in-use.jpg" format="jpg">
1431 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ]</phrase>
1440 You should have a section with only
1441 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> listed under
1442 <quote>Actions:</quote>.
1443 If not, click a <quote><guibutton>Insert new section below</guibutton></quote>
1444 button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the
1445 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button right under the word <quote>Actions:</quote>.
1446 This will bring up a list of all actions. Find
1447 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> near the top, and click
1448 in the <quote>Enabled</quote> column, then <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote>
1449 just below the list.
1454 Now, in the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> actions section,
1455 click the <quote><guibutton>Add</guibutton></quote> button, and paste the URL the
1456 browser got from <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote>.
1457 Remove the <literal>http://</literal> at the beginning of the URL. Then, click
1458 <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote> (or
1459 <quote><guibutton>OK</guibutton></quote> if in a pop-up window).
1464 Now go back to the original page, and press <keycap>SHIFT-Reload</keycap>
1465 (or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now.
1473 This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
1474 wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same
1475 site. For a more extensive explanation of <quote>patterns</quote>, and
1476 the entire actions concept, see <link linkend="actions-file">the Actions
1481 For advanced users who want to hand edit their config files, you might want
1482 to now go to the <link linkend="act-examples">Actions Files Tutorial</link>.
1483 The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor.
1486 There are also various
1487 <link linkend="filter">filters</link> that can be used for ad blocking
1488 (filters are a special subset of actions). These
1489 fall into the <quote>advanced</quote> usage category, and are explained in
1490 depth in later sections.
1497 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1500 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1501 <sect1 id="startup">
1502 <title>Starting Privoxy</title>
1504 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
1505 will want to configure your browser(s) to use
1506 <application>Privoxy</application> as a HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)
1507 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>. The default is
1508 127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions
1509 used port 8000). This is the one configuration step <emphasis>that must be done
1513 Please note that <application>Privoxy</application> can only proxy HTTP and
1514 HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols.
1517 <!-- image of Mozilla Proxy configuration -->
1519 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
1520 Mozilla/Netscape HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) Settings</title>
1523 <imagedata fileref="proxy_setup.jpg" format="jpg">
1526 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
1534 With <application>Firefox</application>, this is typically set under:
1538 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Network</guibutton> -><guibutton>Connection</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Settings</guibutton>
1543 Or optionally on some platforms:
1547 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>General</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connection Settings</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Manual Proxy Configuration</guibutton>
1553 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
1554 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under:
1559 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
1560 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
1561 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Proxies</guibutton> -> <guibutton>HTTP Proxy</guibutton>
1566 For <application>Internet Explorer v.5-7</application>:
1570 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Internet Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connections</guibutton> -> <guibutton>LAN Settings</guibutton>
1574 Then, check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info
1575 (Address: 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include HTTPS (SSL), if you want HTTPS
1576 proxy support too (sometimes labeled <quote>Secure</quote>). Make sure any
1577 checkboxes like <quote>Use the same proxy server for all protocols</quote> is
1578 <emphasis>UNCHECKED</emphasis>. You want only HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)!
1581 <!-- image of IE Proxy configuration -->
1583 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
1584 Internet Explorer HTTP and HTTPS (Secure) Settings</title>
1587 <imagedata fileref="proxy2.jpg" format="jpg">
1590 <phrase>[ Screenshot of IE Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
1598 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
1599 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. Remove
1600 any <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
1601 if you want <application>Privoxy</application> to manage that. You are now
1602 ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
1603 <application>Privoxy</application>!
1607 <application>Privoxy</application> itself is typically started by specifying the
1608 main configuration file to be used on the command line. If no configuration
1609 file is specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application>
1610 will look for a file named <filename>config</filename> in the current
1611 directory. Except on Win32 where it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>.
1614 <sect2 id="start-redhat">
1615 <title>Red Hat and Fedora</title>
1617 A default Red Hat installation may not start &my-app; upon boot. It will use
1618 the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
1623 # /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
1631 # service privoxy start
1636 <sect2 id="start-debian">
1637 <title>Debian</title>
1639 We use a script. Note that Debian typically starts &my-app; upon booting per
1640 default. It will use the file
1641 <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
1646 # /etc/init.d/privoxy start
1651 <sect2 id="start-windows">
1652 <title>Windows</title>
1654 Click on the &my-app; Icon to start <application>Privoxy</application>. If no configuration file is
1655 specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application> will look
1656 for a file named <filename>config.txt</filename>. Note that Windows will
1657 automatically start &my-app; when the system starts if you chose that option
1661 <application>Privoxy</application> can run with full Windows service functionality.
1662 On Windows only, the &my-app; program has two new command line arguments
1663 to install and uninstall &my-app; as a service. See the
1664 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Windows Installation
1665 instructions</link> for details.
1669 <sect2 id="start-unices">
1670 <title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others</title>
1672 Example Unix startup command:
1676 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
1681 <sect2 id="start-os2">
1684 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
1685 start automatically when the system restarts. You can start it manually by
1686 double-clicking on the <application>Privoxy</application> icon in the
1687 <application>Privoxy</application> folder.
1691 <sect2 id="start-macosx">
1692 <title>Mac OS X</title>
1694 After downloading the privoxy software, unzip the downloaded file by
1695 double-clicking on the zip file icon. Then, double-click on the
1696 installer package icon and follow the installation process.
1699 The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful
1700 installation. In addition, the privoxy service will automatically
1701 start every time your computer starts up.
1704 To prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your
1705 computer starts up, remove or rename the folder named
1706 /Library/StartupItems/Privoxy.
1709 A simple application named Privoxy Utility has been created which
1710 enables administrators to easily start and stop the privoxy service.
1713 In addition, the Privoxy Utility presents a simple way for
1714 administrators to edit the various privoxy config files. A method
1715 to uninstall the software is also available.
1718 An administrator username and password must be supplied in order for
1719 the Privoxy Utility to perform any of the tasks.
1724 <sect2 id="start-amigaos">
1725 <title>AmigaOS</title>
1727 Start <application>Privoxy</application> (with RUN <>NIL:) in your
1728 <filename>startnet</filename> script (AmiTCP), in
1729 <filename>s:user-startup</filename> (RoadShow), as startup program in your
1730 startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
1731 <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically quit when you quit your
1732 TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that
1733 <application>Privoxy</application> is still running).
1737 <sect2 id="start-gentoo">
1738 <title>Gentoo</title>
1740 A script is again used. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config
1741 </filename> as its main configuration file.
1745 /etc/init.d/privoxy start
1749 Note that <application>Privoxy</application> is not automatically started at
1750 boot time by default. You can change this with the <literal>rc-update</literal>
1755 rc-update add privoxy default
1763 See the section <link linkend="cmdoptions">Command line options</link> for
1767 must find a better place for this paragraph
1770 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
1771 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
1772 <ulink url="actions-file.html"><quote>actions</quote></ulink> files. These are
1773 where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking, and other
1774 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several
1775 such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
1779 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites for which you may prefer
1780 persistent cookies, and add these to your actions configuration as needed. By
1781 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
1782 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), unless you add them to the
1783 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
1784 to edit <filename>user.action</filename> (or through the web based interface)
1785 and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser, it would make
1786 more sense to let <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which
1787 case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
1791 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
1792 sites is the popup-killing (through <ulink
1793 url="actions-file.html#FILTER-POPUPS"><quote>+filter{popups}</quote></ulink>),
1794 because your favorite shopping, banking, or leisure site may need
1795 popups (explained below).
1799 <application>Privoxy</application> does not support all of the optional HTTP/1.1
1800 features yet. In the unlikely event that you experience inexplicable problems
1801 with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
1802 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
1803 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
1804 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
1805 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote> config option in
1806 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
1807 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
1811 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
1812 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
1813 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
1814 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote>
1815 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
1816 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1817 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1818 and then follow the link to <quote>View & Change the Current Configuration</quote>.
1819 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
1823 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
1824 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
1825 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
1826 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
1827 to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
1828 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
1829 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
1833 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
1834 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
1835 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
1836 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
1837 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
1838 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
1843 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <link
1844 linkend="actions-file">read more about the actions concept</link>
1845 or even dive deep into the <link linkend="actionsanat">Appendix
1850 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
1851 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
1852 section <link linkend="contact"><quote>Contacting the
1853 Developers</quote></link> below.
1858 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1859 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
1860 <title>Command Line Options</title>
1862 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
1863 command-line options:
1871 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
1874 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
1879 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
1882 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
1887 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
1890 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
1891 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
1896 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
1899 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
1900 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
1901 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
1902 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
1907 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
1910 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
1911 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
1912 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
1917 <emphasis>--chroot</emphasis>
1920 Before changing to the user ID given in the <emphasis>--user</emphasis> option,
1921 chroot to that user's home directory, i.e. make the kernel pretend to the &my-app;
1922 process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit
1923 the impact of possible vulnerabilities in &my-app; to the files contained in that hierarchy.
1929 <emphasis>--pre-chroot-nslookup hostname</emphasis>
1932 Specifies a hostname to look up before doing a chroot. On some systems, initializing the
1933 resolver library involves reading config files from /etc and/or loading additional shared
1934 libraries from /lib. On these systems, doing a hostname lookup before the chroot reduces
1935 the number of files that must be copied into the chroot tree.
1938 For fastest startup speed, a good value is a hostname that is not in /etc/hosts but that
1939 your local name server (listed in /etc/resolv.conf) can resolve without recursion
1940 (that is, without having to ask any other name servers). The hostname need not exist,
1941 but if it doesn't, an error message (which can be ignored) will be output.
1947 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
1950 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
1951 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
1952 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
1953 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
1954 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
1955 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
1963 On <application>MS Windows</application> only there are two additional
1964 command-line options to allow <application>Privoxy</application> to install and
1965 run as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>. See the
1966 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Window Installation section</link>
1974 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1977 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1978 <sect1 id="configuration"><title>Privoxy Configuration</title>
1980 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
1981 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
1982 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
1983 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
1987 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1990 <title>Controlling Privoxy with Your Web Browser</title>
1992 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
1993 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1994 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1995 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
1996 You will see the following section:
2000 <!-- Needs to be put in a table and colorized -->
2003 <bridgehead renderas="sect2"> Privoxy Menu</bridgehead>
2007 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View & change the current configuration</ulink>
2010 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">View the source code version numbers</ulink>
2013 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">View the request headers.</ulink>
2016 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">Look up which actions apply to a URL and why</ulink>
2019 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">Toggle Privoxy on or off</ulink>
2022 ▪ <ulink
2023 url="http://www.privoxy.org/&p-version;/user-manual/">Documentation</ulink>
2031 This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the
2032 <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, which is where the ad, banner,
2033 cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
2034 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
2035 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
2036 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
2040 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
2041 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
2042 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
2043 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
2044 to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e.
2045 <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There
2046 is even a toggle <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklet</link> offered, so
2047 that you can toggle <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from
2052 Note that several of the features described above are disabled by default
2053 in <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta and later.
2055 <ulink url="config.html">configuration file</ulink> to learn why
2056 and in which cases it's safe to enable them again.
2061 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2066 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2068 <sect2 id="confoverview">
2069 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
2071 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
2072 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
2073 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
2074 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
2075 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
2076 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
2080 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
2081 some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
2082 principle configuration files are:
2090 The <link linkend="config">main configuration file</link> is named <filename>config</filename>
2091 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
2092 on Windows. This is a required file.
2098 <filename>match-all.action</filename> is used to define which <quote>actions</quote>
2099 relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups, content modification, cookie handling
2100 etc should be applied by default. It should be the first actions file loaded.
2103 <filename>default.action</filename> defines many exceptions (both positive and negative)
2104 from the default set of actions that's configured in <filename>match-all.action</filename>.
2105 It should be the second actions file loaded and shouldn't be edited by the user.
2108 Multiple actions files may be defined in <filename>config</filename>. These
2109 are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
2110 preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
2111 <filename>match-all.action</filename> (which you will most probably want
2112 to define sooner or later) are best applied in <filename>user.action</filename>,
2113 where you can preserve them across upgrades. The file isn't installed by all
2114 installers, but you can easily create it yourself with a text editor.
2117 There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
2119 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
2121 url="http://p.p/show-status">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>) for the
2122 various actions files.
2128 <quote>Filter files</quote> (the <link linkend="filter-file">filter
2129 file</link>) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
2130 viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
2131 lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
2132 whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
2133 <filename>default.filter</filename> includes various filters made
2134 available for use by the developers. Some are much more intrusive than
2135 others, and all should be used with caution. You may define additional
2136 filter files in <filename>config</filename> as you can with
2137 actions files. We suggest <filename>user.filter</filename> for any
2138 locally defined filters or customizations.
2146 The syntax of the configuration and filter files may change between different
2147 Privoxy versions, unfortunately some enhancements cost backwards compatibility.
2148 <!-- Add link to documentation-->
2152 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
2153 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
2154 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
2155 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
2156 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
2157 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
2158 out" that line. Blank lines are ignored.
2162 The actions files and filter files
2163 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
2164 maximum flexibility.
2168 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
2169 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
2170 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
2171 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
2172 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
2173 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
2174 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
2179 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
2180 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
2181 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
2182 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
2188 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2191 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
2193 <!-- **************************************************** -->
2194 <!-- Include config.sgml here -->
2195 <!-- This is where the entire config file is detailed. -->
2197 <!-- end include -->
2200 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2204 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
2206 <sect1 id="actions-file"><title>Actions Files</title>
2210 XXX: similar descriptions are in the Configuration Files sections.
2211 We should only describe them at one place.
2214 The actions files are used to define what <emphasis>actions</emphasis>
2215 <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which URLs, and thus determines
2216 how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
2217 transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof).
2218 There are a number of such actions, with a wide range of functionality.
2219 Each action does something a little different.
2220 These actions give us a veritable arsenal of tools with which to exert
2221 our control, preferences and independence. Actions can be combined so that
2222 their effects are aggregated when applied against a given set of URLs.
2226 are three action files included with <application>Privoxy</application> with
2233 <filename>match-all.action</filename> - is used to define which
2234 <quote>actions</quote> relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups,
2235 content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default.
2236 It should be the first actions file loaded
2241 <filename>default.action</filename> - defines many exceptions (both
2242 positive and negative) from the default set of actions that's configured
2243 in <filename>match-all.action</filename>. It is a set of rules that should
2244 work reasonably well as-is for most users. This file is only supposed to
2245 be edited by the developers. It should be the second actions file loaded.
2250 <filename>user.action</filename> - is intended to be for local site
2251 preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank
2252 has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
2253 thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded.
2258 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Cautious</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Medium</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Advanced</guibutton>
2261 These have increasing levels of aggressiveness <emphasis>and have no
2262 influence on your browsing unless you select them explicitly in the
2263 editor</emphasis>. A default installation should be pre-set to
2264 <literal>Cautious</literal>. New users should try this for a while before
2265 adjusting the settings to more aggressive levels. The more aggressive
2266 the settings, then the more likelihood there is of problems such as sites
2267 not working as they should.
2270 The <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button allows you to turn each
2271 action on/off individually for fine-tuning. The <guibutton>Cautious</guibutton>
2272 button changes the actions list to low/safe settings which will activate
2273 ad blocking and a minimal set of &my-app;'s features, and subsequently
2274 there will be less of a chance for accidental problems. The
2275 <guibutton>Medium</guibutton> button sets the list to a medium level of
2276 other features and a low level set of privacy features. The
2277 <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> button sets the list to a high level of
2278 ad blocking and medium level of privacy. See the chart below. The latter
2279 three buttons over-ride any changes via with the
2280 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button. More fine-tuning can be done in the
2281 lower sections of this internal page.
2284 While the actions file editor allows to enable these settings in all
2285 actions files, they are only supposed to be enabled in the first one
2286 to make sure you don't unintentionally overrule earlier rules.
2289 The default profiles, and their associated actions, as pre-defined in
2290 <filename>default.action</filename> are:
2293 <table frame=all><title>Default Configurations</title>
2294 <tgroup cols=4 align=left colsep=1 rowsep=1>
2295 <colspec colname=c1>
2296 <colspec colname=c2>
2297 <colspec colname=c3>
2298 <colspec colname=c4>
2301 <entry>Feature</entry>
2302 <entry>Cautious</entry>
2303 <entry>Medium</entry>
2304 <entry>Advanced</entry>
2309 <!-- <entry>f1</entry> -->
2310 <!-- <entry>f2</entry> -->
2311 <!-- <entry>f3</entry> -->
2312 <!-- <entry>f4</entry> -->
2318 <entry>Ad-blocking Aggressiveness</entry>
2319 <entry>medium</entry>
2325 <entry>Ad-filtering by size</entry>
2332 <entry>Ad-filtering by link</entry>
2338 <entry>Pop-up killing</entry>
2339 <entry>blocks only</entry>
2340 <entry>blocks only</entry>
2341 <entry>blocks only</entry>
2345 <entry>Privacy Features</entry>
2347 <entry>medium</entry>
2348 <entry>medium/high</entry>
2352 <entry>Cookie handling</entry>
2354 <entry>session-only</entry>
2359 <entry>Referer forging</entry>
2366 <entry>GIF de-animation</entry>
2373 <entry>Fast redirects</entry>
2380 <entry>HTML taming</entry>
2387 <entry>JavaScript taming</entry>
2394 <entry>Web-bug killing</entry>
2401 <entry>Image tag reordering</entry>
2417 The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
2418 file, and are processed in the order they are defined (e.g.
2419 <filename>default.action</filename> is typically processed before
2420 <filename>user.action</filename>). The content of these can all be viewed and
2422 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
2423 The over-riding principle when applying actions, is that the last action that
2424 matches a given URL wins. The broadest, most general rules go first
2425 (defined in <filename>default.action</filename>),
2426 followed by any exceptions (typically also in
2427 <filename>default.action</filename>), which are then followed lastly by any
2428 local preferences (typically in <emphasis>user</emphasis><filename>.action</filename>).
2429 Generally, <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word.
2433 An actions file typically has multiple sections. If you want to use
2434 <quote>aliases</quote> in an actions file, you have to place the (optional)
2435 <link linkend="aliases">alias section</link> at the top of that file.
2436 Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all
2437 sites and pages (be <emphasis>very careful</emphasis> with using such a
2438 universal set in <filename>user.action</filename> or any other actions file after
2439 <filename>default.action</filename>, because it will override the result
2440 from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
2441 exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
2442 <filename>user.action</filename> as an appendix to <filename>default.action</filename>,
2443 with the advantage that it is a separate file, which makes preserving your
2444 personal settings across <application>Privoxy</application> upgrades easier.
2448 Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
2449 just some obnoxious URL whose content you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
2450 or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
2451 written to disk), content can be modified, some JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking
2452 fooled, and much more. See below for a <link linkend="actions">complete list
2456 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2458 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
2460 Note that some <link linkend="actions">actions</link>, like cookie suppression
2461 or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these
2462 techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and
2463 certainly a matter of personal taste. And, things can always change, requiring
2464 refinements in the configuration. In general, it can be said that the more
2465 <quote>aggressive</quote> your default settings (in the top section of the
2466 actions file) are, the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you
2467 will have to make later. If, for example, you want to crunch all cookies per
2468 default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you
2469 regularly use and that require cookies for actually useful purposes, like maybe
2470 your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
2474 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
2475 distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
2476 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
2477 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :).
2481 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2483 <title>How to Edit</title>
2485 The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by
2486 using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from <ulink
2487 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
2488 Note: the config file option <link
2489 linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link> must be enabled for
2490 this to work. The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single
2491 feature on a per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults
2492 like <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> or
2493 <quote>Advanced</quote>. Warning: the <quote>Advanced</quote> setting is more
2494 aggressive, and will be more likely to cause problems for some sites.
2495 Experienced users only!
2499 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
2500 the actions files with your favorite text editor. Look at
2501 <filename>default.action</filename> which is richly commented with many
2507 <sect2 id="actions-apply">
2508 <title>How Actions are Applied to Requests</title>
2510 Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections,
2511 like the <quote><link linkend="aliases">alias</link></quote> sections which will
2512 be discussed later. For now let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a
2513 heading line (often split up to multiple lines for readability) which consist
2514 of a list of actions, separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces.
2515 Below that, there is a list of URL and tag patterns, each on a separate line.
2519 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
2520 compared to all URL patterns in each <quote>action file</quote>.
2521 Every time it matches, the list of applicable actions for the request is
2522 incrementally updated, using the heading of the section in which the
2523 pattern is located. The same is done again for tags and tag patterns later on.
2527 If multiple applying sections set the same action differently,
2528 the last match wins. If not, the effects are aggregated.
2529 E.g. a URL might match a regular section with a heading line of <literal>{
2530 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link> }</literal>,
2531 then later another one with just <literal>{
2532 +<link linkend="block">block</link> }</literal>, resulting
2533 in <emphasis>both</emphasis> actions to apply. And there may well be
2534 cases where you will want to combine actions together. Such a section then
2540 { +<literal>handle-as-image</literal> +<literal>block{Banner ads.}</literal> }
2541 # Block these as if they were images. Send no block page.
2543 media.example.com/.*banners
2544 .example.com/images/ads/</screen>
2548 You can trace this process for URL patterns and any given URL by visiting <ulink
2549 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
2553 Examples and more detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
2554 Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</link> section.
2558 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2559 <sect2 id="af-patterns">
2560 <title>Patterns</title>
2562 As mentioned, <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>patterns</quote>
2563 to determine what <emphasis>actions</emphasis> might apply to which sites and
2564 pages your browser attempts to access. These <quote>patterns</quote> use wild
2565 card type <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> matching to achieve a high degree of
2566 flexibility. This allows one expression to be expanded and potentially match
2567 against many similar patterns.
2571 Generally, an URL pattern has the form
2572 <literal><domain><port>/<path></literal>, where the
2573 <literal><domain></literal>, the <literal><port></literal>
2574 and the <literal><path></literal> are optional. (This is why the special
2575 <literal>/</literal> pattern matches all URLs). Note that the protocol
2576 portion of the URL pattern (e.g. <literal>http://</literal>) should
2577 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be included in the pattern. This is assumed already!
2580 The pattern matching syntax is different for the domain and path parts of
2581 the URL. The domain part uses a simple globbing type matching technique,
2582 while the path part uses more flexible
2583 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2584 Expressions</quote></ulink> (POSIX 1003.2).
2587 The port part of a pattern is a decimal port number preceded by a colon
2588 (<literal>:</literal>). If the domain part contains a numerical IPv6 address,
2589 it has to be put into angle brackets
2590 (<literal><</literal>, <literal>></literal>).
2595 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
2598 is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2599 regardless of which document on that server is requested. So ALL pages in
2600 this domain would be covered by the scope of this action. Note that a
2601 simple <literal>example.com</literal> is different and would NOT match.
2606 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
2609 means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
2615 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
2618 matches all the documents on <literal>www.example.com</literal>
2619 whose name starts with <literal>/index.html</literal>.
2624 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html$</literal></term>
2627 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
2628 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
2633 <term><literal>/index.html$</literal></term>
2636 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
2637 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server anywhere.
2642 <term><literal>/</literal></term>
2645 Matches any URL because there's no requirement for either the
2646 domain or the path to match anything.
2651 <term><literal>:8000/</literal></term>
2654 Matches any URL pointing to TCP port 8000.
2659 <term><literal><2001:db8::1>/</literal></term>
2662 Matches any URL with the host address <literal>2001:db8::1</literal>.
2663 (Note that the real URL uses plain brackets, not angle brackets.)
2668 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
2671 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
2672 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>. So its
2680 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2681 <sect3><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
2684 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
2685 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
2691 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
2694 matches any domain with first-level domain <literal>com</literal>
2695 and second-level domain <literal>example</literal>.
2696 For example <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2697 <literal>example.com</literal> and <literal>foo.bar.baz.example.com</literal>.
2698 Note that it wouldn't match if the second-level domain was <literal>another-example</literal>.
2703 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
2706 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
2707 <literal>www.</literal> (It also matches the domain
2708 <literal>www</literal> but most of the time that doesn't matter.)
2713 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
2716 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>.
2717 And, by the way, also included would be any files or documents that exist
2718 within that domain since no path limitations are specified. (Correctly
2719 speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as
2720 a domain.) This might be <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2721 <literal>news.example.de</literal>, or
2722 <literal>www.example.net/cgi/testing.pl</literal> for instance. All these
2730 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
2731 themselves. These work similarly to shell globbing type wild-cards:
2732 <quote>*</quote> represents zero or more arbitrary characters (this is
2734 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2735 Expression</quote></ulink> based syntax of <quote>.*</quote>),
2736 <quote>?</quote> represents any single character (this is equivalent to the
2737 regular expression syntax of a simple <quote>.</quote>), and you can define
2738 <quote>character classes</quote> in square brackets which is similar to
2739 the same regular expression technique. All of this can be freely mixed:
2744 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2747 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
2748 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
2753 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2756 matches all of the above, and then some.
2761 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
2764 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
2765 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
2770 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
2773 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
2774 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
2775 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
2776 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
2783 While flexible, this is not the sophistication of full regular expression based syntax.
2788 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2791 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2792 <sect3><title>The Path Pattern</title>
2795 <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>modern</quote> POSIX 1003.2
2796 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2797 Expressions</quote></ulink> for matching the path portion (after the slash),
2798 and is thus more flexible.
2802 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
2803 expressions, you also might want to have a look at your operating system's documentation
2804 on regular expressions (try <literal>man re_format</literal>).
2808 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
2809 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote> (regular expression speak
2810 for the beginning of a line).
2814 Please also note that matching in the path is <emphasis>CASE INSENSITIVE</emphasis>
2815 by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
2816 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch: <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match
2817 only documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
2818 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
2823 <term><literal>.example.com/.*</literal></term>
2826 Is equivalent to just <quote>.example.com</quote>, since any documents
2827 within that domain are matched with or without the <quote>.*</quote>
2828 regular expression. This is redundant
2833 <term><literal>.example.com/.*/index.html$</literal></term>
2836 Will match any page in the domain of <quote>example.com</quote> that is
2837 named <quote>index.html</quote>, and that is part of some path. For
2838 example, it matches <quote>www.example.com/testing/index.html</quote> but
2839 NOT <quote>www.example.com/index.html</quote> because the regular
2840 expression called for at least two <quote>/'s</quote>, thus the path
2841 requirement. It also would match
2842 <quote>www.example.com/testing/index_html</quote>, because of the
2843 special meta-character <quote>.</quote>.
2848 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)?index\.html$</literal></term>
2851 This regular expression is conditional so it will match any page
2852 named <quote>index.html</quote> regardless of path which in this case can
2853 have one or more <quote>/'s</quote>. And this one must contain exactly
2854 <quote>.html</quote> (but does not have to end with that!).
2859 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)</literal></term>
2862 This regular expression will match any path of <quote>example.com</quote>
2863 that contains any of the words <quote>ads</quote>, <quote>banner</quote>,
2864 <quote>banners</quote> (because of the <quote>?</quote>) or <quote>junk</quote>.
2865 The path does not have to end in these words, just contain them.
2870 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)/.*\.(jpe?g|gif|png)$</literal></term>
2873 This is very much the same as above, except now it must end in either
2874 <quote>.jpg</quote>, <quote>.jpeg</quote>, <quote>.gif</quote> or <quote>.png</quote>. So this
2875 one is limited to common image formats.
2882 There are many, many good examples to be found in <filename>default.action</filename>,
2883 and more tutorials below in <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>.
2888 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2891 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2892 <sect3 id="tag-pattern"><title>The Tag Pattern</title>
2895 Tag patterns are used to change the applying actions based on the
2896 request's tags. Tags can be created with either the
2897 <link linkend="CLIENT-HEADER-TAGGER">client-header-tagger</link>
2898 or the <link linkend="SERVER-HEADER-TAGGER">server-header-tagger</link> action.
2902 Tag patterns have to start with <quote>TAG:</quote>, so &my-app;
2903 can tell them apart from URL patterns. Everything after the colon
2904 including white space, is interpreted as a regular expression with
2905 path pattern syntax, except that tag patterns aren't left-anchored
2906 automatically (&my-app; doesn't silently add a <quote>^</quote>,
2907 you have to do it yourself if you need it).
2911 To match all requests that are tagged with <quote>foo</quote>
2912 your pattern line should be <quote>TAG:^foo$</quote>,
2913 <quote>TAG:foo</quote> would work as well, but it would also
2914 match requests whose tags contain <quote>foo</quote> somewhere.
2915 <quote>TAG: foo</quote> wouldn't work as it requires white space.
2919 Sections can contain URL and tag patterns at the same time,
2920 but tag patterns are checked after the URL patterns and thus
2921 always overrule them, even if they are located before the URL patterns.
2925 Once a new tag is added, Privoxy checks right away if it's matched by one
2926 of the tag patterns and updates the action settings accordingly. As a result
2927 tags can be used to activate other tagger actions, as long as these other
2928 taggers look for headers that haven't already be parsed.
2932 For example you could tag client requests which use the
2933 <literal>POST</literal> method,
2934 then use this tag to activate another tagger that adds a tag if cookies
2935 are sent, and then use a block action based on the cookie tag. This allows
2936 the outcome of one action, to be input into a subsequent action. However if
2937 you'd reverse the position of the described taggers, and activated the
2938 method tagger based on the cookie tagger, no method tags would be created.
2939 The method tagger would look for the request line, but at the time
2940 the cookie tag is created, the request line has already been parsed.
2944 While this is a limitation you should be aware of, this kind of
2945 indirection is seldom needed anyway and even the example doesn't
2946 make too much sense.
2953 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2956 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2958 <sect2 id="actions">
2959 <title>Actions</title>
2961 All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
2962 somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
2963 <quote>+</quote>, and turned off if preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. So a
2964 <literal>+action</literal> means <quote>do that action</quote>, e.g.
2965 <literal>+block</literal> means <quote>please block URLs that match the
2966 following patterns</quote>, and <literal>-block</literal> means <quote>don't
2967 block URLs that match the following patterns, even if <literal>+block</literal>
2968 previously applied.</quote>
2973 Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
2974 separated by whitespace, like in
2975 <literal>{+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}}</literal>,
2976 followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
2977 Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
2978 of the actions file.
2982 Actions fall into three categories:
2989 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>enabled</quote> or
2990 <quote>disabled</quote>. Syntax:
2994 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # enable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>
2995 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable></screen>
2998 Example: <literal>+handle-as-image</literal>
3005 Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
3010 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and set parameter to <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>,
3011 # overwriting parameter from previous match if necessary
3012 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action. The parameter can be omitted</screen>
3015 Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action,
3016 the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
3019 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>
3025 Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions,
3026 but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the
3027 same URL, but with different parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> the parameters
3028 from <emphasis>all</emphasis> matches are remembered. This is used for actions
3029 that can be executed for the same request repeatedly, like adding multiple
3030 headers, or filtering through multiple filters. Syntax:
3034 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and add <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> to the list of parameters
3035 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # remove the parameter <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> from the list of parameters
3036 # If it was the last one left, disable the action.
3037 <replaceable class="parameter">-name</replaceable> # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list</screen>
3040 Examples: <literal>+add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text}</literal> and
3041 <literal>+filter{html-annoyances}</literal>
3049 If nothing is specified in any actions file, no <quote>actions</quote> are
3050 taken. So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
3051 normal, non-blocking, non-filtering proxy. You must specifically enable the
3052 privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions
3053 files will give a good starting point).
3057 Later defined action sections always over-ride earlier ones of the same type.
3058 So exceptions to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
3059 in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files such
3060 as <filename>user.action</filename>). For multi-valued actions, the actions
3061 are applied in the order they are specified. Actions files are processed in
3062 the order they are defined in <filename>config</filename> (the default
3063 installation has three actions files). It also quite possible for any given
3064 URL to match more than one <quote>pattern</quote> (because of wildcards and
3065 regular expressions), and thus to trigger more than one set of actions! Last
3069 <!-- start actions listing -->
3071 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> actions are:
3075 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
3076 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
3077 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
3079 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
3082 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3084 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="add-header">
3085 <title>add-header</title>
3089 <term>Typical use:</term>
3091 <para>Confuse log analysis, custom applications</para>
3096 <term>Effect:</term>
3099 Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
3106 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3108 <para>Multi-value.</para>
3113 <term>Parameter:</term>
3116 Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
3117 It is recommended that you use the <quote><literal>X-</literal></quote> prefix
3127 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
3128 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
3129 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
3133 Headers added by this action are not modified by other actions.
3139 <term>Example usage:</term>
3142 <screen>+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}</screen>
3150 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3151 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="block">
3152 <title>block</title>
3156 <term>Typical use:</term>
3158 <para>Block ads or other unwanted content</para>
3163 <term>Effect:</term>
3166 Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the
3167 requests are trapped by &my-app; and the requested URL is never retrieved,
3168 but is answered locally with a substitute page or image, as determined by
3170 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
3172 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>, and
3174 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> actions.
3182 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3184 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3189 <term>Parameter:</term>
3191 <para>A block reason that should be given to the user.</para>
3199 <application>Privoxy</application> sends a special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page
3200 for requests to blocked pages. This page contains the block reason given as
3201 parameter, a link to find out why the block action applies, and a click-through
3202 to the blocked content (the latter only if the force feature is available and
3206 A very important exception occurs if <emphasis>both</emphasis>
3207 <literal>block</literal> and <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
3208 apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If
3209 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
3210 (see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter,
3211 if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent.
3214 It is important to understand this process, in order
3215 to understand how <application>Privoxy</application> deals with
3216 ads and other unwanted content. Blocking is a core feature, and one
3217 upon which various other features depend.
3220 The <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
3221 action can perform a very similar task, by <quote>blocking</quote>
3222 banner images and other content through rewriting the relevant URLs in the
3223 document's HTML source, so they don't get requested in the first place.
3224 Note that this is a totally different technique, and it's easy to confuse the two.
3230 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3233 <screen>{+block{No nasty stuff for you.}}
3234 # Block and replace with "blocked" page
3235 .nasty-stuff.example.com
3237 {+block{Doubleclick banners.} +handle-as-image}
3238 # Block and replace with image
3242 {+block{Layered ads.} +handle-as-empty-document}
3243 # Block and then ignore
3244 adserver.example.net/.*\.js$</screen>
3254 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3255 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="change-x-forwarded-for">
3256 <title>change-x-forwarded-for</title>
3260 <term>Typical use:</term>
3262 <para>Improve privacy by not forwarding the source of the request in the HTTP headers.</para>
3267 <term>Effect:</term>
3270 Deletes the <quote>X-Forwarded-For:</quote> HTTP header from the client request,
3278 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3280 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3285 <term>Parameter:</term>
3289 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header.</para>
3293 <quote>add</quote> to create the header (or append
3294 the client's IP address to an already existing one).
3305 It is safe and recommended to use <literal>block</literal>.
3308 Forwarding the source address of the request may make
3309 sense in some multi-user setups but is also a privacy risk.
3314 <term>Example usage:</term>
3317 <screen>+change-x-forwarded-for{block}</screen>
3324 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3325 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-filter">
3326 <title>client-header-filter</title>
3330 <term>Typical use:</term>
3333 Rewrite or remove single client headers.
3339 <term>Effect:</term>
3342 All client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
3343 the specified regular expression based substitutions.
3350 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3352 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3357 <term>Parameter:</term>
3360 The name of a client-header filter, as defined in one of the
3361 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
3370 Client-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
3371 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
3372 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
3373 You can do that by using tags though.
3376 Client-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
3377 and use their output as input.
3380 If the request URL gets changed, &my-app; will detect that and use the new
3381 one. This can be used to rewrite the request destination behind the client's
3382 back, for example to specify a Tor exit relay for certain requests.
3385 Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
3386 to learn which client-header filters are available by default, and how to
3394 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3398 # Hide Tor exit notation in Host and Referer Headers
3399 {+client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}}
3410 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3411 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-tagger">
3412 <title>client-header-tagger</title>
3416 <term>Typical use:</term>
3419 Block requests based on their headers.
3425 <term>Effect:</term>
3428 Client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
3429 the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
3437 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3439 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3444 <term>Parameter:</term>
3447 The name of a client-header tagger, as defined in one of the
3448 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
3457 Client-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
3458 and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
3462 Client-header taggers are the first actions that are executed
3463 and their tags can be used to control every other action.
3469 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3473 # Tag every request with the User-Agent header
3474 {+client-header-tagger{user-agent}}
3477 # Tagging itself doesn't change the action
3478 # settings, sections with TAG patterns do:
3480 # If it's a download agent, use a different forwarding proxy,
3481 # show the real User-Agent and make sure resume works.
3482 {+forward-override{forward-socks5 10.0.0.2:2222 .} \
3483 -hide-if-modified-since \
3484 -overwrite-last-modified \
3489 TAG:^User-Agent: NetBSD-ftp/
3490 TAG:^User-Agent: Novell ZYPP Installer
3491 TAG:^User-Agent: RPM APT-HTTP/
3492 TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/
3493 TAG:^User-Agent: Ubuntu APT-HTTP/
3494 TAG:^User-Agent: MPlayer/
3504 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3505 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="content-type-overwrite">
3506 <title>content-type-overwrite</title>
3510 <term>Typical use:</term>
3512 <para>Stop useless download menus from popping up, or change the browser's rendering mode</para>
3517 <term>Effect:</term>
3520 Replaces the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header.
3527 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3529 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3534 <term>Parameter:</term>
3546 The <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header is used by the
3547 browser to decide what to do with the document. The value of this
3548 header can cause the browser to open a download menu instead of
3549 displaying the document by itself, even if the document's format is
3550 supported by the browser.
3553 The declared content type can also affect which rendering mode
3554 the browser chooses. If XHTML is delivered as <quote>text/html</quote>,
3555 many browsers treat it as yet another broken HTML document.
3556 If it is send as <quote>application/xml</quote>, browsers with
3557 XHTML support will only display it, if the syntax is correct.
3560 If you see a web site that proudly uses XHTML buttons, but sets
3561 <quote>Content-Type: text/html</quote>, you can use &my-app;
3562 to overwrite it with <quote>application/xml</quote> and validate
3563 the web master's claim inside your XHTML-supporting browser.
3564 If the syntax is incorrect, the browser will complain loudly.
3567 You can also go the opposite direction: if your browser prints
3568 error messages instead of rendering a document falsely declared
3569 as XHTML, you can overwrite the content type with
3570 <quote>text/html</quote> and have it rendered as broken HTML document.
3573 By default <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal> only replaces
3574 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> headers that look like some kind of text.
3575 If you want to overwrite it unconditionally, you have to combine it with
3576 <literal><link linkend="force-text-mode">force-text-mode</link></literal>.
3577 This limitation exists for a reason, think twice before circumventing it.
3580 Most of the time it's easier to replace this action with a custom
3581 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
3582 It allows you to activate it for every document of a certain site and it will still
3583 only replace the content types you aimed at.
3586 Of course you can apply <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal>
3587 to a whole site and then make URL based exceptions, but it's a lot
3588 more work to get the same precision.
3594 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
3597 <screen># Check if www.example.net/ really uses valid XHTML
3598 { +content-type-overwrite{application/xml} }
3601 # but leave the content type unmodified if the URL looks like a style sheet
3602 {-content-type-overwrite}
3603 www.example.net/.*\.css$
3604 www.example.net/.*style
3613 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3614 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-client-header">
3618 <title>crunch-client-header</title>
3622 <term>Typical use:</term>
3624 <para>Remove a client header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
3629 <term>Effect:</term>
3632 Deletes every header sent by the client that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
3639 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3641 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3646 <term>Parameter:</term>
3658 This action allows you to block client headers for which no dedicated
3659 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists.
3660 <application>Privoxy</application> will remove every client header that
3661 contains the string you supplied as parameter.
3664 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
3665 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
3666 they contain the same string.
3669 <literal>crunch-client-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
3670 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
3671 parts of them, you should use a
3672 <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header filter</link></literal>.
3676 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
3683 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3686 <screen># Block the non-existent "Privacy-Violation:" client header
3687 { +crunch-client-header{Privacy-Violation:} }
3697 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3698 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-if-none-match">
3699 <title>crunch-if-none-match</title>
3705 <term>Typical use:</term>
3707 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
3712 <term>Effect:</term>
3715 Deletes the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header.
3722 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3724 <para>Boolean.</para>
3729 <term>Parameter:</term>
3741 Removing the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header
3742 is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
3743 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote> which
3744 would cause the browser to use a cached copy of the page.
3747 It is also useful to make sure the header isn't used as a cookie
3748 replacement (unlikely but possible).
3751 Blocking the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> header shouldn't cause any
3752 caching problems, as long as the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> header
3753 isn't blocked or missing as well.
3756 It is recommended to use this action together with
3757 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hide-if-modified-since</link></literal>
3759 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>.
3765 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3768 <screen># Let the browser revalidate cached documents but don't
3769 # allow the server to use the revalidation headers for user tracking.
3770 {+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
3771 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
3772 +crunch-if-none-match}
3781 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3782 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-incoming-cookies">
3783 <title>crunch-incoming-cookies</title>
3787 <term>Typical use:</term>
3790 Prevent the web server from setting HTTP cookies on your system
3796 <term>Effect:</term>
3799 Deletes any <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from server replies.
3806 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3808 <para>Boolean.</para>
3813 <term>Parameter:</term>
3825 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
3826 <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
3827 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>.
3828 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
3831 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3832 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3833 since it would prevent the session cookies from being set. See also
3834 <literal><link linkend="filter-content-cookies">filter-content-cookies</link></literal>.
3840 <term>Example usage:</term>
3843 <screen>+crunch-incoming-cookies</screen>
3851 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3852 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-server-header">
3853 <title>crunch-server-header</title>
3859 <term>Typical use:</term>
3861 <para>Remove a server header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
3866 <term>Effect:</term>
3869 Deletes every header sent by the server that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
3876 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3878 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3883 <term>Parameter:</term>
3895 This action allows you to block server headers for which no dedicated
3896 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists. <application>Privoxy</application>
3897 will remove every server header that contains the string you supplied as parameter.
3900 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
3901 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
3902 they contain the same string.
3905 <literal>crunch-server-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
3906 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
3907 parts of them, you should use a custom
3908 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
3912 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
3919 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3922 <screen># Crunch server headers that try to prevent caching
3923 { +crunch-server-header{no-cache} }
3932 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3933 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-outgoing-cookies">
3934 <title>crunch-outgoing-cookies</title>
3938 <term>Typical use:</term>
3941 Prevent the web server from reading any HTTP cookies from your system
3947 <term>Effect:</term>
3950 Deletes any <quote>Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from client requests.
3957 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3959 <para>Boolean.</para>
3964 <term>Parameter:</term>
3976 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
3977 <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
3978 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>.
3979 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
3982 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3983 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3984 since it would prevent the session cookies from being read.
3990 <term>Example usage:</term>
3993 <screen>+crunch-outgoing-cookies</screen>
4002 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4003 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="deanimate-gifs">
4004 <title>deanimate-gifs</title>
4008 <term>Typical use:</term>
4010 <para>Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.</para>
4015 <term>Effect:</term>
4018 De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image.
4025 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
4027 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4032 <term>Parameter:</term>
4035 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
4044 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
4045 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
4046 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
4047 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
4048 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
4049 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
4052 You can safely use this action with patterns that will also match non-GIF
4053 objects, because no attempt will be made at anything that doesn't look like
4060 <term>Example usage:</term>
4063 <screen>+deanimate-gifs{last}</screen>
4070 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4071 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="downgrade-http-version">
4072 <title>downgrade-http-version</title>
4076 <term>Typical use:</term>
4078 <para>Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1</para>
4083 <term>Effect:</term>
4086 Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0.
4093 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
4095 <para>Boolean.</para>
4100 <term>Parameter:</term>
4112 This is a left-over from the time when <application>Privoxy</application>
4113 didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
4114 unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server
4115 out there. Not all HTTP/1.1 features and requirements are supported yet,
4116 so there is a chance you might need this action.
4122 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4125 <screen>{+downgrade-http-version}
4126 problem-host.example.com</screen>
4134 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4135 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="fast-redirects">
4136 <title>fast-redirects</title>
4140 <term>Typical use:</term>
4142 <para>Fool some click-tracking scripts and speed up indirect links.</para>
4147 <term>Effect:</term>
4150 Detects redirection URLs and redirects the browser without contacting
4151 the redirection server first.
4158 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
4160 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4165 <term>Parameter:</term>
4170 <quote>simple-check</quote> to just search for the string <quote>http://</quote>
4171 to detect redirection URLs.
4176 <quote>check-decoded-url</quote> to decode URLs (if necessary) before searching
4177 for redirection URLs.
4188 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
4189 will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a
4190 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
4191 resulting from this scheme typically look like:
4192 <quote>http://www.example.org/click-tracker.cgi?target=http%3a//www.example.net/</quote>.
4195 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
4196 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
4197 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go
4198 to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your
4199 browser asks the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds
4203 This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement.
4204 If it is enabled by default, you will have to create some exceptions to
4205 this action. It can lead to failures in several ways:
4208 Not every URLs with other URLs as parameters is evil.
4209 Some sites offer a real service that requires this information to work.
4210 For example a validation service needs to know, which document to validate.
4211 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> assumes that every URL parameter that
4212 looks like another URL is a redirection target, and will always redirect to
4213 the last one. Most of the time the assumption is correct, but if it isn't,
4214 the user gets redirected anyway.
4217 Another failure occurs if the URL contains other parameters after the URL parameter.
4219 <quote>http://www.example.org/?redirect=http%3a//www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
4220 contains the redirection URL <quote>http://www.example.net/</quote>,
4221 followed by another parameter. <literal>fast-redirects</literal> doesn't know that
4222 and will cause a redirect to <quote>http://www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
4223 Depending on the target server configuration, the parameter will be silently ignored
4224 or lead to a <quote>page not found</quote> error. You can prevent this problem by
4225 first using the <literal><link linkend="redirect">redirect</link></literal> action
4226 to remove the last part of the URL, but it requires a little effort.
4229 To detect a redirection URL, <literal>fast-redirects</literal> only
4230 looks for the string <quote>http://</quote>, either in plain text
4231 (invalid but often used) or encoded as <quote>http%3a//</quote>.
4232 Some sites use their own URL encoding scheme, encrypt the address
4233 of the target server or replace it with a database id. In theses cases
4234 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> is fooled and the request reaches the
4235 redirection server where it probably gets logged.
4241 <term>Example usage:</term>
4245 { +fast-redirects{simple-check} }
4248 { +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} }
4249 another.example.com/testing</screen>
4258 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4259 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter">
4260 <title>filter</title>
4264 <term>Typical use:</term>
4266 <para>Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size),
4267 do fun text replacements, add personalized effects, etc.</para>
4272 <term>Effect:</term>
4275 All instances of text-based type, most notably HTML and JavaScript, to which
4276 this action applies, can be filtered on-the-fly through the specified regular
4277 expression based substitutions. (Note: as of version 3.0.3 plain text documents
4278 are exempted from filtering, because web servers often use the
4279 <literal>text/plain</literal> MIME type for all files whose type they don't know.)
4286 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
4288 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4293 <term>Parameter:</term>
4296 The name of a content filter, as defined in the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>.
4297 Filters can be defined in one or more files as defined by the
4298 <literal><link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal>
4299 option in the <link linkend="config">config file</link>.
4300 <filename>default.filter</filename> is the collection of filters
4301 supplied by the developers. Locally defined filters should go
4302 in their own file, such as <filename>user.filter</filename>.
4305 When used in its negative form,
4306 and without parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> filtering is completely disabled.
4315 For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available
4316 in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the examples below for
4320 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
4321 slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
4322 passed the filters. (The total time until the page is completely rendered
4323 doesn't change much, but it may be perceived as slower since the page is
4324 not incrementally displayed.)
4325 This effect will be more noticeable on slower connections.
4328 <quote>Rolling your own</quote>
4329 filters requires a knowledge of
4330 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
4331 Expressions</quote></ulink> and
4332 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html"><quote>HTML</quote></ulink>.
4333 This is very powerful feature, and potentially very intrusive.
4334 Filters should be used with caution, and where an equivalent
4335 <quote>action</quote> is not available.
4338 The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the
4339 <literal><link linkend="buffer-limit">buffer-limit</link></literal>
4340 option in the main <link linkend="config">config file</link>. The
4341 default is 4096 KB (4 Megs). Once this limit is exceeded, the buffered
4342 data, and all pending data, is passed through unfiltered.
4345 Inappropriate MIME types, such as zipped files, are not filtered at all.
4346 (Again, only text-based types except plain text). Encrypted SSL data
4347 (from HTTPS servers) cannot be filtered either, since this would violate
4348 the integrity of the secure transaction. In some situations it might
4349 be necessary to protect certain text, like source code, from filtering
4350 by defining appropriate <literal>-filter</literal> exceptions.
4353 Compressed content can't be filtered either, unless &my-app;
4354 is compiled with zlib support (requires at least &my-app; 3.0.7),
4355 in which case &my-app; will decompress the content before filtering
4359 If you use a &my-app; version without zlib support, but want filtering to work on
4360 as much documents as possible, even those that would normally be sent compressed,
4361 you must use the <literal><link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link></literal>
4362 action in conjunction with <literal>filter</literal>.
4365 Content filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
4366 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
4367 action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism
4368 works quite differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners
4369 based on their size (see below), since many of these seem to be somewhat
4373 <link linkend="contact">Feedback</link> with suggestions for new or
4374 improved filters is particularly welcome!
4377 The below list has only the names and a one-line description of each
4378 predefined filter. There are <link linkend="predefined-filters">more
4379 verbose explanations</link> of what these filters do in the <link
4380 linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>.
4386 <term>Example usage (with filters from the distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file).
4387 See <link linkend="PREDEFINED-FILTERS">the Predefined Filters section</link> for
4388 more explanation on each:</term>
4391 <anchor id="filter-js-annoyances">
4392 <screen>+filter{js-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse.</screen>
4395 <anchor id="filter-js-events">
4396 <screen>+filter{js-events} # Kill all JS event bindings and timers (Radically destructive! Only for extra nasty sites).</screen>
4399 <anchor id="filter-html-annoyances">
4400 <screen>+filter{html-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse.</screen>
4403 <anchor id="filter-content-cookies">
4404 <screen>+filter{content-cookies} # Kill cookies that come in the HTML or JS content.</screen>
4407 <anchor id="filter-refresh-tags">
4408 <screen>+filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups).</screen>
4411 <anchor id="filter-unsolicited-popups">
4412 <screen>+filter{unsolicited-popups} # Disable only unsolicited pop-up windows. Useful if your browser lacks this ability.</screen>
4415 <anchor id="filter-all-popups">
4416 <screen>+filter{all-popups} # Kill all popups in JavaScript and HTML. Useful if your browser lacks this ability.</screen>
4419 <anchor id="filter-img-reorder">
4420 <screen>+filter{img-reorder} # Reorder attributes in <img> tags to make the banners-by-* filters more effective.</screen>
4423 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-size">
4424 <screen>+filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners by size.</screen>
4427 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-link">
4428 <screen>+filter{banners-by-link} # Kill banners by their links to known clicktrackers.</screen>
4431 <anchor id="filter-webbugs">
4432 <screen>+filter{webbugs} # Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking).</screen>
4435 <anchor id="filter-tiny-textforms">
4436 <screen>+filter{tiny-textforms} # Extend those tiny textareas up to 40x80 and kill the hard wrap.</screen>
4439 <anchor id="filter-jumping-windows">
4440 <screen>+filter{jumping-windows} # Prevent windows from resizing and moving themselves.</screen>
4443 <anchor id="filter-frameset-borders">
4444 <screen>+filter{frameset-borders} # Give frames a border and make them resizable.</screen>
4447 <anchor id="filter-demoronizer">
4448 <screen>+filter{demoronizer} # Fix MS's non-standard use of standard charsets.</screen>
4451 <anchor id="filter-shockwave-flash">
4452 <screen>+filter{shockwave-flash} # Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects.</screen>
4455 <anchor id="filter-quicktime-kioskmode">
4456 <screen>+filter{quicktime-kioskmode} # Make Quicktime movies saveable.</screen>
4459 <anchor id="filter-fun">
4460 <screen>+filter{fun} # Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!</screen>
4463 <anchor id="filter-crude-parental">
4464 <screen>+filter{crude-parental} # Crude parental filtering. Note that this filter doesn't work reliably.</screen>
4467 <anchor id="filter-ie-exploits">
4468 <screen>+filter{ie-exploits} # Disable some known Internet Explorer bug exploits.</screen>
4471 <anchor id="filter-site-specifics">
4472 <screen>+filter{site-specifics} # Cure for site-specific problems. Don't apply generally!</screen>
4475 <anchor id="filter-no-ping">
4476 <screen>+filter{no-ping} # Removes non-standard ping attributes in <a> and <area> tags.</screen>
4479 <anchor id="filter-google">
4480 <screen>+filter{google} # CSS-based block for Google text ads. Also removes a width limitation and the toolbar advertisement.</screen>
4483 <anchor id="filter-yahoo">
4484 <screen>+filter{yahoo} # CSS-based block for Yahoo text ads. Also removes a width limitation.</screen>
4487 <anchor id="filter-msn">
4488 <screen>+filter{msn} # CSS-based block for MSN text ads. Also removes tracking URLs and a width limitation.</screen>
4491 <anchor id="filter-blogspot">
4492 <screen>+filter{blogspot} # Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this.</screen>
4500 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4501 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="force-text-mode">
4502 <title>force-text-mode</title>
4508 <term>Typical use:</term>
4510 <para>Force <application>Privoxy</application> to treat a document as if it was in some kind of <emphasis>text</emphasis> format. </para>
4515 <term>Effect:</term>
4518 Declares a document as text, even if the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> isn't detected as such.
4525 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4527 <para>Boolean.</para>
4532 <term>Parameter:</term>
4544 As explained <literal><link linkend="filter">above</link></literal>,
4545 <application>Privoxy</application> tries to only filter files that are
4546 in some kind of text format. The same restrictions apply to
4547 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite</link></literal>.
4548 <literal>force-text-mode</literal> declares a document as text,
4549 without looking at the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> first.
4553 Think twice before activating this action. Filtering binary data
4554 with regular expressions can cause file damage.
4561 <term>Example usage:</term>
4574 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4575 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="forward-override">
4576 <title>forward-override</title>
4582 <term>Typical use:</term>
4584 <para>Change the forwarding settings based on User-Agent or request origin</para>
4589 <term>Effect:</term>
4592 Overrules the forward directives in the configuration file.
4599 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4601 <para>Multi-value.</para>
4606 <term>Parameter:</term>
4610 <para><quote>forward .</quote> to use a direct connection without any additional proxies.</para>
4614 <quote>forward 127.0.0.1:8123</quote> to use the HTTP proxy listening at 127.0.0.1 port 8123.
4619 <quote>forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 .</quote> to use the socks4a proxy listening at
4620 127.0.0.1 port 9050. Replace <quote>forward-socks4a</quote> with <quote>forward-socks4</quote>
4621 to use a socks4 connection (with local DNS resolution) instead, use <quote>forward-socks5</quote>
4622 for socks5 connections (with remote DNS resolution).
4627 <quote>forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 proxy.example.org:8000</quote> to use the socks4a proxy
4628 listening at 127.0.0.1 port 9050 to reach the HTTP proxy listening at proxy.example.org port 8000.
4629 Replace <quote>forward-socks4a</quote> with <quote>forward-socks4</quote> to use a socks4 connection
4630 (with local DNS resolution) instead, use <quote>forward-socks5</quote>
4631 for socks5 connections (with remote DNS resolution).
4642 This action takes parameters similar to the
4643 <link linkend="forwarding">forward</link> directives in the configuration
4644 file, but without the URL pattern. It can be used as replacement, but normally it's only
4645 used in cases where matching based on the request URL isn't sufficient.
4649 Please read the description for the <link linkend="forwarding">forward</link> directives before
4650 using this action. Forwarding to the wrong people will reduce your privacy and increase the
4651 chances of man-in-the-middle attacks.
4654 If the ports are missing or invalid, default values will be used. This might change
4655 in the future and you shouldn't rely on it. Otherwise incorrect syntax causes Privoxy
4659 Use the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">show-url-info CGI page</ulink>
4660 to verify that your forward settings do what you thought the do.
4667 <term>Example usage:</term>
4671 # Always use direct connections for requests previously tagged as
4672 # <quote>User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2.0</quote> and make sure
4673 # resuming downloads continues to work.
4674 # This way you can continue to use Tor for your normal browsing,
4675 # without overloading the Tor network with your FreeBSD ports updates
4676 # or downloads of bigger files like ISOs.
4677 # Note that HTTP headers are easy to fake and therefore their
4678 # values are as (un)trustworthy as your clients and users.
4679 {+forward-override{forward .} \
4680 -hide-if-modified-since \
4681 -overwrite-last-modified \
4683 TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2\.0$
4692 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4693 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-empty-document">
4694 <title>handle-as-empty-document</title>
4700 <term>Typical use:</term>
4702 <para>Mark URLs that should be replaced by empty documents <emphasis>if they get blocked</emphasis></para>
4707 <term>Effect:</term>
4710 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs.
4711 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
4712 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote>
4713 page, or an empty document will be sent to the client as a substitute for the blocked content.
4714 The <emphasis>empty</emphasis> document isn't literally empty, but actually contains a single space.
4721 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4723 <para>Boolean.</para>
4728 <term>Parameter:</term>
4740 Some browsers complain about syntax errors if JavaScript documents
4741 are blocked with <application>Privoxy's</application>
4742 default HTML page; this option can be used to silence them.
4743 And of course this action can also be used to eliminate the &my-app;
4744 BLOCKED message in frames.
4747 The content type for the empty document can be specified with
4748 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite{}</link></literal>,
4749 but usually this isn't necessary.
4755 <term>Example usage:</term>
4758 <screen># Block all documents on example.org that end with ".js",
4759 # but send an empty document instead of the usual HTML message.
4760 {+block{Blocked JavaScript} +handle-as-empty-document}
4770 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4771 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-image">
4772 <title>handle-as-image</title>
4776 <term>Typical use:</term>
4778 <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>
4783 <term>Effect:</term>
4786 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs as images.
4787 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
4788 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>blocked</quote>
4789 page, or a replacement image (as determined by the <literal><link
4790 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> action) will be sent to the
4791 client as a substitute for the blocked content.
4798 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4800 <para>Boolean.</para>
4805 <term>Parameter:</term>
4817 The below generic example section is actually part of <filename>default.action</filename>.
4818 It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should
4822 Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with
4823 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>, to block sources of banners, whose URLs don't
4824 reflect the file type, like in the second example section.
4827 Note that you cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, (in-line) ad
4828 frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they won't display properly.
4829 Forcing <literal>handle-as-image</literal> in this situation will not replace the
4830 ad frame with an image, but lead to error messages.
4836 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
4839 <screen># Generic image extensions:
4842 /.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)$
4844 # These don't look like images, but they're banners and should be
4845 # blocked as images:
4847 {+block{Nasty banners.} +handle-as-image}
4848 nasty-banner-server.example.com/junk.cgi\?output=trash
4857 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4858 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-accept-language">
4859 <title>hide-accept-language</title>
4865 <term>Typical use:</term>
4867 <para>Pretend to use different language settings.</para>
4872 <term>Effect:</term>
4875 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> HTTP header in client requests.
4882 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4884 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4889 <term>Parameter:</term>
4892 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4901 Faking the browser's language settings can be useful to make a
4902 foreign User-Agent set with
4903 <literal><link linkend="hide-user-agent">hide-user-agent</link></literal>
4907 However some sites with content in different languages check the
4908 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> to decide which one to take by default.
4909 Sometimes it isn't possible to later switch to another language without
4910 changing the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header first.
4913 Therefore it's a good idea to either only change the
4914 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header to languages you understand,
4915 or to languages that aren't wide spread.
4918 Before setting the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header
4919 to a rare language, you should consider that it helps to
4920 make your requests unique and thus easier to trace.
4921 If you don't plan to change this header frequently,
4922 you should stick to a common language.
4928 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4931 <screen># Pretend to use Canadian language settings.
4932 {+hide-accept-language{en-ca} \
4933 +hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; OpenBSD i386; en-CA; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060628 Firefox/1.5.0.4} \
4943 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4944 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-content-disposition">
4945 <title>hide-content-disposition</title>
4951 <term>Typical use:</term>
4953 <para>Prevent download menus for content you prefer to view inside the browser.</para>
4958 <term>Effect:</term>
4961 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header set by some servers.
4968 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4970 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4975 <term>Parameter:</term>
4978 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4987 Some servers set the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header for
4988 documents they assume you want to save locally before viewing them.
4989 The <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header contains the file name
4990 the browser is supposed to use by default.
4993 In most browsers that understand this header, it makes it impossible to
4994 <emphasis>just view</emphasis> the document, without downloading it first,
4995 even if it's just a simple text file or an image.
4998 Removing the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header helps
4999 to prevent this annoyance, but some browsers additionally check the
5000 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> header, before they decide if they can
5001 display a document without saving it first. In these cases, you have
5002 to change this header as well, before the browser stops displaying
5006 It is also possible to change the server's file name suggestion
5007 to another one, but in most cases it isn't worth the time to set
5011 This action will probably be removed in the future,
5012 use server-header filters instead.
5018 <term>Example usage:</term>
5021 <screen># Disarm the download link in Sourceforge's patch tracker
5023 +content-type-overwrite{text/plain}\
5024 +hide-content-disposition{block} }
5025 .sourceforge.net/tracker/download\.php</screen>
5033 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5034 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-if-modified-since">
5035 <title>hide-if-modified-since</title>
5041 <term>Typical use:</term>
5043 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
5048 <term>Effect:</term>
5051 Deletes the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> HTTP client header or modifies its value.
5058 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5060 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5065 <term>Parameter:</term>
5068 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or a user defined value that specifies a range of hours.
5077 Removing this header is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
5078 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the
5079 browser to use a cached copy of the page.
5082 Instead of removing the header, <literal>hide-if-modified-since</literal> can
5083 also add or subtract a random amount of time to/from the header's value.
5084 You specify a range of minutes where the random factor should be chosen from and
5085 <application>Privoxy</application> does the rest. A negative value means
5086 subtracting, a positive value adding.
5089 Randomizing the value of the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> makes
5090 it less likely that the server can use the time as a cookie replacement,
5091 but you will run into caching problems if the random range is too high.
5094 It is a good idea to only use a small negative value and let
5095 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>
5096 handle the greater changes.
5099 It is also recommended to use this action together with
5100 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>,
5101 otherwise it's more or less pointless.
5107 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5110 <screen># Let the browser revalidate but make tracking based on the time less likely.
5111 {+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
5112 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
5113 +crunch-if-none-match}
5122 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5123 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-from-header">
5124 <title>hide-from-header</title>
5128 <term>Typical use:</term>
5130 <para>Keep your (old and ill) browser from telling web servers your email address</para>
5135 <term>Effect:</term>
5138 Deletes any existing <quote>From:</quote> HTTP header, or replaces it with the
5146 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5148 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5153 <term>Parameter:</term>
5156 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
5165 The keyword <quote>block</quote> will completely remove the header
5166 (not to be confused with the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
5170 Alternately, you can specify any value you prefer to be sent to the web
5171 server. If you do, it is a matter of fairness not to use any address that
5172 is actually used by a real person.
5175 This action is rarely needed, as modern web browsers don't send
5176 <quote>From:</quote> headers anymore.
5182 <term>Example usage:</term>
5185 <screen>+hide-from-header{block}</screen> or
5186 <screen>+hide-from-header{spam-me-senseless@sittingduck.example.com}</screen>
5194 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5195 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-referrer">
5196 <title>hide-referrer</title>
5197 <anchor id="hide-referer">
5200 <term>Typical use:</term>
5202 <para>Conceal which link you followed to get to a particular site</para>
5207 <term>Effect:</term>
5210 Deletes the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) HTTP header from the client request,
5211 or replaces it with a forged one.
5218 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5220 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5225 <term>Parameter:</term>
5229 <para><quote>conditional-block</quote> to delete the header completely if the host has changed.</para>
5232 <para><quote>conditional-forge</quote> to forge the header if the host has changed.</para>
5235 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header unconditionally.</para>
5238 <para><quote>forge</quote> to pretend to be coming from the homepage of the server we are talking to.</para>
5241 <para>Any other string to set a user defined referrer.</para>
5251 <literal>conditional-block</literal> is the only parameter,
5252 that isn't easily detected in the server's log file. If it blocks the
5253 referrer, the request will look like the visitor used a bookmark or
5254 typed in the address directly.
5257 Leaving the referrer unmodified for requests on the same host
5258 allows the server owner to see the visitor's <quote>click path</quote>,
5259 but in most cases she could also get that information by comparing
5260 other parts of the log file: for example the User-Agent if it isn't
5261 a very common one, or the user's IP address if it doesn't change between
5265 Always blocking the referrer, or using a custom one, can lead to
5266 failures on servers that check the referrer before they answer any
5267 requests, in an attempt to prevent their content from being
5268 embedded or linked to elsewhere.
5271 Both <literal>conditional-block</literal> and <literal>forge</literal>
5272 will work with referrer checks, as long as content and valid referring page
5273 are on the same host. Most of the time that's the case.
5276 <literal>hide-referer</literal> is an alternate spelling of
5277 <literal>hide-referrer</literal> and the two can be can be freely
5278 substituted with each other. (<quote>referrer</quote> is the
5279 correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
5280 requires it to be spelled as <quote>referer</quote>.)
5286 <term>Example usage:</term>
5289 <screen>+hide-referrer{forge}</screen> or
5290 <screen>+hide-referrer{http://www.yahoo.com/}</screen>
5298 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5299 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-user-agent">
5300 <title>hide-user-agent</title>
5304 <term>Typical use:</term>
5306 <para>Try to conceal your type of browser and client operating system</para>
5311 <term>Effect:</term>
5314 Replaces the value of the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> HTTP header
5315 in client requests with the specified value.
5322 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5324 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5329 <term>Parameter:</term>
5332 Any user-defined string.
5342 This can lead to problems on web sites that depend on looking at this header in
5343 order to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the
5344 way, is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the right thing to do: good web sites
5345 work browser-independently).
5349 Using this action in multi-user setups or wherever different types of
5350 browsers will access the same <application>Privoxy</application> is
5351 <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>. In single-user, single-browser
5352 setups, you might use it to delete your OS version information from
5353 the headers, because it is an invitation to exploit known bugs for your
5354 OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
5355 sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
5356 reason in some cases). Example of this: some MSN sites will not
5357 let <application>Mozilla</application> enter, yet forging to a
5358 <application>Netscape 6.1</application> user-agent works just fine.
5359 (Must be just a silly MS goof, I'm sure :-).
5362 More information on known user-agent strings can be found at
5363 <ulink url="http://www.user-agents.org/">http://www.user-agents.org/</ulink>
5365 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent</ulink>.
5371 <term>Example usage:</term>
5374 <screen>+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}</screen>
5382 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5383 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="limit-connect">
5384 <title>limit-connect</title>
5388 <term>Typical use:</term>
5390 <para>Prevent abuse of <application>Privoxy</application> as a TCP proxy relay or disable SSL for untrusted sites</para>
5395 <term>Effect:</term>
5398 Specifies to which ports HTTP CONNECT requests are allowable.
5405 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5407 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5412 <term>Parameter:</term>
5415 A comma-separated list of ports or port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum
5416 defaulting to 0 and the maximum to 65K).
5425 By default, i.e. if no <literal>limit-connect</literal> action applies,
5426 <application>Privoxy</application> allows HTTP CONNECT requests to all
5427 ports. Use <literal>limit-connect</literal> if fine-grained control
5428 is desired for some or all destinations.
5431 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
5432 (<quote>https://</quote> URLs) through proxies. It works very simply:
5433 the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then
5434 short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote server.
5435 This means CONNECT-enabled proxies can be used as TCP relays very easily.
5438 <application>Privoxy</application> relays HTTPS traffic without seeing
5439 the decoded content. Websites can leverage this limitation to circumvent &my-app;'s
5440 filters. By specifying an invalid port range you can disable HTTPS entirely.
5446 <term>Example usages:</term>
5448 <!-- I had trouble getting the spacing to look right in my browser -->
5449 <!-- I probably have the wrong font setup, bollocks. -->
5450 <!-- Apparently the emphasis tag uses a proportional font no matter what -->
5452 <screen>+limit-connect{443} # Port 443 is OK.
5453 +limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
5454 +limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Ports less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
5455 +limit-connect{-} # All ports are OK
5456 +limit-connect{,} # No HTTPS/SSL traffic is allowed</screen>
5463 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5464 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="prevent-compression">
5465 <title>prevent-compression</title>
5469 <term>Typical use:</term>
5472 Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be
5473 passed through <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>s.
5479 <term>Effect:</term>
5482 Removes the Accept-Encoding header which can be used to ask for compressed transfer.
5489 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5491 <para>Boolean.</para>
5496 <term>Parameter:</term>
5508 More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which
5509 is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But the <literal><link
5510 linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> and
5511 <literal><link linkend="deanimate-gifs">deanimate-gifs</link></literal>
5512 actions need access to the uncompressed data.
5515 When compiled with zlib support (available since &my-app; 3.0.7), content that should be
5516 filtered is decompressed on-the-fly and you don't have to worry about this action.
5517 If you are using an older &my-app; version, or one that hasn't been compiled with zlib
5518 support, this action can be used to convince the server to send the content uncompressed.
5521 Most text-based instances compress very well, the size is seldom decreased by less than 50%,
5522 for markup-heavy instances like news feeds saving more than 90% of the original size isn't
5526 Not using compression will therefore slow down the transfer, and you should only
5527 enable this action if you really need it. As of &my-app; 3.0.7 it's disabled in all
5528 predefined action settings.
5531 Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed
5532 documents correctly. Broken PHP applications tend to send an empty document body,
5533 some IIS versions only send the beginning of the content. If you enable
5534 <literal>prevent-compression</literal> per default, you might want to add
5535 exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
5541 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
5545 # Selectively turn off compression, and enable a filter
5547 { +filter{tiny-textforms} +prevent-compression }
5548 # Match only these sites
5553 # Or instead, we could set a universal default:
5555 { +prevent-compression }
5558 # Then maybe make exceptions for broken sites:
5560 { -prevent-compression }
5561 .compusa.com/</screen>
5570 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5571 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="overwrite-last-modified">
5572 <title>overwrite-last-modified</title>
5578 <term>Typical use:</term>
5580 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
5585 <term>Effect:</term>
5588 Deletes the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> HTTP server header or modifies its value.
5595 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5597 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5602 <term>Parameter:</term>
5605 One of the keywords: <quote>block</quote>, <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote>
5606 and <quote>randomize</quote>
5615 Removing the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header is useful for filter
5616 testing, where you want to force a real reload instead of getting status
5617 code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the browser to reuse the old
5618 version of the page.
5621 The <quote>randomize</quote> option overwrites the value of the
5622 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with a randomly chosen time
5623 between the original value and the current time. In theory the server
5624 could send each document with a different <quote>Last-Modified:</quote>
5625 header to track visits without using cookies. <quote>Randomize</quote>
5626 makes it impossible and the browser can still revalidate cached documents.
5629 <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote> overwrites the value of the
5630 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with the current time. You could use
5631 this option together with
5632 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hide-if-modified-since</link></literal>
5633 to further customize your random range.
5636 The preferred parameter here is <quote>randomize</quote>. It is safe
5637 to use, as long as the time settings are more or less correct.
5638 If the server sets the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header to the time
5639 of the request, the random range becomes zero and the value stays the same.
5640 Therefore you should later randomize it a second time with
5641 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hided-if-modified-since</link></literal>,
5645 It is also recommended to use this action together with
5646 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>.
5652 <term>Example usage:</term>
5655 <screen># Let the browser revalidate without being tracked across sessions
5656 { +hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
5657 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
5658 +crunch-if-none-match}
5667 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5668 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="redirect">
5669 <title>redirect</title>
5675 <term>Typical use:</term>
5678 Redirect requests to other sites.
5684 <term>Effect:</term>
5687 Convinces the browser that the requested document has been moved
5688 to another location and the browser should get it from there.
5695 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5697 <para>Parameterized</para>
5702 <term>Parameter:</term>
5705 An absolute URL or a single pcrs command.
5714 Requests to which this action applies are answered with a
5715 HTTP redirect to URLs of your choosing. The new URL is
5716 either provided as parameter, or derived by applying a
5717 single pcrs command to the original URL.
5720 This action will be ignored if you use it together with
5721 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>.
5722 It can be combined with
5723 <literal><link linkend="fast-redirects">fast-redirects{check-decoded-url}</link></literal>
5724 to redirect to a decoded version of a rewritten URL.
5727 Use this action carefully, make sure not to create redirection loops
5728 and be aware that using your own redirects might make it
5729 possible to fingerprint your requests.
5732 In case of problems with your redirects, or simply to watch
5733 them working, enable <link linkend="DEBUG">debug 128</link>.
5739 <term>Example usages:</term>
5742 <screen># Replace example.com's style sheet with another one
5743 { +redirect{http://localhost/css-replacements/example.com.css} }
5744 example.com/stylesheet\.css
5746 # Create a short, easy to remember nickname for a favorite site
5747 # (relies on the browser accept and forward invalid URLs to &my-app;)
5748 { +redirect{http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/actions-file.html} }
5751 # Always use the expanded view for Undeadly.org articles
5752 # (Note the $ at the end of the URL pattern to make sure
5753 # the request for the rewritten URL isn't redirected as well)
5754 {+redirect{s@$@&mode=expanded@}}
5755 undeadly.org/cgi\?action=article&sid=\d*$
5757 # Redirect Google search requests to MSN
5758 {+redirect{s@^http://[^/]*/search\?q=([^&]*).*@http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=$1@}}
5761 # Redirect MSN search requests to Yahoo
5762 {+redirect{s@^http://[^/]*/results\.aspx\?q=([^&]*).*@http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=$1@}}
5763 search.msn.com//results\.aspx\?q=
5765 # Redirect remote requests for this manual
5766 # to the local version delivered by Privoxy
5767 {+redirect{s@^http://www@http://config@}}
5768 www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</screen>
5777 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5778 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="server-header-filter">
5779 <title>server-header-filter</title>
5783 <term>Typical use:</term>
5786 Rewrite or remove single server headers.
5792 <term>Effect:</term>
5795 All server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly
5796 through the specified regular expression based substitutions.
5803 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
5805 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5810 <term>Parameter:</term>
5813 The name of a server-header filter, as defined in one of the
5814 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
5823 Server-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
5824 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
5825 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
5826 You can do that by using tags though.
5829 Server-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
5830 and use their output as input.
5833 Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
5834 to learn which server-header filters are available by default, and how to
5841 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5845 {+server-header-filter{html-to-xml}}
5846 example.org/xml-instance-that-is-delivered-as-html
5848 {+server-header-filter{xml-to-html}}
5849 example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
5859 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5860 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="server-header-tagger">
5861 <title>server-header-tagger</title>
5865 <term>Typical use:</term>
5868 Enable or disable filters based on the Content-Type header.
5874 <term>Effect:</term>
5877 Server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
5878 the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
5886 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
5888 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5893 <term>Parameter:</term>
5896 The name of a server-header tagger, as defined in one of the
5897 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
5906 Server-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
5907 and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
5911 Server-header taggers are executed before all other header actions
5912 that modify server headers. Their tags can be used to control
5913 all of the other server-header actions, the content filters
5914 and the crunch actions (<link linkend="redirect">redirect</link>
5915 and <link linkend="block">block</link>).
5918 Obviously crunching based on tags created by server-header taggers
5919 doesn't prevent the request from showing up in the server's log file.
5926 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5930 # Tag every request with the content type declared by the server
5931 {+server-header-tagger{content-type}}
5942 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5943 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="session-cookies-only">
5944 <title>session-cookies-only</title>
5948 <term>Typical use:</term>
5951 Allow only temporary <quote>session</quote> cookies (for the current
5952 browser session <emphasis>only</emphasis>).
5958 <term>Effect:</term>
5961 Deletes the <quote>expires</quote> field from <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote>
5962 server headers. Most browsers will not store such cookies permanently and
5963 forget them in between sessions.
5970 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5972 <para>Boolean.</para>
5977 <term>Parameter:</term>
5989 This is less strict than <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> /
5990 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal> and allows you to browse
5991 websites that insist or rely on setting cookies, without compromising your privacy too badly.
5994 Most browsers will not permanently store cookies that have been processed by
5995 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal> and will forget about them between sessions.
5996 This makes profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
5997 that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
5998 sites, and is the recommended setting.
6001 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>
6002 together with <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> or
6003 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>. If you do, cookies
6004 will be plainly killed.
6007 Note that it is up to the browser how it handles such cookies without an <quote>expires</quote>
6008 field. If you use an exotic browser, you might want to try it out to be sure.
6011 This setting also has no effect on cookies that may have been stored
6012 previously by the browser before starting <application>Privoxy</application>.
6013 These would have to be removed manually.
6016 <application>Privoxy</application> also uses
6017 the <link linkend="filter-content-cookies">content-cookies filter</link>
6018 to block some types of cookies. Content cookies are not effected by
6019 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>.
6025 <term>Example usage:</term>
6028 <screen>+session-cookies-only</screen>
6036 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6037 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="set-image-blocker">
6038 <title>set-image-blocker</title>
6042 <term>Typical use:</term>
6044 <para>Choose the replacement for blocked images</para>
6049 <term>Effect:</term>
6052 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. If <emphasis>both</emphasis>
6053 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><link
6054 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> <emphasis>also</emphasis>
6055 apply, i.e. if the request is to be blocked as an image,
6056 <emphasis>then</emphasis> the parameter of this action decides what will be
6057 sent as a replacement.
6064 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
6066 <para>Parameterized.</para>
6071 <term>Parameter:</term>
6076 <quote>pattern</quote> to send a built-in checkerboard pattern image. The image is visually
6077 decent, scales very well, and makes it obvious where banners were busted.
6082 <quote>blank</quote> to send a built-in transparent image. This makes banners disappear
6083 completely, but makes it hard to detect where <application>Privoxy</application> has blocked
6084 images on a given page and complicates troubleshooting if <application>Privoxy</application>
6085 has blocked innocent images, like navigation icons.
6090 <quote><replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable></quote> to
6091 send a redirect to <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>. You can redirect
6092 to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem via <quote>file:///</quote> URL.
6093 (But note that not all browsers support redirecting to a local file system).
6096 A good application of redirects is to use special <application>Privoxy</application>-built-in
6097 URLs, which send the built-in images, as <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>.
6098 This has the same visual effect as specifying <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote> in
6099 the first place, but enables your browser to cache the replacement image, instead of requesting
6100 it over and over again.
6111 The URLs for the built-in images are <quote>http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=<replaceable
6112 class="parameter">type</replaceable></quote>, where <replaceable class="parameter">type</replaceable> is
6113 either <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote>.
6116 There is a third (advanced) type, called <quote>auto</quote>. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> to be
6117 used in <literal>set-image-blocker</literal>, but meant for use from <link linkend="filter-file">filters</link>.
6118 Auto will select the type of image that would have applied to the referring page, had it been an image.
6124 <term>Example usage:</term>
6130 <screen>+set-image-blocker{pattern}</screen>
6133 Redirect to the BSD daemon:
6136 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://www.freebsd.org/gifs/dae_up3.gif}</screen>
6139 Redirect to the built-in pattern for better caching:
6142 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=pattern}</screen>
6150 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6152 <title>Summary</title>
6154 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
6155 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
6156 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
6157 content, and other criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard
6158 and fast rules for all sites. See the <link
6159 linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link> for a brief example on troubleshooting
6165 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6166 <sect2 id="aliases">
6167 <title>Aliases</title>
6169 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
6170 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other actions.
6171 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in actions.
6172 Currently, an alias name can contain any character except space, tab,
6174 <quote>{</quote> and <quote>}</quote>, but we <emphasis>strongly
6175 recommend</emphasis> that you only use <quote>a</quote> to <quote>z</quote>,
6176 <quote>0</quote> to <quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and <quote>-</quote>.
6177 Alias names are not case sensitive, and are not required to start with a
6178 <quote>+</quote> or <quote>-</quote> sign, since they are merely textually
6182 Aliases can be used throughout the actions file, but they <emphasis>must be
6183 defined in a special section at the top of the file!</emphasis>
6184 And there can only be one such section per actions file. Each actions file may
6185 have its own alias section, and the aliases defined in it are only visible
6189 There are two main reasons to use aliases: One is to save typing for frequently
6190 used combinations of actions, the other one is a gain in flexibility: If you
6191 decide once how you want to handle shops by defining an alias called
6192 <quote>shop</quote>, you can later change your policy on shops in
6193 <emphasis>one</emphasis> place, and your changes will take effect everywhere
6194 in the actions file where the <quote>shop</quote> alias is used. Calling aliases
6195 by their purpose also makes your actions files more readable.
6198 Currently, there is one big drawback to using aliases, though:
6199 <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in web-based action file
6200 editor honors aliases when reading the actions files, but it expands
6201 them before writing. So the effects of your aliases are of course preserved,
6202 but the aliases themselves are lost when you edit sections that use aliases
6207 Now let's define some aliases...
6212 # Useful custom aliases we can use later.
6214 # Note the (required!) section header line and that this section
6215 # must be at the top of the actions file!
6219 # These aliases just save typing later:
6220 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
6222 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6223 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6224 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked image.} +handle-as-image
6225 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
6227 # These aliases define combinations of actions
6228 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
6230 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>
6232 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link>
6234 # Short names for other aliases, for really lazy people ;-)
6236 c0 = +crunch-all-cookies
6237 c1 = -crunch-all-cookies</screen>
6241 ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
6242 actions file and define exceptions to the default actions (as specified further
6243 up for the <quote>/</quote> pattern):
6248 # These sites are either very complex or very keen on
6249 # user data and require minimal interference to work:
6252 .office.microsoft.com
6253 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
6254 # Gmail is really mail.google.com, not gmail.com
6258 # Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data)
6262 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
6265 # These shops require pop-ups:
6267 {-filter{all-popups} -filter{unsolicited-popups}}
6269 .overclockers.co.uk</screen>
6273 Aliases like <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> are typically used for
6274 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require more than one action to be disabled
6275 in order to function properly.
6281 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6282 <sect2 id="act-examples">
6283 <title>Actions Files Tutorial</title>
6285 The above chapters have shown <link linkend="actions-file">which actions files
6286 there are and how they are organized</link>, how actions are <link
6287 linkend="actions">specified</link> and <link linkend="actions-apply">applied
6288 to URLs</link>, how <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> work, and how to
6289 define and use <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link>. Now, let's look at an
6290 example <filename>match-all.action</filename>, <filename>default.action</filename>
6291 and <filename>user.action</filename> file and see how all these pieces come together:
6295 <title>match-all.action</title>
6297 Remember <emphasis>all actions are disabled when matching starts</emphasis>,
6298 so we have to explicitly enable the ones we want.
6302 While the <filename>match-all.action</filename> file only contains a
6303 single section, it is probably the most important one. It has only one
6304 pattern, <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, but this pattern
6305 <link linkend="af-patterns">matches all URLs</link>. Therefore, the set of
6306 actions used in this <quote>default</quote> section <emphasis>will
6307 be applied to all requests as a start</emphasis>. It can be partly or
6308 wholly overridden by other actions files like <filename>default.action</filename>
6309 and <filename>user.action</filename>, but it will still be largely responsible
6310 for your overall browsing experience.
6314 Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is
6315 no need to disable any actions here. (Remember: a <quote>+</quote>
6316 preceding the action name enables the action, a <quote>-</quote> disables!).
6317 Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into
6318 multiple lines with line continuation.
6324 +<link linkend="CHANGE-X-FORWARDED-FOR">change-x-forwarded-for{block}</link> \
6325 +<link linkend="HIDE-FROM-HEADER">hide-from-header{block}</link> \
6326 +<link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER">set-image-blocker{pattern}</link> \
6333 The default behavior is now set.
6338 <title>default.action</title>
6341 If you aren't a developer, there's no need for you to edit the
6342 <filename>default.action</filename> file. It is maintained by
6343 the &my-app; developers and if you disagree with some of the
6344 sections, you should overrule them in your <filename>user.action</filename>.
6348 Understanding the <filename>default.action</filename> file can
6349 help you with your <filename>user.action</filename>, though.
6353 The first section in this file is a special section for internal use
6354 that prevents older &my-app; versions from reading the file:
6359 ##########################################################################
6360 # Settings -- Don't change! For internal Privoxy use ONLY.
6361 ##########################################################################
6363 for-privoxy-version=3.0.11</screen>
6367 After that comes the (optional) alias section. We'll use the example
6368 section from the above <link linkend="aliases">chapter on aliases</link>,
6369 that also explains why and how aliases are used:
6374 ##########################################################################
6376 ##########################################################################
6379 # These aliases just save typing later:
6380 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
6382 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6383 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6384 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked image.} +handle-as-image
6385 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
6387 # These aliases define combinations of actions
6388 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
6390 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>
6391 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link></screen>
6395 The first of our specialized sections is concerned with <quote>fragile</quote>
6396 sites, i.e. sites that require minimum interference, because they are either
6397 very complex or very keen on tracking you (and have mechanisms in place that
6398 make them unusable for people who avoid being tracked). We will simply use
6399 our pre-defined <literal>fragile</literal> alias instead of stating the list
6400 of actions explicitly:
6405 ##########################################################################
6406 # Exceptions for sites that'll break under the default action set:
6407 ##########################################################################
6409 # "Fragile" Use a minimum set of actions for these sites (see alias above):
6412 .office.microsoft.com # surprise, surprise!
6413 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
6414 mail.google.com</screen>
6418 Shopping sites are not as fragile, but they typically
6419 require cookies to log in, and pop-up windows for shopping
6420 carts or item details. Again, we'll use a pre-defined alias:
6429 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
6431 .scan.co.uk</screen>
6435 The <literal><link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link></literal>
6436 action, which may have been enabled in <filename>match-all.action</filename>,
6437 breaks some sites. So disable it for popular sites where we know it misbehaves:
6442 { -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> }
6446 .altavista.com/.*(like|url|link):http
6447 .altavista.com/trans.*urltext=http
6448 .nytimes.com</screen>
6452 It is important that <application>Privoxy</application> knows which
6453 URLs belong to images, so that <emphasis>if</emphasis> they are to
6454 be blocked, a substitute image can be sent, rather than an HTML page.
6455 Contacting the remote site to find out is not an option, since it
6456 would destroy the loading time advantage of banner blocking, and it
6457 would feed the advertisers information about you. We can mark any
6458 URL as an image with the <literal><link
6459 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action,
6460 and marking all URLs that end in a known image file extension is a
6466 ##########################################################################
6468 ##########################################################################
6470 # Define which file types will be treated as images, in case they get
6471 # blocked further down this file:
6473 { +<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> }
6474 /.*\.(gif|jpe?g|png|bmp|ico)$</screen>
6478 And then there are known banner sources. They often use scripts to
6479 generate the banners, so it won't be visible from the URL that the
6480 request is for an image. Hence we block them <emphasis>and</emphasis>
6481 mark them as images in one go, with the help of our
6482 <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above. (We could of
6483 course just as well use <literal>+<link linkend="block">block</link>
6484 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> here.)
6485 Remember that the type of the replacement image is chosen by the
6486 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
6487 action. Since all URLs have matched the default section with its
6488 <literal>+<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link>{pattern}</literal>
6489 action before, it still applies and needn't be repeated:
6494 # Known ad generators:
6499 .ad.*.doubleclick.net
6500 .a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
6501 .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
6507 One of the most important jobs of <application>Privoxy</application>
6508 is to block banners. Many of these can be <quote>blocked</quote>
6509 by the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{banners-by-size}</literal>
6510 action, which we enabled above, and which deletes the references to banner
6511 images from the pages while they are loaded, so the browser doesn't request
6512 them anymore, and hence they don't need to be blocked here. But this naturally
6513 doesn't catch all banners, and some people choose not to use filters, so we
6514 need a comprehensive list of patterns for banner URLs here, and apply the
6515 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action to them.
6518 First comes many generic patterns, which do most of the work, by
6519 matching typical domain and path name components of banners. Then comes
6520 a list of individual patterns for specific sites, which is omitted here
6521 to keep the example short:
6526 ##########################################################################
6527 # Block these fine banners:
6528 ##########################################################################
6529 { <link linkend="BLOCK">+block{Banner ads.}</link> }
6537 /.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?)
6538 /(?:.*/)?(publicite|werbung|rekla(ma|me|am)|annonse|maino(kset|nta|s)?)/
6540 # Site-specific patterns (abbreviated):
6542 .hitbox.com</screen>
6546 It's quite remarkable how many advertisers actually call their banner
6547 servers ads.<replaceable>company</replaceable>.com, or call the directory
6548 in which the banners are stored simply <quote>banners</quote>. So the above
6549 generic patterns are surprisingly effective.
6552 But being very generic, they necessarily also catch URLs that we don't want
6553 to block. The pattern <literal>.*ads.</literal> e.g. catches
6554 <quote>nasty-<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.nasty-corp.com</quote> as intended,
6555 but also <quote>downlo<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.sourcefroge.net</quote> or
6556 <quote><emphasis>ads</emphasis>l.some-provider.net.</quote> So here come some
6557 well-known exceptions to the <literal>+<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
6561 Note that these are exceptions to exceptions from the default! Consider the URL
6562 <quote>downloads.sourcefroge.net</quote>: Initially, all actions are deactivated,
6563 so it wouldn't get blocked. Then comes the defaults section, which matches the
6564 URL, but just deactivates the <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
6565 action once again. Then it matches <literal>.*ads.</literal>, an exception to the
6566 general non-blocking policy, and suddenly
6567 <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link></literal> applies. And now, it'll match
6568 <literal>.*loads.</literal>, where <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">-block</link></literal>
6569 applies, so (unless it matches <emphasis>again</emphasis> further down) it ends up
6570 with no <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal> action applying.
6575 ##########################################################################
6576 # Save some innocent victims of the above generic block patterns:
6577 ##########################################################################
6581 { -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
6582 adv[io]*. # (for advogato.org and advice.*)
6583 adsl. # (has nothing to do with ads)
6584 adobe. # (has nothing to do with ads either)
6585 ad[ud]*. # (adult.* and add.*)
6586 .edu # (universities don't host banners (yet!))
6587 .*loads. # (downloads, uploads etc)
6595 www.globalintersec.com/adv # (adv = advanced)
6596 www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv</screen>
6600 Filtering source code can have nasty side effects,
6601 so make an exception for our friends at sourceforge.net,
6602 and all paths with <quote>cvs</quote> in them. Note that
6603 <literal>-<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link></literal>
6604 disables <emphasis>all</emphasis> filters in one fell swoop!
6609 # Don't filter code!
6611 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
6616 .sourceforge.net</screen>
6620 The actual <filename>default.action</filename> is of course much more
6621 comprehensive, but we hope this example made clear how it works.
6626 <sect3><title>user.action</title>
6629 So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies,
6630 which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
6631 you might want to be more specific and have customized rules that
6632 are more suitable to your personal habits and preferences. These would
6633 be for narrowly defined situations like your ISP or your bank, and should
6634 be placed in <filename>user.action</filename>, which is parsed after all other
6635 actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding any previously
6636 defined actions. <filename>user.action</filename> is also a
6637 <emphasis>safe</emphasis> place for your personal settings, since
6638 <filename>default.action</filename> is actively maintained by the
6639 <application>Privoxy</application> developers and you'll probably want
6640 to install updated versions from time to time.
6644 So let's look at a few examples of things that one might typically do in
6645 <filename>user.action</filename>:
6649 <!-- brief sample user.action here -->
6653 # My user.action file. <fred@example.com></screen>
6657 As <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link> are local to the actions
6658 file that they are defined in, you can't use the ones from
6659 <filename>default.action</filename>, unless you repeat them here:
6664 # Aliases are local to the file they are defined in.
6665 # (Re-)define aliases for this file:
6669 # These aliases just save typing later, and the alias names should
6670 # be self explanatory.
6672 +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
6673 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
6674 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
6675 allow-popups = -filter{all-popups}
6676 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked as image.} +handle-as-image
6677 -block-as-image = -block
6679 # These aliases define combinations of actions that are useful for
6680 # certain types of sites:
6682 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referrer
6683 shop = -crunch-all-cookies allow-popups
6685 # Allow ads for selected useful free sites:
6687 allow-ads = -block -filter{banners-by-size} -filter{banners-by-link}
6689 # Alias for specific file types that are text, but might have conflicting
6690 # MIME types. We want the browser to force these to be text documents.
6691 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>
6696 Say you have accounts on some sites that you visit regularly, and
6697 you don't want to have to log in manually each time. So you'd like
6698 to allow persistent cookies for these sites. The
6699 <literal>allow-all-cookies</literal> alias defined above does exactly
6700 that, i.e. it disables crunching of cookies in any direction, and the
6701 processing of cookies to make them only temporary.
6706 { allow-all-cookies }
6710 .redhat.com</screen>
6714 Your bank is allergic to some filter, but you don't know which, so you disable them all:
6719 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
6720 .your-home-banking-site.com</screen>
6724 Some file types you may not want to filter for various reasons:
6729 # Technical documentation is likely to contain strings that might
6730 # erroneously get altered by the JavaScript-oriented filters:
6735 # And this stupid host sends streaming video with a wrong MIME type,
6736 # so that Privoxy thinks it is getting HTML and starts filtering:
6738 stupid-server.example.com/</screen>
6742 Example of a simple <link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> action. Say you've
6743 seen an ad on your favourite page on example.com that you want to get rid of.
6744 You have right-clicked the image, selected <quote>copy image location</quote>
6745 and pasted the URL below while removing the leading http://, into a
6746 <literal>{ +block{} }</literal> section. Note that <literal>{ +handle-as-image
6747 }</literal> need not be specified, since all URLs ending in
6748 <literal>.gif</literal> will be tagged as images by the general rules as set
6749 in default.action anyway:
6754 { +<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link>{Nasty ads.} }
6755 www.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor\.gif
6756 another.example.net/more/junk/here/</screen>
6760 The URLs of dynamically generated banners, especially from large banner
6761 farms, often don't use the well-known image file name extensions, which
6762 makes it impossible for <application>Privoxy</application> to guess
6763 the file type just by looking at the URL.
6764 You can use the <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above for
6766 Note that objects which match this rule but then turn out NOT to be an
6767 image are typically rendered as a <quote>broken image</quote> icon by the
6768 browser. Use cautiously.
6777 ar.atwola.com/</screen>
6781 Now you noticed that the default configuration breaks Forbes Magazine,
6782 but you were too lazy to find out which action is the culprit, and you
6783 were again too lazy to give <link linkend="contact">feedback</link>, so
6784 you just used the <literal>fragile</literal> alias on the site, and
6785 -- <emphasis>whoa!</emphasis> -- it worked. The <literal>fragile</literal>
6786 aliases disables those actions that are most likely to break a site. Also,
6787 good for testing purposes to see if it is <application>Privoxy</application>
6788 that is causing the problem or not. We later find other regular sites
6789 that misbehave, and add those to our personalized list of troublemakers:
6797 .mybank.com</screen>
6801 You like the <quote>fun</quote> text replacements in <filename>default.filter</filename>,
6802 but it is disabled in the distributed actions file.
6803 So you'd like to turn it on in your private,
6804 update-safe config, once and for all:
6809 { +<link linkend="filter-fun">filter{fun}</link> }
6810 / # For ALL sites!</screen>
6814 Note that the above is not really a good idea: There are exceptions
6815 to the filters in <filename>default.action</filename> for things that
6816 really shouldn't be filtered, like code on CVS->Web interfaces. Since
6817 <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word, these exceptions
6818 won't be valid for the <quote>fun</quote> filtering specified here.
6822 You might also worry about how your favourite free websites are
6823 funded, and find that they rely on displaying banner advertisements
6824 to survive. So you might want to specifically allow banners for those
6825 sites that you feel provide value to you:
6837 Note that <literal>allow-ads</literal> has been aliased to
6838 <literal>-<link linkend="block">block</link></literal>,
6839 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-size">filter{banners-by-size}</link></literal>, and
6840 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-link">filter{banners-by-link}</link></literal> above.
6844 Invoke another alias here to force an over-ride of the MIME type <literal>
6845 application/x-sh</literal> which typically would open a download type
6846 dialog. In my case, I want to look at the shell script, and then I can save
6847 it should I choose to.
6857 <filename>user.action</filename> is generally the best place to define
6858 exceptions and additions to the default policies of
6859 <filename>default.action</filename>. Some actions are safe to have their
6860 default policies set here though. So let's set a default policy to have a
6861 <quote>blank</quote> image as opposed to the checkerboard pattern for
6862 <emphasis>ALL</emphasis> sites. <quote>/</quote> of course matches all URL
6868 { +<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker{blank}</link> }
6869 / # ALL sites</screen>
6875 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6879 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6881 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
6883 <sect1 id="filter-file">
6884 <title>Filter Files</title>
6887 On-the-fly text substitutions need
6888 to be defined in a <quote>filter file</quote>. Once defined, they
6889 can then be invoked as an <quote>action</quote>.
6893 &my-app; supports three different filter actions:
6894 <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> to
6895 rewrite the content that is send to the client,
6896 <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header-filter</link></literal>
6897 to rewrite headers that are send by the client, and
6898 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header-filter</link></literal>
6899 to rewrite headers that are send by the server.
6903 &my-app; also supports two tagger actions:
6904 <literal><link linkend="client-header-tagger">client-header-tagger</link></literal>
6906 <literal><link linkend="server-header-tagger">server-header-tagger</link></literal>.
6907 Taggers and filters use the same syntax in the filter files, the difference
6908 is that taggers don't modify the text they are filtering, but use a rewritten
6909 version of the filtered text as tag. The tags can then be used to change the
6910 applying actions through sections with <link linkend="tag-pattern">tag-patterns</link>.
6915 Multiple filter files can be defined through the <literal> <link
6916 linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal> config directive. The filters
6917 as supplied by the developers are located in
6918 <filename>default.filter</filename>. It is recommended that any locally
6919 defined or modified filters go in a separately defined file such as
6920 <filename>user.filter</filename>.
6924 Common tasks for content filters are to eliminate common annoyances in
6925 HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows,
6926 exit consoles, crippled windows without navigation tools, the
6927 infamous <BLINK> tag etc, to suppress images with certain
6928 width and height attributes (standard banner sizes or web-bugs),
6929 or just to have fun.
6933 Enabled content filters are applied to any content whose
6934 <quote>Content Type</quote> header is recognised as a sign
6935 of text-based content, with the exception of <literal>text/plain</literal>.
6936 Use the <link linkend="FORCE-TEXT-MODE">force-text-mode</link> action
6937 to also filter other content.
6941 Substitutions are made at the source level, so if you want to <quote>roll
6942 your own</quote> filters, you should first be familiar with HTML syntax,
6943 and, of course, regular expressions.
6947 Just like the <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, the
6948 filter file is organized in sections, which are called <emphasis>filters</emphasis>
6949 here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with one of the
6950 <emphasis>keywords</emphasis> <literal>FILTER:</literal>,
6951 <literal>CLIENT-HEADER-FILTER:</literal> or <literal>SERVER-HEADER-FILTER:</literal>
6952 followed by the filter's <emphasis>name</emphasis>, and a short (one line)
6953 <emphasis>description</emphasis> of what it does. Below that line
6954 come the <emphasis>jobs</emphasis>, i.e. lines that define the actual
6955 text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter
6956 should describe what the filter <emphasis>eliminates</emphasis>. The
6957 comment is used in the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
6958 user interface</ulink>.
6962 Once a filter called <replaceable>name</replaceable> has been defined
6963 in the filter file, it can be invoked by using an action of the form
6964 +<literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>name</replaceable>}</literal>
6965 in any <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>.
6969 Filter definitions start with a header line that contains the filter
6970 type, the filter name and the filter description.
6971 A content filter header line for a filter called <quote>foo</quote> could look
6976 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"</screen>
6980 Below that line, and up to the next header line, come the jobs that
6981 define what text replacements the filter executes. They are specified
6982 in a syntax that imitates <ulink url="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</ulink>'s
6983 <literal>s///</literal> operator. If you are familiar with Perl, you
6984 will find this to be quite intuitive, and may want to look at the
6985 PCRS documentation for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour. Most
6986 notably, the non-standard option letter <literal>U</literal> is supported,
6987 which turns the default to ungreedy matching.
6992 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
6993 Expressions</quote></ulink>, you might want to take a look at
6994 the <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>, and
6995 see the <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">Perl
6997 <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlop.html">the
6998 <literal>s///</literal> operator's syntax</ulink> and <ulink
6999 url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">Perl-style regular
7000 expressions</ulink> in general.
7001 The below examples might also help to get you started.
7005 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
7007 <sect2><title>Filter File Tutorial</title>
7009 Now, let's complete our <quote>foo</quote> content filter. We have already defined
7010 the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace
7011 <quote>foo</quote> with <quote>bar</quote>, there is only one (trivial) job
7016 <screen>s/foo/bar/</screen>
7020 But wait! Didn't the comment say that <emphasis>all</emphasis> occurrences
7021 of <quote>foo</quote> should be replaced? Our current job will only take
7022 care of the first <quote>foo</quote> on each page. For global substitution,
7023 we'll need to add the <literal>g</literal> option:
7027 <screen>s/foo/bar/g</screen>
7031 Our complete filter now looks like this:
7034 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"
7035 s/foo/bar/g</screen>
7039 Let's look at some real filters for more interesting examples. Here you see
7040 a filter that protects against some common annoyances that arise from JavaScript
7041 abuse. Let's look at its jobs one after the other:
7047 FILTER: js-annoyances Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
7049 # Get rid of JavaScript referrer tracking. Test page: http://www.randomoddness.com/untitled.htm
7051 s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|Usg</screen>
7055 Following the header line and a comment, you see the job. Note that it uses
7056 <literal>|</literal> as the delimiter instead of <literal>/</literal>, because
7057 the pattern contains a forward slash, which would otherwise have to be escaped
7058 by a backslash (<literal>\</literal>).
7062 Now, let's examine the pattern: it starts with the text <literal><script.*</literal>
7063 enclosed in parentheses. Since the dot matches any character, and <literal>*</literal>
7064 means: <quote>Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself</quote>, this
7065 matches <quote><script</quote>, followed by <emphasis>any</emphasis> text, i.e.
7066 it matches the whole page, from the start of the first <script> tag.
7070 That's more than we want, but the pattern continues: <literal>document\.referrer</literal>
7071 matches only the exact string <quote>document.referrer</quote>. The dot needed to
7072 be <emphasis>escaped</emphasis>, i.e. preceded by a backslash, to take away its
7073 special meaning as a joker, and make it just a regular dot. So far, the meaning is:
7074 Match from the start of the first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including,
7075 the text <quote>document.referrer</quote>, if <emphasis>both</emphasis> are present
7076 in the page (and appear in that order).
7080 But there's still more pattern to go. The next element, again enclosed in parentheses,
7081 is <literal>.*</script></literal>. You already know what <literal>.*</literal>
7082 means, so the whole pattern translates to: Match from the start of the first <script>
7083 tag in a page to the end of the last <script> tag, provided that the text
7084 <quote>document.referrer</quote> appears somewhere in between.
7088 This is still not the whole story, since we have ignored the options and the parentheses:
7089 The portions of the page matched by sub-patterns that are enclosed in parentheses, will be
7090 remembered and be available through the variables <literal>$1, $2, ...</literal> in
7091 the substitute. The <literal>U</literal> option switches to ungreedy matching, which means
7092 that the first <literal>.*</literal> in the pattern will only <quote>eat up</quote> all
7093 text in between <quote><script</quote> and the <emphasis>first</emphasis> occurrence
7094 of <quote>document.referrer</quote>, and that the second <literal>.*</literal> will
7095 only span the text up to the <emphasis>first</emphasis> <quote></script></quote>
7096 tag. Furthermore, the <literal>s</literal> option says that the match may span
7097 multiple lines in the page, and the <literal>g</literal> option again means that the
7098 substitution is global.
7102 So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text
7103 <quote>document.referrer</quote>. Remember the parts of the script from
7104 (and including) the start tag up to (and excluding) the string
7105 <quote>document.referrer</quote> as <literal>$1</literal>, and the part following
7106 that string, up to and including the closing tag, as <literal>$2</literal>.
7110 Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So
7111 lets look at the substitute: <literal>$1"Not Your Business!"$2</literal> is
7112 easy to read: The text remembered as <literal>$1</literal>, followed by
7113 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> (<emphasis>including</emphasis>
7114 the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as <literal>$2</literal>.
7115 This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part
7116 (the <quote>document.referrer</quote>) replaced by <literal>"Not Your
7117 Business!"</literal>.
7121 The whole job now reads: Replace <quote>document.referrer</quote> by
7122 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> wherever it appears inside a
7123 <script> tag. Note that this job won't break JavaScript syntax,
7124 since both the original and the replacement are syntactically valid
7125 string objects. The script just won't have access to the referrer
7126 information anymore.
7130 We'll show you two other jobs from the JavaScript taming department, but
7131 this time only point out the constructs of special interest:
7136 # The status bar is for displaying link targets, not pointless blahblah
7138 s/window\.status\s*=\s*(['"]).*?\1/dUmMy=1/ig</screen>
7142 <literal>\s</literal> stands for whitespace characters (space, tab, newline,
7143 carriage return, form feed), so that <literal>\s*</literal> means: <quote>zero
7144 or more whitespace</quote>. The <literal>?</literal> in <literal>.*?</literal>
7145 makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the <literal>U</literal>
7146 option is not set). The <literal>['"]</literal> construct means: <quote>a single
7147 <emphasis>or</emphasis> a double quote</quote>. Finally, <literal>\1</literal> is
7148 a back-reference to the first parenthesis just like <literal>$1</literal> above,
7149 with the difference that in the <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>, a backslash indicates
7150 a back-reference, whereas in the <emphasis>substitute</emphasis>, it's the dollar.
7154 So what does this job do? It replaces assignments of single- or double-quoted
7155 strings to the <quote>window.status</quote> object with a dummy assignment
7156 (using a variable name that is hopefully odd enough not to conflict with
7157 real variables in scripts). Thus, it catches many cases where e.g. pointless
7158 descriptions are displayed in the status bar instead of the link target when
7159 you move your mouse over links.
7164 # Kill OnUnload popups. Yummy. Test: http://www.zdnet.com/zdsubs/yahoo/tree/yfs.html
7166 s/(<body [^>]*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU</screen>
7171 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">OnUnload
7172 event binding</ulink> in the HTML DOM was a <emphasis>CRIME</emphasis>.
7173 When I close a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta.
7174 This job replaces the <quote>onunload</quote> attribute in
7175 <quote><body></quote> tags with the dummy word <literal>never</literal>.
7176 Note that the <literal>i</literal> option makes the pattern matching
7177 case-insensitive. Also note that ungreedy matching alone doesn't always guarantee
7178 a minimal match: In the first parenthesis, we had to use <literal>[^>]*</literal>
7179 instead of <literal>.*</literal> to prevent the match from exceeding the
7180 <body> tag if it doesn't contain <quote>OnUnload</quote>, but the page's
7185 The last example is from the fun department:
7190 FILTER: fun Fun text replacements
7192 # Spice the daily news:
7194 s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig</screen>
7198 Note the <literal>(?!\.com)</literal> part (a so-called negative lookahead)
7199 in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
7200 <quote>.com</quote> appears directly following <quote>microsoft</quote>
7201 in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being trashed, while
7202 still replacing the word everywhere else.
7207 # Buzzword Bingo (example for extended regex syntax)
7209 s* industry[ -]leading \
7211 | customer[ -]focused \
7212 | market[ -]driven \
7213 | award[ -]winning # Comments are OK, too! \
7214 | high[ -]performance \
7215 | solutions[ -]based \
7219 *<font color="red"><b>BINGO!</b></font> \
7224 The <literal>x</literal> option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for
7225 e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
7233 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
7235 <sect2 id="predefined-filters"><title>The Pre-defined Filters</title>
7239 Note each filter is also listed in the +filter action section above. Please
7240 keep these listings in sync.
7245 The distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file contains a selection of
7246 pre-defined filters for your convenience:
7251 <term><emphasis>js-annoyances</emphasis></term>
7254 The purpose of this filter is to get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse.
7259 replaces JavaScript references to the browser's referrer information
7260 with the string "Not Your Business!". This compliments the <literal><link
7261 linkend="hide-referrer">hide-referrer</link></literal> action on the content level.
7266 removes the bindings to the DOM's
7267 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">unload
7268 event</ulink> which we feel has no right to exist and is responsible for most <quote>exit consoles</quote>, i.e.
7269 nasty windows that pop up when you close another one.
7274 removes code that causes new windows to be opened with undesired properties, such as being
7275 full-screen, non-resizeable, without location, status or menu bar etc.
7281 Use with caution. This is an aggressive filter, and can break sites that
7282 rely heavily on JavaScript.
7288 <term><emphasis>js-events</emphasis></term>
7291 This is a very radical measure. It removes virtually all JavaScript event bindings, which
7292 means that scripts can not react to user actions such as mouse movements or clicks, window
7293 resizing etc, anymore. Use with caution!
7296 We <emphasis>strongly discourage</emphasis> using this filter as a default since it breaks
7297 many legitimate scripts. It is meant for use only on extra-nasty sites (should you really
7304 <term><emphasis>html-annoyances</emphasis></term>
7307 This filter will undo many common instances of HTML based abuse.
7310 The <literal>BLINK</literal> and <literal>MARQUEE</literal> tags
7311 are neutralized (yeah baby!), and browser windows will be created as
7312 resizeable (as of course they should be!), and will have location,
7313 scroll and menu bars -- even if specified otherwise.
7319 <term><emphasis>content-cookies</emphasis></term>
7322 Most cookies are set in the HTTP dialog, where they can be intercepted
7324 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>
7325 and <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>
7326 actions. But web sites increasingly make use of HTML meta tags and JavaScript
7327 to sneak cookies to the browser on the content level.
7330 This filter disables most HTML and JavaScript code that reads or sets
7331 cookies. It cannot detect all clever uses of these types of code, so it
7332 should not be relied on as an absolute fix. Use it wherever you would also
7333 use the cookie crunch actions.
7339 <term><emphasis>refresh tags</emphasis></term>
7342 Disable any refresh tags if the interval is greater than nine seconds (so
7343 that redirections done via refresh tags are not destroyed). This is useful
7344 for dial-on-demand setups, or for those who find this HTML feature
7351 <term><emphasis>unsolicited-popups</emphasis></term>
7354 This filter attempts to prevent only <quote>unsolicited</quote> pop-up
7355 windows from opening, yet still allow pop-up windows that the user
7356 has explicitly chosen to open. It was added in version 3.0.1,
7357 as an improvement over earlier such filters.
7360 Technical note: The filter works by redefining the window.open JavaScript
7361 function to a dummy function, <literal>PrivoxyWindowOpen()</literal>,
7362 during the loading and rendering phase of each HTML page access, and
7363 restoring the function afterward.
7366 This is recommended only for browsers that cannot perform this function
7367 reliably themselves. And be aware that some sites require such windows
7368 in order to function normally. Use with caution.
7374 <term><emphasis>all-popups</emphasis></term>
7377 Attempt to prevent <emphasis>all</emphasis> pop-up windows from opening.
7378 Note this should be used with even more discretion than the above, since
7379 it is more likely to break some sites that require pop-ups for normal
7380 usage. Use with caution.
7386 <term><emphasis>img-reorder</emphasis></term>
7389 This is a helper filter that has no value if used alone. It makes the
7390 <literal>banners-by-size</literal> and <literal>banners-by-link</literal>
7391 (see below) filters more effective and should be enabled together with them.
7397 <term><emphasis>banners-by-size</emphasis></term>
7400 This filter removes image tags purely based on what size they are. Fortunately
7401 for us, many ads and banner images tend to conform to certain standardized
7402 sizes, which makes this filter quite effective for ad stripping purposes.
7405 Occasionally this filter will cause false positives on images that are not ads,
7406 but just happen to be of one of the standard banner sizes.
7409 Recommended only for those who require extreme ad blocking. The default
7410 block rules should catch 95+% of all ads <emphasis>without</emphasis> this filter enabled.
7416 <term><emphasis>banners-by-link</emphasis></term>
7419 This is an experimental filter that attempts to kill any banners if
7420 their URLs seem to point to known or suspected click trackers. It is currently
7421 not of much value and is not recommended for use by default.
7427 <term><emphasis>webbugs</emphasis></term>
7430 Webbugs are small, invisible images (technically 1X1 GIF images), that
7431 are used to track users across websites, and collect information on them.
7432 As an HTML page is loaded by the browser, an embedded image tag causes the
7433 browser to contact a third-party site, disclosing the tracking information
7434 through the requested URL and/or cookies for that third-party domain, without
7435 the user ever becoming aware of the interaction with the third-party site.
7436 HTML-ized spam also uses a similar technique to verify email addresses.
7439 This filter removes the HTML code that loads such <quote>webbugs</quote>.
7445 <term><emphasis>tiny-textforms</emphasis></term>
7448 A rather special-purpose filter that can be used to enlarge textareas (those
7449 multi-line text boxes in web forms) and turn off hard word wrap in them.
7450 It was written for the sourceforge.net tracker system where such boxes are
7451 a nuisance, but it can be handy on other sites, too.
7454 It is not recommended to use this filter as a default.
7460 <term><emphasis>jumping-windows</emphasis></term>
7463 Many consider windows that move, or resize themselves to be abusive. This filter
7464 neutralizes the related JavaScript code. Note that some sites might not display
7465 or behave as intended when using this filter. Use with caution.
7471 <term><emphasis>frameset-borders</emphasis></term>
7474 Some web designers seem to assume that everyone in the world will view their
7475 web sites using the same browser brand and version, screen resolution etc,
7476 because only that assumption could explain why they'd use static frame sizes,
7477 yet prevent their frames from being resized by the user, should they be too
7478 small to show their whole content.
7481 This filter removes the related HTML code. It should only be applied to sites
7488 <term><emphasis>demoronizer</emphasis></term>
7491 Many Microsoft products that generate HTML use non-standard extensions (read:
7492 violations) of the ISO 8859-1 aka Latin-1 character set. This can cause those
7493 HTML documents to display with errors on standard-compliant platforms.
7496 This filter translates the MS-only characters into Latin-1 equivalents.
7497 It is not necessary when using MS products, and will cause corruption of
7498 all documents that use 8-bit character sets other than Latin-1. It's mostly
7499 worthwhile for Europeans on non-MS platforms, if weird garbage characters
7500 sometimes appear on some pages, or user agents that don't correct for this on
7503 My version of Mozilla (ancient) shows litte square boxes for quote
7504 characters, and apostrophes on moronized pages. So many pages have this, I
7505 can read them fine now. HB 08/27/06
7512 <term><emphasis>shockwave-flash</emphasis></term>
7515 A filter for shockwave haters. As the name suggests, this filter strips code
7516 out of web pages that is used to embed shockwave flash objects.
7524 <term><emphasis>quicktime-kioskmode</emphasis></term>
7527 Change HTML code that embeds Quicktime objects so that kioskmode, which
7528 prevents saving, is disabled.
7534 <term><emphasis>fun</emphasis></term>
7537 Text replacements for subversive browsing fun. Make fun of your favorite
7538 Monopolist or play buzzword bingo.
7544 <term><emphasis>crude-parental</emphasis></term>
7547 A demonstration-only filter that shows how <application>Privoxy</application>
7548 can be used to delete web content on a keyword basis.
7554 <term><emphasis>ie-exploits</emphasis></term>
7557 An experimental collection of text replacements to disable malicious HTML and JavaScript
7558 code that exploits known security holes in Internet Explorer.
7561 Presently, it only protects against Nimda and a cross-site scripting bug, and
7562 would need active maintenance to provide more substantial protection.
7568 <term><emphasis>site-specifics</emphasis></term>
7571 Some web sites have very specific problems, the cure for which doesn't apply
7572 anywhere else, or could even cause damage on other sites.
7575 This is a collection of such site-specific cures which should only be applied
7576 to the sites they were intended for, which is what the supplied
7577 <filename>default.action</filename> file does. Users shouldn't need to change
7578 anything regarding this filter.
7584 <term><emphasis>google</emphasis></term>
7587 A CSS based block for Google text ads. Also removes a width limitation
7588 and the toolbar advertisement.
7594 <term><emphasis>yahoo</emphasis></term>
7597 Another CSS based block, this time for Yahoo text ads. And removes
7598 a width limitation as well.
7604 <term><emphasis>msn</emphasis></term>
7607 Another CSS based block, this time for MSN text ads. And removes
7608 tracking URLs, as well as a width limitation.
7614 <term><emphasis>blogspot</emphasis></term>
7617 Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this one!
7620 This filter also intentionally removes some navigation stuff and sets the
7621 page width to 100%. As a result, some rounded <quote>corners</quote> would
7622 appear to early or not at all and as fixing this would require a browser
7623 that understands background-size (CSS3), they are removed instead.
7629 <term><emphasis>xml-to-html</emphasis></term>
7632 Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from xml to html.
7638 <term><emphasis>html-to-xml</emphasis></term>
7641 Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from html to xml.
7647 <term><emphasis>no-ping</emphasis></term>
7650 Removes the non-standard <literal>ping</literal> attribute from
7651 anchor and area HTML tags.
7657 <term><emphasis>hide-tor-exit-notation</emphasis></term>
7660 Client-header filter to remove the <command>Tor</command> exit node notation
7661 found in Host and Referer headers.
7664 If &my-app; and <command>Tor</command> are chained and &my-app;
7665 is configured to use socks4a, one can use <quote>http://www.example.org.foobar.exit/</quote>
7666 to access the host <quote>www.example.org</quote> through the
7667 <command>Tor</command> exit node <quote>foobar</quote>.
7670 As the HTTP client isn't aware of this notation, it treats the
7671 whole string <quote>www.example.org.foobar.exit</quote> as host and uses it
7672 for the <quote>Host</quote> and <quote>Referer</quote> headers. From the
7673 server's point of view the resulting headers are invalid and can cause problems.
7676 An invalid <quote>Referer</quote> header can trigger <quote>hot-linking</quote>
7677 protections, an invalid <quote>Host</quote> header will make it impossible for
7678 the server to find the right vhost (several domains hosted on the same IP address).
7681 This client-header filter removes the <quote>foo.exit</quote> part in those headers
7682 to prevent the mentioned problems. Note that it only modifies
7683 the HTTP headers, it doesn't make it impossible for the server
7684 to detect your <command>Tor</command> exit node based on the IP address
7685 the request is coming from.
7692 <term><emphasis> </emphasis></term>
7706 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7710 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7712 <sect1 id="templates">
7713 <title>Privoxy's Template Files</title>
7715 All <application>Privoxy</application> built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
7716 <ulink url="http://show-the-404-error.page"><quote>404 - No Such Domain</quote>
7717 error page</ulink>, the <ulink
7718 url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
7720 and all pages of its <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
7721 user interface</ulink>, are generated from <emphasis>templates</emphasis>.
7722 (<application>Privoxy</application> must be running for the above links to work as
7727 These templates are stored in a subdirectory of the <link linkend="confdir">configuration
7728 directory</link> called <filename>templates</filename>. On Unixish platforms,
7730 <ulink url="file:///etc/privoxy/templates/"><filename>/etc/privoxy/templates/</filename></ulink>.
7734 The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols
7735 or exports), which <application>Privoxy</application> fills at run time. It
7736 is possible to edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want
7737 to customize them. (<emphasis>Not recommended for the casual
7738 user</emphasis>). Should you create your own custom templates, you should use
7739 the <filename>config</filename> setting <link linkend="templdir">templdir</link>
7740 to specify an alternate location, so your templates do not get overwritten
7744 Note that just like in configuration files, lines starting
7745 with <literal>#</literal> are ignored when the templates are filled in.
7749 The place-holders are of the form <literal>@name@</literal>, and you will
7750 find a list of available symbols, which vary from template to template,
7751 in the comments at the start of each file. Note that these comments are not
7752 always accurate, and that it's probably best to look at the existing HTML
7753 code to find out which symbols are supported and what they are filled in with.
7757 A special application of this substitution mechanism is to make whole
7758 blocks of HTML code disappear when a specific symbol is set. We use this
7759 for many purposes, one of them being to include the beta warning in all
7760 our user interface (CGI) pages when <application>Privoxy</application>
7761 is in an alpha or beta development stage:
7766 <!-- @if-unstable-start -->
7768 ... beta warning HTML code goes here ...
7770 <!-- if-unstable-end@ --></screen>
7774 If the "unstable" symbol is set, everything in between and including
7775 <literal>@if-unstable-start</literal> and <literal>if-unstable-end@</literal>
7776 will disappear, leaving nothing but an empty comment:
7780 <screen><!-- --></screen>
7784 There's also an if-then-else construct and an <literal>#include</literal>
7785 mechanism, but you'll sure find out if you are inclined to edit the
7790 All templates refer to a style located at
7791 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet"><literal>http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet</literal></ulink>.
7792 This is, of course, locally served by <application>Privoxy</application>
7793 and the source for it can be found and edited in the
7794 <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> template.
7799 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7803 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7805 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
7808 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
7810 <!-- end boilerplate -->
7814 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7817 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7818 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Privoxy Copyright, License and History</title>
7820 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
7822 <!-- end copyright -->
7824 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7825 <sect2><title>License</title>
7826 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
7828 <!-- end copyright -->
7830 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7833 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7835 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
7836 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
7838 <!-- end history -->
7841 <sect2 id="authors"><title>Authors</title>
7842 <!-- Include p-authors.sgml: -->
7844 <!-- end authors -->
7849 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7852 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7853 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
7854 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
7856 <!-- end seealso -->
7861 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7862 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
7865 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7867 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
7869 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl-style <quote>regular
7870 expressions</quote> in its <link linkend="actions-file">actions
7871 files</link> and <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>,
7872 through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> and
7875 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/">PCRS</ulink> libraries.
7877 <application>PCRS</application> libraries.
7881 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
7882 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
7883 introduction only. A full explanation would require a <ulink
7884 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/">book</ulink> ;-)
7888 Regular expressions provide a language to describe patterns that can be
7889 run against strings of characters (letter, numbers, etc), to see if they
7890 match the string or not. The patterns are themselves (sometimes complex)
7891 strings of literal characters, combined with wild-cards, and other special
7892 characters, called meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have
7893 special meanings and are used to build complex patterns to be matched against.
7894 Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are an especially convenient
7895 <quote>dialect</quote> of the regular expression language.
7899 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
7900 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
7901 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
7902 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
7903 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
7904 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
7905 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
7906 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
7910 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
7911 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
7912 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
7913 and then some examples:
7918 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
7919 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
7921 </simplelist></para>
7925 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
7928 </simplelist></para>
7932 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
7935 </simplelist></para>
7939 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
7942 </simplelist></para>
7946 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
7947 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
7948 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
7949 not as a special meta-character. Example: <quote>example\.com</quote>, makes
7950 sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
7951 meta-character meaning of any single character).
7953 </simplelist></para>
7957 <emphasis>[ ]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
7958 any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, <quote>[0-9]</quote>
7959 matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
7960 this with <quote>+</quote> to match any digit one of more times: <quote>[0-9]+</quote>.
7962 </simplelist></para>
7966 <emphasis>( )</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
7967 or multiple sub-expressions.
7969 </simplelist></para>
7973 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
7974 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
7975 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches. As an example:
7976 <quote>/(this|that) example/</quote> uses grouping and the bar character
7977 and would match either <quote>this example</quote> or <quote>that
7978 example</quote>, and nothing else.
7980 </simplelist></para>
7983 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
7984 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
7985 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
7986 be more illuminating:
7990 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
7991 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
7992 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
7993 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
7994 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
7995 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
7996 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
7997 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
7998 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
7999 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
8000 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
8001 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
8002 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
8003 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
8008 And now something a little more complex:
8012 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
8013 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
8014 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
8015 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
8016 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
8017 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
8018 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
8023 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
8024 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
8025 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
8026 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
8027 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
8028 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
8029 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
8030 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
8031 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
8032 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
8033 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
8034 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
8035 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
8036 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
8037 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
8038 changing our regular expression to:
8039 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
8044 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
8045 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
8046 <quote>[ ]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
8047 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
8048 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
8049 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
8050 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
8051 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
8052 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
8053 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
8054 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
8055 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
8056 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
8057 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
8058 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
8059 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
8060 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
8061 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
8062 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
8063 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
8064 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
8065 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
8066 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
8067 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
8068 in the expression anywhere).
8072 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
8073 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
8074 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
8075 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
8076 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
8081 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
8082 <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html</ulink>
8086 For information on regular expression based substitutions and their applications
8087 in filters, please see the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file tutorial</link>
8092 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
8095 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8097 <title>Privoxy's Internal Pages</title>
8100 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
8101 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
8102 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
8103 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
8104 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
8105 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
8106 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
8112 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
8113 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
8114 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
8115 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
8128 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
8132 There is a shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> (But it
8133 doesn't provide a fall-back to a real page, in case the request is not
8134 sent through <application>Privoxy</application>)
8140 Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
8141 editing of actions files:
8145 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
8152 Show the source code version numbers:
8156 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
8163 Show the browser's request headers:
8167 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
8174 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
8178 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
8185 Toggle Privoxy on or off. This feature can be turned off/on in the main
8186 <filename>config</filename> file. When toggled <quote>off</quote>, <quote>Privoxy</quote>
8187 continues to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking
8192 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
8196 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
8200 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
8205 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
8214 These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
8218 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
8219 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
8221 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
8222 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
8223 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
8224 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
8225 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
8226 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
8229 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
8230 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
8231 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
8232 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
8233 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
8234 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
8243 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>
8250 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>
8257 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)
8264 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>
8270 <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>
8276 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info?url='+escape(location.href),'Why').focus());">Privoxy - Why?</ulink>
8283 Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
8284 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com/">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
8285 have more information about bookmarklets.
8294 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8296 <title>Chain of Events</title>
8298 Let's take a quick look at how some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
8299 core features are triggered, and the ensuing sequence of events when a web
8300 page is requested by your browser:
8307 First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
8308 the request to <application>Privoxy</application>, which will in turn,
8309 relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
8315 <application>Privoxy</application> traps any request for its own internal CGI
8316 pages (e.g <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
8321 Next, <application>Privoxy</application> checks to see if the URL
8323 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link> patterns. If
8324 so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
8325 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>
8327 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-EMPTY-DOCUMENT"><quote>+handle-as-empty-document</quote></link>
8328 are then checked, and if there is no match, an
8329 HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page is sent back to the browser. Otherwise, if
8330 it does match, an image is returned for the former, and an empty text
8331 document for the latter. The type of image would depend on the setting of
8332 <link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></link>
8333 (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
8338 Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
8339 <filename>trust</filename> file, then that is done.
8344 If the URL pattern matches the <link
8345 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link> action,
8346 it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
8351 Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
8352 of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. <link
8353 linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT"><quote>+hide-user-agent</quote></link>,
8354 etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
8360 Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web
8366 First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
8367 things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
8368 filtered as determined by the
8369 <link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES"><quote>+crunch-incoming-cookies</quote></link>,
8370 <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>,
8371 and <link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION"><quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote></link>
8377 If any <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
8379 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
8380 action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
8381 read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from
8382 <filename>default.filter</filename> and any other filter files) are
8383 processed against the buffered content. Filters are applied in the order
8384 they are specified in one of the filter files. Animated GIFs, if present,
8385 are reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
8386 setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
8387 <application>Privoxy</application> back to your browser.
8390 If neither a <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
8392 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
8393 matches, then <application>Privoxy</application> passes the raw data through
8394 to the client browser as it becomes available.
8399 As the browser receives the now (possibly filtered) page content, it
8400 reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
8401 source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
8402 frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a
8403 separate request (this is easily viewable in <application>Privoxy's</application>
8404 logs). And each such request is in turn processed just as above. Note that a
8405 complex web page will have many, many such embedded URLs. If these
8406 secondary requests are to a different server, then quite possibly a very
8407 differing set of actions is triggered.
8414 NOTE: This is somewhat of a simplistic overview of what happens with each URL
8415 request. For the sake of brevity and simplicity, we have focused on
8416 <application>Privoxy's</application> core features only.
8422 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8423 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
8424 <title>Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</title>
8427 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies
8428 <link linkend="ACTIONS">actions</link> and <link linkend="FILTER">filters</link>
8429 to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
8430 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
8431 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
8432 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
8433 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
8434 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
8435 <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> whose consequences are not
8440 One quick test to see if <application>Privoxy</application> is causing a problem
8441 or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
8442 step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
8443 and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!). Looking at the
8444 logs is a good idea too. (Note that both the toggle feature and logging are
8445 enabled via <filename>config</filename> file settings, and may need to be
8446 turned <quote>on</quote>.)
8449 Another easy troubleshooting step to try is if you have done any
8450 customization of your installation, revert back to the installed
8451 defaults and see if that helps. There are times the developers get complaints
8452 about one thing or another, and the problem is more related to a customized
8453 configuration issue.
8457 <application>Privoxy</application> also provides the
8458 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
8459 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
8460 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
8464 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
8465 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
8466 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
8467 help with filtering effects (i.e. the <link
8468 linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action) from
8469 one of the filter files since this is handled very
8470 differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other
8471 URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images
8472 such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So
8473 you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area
8474 -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you
8475 will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View
8476 Page Source</quote> option for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the
8481 Let's try an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
8482 and look at it one section at a time in a sample configuration (your real
8483 configuration may vary):
8488 Matches for http://www.google.com:
8490 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8492 {+change-x-forwarded-for{block}
8493 +deanimate-gifs {last}
8494 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
8495 +filter {refresh-tags}
8496 +filter {img-reorder}
8497 +filter {banners-by-size}
8499 +filter {jumping-windows}
8500 +filter {ie-exploits}
8501 +hide-from-header {block}
8502 +hide-referrer {forge}
8503 +session-cookies-only
8504 +set-image-blocker {pattern}
8507 { -session-cookies-only }
8513 In file: user.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8514 (no matches in this file)
8519 This is telling us how we have defined our
8520 <link linkend="ACTIONS"><quote>actions</quote></link>, and
8521 which ones match for our test case, <quote>google.com</quote>.
8522 Displayed is all the actions that are available to us. Remember,
8523 the <literal>+</literal> sign denotes <quote>on</quote>. <literal>-</literal>
8524 denotes <quote>off</quote>. So some are <quote>on</quote> here, but many
8525 are <quote>off</quote>. Each example we try may provide a slightly different
8526 end result, depending on our configuration directives.
8530 is for our <filename>default.action</filename> file. The large, multi-line
8531 listing, is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default
8532 settings. If you look at your <quote>actions</quote> file, this would be the
8533 section just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section near the top. This
8534 will apply to all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end
8535 of the listing -- <quote> / </quote>.
8539 But we have defined additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
8540 rules, and then we list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions
8541 would apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit
8542 matches for <quote>.google.com</quote>. The first is negating our previous
8543 cookie setting, which was for <link
8544 linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>
8545 (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google, at
8546 least that is how it is in this example. The second turns
8547 <emphasis>off</emphasis> any <link
8548 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link>
8549 action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading
8550 dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will match any hosts and
8551 sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
8552 <quote>www.google.com</quote> or <quote>mail.google.com</quote>. But it would not
8553 match <quote>www.google.de</quote>! So, apparently, we have these two actions
8554 defined as exceptions to the general rules at the top somewhere in the lower
8555 part of our <filename>default.action</filename> file, and
8556 <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced somewhere in these latter sections.
8560 Then, for our <filename>user.action</filename> file, we again have no hits.
8561 So there is nothing google-specific that we might have added to our own, local
8562 configuration. If there was, those actions would over-rule any actions from
8563 previously processed files, such as <filename>default.action</filename>.
8564 <filename>user.action</filename> typically has the last word. This is the
8565 best place to put hard and fast exceptions,
8569 And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
8570 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
8571 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
8582 +change-x-forwarded-for{block}
8583 -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
8584 -content-type-overwrite
8585 -crunch-client-header
8586 -crunch-if-none-match
8587 -crunch-incoming-cookies
8588 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
8589 -crunch-server-header
8590 +deanimate-gifs {last}
8591 -downgrade-http-version
8594 -filter {content-cookies}
8595 -filter {all-popups}
8596 -filter {banners-by-link}
8597 -filter {tiny-textforms}
8598 -filter {frameset-borders}
8599 -filter {demoronizer}
8600 -filter {shockwave-flash}
8601 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
8603 -filter {crude-parental}
8604 -filter {site-specifics}
8605 -filter {js-annoyances}
8606 -filter {html-annoyances}
8607 +filter {refresh-tags}
8608 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
8609 +filter {img-reorder}
8610 +filter {banners-by-size}
8612 +filter {jumping-windows}
8613 +filter {ie-exploits}
8620 -handle-as-empty-document
8622 -hide-accept-language
8623 -hide-content-disposition
8624 +hide-from-header {block}
8625 -hide-if-modified-since
8626 +hide-referrer {forge}
8629 -overwrite-last-modified
8630 -prevent-compression
8632 -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
8633 -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
8634 -session-cookies-only
8635 +set-image-blocker {pattern} </screen>
8639 Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
8640 <quote>fast-redirects</quote> and <quote>session-cookies-only</quote>,
8641 which are activated specifically for this site in our configuration,
8642 and thus show in the <quote>Final Results</quote>.
8646 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
8652 { +block{Domains starts with "ad"} }
8655 { +block{Domain contains "ad"} }
8658 { +block{Doubleclick banner server} +handle-as-image }
8659 .[a-vx-z]*.doubleclick.net
8664 We'll just show the interesting part here - the explicit matches. It is
8665 matched three different times. Two <quote>+block{}</quote> sections,
8666 and a <quote>+block{} +handle-as-image</quote>,
8667 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
8668 <quote>+block-as-image</quote>. (<link
8669 linkend="ALIASES"><quote>Aliases</quote></link> are defined in
8670 the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
8675 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
8676 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
8677 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
8678 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
8679 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
8680 is done here -- as both a <link
8681 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block{}</quote></link>
8682 <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
8683 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>.
8684 The custom alias <quote><literal>+block-as-image</literal></quote> just
8685 simplifies the process and make it more readable.
8689 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
8690 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm ...
8696 Matches for http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
8698 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8702 +change-x-forwarded-for{block}
8703 -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
8704 -content-type-overwrite
8705 -crunch-client-header
8706 -crunch-if-none-match
8707 -crunch-incoming-cookies
8708 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
8709 -crunch-server-header
8711 -downgrade-http-version
8712 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
8714 -filter {content-cookies}
8715 -filter {all-popups}
8716 -filter {banners-by-link}
8717 -filter {tiny-textforms}
8718 -filter {frameset-borders}
8719 -filter {demoronizer}
8720 -filter {shockwave-flash}
8721 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
8723 -filter {crude-parental}
8724 -filter {site-specifics}
8725 -filter {js-annoyances}
8726 -filter {html-annoyances}
8727 +filter {refresh-tags}
8728 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
8729 +filter {img-reorder}
8730 +filter {banners-by-size}
8732 +filter {jumping-windows}
8733 +filter {ie-exploits}
8740 -handle-as-empty-document
8742 -hide-accept-language
8743 -hide-content-disposition
8744 +hide-from-header{block}
8745 +hide-referer{forge}
8747 -overwrite-last-modified
8748 +prevent-compression
8750 -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
8751 -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
8752 +session-cookies-only
8753 +set-image-blocker{blank} }
8756 { +block{Path contains "ads".} +handle-as-image }
8762 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote> in our
8763 configuration! But we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the
8764 blank page. It is actually triggering two different actions here, and
8765 the effects are aggregated so that the URL is blocked, and &my-app; is told
8766 to treat the block as if it were an image. But this is, of course, all wrong.
8767 We could now add a new action below this (or better in our own
8768 <filename>user.action</filename> file) that explicitly
8769 <emphasis>un</emphasis> blocks (
8770 <link linkend="BLOCK"><quote>{-block}</quote></link>) paths with
8771 <quote>adsl</quote> in them (remember, last match in the configuration
8772 wins). There are various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
8784 Now the page displays ;-)
8785 Remember to flush your browser's caches when making these kinds of changes to
8786 your configuration to insure that you get a freshly delivered page! Or, try
8787 using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
8791 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
8798 { +block{Path starts with "ads".} +handle-as-image }
8804 That actually was very helpful and pointed us quickly to where the problem
8805 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
8806 rules in the first section of <filename>default.action</filename> is causing
8807 the problem. This would require some guesswork, and maybe a little trial and
8808 error to isolate the offending rule. One likely cause would be one of the
8809 <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> actions.
8810 These tend to be harder to troubleshoot.
8811 Try adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off
8812 <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>:
8820 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
8828 <quote><literal>{ shop }</literal></quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
8829 <quote><literal>{ -filter -session-cookies-only }</literal></quote>.
8830 Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
8838 # Disable ALL filter actions for sites in this section
8846 This would turn off all filtering for these sites. This is best
8847 put in <filename>user.action</filename>, for local site
8848 exceptions. Note that when a simple domain pattern is used by itself (without
8849 the subsequent path portion), all sub-pages within that domain are included
8850 automatically in the scope of the action.
8854 Images that are inexplicably being blocked, may well be hitting the
8855 <link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE"><quote>+filter{banners-by-size}</quote></link>
8857 that images of certain sizes are ad banners (works well
8858 <emphasis>most of the time</emphasis> since these tend to be standardized).
8862 <quote><literal>{ fragile }</literal></quote> is an alias that disables most
8863 actions that are the most likely to cause trouble. This can be used as a
8864 last resort for problem sites.
8870 # Handle with care: easy to break
8872 mybank.example.com</screen>
8877 <emphasis>Remember to flush caches!</emphasis> Note that the
8878 <literal>mail.google</literal> reference lacks the TLD portion (e.g.
8879 <quote>.com</quote>). This will effectively match any TLD with
8880 <literal>google</literal> in it, such as <literal>mail.google.de.</literal>,
8884 If this still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining
8885 actions one by one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
8894 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
8895 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
8896 Public License as published by the Free Software
8897 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
8898 your option) any later version.
8900 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
8901 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
8902 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
8903 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
8904 License for more details.
8906 The GNU General Public License should be included with
8907 this file. If not, you can view it at
8908 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
8909 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
8910 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301,
8913 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
8914 Revision 2.128 2010/11/10 22:00:13 fabiankeil
8915 Update the first paragraph of the 'What's New' section.
8917 Revision 2.127 2010/11/10 21:48:54 fabiankeil
8918 Update the "What's New" section.
8920 Revision 2.126 2010/11/06 12:55:48 fabiankeil
8921 Set p-version to 3.0.17
8923 Revision 2.125 2010/09/03 17:39:37 fabiankeil
8924 Slightly improve the explanation of why filtering may appear slower than it is.
8926 Revision 2.124 2010/05/01 18:21:30 fabiankeil
8927 Explicitly mention how to match any URL.
8929 Revision 2.123 2010/02/19 16:00:38 fabiankeil
8932 Revision 2.122 2010/02/19 15:22:47 fabiankeil
8935 Revision 2.121 2010/02/15 15:30:13 fabiankeil
8936 Mention the use of the no-such-domain template for DNS problems with FEATURE_IPV6_SUPPORT enabled.
8938 Revision 2.120 2010/02/13 17:38:39 fabiankeil
8939 Update entities for 3.0.16 stable.
8941 Revision 2.119 2010/02/13 16:37:37 fabiankeil
8942 Update 'What's new?' section.
8944 Revision 2.118 2010/02/11 13:59:48 fabiankeil
8945 Mention that the headers added by the add-header action aren't modified by other actions.
8947 Revision 2.117 2010/01/11 12:56:04 fabiankeil
8948 Bump copyright range as p-config.sgml's copyright line is only used in the config file.
8950 Revision 2.116 2009/11/15 14:24:12 fabiankeil
8951 Prepare to generate docs for 3.0.16 UNRELEASED.
8953 Revision 2.115 2009/10/10 06:19:34 fabiankeil
8954 Ditch a duplicated 'since'.
8956 Revision 2.114 2009/10/10 05:51:48 fabiankeil
8957 Update "What's new" section.
8959 Revision 2.113 2009/10/10 05:48:55 fabiankeil
8960 Prepare for 3.0.15 beta.
8962 Revision 2.112 2009/07/24 12:20:30 fabiankeil
8963 Remove duplicated period.
8965 Revision 2.111 2009/07/18 18:11:11 fabiankeil
8966 Don't claim that NTLM should work when there are multiple reports that it doesn't.
8968 Revision 2.110 2009/07/18 16:25:17 fabiankeil
8969 Fix trailing whitespace.
8971 Revision 2.109 2009/07/18 16:24:39 fabiankeil
8972 Bump entities for 3.0.14 beta.
8974 Revision 2.108 2009/07/18 15:49:23 fabiankeil
8975 Add most of the changes in 3.0.14 to the "What's New" section.
8977 Revision 2.107 2009/06/12 14:30:58 fabiankeil
8978 Update entities for 3.0.13 beta.
8980 Revision 2.106 2009/06/12 11:04:13 fabiankeil
8981 Import ChangeLog for 3.0.13 beta.
8983 Revision 2.105 2009/04/17 11:32:57 fabiankeil
8984 Grammar and spelling fixes.
8986 Revision 2.104 2009/04/17 11:27:49 fabiankeil
8987 Petr Pisar's privoxy-3.0.12-ipv6-3.diff.
8989 Revision 2.103 2009/03/21 10:49:05 fabiankeil
8990 Merge updated ChangeLog.
8992 Revision 2.102 2009/03/15 19:31:36 fabiankeil
8993 Update "What's New in this Release" section.
8995 Revision 2.101 2009/02/25 19:01:56 fabiankeil
8998 Revision 2.100 2009/02/19 17:14:11 fabiankeil
8999 - Copy the release cycle description from announce.txt into
9000 the "What's New" section.
9001 - Stop referring to the ChangeLog for a "complete list of changes".
9002 The "What's New" section already contains the complete list.
9004 Revision 2.99 2009/02/19 02:20:22 hal9
9005 Make some links in seealso conditional. Man page is now privoxy only links.
9007 Revision 2.98 2009/02/16 17:10:33 fabiankeil
9008 Fix entry about shortened log messages. Noticed by Lee.
9010 Revision 2.97 2009/02/14 18:01:00 fabiankeil
9013 Revision 2.96 2009/02/14 13:14:03 fabiankeil
9016 Revision 2.95 2009/02/14 12:51:26 fabiankeil
9017 Mention match-all.action in the "Actions Files Tutorial" section.
9019 Revision 2.94 2009/02/14 11:50:31 fabiankeil
9020 Some indentation fixes.
9022 Revision 2.93 2009/02/14 10:14:42 fabiankeil
9023 Mention match-all.action in the action file descriptions.
9025 Revision 2.92 2009/02/12 16:08:26 fabiankeil
9026 Declare the code stable.
9028 Revision 2.91 2009/01/13 16:50:35 fabiankeil
9029 The standard.action file is gone.
9031 Revision 2.90 2008/09/26 16:53:09 fabiankeil
9032 Update "What's new" section.
9034 Revision 2.89 2008/09/21 15:38:56 fabiankeil
9035 Fix Portage tree sync instructions in Gentoo section.
9036 Anonymously reported at ijbswa-developers@.
9038 Revision 2.88 2008/09/21 14:42:52 fabiankeil
9039 Add documentation for change-x-forwarded-for{},
9040 remove documentation for hide-forwarded-for-headers.
9042 Revision 2.87 2008/08/30 15:37:35 fabiankeil
9045 Revision 2.86 2008/08/16 10:12:23 fabiankeil
9046 Merge two sentences and move the URL to the end of the item.
9048 Revision 2.85 2008/08/16 10:04:59 fabiankeil
9049 Some more syntax fixes. This version actually builds.
9051 Revision 2.84 2008/08/16 09:42:45 fabiankeil
9052 Turns out building docs works better if the syntax is valid.
9054 Revision 2.83 2008/08/16 09:32:02 fabiankeil
9055 Mention changes since 3.0.9 beta.
9057 Revision 2.82 2008/08/16 09:00:52 fabiankeil
9058 Fix example URL pattern (once more with feeling).
9060 Revision 2.81 2008/08/16 08:51:28 fabiankeil
9061 Update version-related entities.
9063 Revision 2.80 2008/07/18 16:54:30 fabiankeil
9064 Remove erroneous whitespace in documentation link.
9065 Reported by John Chronister in #2021611.
9067 Revision 2.79 2008/06/27 18:00:53 markm68k
9068 remove outdated startup information for mac os x
9070 Revision 2.78 2008/06/21 17:03:03 fabiankeil
9073 Revision 2.77 2008/06/14 13:45:22 fabiankeil
9074 Re-add a colon I unintentionally removed a few revisions ago.
9076 Revision 2.76 2008/06/14 13:21:28 fabiankeil
9077 Prepare for the upcoming 3.0.9 beta release.
9079 Revision 2.75 2008/06/13 16:06:48 fabiankeil
9080 Update the "What's New in this Release" section with
9081 the ChangeLog entries changelog2doc.pl could handle.
9083 Revision 2.74 2008/05/26 15:55:46 fabiankeil
9084 - Update "default profiles" table.
9085 - Add some more pcrs redirect examples and note that
9086 enabling debug 128 helps to get redirects working.
9088 Revision 2.73 2008/05/23 14:43:18 fabiankeil
9089 Remove previously out-commented block that caused syntax problems.
9091 Revision 2.72 2008/05/12 10:26:14 fabiankeil
9092 Synchronize content filter descriptions with the ones in default.filter.
9094 Revision 2.71 2008/04/10 17:37:16 fabiankeil
9095 Actually we use "modern" POSIX 1003.2 regular
9096 expressions in path patterns, not PCRE.
9098 Revision 2.70 2008/04/10 15:59:12 fabiankeil
9099 Add another section to the client-header-tagger example that shows
9100 how to actually change the action settings once the tag is created.
9102 Revision 2.69 2008/03/29 12:14:25 fabiankeil
9103 Remove send-wafer and send-vanilla-wafer actions.
9105 Revision 2.68 2008/03/28 15:13:43 fabiankeil
9106 Remove inspect-jpegs action.
9108 Revision 2.67 2008/03/27 18:31:21 fabiankeil
9109 Remove kill-popups action.
9111 Revision 2.66 2008/03/06 16:33:47 fabiankeil
9112 If limit-connect isn't used, don't limit CONNECT requests to port 443.
9114 Revision 2.65 2008/03/04 18:30:40 fabiankeil
9115 Remove the treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks action. We now
9116 use the "blocked" page for forbidden CONNECT requests by default.
9118 Revision 2.64 2008/03/01 14:10:28 fabiankeil
9119 Use new block syntax. Still needs some polishing.
9121 Revision 2.63 2008/02/22 05:50:37 markm68k
9124 Revision 2.62 2008/02/11 11:52:23 hal9
9125 Fix entity ... s/&/&
9127 Revision 2.61 2008/02/11 03:41:47 markm68k
9128 more updates for mac os x
9130 Revision 2.60 2008/02/11 03:40:25 markm68k
9131 more updates for mac os x
9133 Revision 2.59 2008/02/11 00:52:34 markm68k
9134 reflect new changes for mac os x
9136 Revision 2.58 2008/02/03 21:37:40 hal9
9137 Apply patch from Mark: s/OSX/OS X/
9139 Revision 2.57 2008/02/03 19:10:14 fabiankeil
9140 Mention forward-socks5.
9142 Revision 2.56 2008/01/31 19:11:35 fabiankeil
9143 Let the +client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation} example apply
9144 to all requests as "tainted" Referers aren't limited to exit TLDs.
9146 Revision 2.55 2008/01/19 21:26:37 hal9
9147 Add IE7 to configuration section per Gerry.
9149 Revision 2.54 2008/01/19 17:52:39 hal9
9150 Re-commit to fix various minor issues for new release.
9152 Revision 2.53 2008/01/19 15:03:05 hal9
9153 Doc sources tagged for 3.0.8 release.
9155 Revision 2.52 2008/01/17 01:49:51 hal9
9156 Change copyright notice for docs s/2007/2008/. All these will be rebuilt soon
9159 Revision 2.51 2007/12/23 16:48:24 fabiankeil
9160 Use more precise example descriptions for the mysterious domain patterns.
9162 Revision 2.50 2007/12/08 12:44:36 fabiankeil
9163 - Remove already commented out pre-3.0.7 changes.
9164 - Update the "new log defaults" paragraph.
9166 Revision 2.49 2007/12/06 18:21:55 fabiankeil
9167 Update hide-forwarded-for-headers description.
9169 Revision 2.48 2007/11/24 19:07:17 fabiankeil
9170 - Mention request rewriting.
9171 - Enable the conditional-forge paragraph.
9174 Revision 2.47 2007/11/18 14:59:47 fabiankeil
9175 A few "Note to Upgraders" updates.
9177 Revision 2.46 2007/11/17 17:24:44 fabiankeil
9178 - Use new action defaults.
9179 - Minor fixes and rewordings.
9181 Revision 2.45 2007/11/16 11:48:46 hal9
9182 Fix one typo, and add a couple of small refinements.
9184 Revision 2.44 2007/11/15 03:30:20 hal9
9185 Results of spell check.
9187 Revision 2.43 2007/11/14 18:45:39 fabiankeil
9188 - Mention some more contributors in the "New in this Release" list.
9191 Revision 2.42 2007/11/12 03:32:40 hal9
9192 Updates for "What's New" and "Notes to Upgraders". Various other changes in
9193 preparation for new release. User Manual is almost ready.
9195 Revision 2.41 2007/11/11 16:32:11 hal9
9196 This is primarily syncing What's New and Note to Upgraders sections with the many
9197 new features and changes (gleaned from memory but mostly from ChangeLog).
9199 Revision 2.40 2007/11/10 17:10:59 fabiankeil
9200 In the first third of the file, mention several times that
9201 the action editor is disabled by default in 3.0.7 beta and later.
9203 Revision 2.39 2007/11/05 02:34:49 hal9
9204 Various changes in preparation for the upcoming release. Much yet to be done.
9206 Revision 2.38 2007/09/22 16:01:42 fabiankeil
9207 Update embedded show-url-info output.
9209 Revision 2.37 2007/08/27 16:09:55 fabiankeil
9210 Fix pre-chroot-nslookup description which I failed to
9211 copy and paste properly. Reported by Stephen Gildea.
9213 Revision 2.36 2007/08/26 16:47:14 fabiankeil
9214 Add Stephen Gildea's pre-chroot-nslookup patch [#1276666],
9215 extensive comments moved to user manual.
9217 Revision 2.35 2007/08/26 14:59:49 fabiankeil
9218 Minor rewordings and fixes.
9220 Revision 2.34 2007/08/05 15:19:50 fabiankeil
9221 - Don't claim HTTP/1.1 compliance.
9222 - Use $ in some of the path pattern examples.
9223 - Use a hide-user-agent example argument without
9224 leading and trailing space.
9225 - Make it clear that the cookie actions work with
9227 - Rephrase the inspect-jpegs text to underline
9228 that it's only meant to protect against a single
9231 Revision 2.33 2007/07/27 10:57:35 hal9
9232 Add references for user-agent strings for hide-user-agenet
9234 Revision 2.32 2007/06/07 12:36:22 fabiankeil
9235 Apply Roland's 29_usermanual.dpatch to fix a bunch
9236 of syntax errors I collected over the last months.
9238 Revision 2.31 2007/06/02 14:01:37 fabiankeil
9239 Start to document forward-override{}.
9241 Revision 2.30 2007/04/25 15:10:36 fabiankeil
9242 - Describe installation for FreeBSD.
9243 - Start to document taggers and tag patterns.
9244 - Don't confuse devils and daemons.
9246 Revision 2.29 2007/04/05 11:47:51 fabiankeil
9247 Some updates regarding header filtering,
9248 handling of compressed content and redirect's
9249 support for pcrs commands.
9251 Revision 2.28 2006/12/10 23:42:48 hal9
9252 Fix various typos reported by Adam P. Thanks.
9254 Revision 2.27 2006/11/14 01:57:47 hal9
9255 Dump all docs prior to 3.0.6 release. Various minor changes to faq and user
9258 Revision 2.26 2006/10/24 11:16:44 hal9
9261 Revision 2.25 2006/10/18 10:50:33 hal9
9262 Add note that since filters are off in Cautious, compression is ON. Turn off
9263 compression to make filters work on all sites.
9265 Revision 2.24 2006/10/03 11:13:54 hal9
9266 More references to the new filters. Include html this time around.
9268 Revision 2.23 2006/10/02 22:43:53 hal9
9269 Contains new filter definitions from Fabian, and few other miscellaneous
9272 Revision 2.22 2006/09/22 01:27:55 hal9
9273 Final commit of probably various minor changes here and there. Unless
9274 something changes this should be ready for pending release.
9276 Revision 2.21 2006/09/20 03:21:36 david__schmidt
9277 Just the tiniest tweak. Wafer thin!
9279 Revision 2.20 2006/09/10 14:53:54 hal9
9280 Results of spell check. User manual has some updates to standard.actions file
9283 Revision 2.19 2006/09/08 12:19:02 fabiankeil
9284 Adjust hide-if-modified-since example values
9285 to reflect the recent changes.
9287 Revision 2.18 2006/09/08 02:38:57 hal9
9289 -Fix a number of broken links.
9290 -Migrate the new Windows service command line options, and reference as
9292 -Rebuild so that can be used with the new "user-manual" config capabilities.
9295 Revision 2.17 2006/09/05 13:25:12 david__schmidt
9296 Add Windows service invocation stuff (duplicated) in FAQ and in user manual under Windows startup. One probably ought to reference the other.
9298 Revision 2.16 2006/09/02 12:49:37 hal9
9299 Various small updates for new actions, filterfiles, etc.
9301 Revision 2.15 2006/08/30 11:15:22 hal9
9302 More work on the new actions, especially filter-*-headers, and What's New
9303 section. User Manual is close to final form for 3.0.4 release. Some tinkering
9304 and proof reading left to do.
9306 Revision 2.14 2006/08/29 10:59:36 hal9
9307 Add a "Whats New in this release" Section. Further work on multiple filter
9308 files, and assorted other minor changes.
9310 Revision 2.13 2006/08/22 11:04:59 hal9
9311 Silence warnings and errors. This should build now. New filters were only
9312 stubbed in. More to be done.
9314 Revision 2.12 2006/08/14 08:40:39 fabiankeil
9315 Documented new actions that were part of
9316 the "minor Privoxy improvements".
9318 Revision 2.11 2006/07/18 14:48:51 david__schmidt
9319 Reorganizing the repository: swapping out what was HEAD (the old 3.1 branch)
9320 with what was really the latest development (the v_3_0_branch branch)
9322 Revision 1.123.2.43 2005/05/23 09:59:10 hal9
9325 Revision 1.123.2.42 2004/12/04 14:39:57 hal9
9326 Fix two minor typos per bug SF report.
9328 Revision 1.123.2.41 2004/03/23 12:58:42 oes
9331 Revision 1.123.2.40 2004/02/27 12:48:49 hal9
9332 Add comment re: redirecting to local file system for set-image-blocker may
9333 is dependent on browser.
9335 Revision 1.123.2.39 2004/01/30 22:31:40 oes
9336 Added a hint re bookmarklets to Quickstart section
9338 Revision 1.123.2.38 2004/01/30 16:47:51 oes
9339 Some minor clarifications
9341 Revision 1.123.2.37 2004/01/29 22:36:11 hal9
9342 Updates for no longer filtering text/plain, and demoronizer default settings,
9343 and copyright notice dates.
9345 Revision 1.123.2.36 2003/12/10 02:26:26 hal9
9346 Changed the demoronizer filter description.
9348 Revision 1.123.2.35 2003/11/06 13:36:37 oes
9349 Updated link to nightly CVS tarball
9351 Revision 1.123.2.34 2003/06/26 23:50:16 hal9
9352 Add a small bit on filtering and problems re: source code being corrupted.
9354 Revision 1.123.2.33 2003/05/08 18:17:33 roro
9355 Use apt-get instead of dpkg to install Debian package, which is more
9356 solid, uses the correct and most recent Debian version automatically.
9358 Revision 1.123.2.32 2003/04/11 03:13:57 hal9
9359 Add small note about only one filterfile (as opposed to multiple actions
9362 Revision 1.123.2.31 2003/03/26 02:03:43 oes
9363 Updated hard-coded copyright dates
9365 Revision 1.123.2.30 2003/03/24 12:58:56 hal9
9366 Add new section on Predefined Filters.
9368 Revision 1.123.2.29 2003/03/20 02:45:29 hal9
9369 More problems with \-\-chroot causing markup problems :(
9371 Revision 1.123.2.28 2003/03/19 00:35:24 hal9
9372 Manual edit of revision log because 'chroot' (even inside a comment) was
9373 causing Docbook to hang here (due to double hyphen and the processor thinking
9376 Revision 1.123.2.27 2003/03/18 19:37:14 oes
9377 s/Advanced|Radical/Adventuresome/g to avoid complaints re fun filter
9379 Revision 1.123.2.26 2003/03/17 16:50:53 oes
9380 Added documentation for new chroot option
9382 Revision 1.123.2.25 2003/03/15 18:36:55 oes
9383 Adapted to the new filters
9385 Revision 1.123.2.24 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9
9386 Move default profiles table from FAQ to U-M, and other minor related changes.
9389 Revision 1.123.2.23 2002/10/21 02:32:01 hal9
9390 Updates to the user.action examples section. A few new ones.
9392 Revision 1.123.2.22 2002/10/12 00:51:53 hal9
9393 Add demoronizer to filter section.
9395 Revision 1.123.2.21 2002/10/10 04:09:35 hal9
9396 s/Advanced/Radical/ and added very brief note.
9398 Revision 1.123.2.20 2002/10/10 03:49:21 hal9
9399 Add notes to session-cookies-only and Quickstart about pre-existing
9400 cookies. Also, note content-cookies work differently.
9402 Revision 1.123.2.19 2002/09/26 01:25:36 hal9
9403 More explanation on Privoxy patterns, more on content-cookies and SSL.
9405 Revision 1.123.2.18 2002/08/22 23:47:58 hal9
9406 Add 'Documentation' to Privoxy Menu shot in Configuration section to match
9409 Revision 1.123.2.17 2002/08/18 01:13:05 hal9
9410 Spell checked (only one typo this time!).
9412 Revision 1.123.2.16 2002/08/09 19:20:54 david__schmidt
9413 Update to Mac OS X startup script name
9415 Revision 1.123.2.15 2002/08/07 17:32:11 oes
9416 Converted some internal links from ulink to link for PDF creation; no content changed
9418 Revision 1.123.2.14 2002/08/06 09:16:13 oes
9419 Nits re: actions file download
9421 Revision 1.123.2.13 2002/08/02 18:23:19 g_sauthoff
9422 Just 2 small corrections to the Gentoo sections
9424 Revision 1.123.2.12 2002/08/02 18:17:21 g_sauthoff
9425 Added 2 Gentoo sections
9427 Revision 1.123.2.11 2002/07/26 15:20:31 oes
9428 - Added version info to title
9429 - Added info on new filters
9430 - Revised parts of the filter file tutorial
9431 - Added info on where to get updated actions files
9433 Revision 1.123.2.10 2002/07/25 21:42:29 hal9
9434 Add brief notes on not proxying non-HTTP protocols.
9436 Revision 1.123.2.9 2002/07/11 03:40:28 david__schmidt
9438 Updated Mac OS X sections due to installation location change
9440 Revision 1.123.2.8 2002/06/09 16:36:32 hal9
9441 Clarifications on filtering and MIME. Hardcode 'latest release' in index.html.
9443 Revision 1.123.2.7 2002/06/09 00:29:34 hal9
9444 Touch ups on filtering, in actions section and Anatomy.
9446 Revision 1.123.2.6 2002/06/06 23:11:03 hal9
9447 Fix broken link. Linkchecked all docs.
9449 Revision 1.123.2.5 2002/05/29 02:01:02 hal9
9450 This is break out of the entire config section from u-m, so it can
9451 eventually be used to generate the comments, etc in the main config file
9452 so that these are in sync with each other.
9454 Revision 1.123.2.4 2002/05/27 03:28:45 hal9
9455 Ooops missed something from David.
9457 Revision 1.123.2.3 2002/05/27 03:23:17 hal9
9458 Fix FIXMEs for OS2 and Mac OS X startup. Fix Redhat typos (should be Red Hat).
9459 That's a wrap, I think.
9461 Revision 1.123.2.2 2002/05/26 19:02:09 hal9
9462 Move Amiga stuff around to take of FIXME in start up section.
9464 Revision 1.123.2.1 2002/05/26 17:04:25 hal9
9465 -Spellcheck, very minor edits, and sync across branches
9467 Revision 1.123 2002/05/24 23:19:23 hal9
9468 Include new image (Proxy setup). More fun with guibutton.
9469 Minor corrections/clarifications here and there.
9471 Revision 1.122 2002/05/24 13:24:08 oes
9472 Added Bookmarklet for one-click pre-filled access to show-url-info
9474 Revision 1.121 2002/05/23 23:20:17 oes
9475 - Changed more (all?) references to actions to the
9476 <literal><link> style.
9477 - Small fixes in the actions chapter
9478 - Small clarifications in the quickstart to ad blocking
9479 - Removed <emphasis> from <title>s since the new doc CSS
9480 renders them red (bad in TOC).
9482 Revision 1.120 2002/05/23 19:16:43 roro
9483 Correct Debian specials (installation and startup).
9485 Revision 1.119 2002/05/22 17:17:05 oes
9488 Revision 1.118 2002/05/21 04:54:55 hal9
9489 -New Section: Quickstart to Ad Blocking
9490 -Reformat Actions Anatomy to match new CGI layout
9492 Revision 1.117 2002/05/17 13:56:16 oes
9493 - Reworked & extended Templates chapter
9494 - Small changes to Regex appendix
9495 - #included authors.sgml into (C) and hist chapter
9497 Revision 1.116 2002/05/17 03:23:46 hal9
9498 Fixing merge conflict in Quickstart section.
9500 Revision 1.115 2002/05/16 16:25:00 oes
9501 Extended the Filter File chapter & minor fixes
9503 Revision 1.114 2002/05/16 09:42:50 oes
9504 More ulink->link, added some hints to Quickstart section
9506 Revision 1.113 2002/05/15 21:07:25 oes
9507 Extended and further commented the example actions files
9509 Revision 1.112 2002/05/15 03:57:14 hal9
9510 Spell check. A few minor edits here and there for better syntax and
9513 Revision 1.111 2002/05/14 23:01:36 oes
9516 Revision 1.110 2002/05/14 19:10:45 oes
9517 Restored alphabetical order of actions
9519 Revision 1.109 2002/05/14 17:23:11 oes
9520 Renamed the prevent-*-cookies actions, extended aliases section and moved it before the example AFs
9522 Revision 1.108 2002/05/14 15:29:12 oes
9523 Completed proofreading the actions chapter
9525 Revision 1.107 2002/05/12 03:20:41 hal9
9526 Small clarifications for 127.0.0.1 vs localhost for listen-address since this
9527 apparently an important distinction for some OS's.
9529 Revision 1.106 2002/05/10 01:48:20 hal9
9530 This is mostly proposed copyright/licensing additions and changes. Docs
9531 are still GPL, but licensing and copyright are more visible. Also, copyright
9532 changed in doc header comments (eliminate references to JB except FAQ).
9534 Revision 1.105 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
9535 Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
9537 Revision 1.104 2002/05/04 08:44:45 swa
9540 Revision 1.103 2002/05/04 00:40:53 hal9
9541 -Remove the TOC first page kludge. It's fixed proper now in ldp.dsl.in.
9542 -Some minor additions to Quickstart.
9544 Revision 1.102 2002/05/03 17:46:00 oes
9545 Further proofread & reactivated short build instructions
9547 Revision 1.101 2002/05/03 03:58:30 hal9
9548 Move the user-manual config directive to top of section. Add note about
9549 Privoxy needing read permissions for configs, and write for logs.
9551 Revision 1.100 2002/04/29 03:05:55 hal9
9552 Add clarification on differences of new actions files.
9554 Revision 1.99 2002/04/28 16:59:05 swa
9555 more structure in starting section
9557 Revision 1.98 2002/04/28 05:43:59 hal9
9558 This is the break up of configuration.html into multiple files. This
9559 will probably break links elsewhere :(
9561 Revision 1.97 2002/04/27 21:04:42 hal9
9562 -Rewrite of Actions File example.
9563 -Add section for user-manual directive in config.
9565 Revision 1.96 2002/04/27 05:32:00 hal9
9566 -Add short section to Filter Files to tie in with +filter action.
9567 -Start rewrite of examples in Actions Examples (not finished).
9569 Revision 1.95 2002/04/26 17:23:29 swa
9570 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
9572 Revision 1.94 2002/04/26 05:24:36 hal9
9573 -Add most of Andreas suggestions to Chain of Events section.
9574 -A few other minor corrections and touch up.
9576 Revision 1.92 2002/04/25 18:55:13 hal9
9577 More catchups on new actions files, and new actions names.
9578 Other assorted cleanups, and minor modifications.
9580 Revision 1.91 2002/04/24 02:39:31 hal9
9581 Add 'Chain of Events' section.
9583 Revision 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 hal9
9584 Linuxconf is deprecated on RH, substitute chkconfig.
9586 Revision 1.89 2002/04/23 21:05:28 oes
9587 Added hint for startup on Red Hat
9589 Revision 1.88 2002/04/23 05:37:54 hal9
9590 Add AmigaOS install stuff.
9592 Revision 1.87 2002/04/23 02:53:15 david__schmidt
9593 Updated Mac OS X installation section
9594 Added a few English tweaks here an there
9596 Revision 1.86 2002/04/21 01:46:32 hal9
9597 Re-write actions section.
9599 Revision 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9
9600 Fix ugly typo (mine).
9602 Revision 1.84 2002/04/18 21:17:13 hal9
9603 Spell Redhat correctly (ie Red Hat). A few minor grammar corrections.
9605 Revision 1.83 2002/04/18 18:21:12 oes
9606 Added RPM install detail
9608 Revision 1.82 2002/04/18 12:04:50 oes
9611 Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
9612 Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
9614 Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
9615 Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
9617 Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
9618 Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
9620 Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
9623 Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
9624 Proofreading, part one
9626 Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
9627 -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
9628 -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
9630 Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
9631 Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
9633 Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
9634 Add small section on submitting actions.
9636 Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
9639 Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
9640 Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
9642 Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
9643 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
9645 Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
9648 Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
9649 -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
9650 -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
9651 -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
9652 -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
9654 Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
9655 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
9657 Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
9658 more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
9660 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
9661 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
9662 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
9663 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
9664 eventually be set by Makefile.
9665 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
9667 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
9668 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
9670 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
9671 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
9673 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
9674 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
9676 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
9677 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
9678 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
9679 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
9681 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
9684 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
9685 Added more to Anatomy section.
9687 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
9688 Touch up intro for new name.
9690 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
9691 we have a new homepage!
9693 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
9694 A few minor catch ups with name change.
9696 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
9697 configure needs to be generated.
9699 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
9700 we are too lazy to make a block-built
9701 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
9703 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
9704 name change related issue.
9706 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
9707 name change. changed filenames.
9709 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
9712 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
9713 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
9714 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
9715 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
9716 comments and remarks to history untouched.
9718 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
9721 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
9722 New section in Appendix.
9724 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
9725 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
9727 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
9728 correct feedback channels
9730 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
9731 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
9733 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
9736 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
9737 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
9739 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
9740 Added imageblock{pattern}.
9742 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
9745 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
9746 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
9748 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
9749 provide correct feedback channels
9751 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
9752 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
9754 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
9755 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
9757 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
9758 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
9760 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
9761 Add new - - user option.
9763 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
9764 Added section on command line options.
9766 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
9767 Changed default port to 8118
9769 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
9770 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
9772 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
9773 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
9774 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
9777 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
9780 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
9781 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
9783 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
9784 Update OS/2 build section
9786 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
9787 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
9788 will work - no other changes are needed.
9790 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
9791 Added a very short section on Templates
9793 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
9794 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
9796 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
9797 Touch ups for *.action files.
9799 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
9802 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
9803 Updates for recent changes.
9805 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
9806 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
9808 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
9809 Correct 2 minor errors
9811 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
9812 *** empty log message ***
9814 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
9815 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
9817 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
9818 wrong url in documentation
9820 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
9821 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
9823 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
9826 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
9829 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
9832 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
9833 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
9835 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
9836 Some additions, and re-arranging.
9838 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
9841 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
9842 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
9844 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
9847 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
9848 source files for junkbuster documentation
9850 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
9851 first proposal of a structure.
9853 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
9854 docs should have an author.
9856 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
9857 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.