1 <!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V3.1//EN" [
2 <!entity % dummy "IGNORE">
3 <!entity supported SYSTEM "supported.sgml">
4 <!entity newfeatures SYSTEM "newfeatures.sgml">
5 <!entity p-intro SYSTEM "privoxy.sgml">
6 <!entity seealso SYSTEM "seealso.sgml">
7 <!entity buildsource SYSTEM "buildsource.sgml">
8 <!entity contacting SYSTEM "contacting.sgml">
9 <!entity history SYSTEM "history.sgml">
10 <!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
11 <!entity license SYSTEM "license.sgml">
12 <!entity p-authors SYSTEM "p-authors.sgml">
13 <!entity config SYSTEM "p-config.sgml">
14 <!entity p-version "3.0.11">
15 <!entity p-status "stable">
16 <!entity % p-authors-formal "INCLUDE"> <!-- include additional text, etc -->
17 <!entity % p-not-stable "IGNORE">
18 <!entity % p-stable "INCLUDE">
19 <!entity % p-text "IGNORE"> <!-- define we are not a text only doc -->
20 <!entity % p-doc "INCLUDE"> <!-- and we are a formal doc -->
21 <!entity % p-readme "IGNORE">
22 <!entity % user-man "IGNORE">
23 <!entity % config-file "IGNORE">
24 <!entity % p-supp-userman "IGNORE"> <!-- Omit some from supported.sgml -->
25 <!entity my-copy "©"> <!-- kludge for docbook2man -->
26 <!entity % draft "IGNORE"> <!-- WIP stuff -->
27 <!entity my-app "<application>Privoxy</application>">
30 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
33 This file belongs into
34 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
36 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.91 2009/01/13 16:50:35 fabiankeil Exp $
38 Copyright (C) 2001-2009 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org/
41 ========================================================================
42 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
43 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
44 ========================================================================
51 <title>Privoxy &p-version; User Manual</title>
55 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
56 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
57 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001-2009 by
58 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
62 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.91 2009/01/13 16:50:35 fabiankeil Exp $</pubdate>
66 Note: the following should generate a separate page, and a live link to it,
67 all nicely done. But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave
68 commented unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the
69 copyright/license declarations will be in their own sgml.
82 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
83 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
84 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
90 The <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> gives users information on how to
91 install, configure and use <ulink
92 url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy</ulink>.
95 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
97 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
100 You can find the latest version of the <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> at <ulink
101 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
102 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> on how to
103 contact the developers.
107 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
113 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
114 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
116 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
117 <application>Privoxy</application>, v.&p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
118 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
119 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
120 configuration files. Development of a new version is currently nearing
121 completion, and includes significant changes and enhancements over
122 earlier versions. ]]>.
125 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
128 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
129 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
130 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
135 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
136 <sect2 id="features"><title>Features</title>
138 In addition to the core
139 features of ad blocking and
140 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookie</ulink> management,
141 <application>Privoxy</application> provides many supplemental
142 features<![%p-not-stable;[, some of them currently under development]]>,
143 that give the end-user more control, more privacy and more freedom:
145 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
147 <!-- end boilerplate -->
152 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
155 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
156 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
159 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
160 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
161 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
162 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project
168 On some platforms, the installer may remove previously installed versions, if
169 found. (See below for your platform). In any case <emphasis>be sure to backup
170 your old configuration if it is valuable to you.</emphasis> See the <link
171 linkend="upgradersnote">note to upgraders</link> section below.
174 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
175 <sect2 id="installation-packages"><title>Binary Packages</title>
177 How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
180 <!-- XXX: The installation sections should be sorted -->
182 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
183 <sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Red Hat and Fedora RPMs</title>
186 RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm</literal>,
187 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location
188 of configuration files.
192 Note that on Red Hat, <application>Privoxy</application> will
193 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be automatically started on system boot. You will
194 need to enable that using <command>chkconfig</command>,
195 <command>ntsysv</command>, or similar methods.
199 If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM:
200 <literal>rpm --rebuild privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm</literal>. This
201 will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.
205 Also note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
206 on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
207 Otherwise, RPM will try to remove <application>Junkbuster</application>
208 automatically if found, before installing <application>Privoxy</application>.
212 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
213 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian and Ubuntu</title>
215 DEBs can be installed with <literal>apt-get install privoxy</literal>,
216 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location of
221 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
222 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
225 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
226 the installation process. You will find the configuration files
227 in the same directory as you installed <application>Privoxy</application> in.
230 Version 3.0.5 beta introduced full <application>Windows</application> service
231 functionality. On Windows only, the <application>Privoxy</application>
232 program has two new command line arguments to install and uninstall
233 <application>Privoxy</application> as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>.
237 <term>Arguments:</term>
240 <replaceable class="parameter">--install</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
243 <replaceable class="parameter">--uninstall</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
249 After invoking <application>Privoxy</application> with
250 <command>--install</command>, you will need to bring up the
251 <application>Windows</application> service console to assign the user you
252 want <application>Privoxy</application> to run under, and whether or not you
253 want it to run whenever the system starts. You can start the
254 <application>Windows</application> services console with the following
255 command: <command>services.msc</command>. If you do not take the manual step
256 of modifying <application>Privoxy's</application> service settings, it will
257 not start. Note too that you will need to give Privoxy a user account that
258 actually exists, or it will not be permitted to
259 write to its log and configuration files.
264 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
265 <sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris <!--, NetBSD, HP-UX--></title>
268 Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
269 untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
270 things go. <!-- FIXME, more info needed? -->
274 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
275 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
278 First, make sure that no previous installations of
279 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
280 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
281 system. Check that no <application>Junkbuster</application>
282 or <application>Privoxy</application> objects are in
288 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
289 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
290 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
291 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
295 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
296 into will contain all of the configuration files.
300 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
301 <sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Mac OS X</title>
303 Unzip the downloaded file (you can either double-click on the zip file
304 icon from the Finder, or from the desktop if you downloaded it there).
305 Then, double-click on the package installer icon and follow the
306 installation process.
309 The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful
310 installation (in addition to every time your computer starts up). To
311 prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your
312 computer starts up, remove or rename the folder named
313 <literal>/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal>.
316 To manually start or stop the privoxy service, use the Privoxy Utility
317 for Mac OS X. This application controls the privoxy service (e.g.
318 starting and stopping the service as well as uninstalling the software).
322 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
323 <sect3 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
325 Copy and then unpack the <filename>lha</filename> archive to a suitable location.
326 All necessary files will be installed into <application>Privoxy</application>
327 directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just
328 remove this directory.
332 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
333 <sect3 id="installation-tbz"><title>FreeBSD</title>
336 Privoxy is part of FreeBSD's Ports Collection, you can build and install
337 it with <literal>cd /usr/ports/www/privoxy; make install clean</literal>.
340 If you don't use the ports, you can fetch and install
341 the package with <literal>pkg_add -r privoxy</literal>.
344 The port skeleton and the package can also be downloaded from the
345 <ulink url="https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">File Release
346 Page</ulink>, but there's no reason to use them unless you're interested in the
347 beta releases which are only available there.
351 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
352 <sect3 id="installattion-gentoo"><title>Gentoo</title>
354 Gentoo source packages (Ebuilds) for <application>Privoxy</application> are
355 contained in the Gentoo Portage Tree (they are not on the download page,
356 but there is a Gentoo section, where you can see when a new
357 <application>Privoxy</application> Version is added to the Portage Tree).
360 Before installing <application>Privoxy</application> under Gentoo just do
361 first <literal>emerge --sync</literal> to get the latest changes from the
362 Portage tree. With <literal>emerge privoxy</literal> you install the latest
366 Configuration files are in <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename>, the
367 documentation is in <filename>/usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;</filename>
368 and the Log directory is in <filename>/var/log/privoxy</filename>.
374 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
375 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
378 The most convenient way to obtain the <application>Privoxy</application> sources
379 is to download the source tarball from our
380 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&package_id=10571">project download
385 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
386 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
387 version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
388 CVS repository</ulink>.
390 deprecated...out of business.
391 or simply download <ulink
392 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.bz2">the nightly CVS
397 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
399 <!-- end boilerplate -->
402 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
403 <sect2 id="installation-keepupdated"><title>Keeping your Installation Up-to-Date</title>
405 As user feedback comes in and development continues, we will make updated versions
406 of both the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link> (as a <ulink
407 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&release_id=103670">separate
408 package</ulink>) and the software itself (including the actions file) available for
413 If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
414 <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
415 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce/">subscribe
416 to our announce mailing list</ulink>, ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
420 In order not to lose your personal changes and adjustments when updating
421 to the latest <literal>default.action</literal> file we <emphasis>strongly
422 recommend</emphasis> that you use <literal>user.action</literal> and
423 <literal>user.filter</literal> for your local
424 customizations of <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
425 linkend="actions-file">Chapter on actions files</link> for details.
433 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
435 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
436 <sect1 id="whatsnew">
437 <title>What's New in this Release</title>
439 There are only a few improvements and new features since
440 <application>Privoxy 3.0.10</application>, the last stable release:
447 The mingw32 version uses mutex locks now which prevents
448 log message corruption under load. As a side effect,
449 the "no thread-safe PRNG" warning could be removed as well.
454 Support for remote toggling is controlled by the configure
455 option --disable-toggle only. In previous versions it also
456 depended on the action editor and thus configuring with the
457 --disable-editor option would disable remote toggling support
463 The hide-forwarded-for-headers action has been replaced with
464 the change-x-forwarded-for{} action which can also be used to
465 add X-Forwarded-For headers. The latter functionality already
466 existed in Privoxy versions prior to 3.0.7 but has been removed
467 as it was often used unintentionally (by not using the
468 hide-forwarded-for-headers action).
475 For a more detailed list of changes please have a look at the ChangeLog.
478 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
480 <sect2 id="upgradersnote">
481 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
484 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading from earlier
485 versions of <application>Privoxy</application>:
493 The recommended way to upgrade &my-app; is to backup your old
494 configuration files, install the new ones, verify that &my-app;
495 is working correctly and finally merge back your changes using
496 <application>diff</application> and maybe <application>patch</application>.
499 There are a number of new features in each &my-app; release and
500 most of them have to be explicitly enabled in the configuration
501 files. Old configuration files obviously don't do that and due
502 to syntax changes using old configuration files with a new
503 &my-app; isn't always possible anyway.
508 Note that some installers remove earlier versions completely,
509 including configuration files, therefore you should really save
510 any important configuration files!
515 On the other hand, other installers don't overwrite existing configuration
516 files, thinking you will want to do that yourself.
521 <filename>standard.action</filename> has been merged into
522 the <filename>default.action</filename> file.
527 In the default configuration only fatal errors are logged now.
528 You can change that in the <link linkend="DEBUG">debug section</link>
529 of the configuration file. You may also want to enable more verbose
530 logging until you verified that the new &my-app; version is working
537 Three other config file settings are now off by default:
538 <link linkend="enable-remote-toggle">enable-remote-toggle</link>,
539 <link linkend="enable-remote-http-toggle">enable-remote-http-toggle</link>,
540 and <link linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link>.
541 If you use or want these, you will need to explicitly enable them, and
542 be aware of the security issues involved.
548 The <quote>filter-client-headers</quote> and
549 <quote>filter-server-headers</quote> actions that were introduced with
550 <application>Privoxy 3.0.5</application> to apply content filters to
551 the headers have been removed and replaced with new actions.
553 linkend="whatsnew">What's New section</link> above.
561 What constitutes a <quote>default</quote> configuration has changed,
562 and you may want to review which actions are <quote>on</quote> by
563 default. This is primarily a matter of emphasis, but some features
564 you may have been used to, may now be <quote>off</quote> by default.
565 There are also a number of new actions and filters you may want to
566 consider, most of which are not fully incorporated into the default
567 settings as yet (see above).
574 The default actions setting is now <literal>Cautious</literal>. Previous
575 releases had a default setting of <literal>Medium</literal>. Experienced
576 users may want to adjust this, as it is fairly conservative by &my-app;
577 standards and past practices. See <ulink
578 url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default">
579 http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default</ulink>. New users
580 should try the default settings for a while before turning up the volume.
586 The default setting has filtering turned <emphasis>off</emphasis>, which
587 subsequently means that compression is <emphasis>on</emphasis>. Remember
588 that filtering does not work on compressed pages, so if you use, or want to
589 use, filtering, you will need to force compression off. Example:
593 { +<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{google} +<link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link> }
597 Or if you use a number of filters, or filter many sites, you may just want
598 to turn off compression for all sites in
599 <filename>default.action</filename> (or
600 <filename>user.action</filename>).
607 Also, <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> is
608 off by default now. If you've liked this feature in the past, you may want
609 to turn it back on in <filename>user.action</filename> now.
616 Some installers may not automatically start
617 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
628 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
629 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using Privoxy</title>
635 Install <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
636 linkend="installation">Installation Section</link> below for platform specific
643 Advanced users and those who want to offer <application>Privoxy</application>
644 service to more than just their local machine should check the <link
645 linkend="config">main config file</link>, especially the <link
646 linkend="access-control">security-relevant</link> options. These are
653 Start <application>Privoxy</application>, if the installation program has
654 not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
655 <link linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link>.
661 Set your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application> as HTTP and
662 HTTPS (SSL) <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>
663 by setting the proxy configuration for address of
664 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> and port <literal>8118</literal>.
665 <emphasis>DO NOT</emphasis> activate proxying for <literal>FTP</literal> or
666 any protocols besides HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) unless you intend to prevent your
667 browser from using these protocols.
673 Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
674 If using <application>Privoxy</application> to manage
675 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
676 you should remove any currently stored cookies too.
682 A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
683 most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
684 configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
685 to no initial configuration is required in most cases, you may want
687 <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">web-based action editor</ulink> though.
688 Be sure to read the warnings first.
691 See the <link linkend="configuration">Configuration section</link> for more
692 configuration options, and how to customize your installation.
693 You might also want to look at the <link
694 linkend="quickstart-ad-blocking">next section</link> for a quick
695 introduction to how <application>Privoxy</application> blocks ads and
702 If you experience ads that slip through, innocent images that are
703 blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
704 <application>Privoxy's</application> behavior, take a look at the <link
705 linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>. As a quick start, you might
706 find the <link linkend="act-examples">richly commented examples</link>
707 helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the <ulink
708 url="http://config.privoxy.org">web-based user interface</ulink>. The
709 Appendix <quote><link linkend="actionsanat">Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an
710 Action</link></quote> has hints on how to understand and debug actions that
711 <quote>misbehave</quote>.
716 Did anyone test these lately?
720 For easy access to &my-app;'s most important controls, drag the provided
721 <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklets</link> into your browser's
729 Please see the section <link linkend="contact">Contacting the
730 Developers</link> on how to report bugs, problems with websites or to get
737 Now enjoy surfing with enhanced control, comfort and privacy!
745 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
747 <sect2 id="quickstart-ad-blocking">
748 <title>Quickstart to Ad Blocking</title>
750 NOTE: This section is deliberately redundant for those that don't
751 want to read the whole thing (which is getting lengthy).
754 Ad blocking is but one of <application>Privoxy's</application>
755 array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
756 user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody.
759 This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
760 you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive
761 information provided below, though this is highly recommended.
764 First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
765 more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
766 things that were not intended. And the more likely that some things
767 may not work as intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
768 extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
769 <quote>problem</quote> sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
770 configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
771 not an easy way to eliminate <emphasis>all</emphasis> ads. Either take
772 the easy way and settle for <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads blocked with the
773 default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing
774 habits and preferences.
777 Secondly, a brief explanation of <application>Privoxy's </application>
778 <quote>actions</quote>. <quote>Actions</quote> in this context, are
779 the directives we use to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to perform
780 some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell
781 <application>Privoxy</application> to take some <quote>action</quote>. Each
782 action has a unique name and function. While there are many potential
783 <application>actions</application> in <application>Privoxy's</application>
784 arsenal, only a few are used for ad blocking. <link
785 linkend="actions">Actions</link>, and <link linkend="actions-file">action
786 configuration files</link>, are explained in depth below.
789 Actions are specified in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
790 followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
791 can actually be URL type <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> that use
792 wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs. The
793 actions, together with the URL patterns are called a section.
796 When you connect to a website, the full URL will either match one or more
797 of the sections as defined in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
798 or not. If so, then <application>Privoxy</application> will perform the
799 respective actions. If not, then nothing special happens. Furthermore, web
800 pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your web browser will
801 use to load additional components of the page, as it parses the
802 original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just an URL
803 embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server,
804 or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many
805 such embedded URLs. &my-app; can deal with each URL individually, so, for
806 instance, the main page text is not touched, but images from such-and-such
811 The most important actions for basic ad blocking are: <literal><link
812 linkend="block">block</link></literal>, <literal><link
813 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
815 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal>,and
816 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>:
824 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> - this is perhaps
825 the single most used action, and is particularly important for ad blocking.
826 This action stops any contact between your browser and any URL patterns
827 that match this action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads,
828 but also anything that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply
829 stops any communication with the remote server and sends
830 <application>Privoxy</application>'s own built-in BLOCKED page instead to
831 let you now what has happened (with some exceptions, see below).
837 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> -
838 tells <application>Privoxy</application> to treat this URL as an image.
839 <application>Privoxy</application>'s default configuration already does this
840 for all common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this
841 is not so easy to determine. So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly
842 important for ad blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of
843 some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the
844 <application>Privoxy</application> BLOCKED page (which would only result in
845 a <quote>broken image</quote> icon). There are some limitations to this
846 though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an image substitution for
847 an entire HTML page in most situations.
853 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> -
854 sends an empty document instead of <application>Privoxy's</application>
855 normal BLOCKED HTML page. This is useful for file types that are neither
856 HTML nor images, such as blocking JavaScript files.
863 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> - tells
864 <application>Privoxy</application> what to display in place of an ad image that
865 has hit a block rule. For this to come into play, the URL must match a
866 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action somewhere in the
867 configuration, <emphasis>and</emphasis>, it must also match an
868 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action.
871 The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are:
875 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad
876 replacement is obvious. This is the default.
881 <emphasis>blank</emphasis> - A very small empty GIF image is displayed.
882 This is the so-called <quote>invisible</quote> configuration option.
887 <emphasis>http://<URL></emphasis> - A redirect to any image anywhere
888 of the user's choosing (advanced usage).
897 Advanced users will eventually want to explore &my-app;
898 <literal><link linkend="filter">filters</link></literal> as well. Filters
899 are very different from <literal><link
900 linkend="block">blocks</link></literal>.
901 A <quote>block</quote> blocks a site, page, or unwanted contented. Filters
902 are a way of filtering or modifying what is actually on the page. An example
903 filter usage: a text replacement of <quote>no-no</quote> for
904 <quote>nasty-word</quote>. That is a very simple example. This process can be
905 used for ad blocking, but it is more in the realm of advanced usage and has
906 some pitfalls to be wary off.
910 The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
911 the special <application>Privoxy</application> editor at <ulink
912 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
913 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>). This
914 is an internal page, and does not require Internet access.
918 Note that as of <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta the
919 action editor is disabled by default. Check the
920 <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions
921 section in the configuration file</ulink> to learn why and in which
922 cases it's safe to enable again.
926 If you decided to enable the action editor, select the appropriate
927 <quote>actions</quote> file, and click
928 <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>. It is best to put personal or
929 local preferences in <filename>user.action</filename> since this is not
930 meant to be overwritten during upgrades, and will over-ride the settings in
931 other files. Here you can insert new <quote>actions</quote>, and URLs for ad
932 blocking or other purposes, and make other adjustments to the configuration.
933 <application>Privoxy</application> will detect these changes automatically.
937 A quick and simple step by step example:
945 Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
946 <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote> from the
954 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
959 Find <filename>user.action</filename> in the top section, and click
960 on <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>:
963 <!-- image of editor and actions files selections -->
965 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Actions Files in Use</title>
968 <imagedata fileref="files-in-use.jpg" format="jpg">
971 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ]</phrase>
980 You should have a section with only
981 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> listed under
982 <quote>Actions:</quote>.
983 If not, click a <quote><guibutton>Insert new section below</guibutton></quote>
984 button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the
985 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button right under the word <quote>Actions:</quote>.
986 This will bring up a list of all actions. Find
987 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> near the top, and click
988 in the <quote>Enabled</quote> column, then <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote>
994 Now, in the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> actions section,
995 click the <quote><guibutton>Add</guibutton></quote> button, and paste the URL the
996 browser got from <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote>.
997 Remove the <literal>http://</literal> at the beginning of the URL. Then, click
998 <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote> (or
999 <quote><guibutton>OK</guibutton></quote> if in a pop-up window).
1004 Now go back to the original page, and press <keycap>SHIFT-Reload</keycap>
1005 (or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now.
1013 This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
1014 wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same
1015 site. For a more extensive explanation of <quote>patterns</quote>, and
1016 the entire actions concept, see <link linkend="actions-file">the Actions
1021 For advanced users who want to hand edit their config files, you might want
1022 to now go to the <link linkend="act-examples">Actions Files Tutorial</link>.
1023 The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor.
1026 There are also various
1027 <link linkend="filter">filters</link> that can be used for ad blocking
1028 (filters are a special subset of actions). These
1029 fall into the <quote>advanced</quote> usage category, and are explained in
1030 depth in later sections.
1037 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1040 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1041 <sect1 id="startup">
1042 <title>Starting Privoxy</title>
1044 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
1045 will want to configure your browser(s) to use
1046 <application>Privoxy</application> as a HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)
1047 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>. The default is
1048 127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions
1049 used port 8000). This is the one configuration step <emphasis>that must be done
1053 Please note that <application>Privoxy</application> can only proxy HTTP and
1054 HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols.
1057 <!-- image of Mozilla Proxy configuration -->
1059 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
1060 Mozilla/Netscape HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) Settings</title>
1063 <imagedata fileref="proxy_setup.jpg" format="jpg">
1066 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
1074 With <application>Firefox</application>, this is typically set under:
1078 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Network</guibutton> -><guibutton>Connection</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Settings</guibutton>
1083 Or optionally on some platforms:
1087 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>General</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connection Settings</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Manual Proxy Configuration</guibutton>
1093 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
1094 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under:
1099 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
1100 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
1101 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Proxies</guibutton> -> <guibutton>HTTP Proxy</guibutton>
1106 For <application>Internet Explorer v.5-7</application>:
1110 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Internet Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connections</guibutton> -> <guibutton>LAN Settings</guibutton>
1114 Then, check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info
1115 (Address: 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include HTTPS (SSL), if you want HTTPS
1116 proxy support too (sometimes labeled <quote>Secure</quote>). Make sure any
1117 checkboxes like <quote>Use the same proxy server for all protocols</quote> is
1118 <emphasis>UNCHECKED</emphasis>. You want only HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)!
1121 <!-- image of IE Proxy configuration -->
1123 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
1124 Internet Explorer HTTP and HTTPS (Secure) Settings</title>
1127 <imagedata fileref="proxy2.jpg" format="jpg">
1130 <phrase>[ Screenshot of IE Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
1138 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
1139 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. Remove
1140 any <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
1141 if you want <application>Privoxy</application> to manage that. You are now
1142 ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
1143 <application>Privoxy</application>!
1147 <application>Privoxy</application> itself is typically started by specifying the
1148 main configuration file to be used on the command line. If no configuration
1149 file is specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application>
1150 will look for a file named <filename>config</filename> in the current
1151 directory. Except on Win32 where it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>.
1154 <sect2 id="start-redhat">
1155 <title>Red Hat and Fedora</title>
1157 A default Red Hat installation may not start &my-app; upon boot. It will use
1158 the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
1163 # /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
1171 # service privoxy start
1176 <sect2 id="start-debian">
1177 <title>Debian</title>
1179 We use a script. Note that Debian typically starts &my-app; upon booting per
1180 default. It will use the file
1181 <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
1186 # /etc/init.d/privoxy start
1191 <sect2 id="start-windows">
1192 <title>Windows</title>
1194 Click on the &my-app; Icon to start <application>Privoxy</application>. If no configuration file is
1195 specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application> will look
1196 for a file named <filename>config.txt</filename>. Note that Windows will
1197 automatically start &my-app; when the system starts if you chose that option
1201 <application>Privoxy</application> can run with full Windows service functionality.
1202 On Windows only, the &my-app; program has two new command line arguments
1203 to install and uninstall &my-app; as a service. See the
1204 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Windows Installation
1205 instructions</link> for details.
1209 <sect2 id="start-unices">
1210 <title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others</title>
1212 Example Unix startup command:
1216 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
1221 <sect2 id="start-os2">
1224 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
1225 start automatically when the system restarts. You can start it manually by
1226 double-clicking on the <application>Privoxy</application> icon in the
1227 <application>Privoxy</application> folder.
1231 <sect2 id="start-macosx">
1232 <title>Mac OS X</title>
1234 After downloading the privoxy software, unzip the downloaded file by
1235 double-clicking on the zip file icon. Then, double-click on the
1236 installer package icon and follow the installation process.
1239 The privoxy service will automatically start after a successful
1240 installation. In addition, the privoxy service will automatically
1241 start every time your computer starts up.
1244 To prevent the privoxy service from automatically starting when your
1245 computer starts up, remove or rename the folder named
1246 /Library/StartupItems/Privoxy.
1249 A simple application named Privoxy Utility has been created which
1250 enables administrators to easily start and stop the privoxy service.
1253 In addition, the Privoxy Utility presents a simple way for
1254 administrators to edit the various privoxy config files. A method
1255 to uninstall the software is also available.
1258 An administrator username and password must be supplied in order for
1259 the Privoxy Utility to perform any of the tasks.
1264 <sect2 id="start-amigaos">
1265 <title>AmigaOS</title>
1267 Start <application>Privoxy</application> (with RUN <>NIL:) in your
1268 <filename>startnet</filename> script (AmiTCP), in
1269 <filename>s:user-startup</filename> (RoadShow), as startup program in your
1270 startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
1271 <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically quit when you quit your
1272 TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that
1273 <application>Privoxy</application> is still running).
1277 <sect2 id="start-gentoo">
1278 <title>Gentoo</title>
1280 A script is again used. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config
1281 </filename> as its main configuration file.
1285 /etc/init.d/privoxy start
1289 Note that <application>Privoxy</application> is not automatically started at
1290 boot time by default. You can change this with the <literal>rc-update</literal>
1295 rc-update add privoxy default
1303 See the section <link linkend="cmdoptions">Command line options</link> for
1307 must find a better place for this paragraph
1310 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
1311 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
1312 <ulink url="actions-file.html"><quote>actions</quote></ulink> files. These are
1313 where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking, and other
1314 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several
1315 such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
1319 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites for which you may prefer
1320 persistent cookies, and add these to your actions configuration as needed. By
1321 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
1322 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), unless you add them to the
1323 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
1324 to edit <filename>user.action</filename> (or through the web based interface)
1325 and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser, it would make
1326 more sense to let <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which
1327 case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
1331 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
1332 sites is the popup-killing (through <ulink
1333 url="actions-file.html#FILTER-POPUPS"><quote>+filter{popups}</quote></ulink>),
1334 because your favorite shopping, banking, or leisure site may need
1335 popups (explained below).
1339 <application>Privoxy</application> does not support all of the optional HTTP/1.1
1340 features yet. In the unlikely event that you experience inexplicable problems
1341 with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
1342 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
1343 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
1344 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
1345 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote> config option in
1346 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
1347 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
1351 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
1352 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
1353 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
1354 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote>
1355 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
1356 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1357 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1358 and then follow the link to <quote>View & Change the Current Configuration</quote>.
1359 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
1363 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
1364 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
1365 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
1366 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
1367 to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
1368 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
1369 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
1373 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
1374 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
1375 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
1376 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
1377 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
1378 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
1383 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <link
1384 linkend="actions-file">read more about the actions concept</link>
1385 or even dive deep into the <link linkend="actionsanat">Appendix
1390 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
1391 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
1392 section <link linkend="contact"><quote>Contacting the
1393 Developers</quote></link> below.
1398 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1399 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
1400 <title>Command Line Options</title>
1402 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
1403 command-line options:
1411 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
1414 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
1419 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
1422 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
1427 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
1430 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
1431 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
1436 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
1439 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
1440 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
1441 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
1442 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
1447 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
1450 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
1451 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
1452 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
1457 <emphasis>--chroot</emphasis>
1460 Before changing to the user ID given in the <emphasis>--user</emphasis> option,
1461 chroot to that user's home directory, i.e. make the kernel pretend to the &my-app;
1462 process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit
1463 the impact of possible vulnerabilities in &my-app; to the files contained in that hierarchy.
1469 <emphasis>--pre-chroot-nslookup hostname</emphasis>
1472 Specifies a hostname to look up before doing a chroot. On some systems, initializing the
1473 resolver library involves reading config files from /etc and/or loading additional shared
1474 libraries from /lib. On these systems, doing a hostname lookup before the chroot reduces
1475 the number of files that must be copied into the chroot tree.
1478 For fastest startup speed, a good value is a hostname that is not in /etc/hosts but that
1479 your local name server (listed in /etc/resolv.conf) can resolve without recursion
1480 (that is, without having to ask any other name servers). The hostname need not exist,
1481 but if it doesn't, an error message (which can be ignored) will be output.
1487 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
1490 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
1491 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
1492 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
1493 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
1494 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
1495 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
1503 On <application>MS Windows</application> only there are two additional
1504 command-line options to allow <application>Privoxy</application> to install and
1505 run as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>. See the
1506 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Window Installation section</link>
1514 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1517 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1518 <sect1 id="configuration"><title>Privoxy Configuration</title>
1520 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
1521 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
1522 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
1523 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
1527 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1530 <title>Controlling Privoxy with Your Web Browser</title>
1532 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
1533 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1534 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1535 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
1536 You will see the following section:
1540 <!-- Needs to be put in a table and colorized -->
1543 <bridgehead renderas="sect2"> Privoxy Menu</bridgehead>
1547 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View & change the current configuration</ulink>
1550 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">View the source code version numbers</ulink>
1553 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">View the request headers.</ulink>
1556 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">Look up which actions apply to a URL and why</ulink>
1559 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">Toggle Privoxy on or off</ulink>
1562 ▪ <ulink
1563 url="http://www.privoxy.org/&p-version;/user-manual/">Documentation</ulink>
1571 This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the
1572 <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, which is where the ad, banner,
1573 cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
1574 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
1575 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
1576 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
1580 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
1581 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
1582 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
1583 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
1584 to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e.
1585 <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There
1586 is even a toggle <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklet</link> offered, so
1587 that you can toggle <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from
1592 Note that several of the features described above are disabled by default
1593 in <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta and later.
1595 <ulink url="config.html">configuration file</ulink> to learn why
1596 and in which cases it's safe to enable them again.
1601 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1606 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1608 <sect2 id="confoverview">
1609 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
1611 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
1612 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
1613 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
1614 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
1615 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
1616 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
1620 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
1621 some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
1622 principle configuration files are:
1630 The <link linkend="config">main configuration file</link> is named <filename>config</filename>
1631 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
1632 on Windows. This is a required file.
1638 <filename>default.action</filename> (the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>)
1639 is used to define which <quote>actions</quote> relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups,
1640 content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default. It also defines many
1641 exceptions (both positive and negative) from this default set of actions that enable
1642 <application>Privoxy</application> to selectively eliminate the junk, and only the junk, on
1643 as many websites as possible.
1646 Multiple actions files may be defined in <filename>config</filename>. These
1647 are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
1648 preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
1649 <filename>default.action</filename> (which you will most probably want
1650 to define sooner or later) are probably best applied in
1651 <filename>user.action</filename>, where you can preserve them across
1655 There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
1657 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1659 url="http://p.p/show-status">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>) for the
1660 various actions files.
1666 <quote>Filter files</quote> (the <link linkend="filter-file">filter
1667 file</link>) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
1668 viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
1669 lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
1670 whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
1671 <filename>default.filter</filename> includes various filters made
1672 available for use by the developers. Some are much more intrusive than
1673 others, and all should be used with caution. You may define additional
1674 filter files in <filename>config</filename> as you can with
1675 actions files. We suggest <filename>user.filter</filename> for any
1676 locally defined filters or customizations.
1684 The syntax of the configuration and filter files may change between different
1685 Privoxy versions, unfortunately some enhancements cost backwards compatibility.
1686 <!-- Add link to documentation-->
1690 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
1691 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
1692 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
1693 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
1694 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
1695 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
1696 out" that line. Blank lines are ignored.
1700 The actions files and filter files
1701 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
1702 maximum flexibility.
1706 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
1707 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
1708 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
1709 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
1710 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
1711 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
1712 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
1717 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
1718 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
1719 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
1720 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
1726 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1729 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1731 <!-- **************************************************** -->
1732 <!-- Include config.sgml here -->
1733 <!-- This is where the entire config file is detailed. -->
1735 <!-- end include -->
1738 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1742 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1744 <sect1 id="actions-file"><title>Actions Files</title>
1747 The actions files are used to define what <emphasis>actions</emphasis>
1748 <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which URLs, and thus determines
1749 how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
1750 transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof).
1751 There are a number of such actions, with a wide range of functionality.
1752 Each action does something a little different.
1753 These actions give us a veritable arsenal of tools with which to exert
1754 our control, preferences and independence. Actions can be combined so that
1755 their effects are aggregated when applied against a given set of URLs.
1759 are three action files included with <application>Privoxy</application> with
1767 <filename>default.action</filename> - is the primary action file
1768 that sets the initial values for all actions. It is intended to
1769 provide a base level of functionality for
1770 <application>Privoxy's</application> array of features. So it is
1771 a set of broad rules that should work reasonably well as-is for most users.
1772 This is the file that the developers are keeping updated, and <link
1773 linkend="installation-keepupdated">making available to users</link>.
1774 It also contains the pre-defined sets of rules for the default actions,
1775 e.g. <literal>Cautious</literal> (the default),
1776 <literal>Medium</literal>, or <literal>Advanced</literal> (see
1782 <filename>user.action</filename> - is intended to be for local site
1783 preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank
1784 has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
1785 thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded.
1790 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Cautious</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Medium</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Advanced</guibutton>
1793 These have increasing levels of aggressiveness <emphasis>and have no
1794 influence on your browsing unless you select them explicitly in the
1795 editor</emphasis>. A default installation should be pre-set to
1796 <literal>Cautious</literal> (versions prior to 3.0.5 were set to
1797 <literal>Medium</literal>). New users should try this for a while before
1798 adjusting the settings to more aggressive levels. The more aggressive
1799 the settings, then the more likelihood there is of problems such as sites
1800 not working as they should.
1803 The <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button allows you to turn each
1804 action on/off individually for fine-tuning. The <guibutton>Cautious</guibutton>
1805 button changes the actions list to low/safe settings which will activate
1806 ad blocking and a minimal set of &my-app;'s features, and subsequently
1807 there will be less of a chance for accidental problems. The
1808 <guibutton>Medium</guibutton> button sets the list to a medium level of
1809 other features and a low level set of privacy features. The
1810 <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> button sets the list to a high level of
1811 ad blocking and medium level of privacy. See the chart below. The latter
1812 three buttons over-ride any changes via with the
1813 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button. More fine-tuning can be done in the
1814 lower sections of this internal page.
1817 The default profiles, and their associated actions, as pre-defined in
1818 <filename>default.action</filename> are:
1821 <table frame=all><title>Default Configurations</title>
1822 <tgroup cols=4 align=left colsep=1 rowsep=1>
1823 <colspec colname=c1>
1824 <colspec colname=c2>
1825 <colspec colname=c3>
1826 <colspec colname=c4>
1829 <entry>Feature</entry>
1830 <entry>Cautious</entry>
1831 <entry>Medium</entry>
1832 <entry>Advanced</entry>
1837 <!-- <entry>f1</entry> -->
1838 <!-- <entry>f2</entry> -->
1839 <!-- <entry>f3</entry> -->
1840 <!-- <entry>f4</entry> -->
1846 <entry>Ad-blocking Aggressiveness</entry>
1847 <entry>medium</entry>
1853 <entry>Ad-filtering by size</entry>
1860 <entry>Ad-filtering by link</entry>
1866 <entry>Pop-up killing</entry>
1867 <entry>blocks only</entry>
1868 <entry>blocks only</entry>
1869 <entry>blocks only</entry>
1873 <entry>Privacy Features</entry>
1875 <entry>medium</entry>
1876 <entry>medium/high</entry>
1880 <entry>Cookie handling</entry>
1882 <entry>session-only</entry>
1887 <entry>Referer forging</entry>
1895 <entry>GIF de-animation</entry>
1903 <entry>Fast redirects</entry>
1910 <entry>HTML taming</entry>
1917 <entry>JavaScript taming</entry>
1924 <entry>Web-bug killing</entry>
1931 <entry>Image tag reordering</entry>
1947 The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
1948 file, and are processed in the order they are defined (e.g.
1949 <filename>default.action</filename> is typically processed before
1950 <filename>user.action</filename>). The content of these can all be viewed and
1952 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
1953 The over-riding principle when applying actions, is that the last action that
1954 matches a given URL wins. The broadest, most general rules go first
1955 (defined in <filename>default.action</filename>),
1956 followed by any exceptions (typically also in
1957 <filename>default.action</filename>), which are then followed lastly by any
1958 local preferences (typically in <emphasis>user</emphasis><filename>.action</filename>).
1959 Generally, <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word.
1963 An actions file typically has multiple sections. If you want to use
1964 <quote>aliases</quote> in an actions file, you have to place the (optional)
1965 <link linkend="aliases">alias section</link> at the top of that file.
1966 Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all
1967 sites and pages (be <emphasis>very careful</emphasis> with using such a
1968 universal set in <filename>user.action</filename> or any other actions file after
1969 <filename>default.action</filename>, because it will override the result
1970 from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
1971 exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
1972 <filename>user.action</filename> as an appendix to <filename>default.action</filename>,
1973 with the advantage that it is a separate file, which makes preserving your
1974 personal settings across <application>Privoxy</application> upgrades easier.
1978 Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
1979 just some obnoxious URL whose content you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
1980 or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
1981 written to disk), content can be modified, some JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking
1982 fooled, and much more. See below for a <link linkend="actions">complete list
1986 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1988 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
1990 Note that some <link linkend="actions">actions</link>, like cookie suppression
1991 or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these
1992 techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and
1993 certainly a matter of personal taste. And, things can always change, requiring
1994 refinements in the configuration. In general, it can be said that the more
1995 <quote>aggressive</quote> your default settings (in the top section of the
1996 actions file) are, the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you
1997 will have to make later. If, for example, you want to crunch all cookies per
1998 default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you
1999 regularly use and that require cookies for actually useful purposes, like maybe
2000 your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
2004 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
2005 distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
2006 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
2007 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :).
2011 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2013 <title>How to Edit</title>
2015 The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by
2016 using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from <ulink
2017 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
2018 Note: the config file option <link
2019 linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link> must be enabled for
2020 this to work. The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single
2021 feature on a per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults
2022 like <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> or
2023 <quote>Advanced</quote>. Warning: the <quote>Advanced</quote> setting is more
2024 aggressive, and will be more likely to cause problems for some sites.
2025 Experienced users only!
2029 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
2030 the actions files with your favorite text editor. Look at
2031 <filename>default.action</filename> which is richly commented with many
2037 <sect2 id="actions-apply">
2038 <title>How Actions are Applied to Requests</title>
2040 Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections,
2041 like the <quote><link linkend="aliases">alias</link></quote> sections which will
2042 be discussed later. For now let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a
2043 heading line (often split up to multiple lines for readability) which consist
2044 of a list of actions, separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces.
2045 Below that, there is a list of URL and tag patterns, each on a separate line.
2049 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
2050 compared to all URL patterns in each <quote>action file</quote>.
2051 Every time it matches, the list of applicable actions for the request is
2052 incrementally updated, using the heading of the section in which the
2053 pattern is located. The same is done again for tags and tag patterns later on.
2057 If multiple applying sections set the same action differently,
2058 the last match wins. If not, the effects are aggregated.
2059 E.g. a URL might match a regular section with a heading line of <literal>{
2060 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link> }</literal>,
2061 then later another one with just <literal>{
2062 +<link linkend="block">block</link> }</literal>, resulting
2063 in <emphasis>both</emphasis> actions to apply. And there may well be
2064 cases where you will want to combine actions together. Such a section then
2070 { +<literal>handle-as-image</literal> +<literal>block{Banner ads.}</literal> }
2071 # Block these as if they were images. Send no block page.
2073 media.example.com/.*banners
2074 .example.com/images/ads/</screen>
2078 You can trace this process for URL patterns and any given URL by visiting <ulink
2079 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
2083 Examples and more detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
2084 Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</link> section.
2088 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2089 <sect2 id="af-patterns">
2090 <title>Patterns</title>
2092 As mentioned, <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>patterns</quote>
2093 to determine what <emphasis>actions</emphasis> might apply to which sites and
2094 pages your browser attempts to access. These <quote>patterns</quote> use wild
2095 card type <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> matching to achieve a high degree of
2096 flexibility. This allows one expression to be expanded and potentially match
2097 against many similar patterns.
2101 Generally, an URL pattern has the form
2102 <literal><domain>/<path></literal>, where both the
2103 <literal><domain></literal> and <literal><path></literal> are
2104 optional. (This is why the special <literal>/</literal> pattern matches all
2105 URLs). Note that the protocol portion of the URL pattern (e.g.
2106 <literal>http://</literal>) should <emphasis>not</emphasis> be included in
2107 the pattern. This is assumed already!
2110 The pattern matching syntax is different for the domain and path parts of
2111 the URL. The domain part uses a simple globbing type matching technique,
2112 while the path part uses more flexible
2113 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2114 Expressions</quote></ulink> (POSIX 1003.2).
2119 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
2122 is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2123 regardless of which document on that server is requested. So ALL pages in
2124 this domain would be covered by the scope of this action. Note that a
2125 simple <literal>example.com</literal> is different and would NOT match.
2130 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
2133 means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
2139 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
2142 matches all the documents on <literal>www.example.com</literal>
2143 whose name starts with <literal>/index.html</literal>.
2148 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html$</literal></term>
2151 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
2152 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
2157 <term><literal>/index.html$</literal></term>
2160 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
2161 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server anywhere.
2166 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
2169 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
2170 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>. So its
2178 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2179 <sect3><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
2182 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
2183 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
2189 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
2192 matches any domain with first-level domain <literal>com</literal>
2193 and second-level domain <literal>example</literal>.
2194 For example <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2195 <literal>example.com</literal> and <literal>foo.bar.baz.example.com</literal>.
2196 Note that it wouldn't match if the second-level domain was <literal>another-example</literal>.
2201 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
2204 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
2205 <literal>www.</literal> (It also matches the domain
2206 <literal>www</literal> but most of the time that doesn't matter.)
2211 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
2214 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>.
2215 And, by the way, also included would be any files or documents that exist
2216 within that domain since no path limitations are specified. (Correctly
2217 speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as
2218 a domain.) This might be <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2219 <literal>news.example.de</literal>, or
2220 <literal>www.example.net/cgi/testing.pl</literal> for instance. All these
2228 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
2229 themselves. These work similarly to shell globbing type wild-cards:
2230 <quote>*</quote> represents zero or more arbitrary characters (this is
2232 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2233 Expression</quote></ulink> based syntax of <quote>.*</quote>),
2234 <quote>?</quote> represents any single character (this is equivalent to the
2235 regular expression syntax of a simple <quote>.</quote>), and you can define
2236 <quote>character classes</quote> in square brackets which is similar to
2237 the same regular expression technique. All of this can be freely mixed:
2242 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2245 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
2246 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
2251 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2254 matches all of the above, and then some.
2259 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
2262 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
2263 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
2268 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
2271 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
2272 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
2273 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
2274 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
2281 While flexible, this is not the sophistication of full regular expression based syntax.
2286 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2289 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2290 <sect3><title>The Path Pattern</title>
2293 <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>modern</quote> POSIX 1003.2
2294 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2295 Expressions</quote></ulink> for matching the path portion (after the slash),
2296 and is thus more flexible.
2300 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
2301 expressions, you also might want to have a look at your operating system's documentation
2302 on regular expressions (try <literal>man re_format</literal>).
2306 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
2307 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote> (regular expression speak
2308 for the beginning of a line).
2312 Please also note that matching in the path is <emphasis>CASE INSENSITIVE</emphasis>
2313 by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
2314 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch: <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match
2315 only documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
2316 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
2321 <term><literal>.example.com/.*</literal></term>
2324 Is equivalent to just <quote>.example.com</quote>, since any documents
2325 within that domain are matched with or without the <quote>.*</quote>
2326 regular expression. This is redundant
2331 <term><literal>.example.com/.*/index.html$</literal></term>
2334 Will match any page in the domain of <quote>example.com</quote> that is
2335 named <quote>index.html</quote>, and that is part of some path. For
2336 example, it matches <quote>www.example.com/testing/index.html</quote> but
2337 NOT <quote>www.example.com/index.html</quote> because the regular
2338 expression called for at least two <quote>/'s</quote>, thus the path
2339 requirement. It also would match
2340 <quote>www.example.com/testing/index_html</quote>, because of the
2341 special meta-character <quote>.</quote>.
2346 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)?index\.html$</literal></term>
2349 This regular expression is conditional so it will match any page
2350 named <quote>index.html</quote> regardless of path which in this case can
2351 have one or more <quote>/'s</quote>. And this one must contain exactly
2352 <quote>.html</quote> (but does not have to end with that!).
2357 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)</literal></term>
2360 This regular expression will match any path of <quote>example.com</quote>
2361 that contains any of the words <quote>ads</quote>, <quote>banner</quote>,
2362 <quote>banners</quote> (because of the <quote>?</quote>) or <quote>junk</quote>.
2363 The path does not have to end in these words, just contain them.
2368 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)/.*\.(jpe?g|gif|png)$</literal></term>
2371 This is very much the same as above, except now it must end in either
2372 <quote>.jpg</quote>, <quote>.jpeg</quote>, <quote>.gif</quote> or <quote>.png</quote>. So this
2373 one is limited to common image formats.
2380 There are many, many good examples to be found in <filename>default.action</filename>,
2381 and more tutorials below in <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>.
2386 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2389 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2390 <sect3 id="tag-pattern"><title>The Tag Pattern</title>
2393 Tag patterns are used to change the applying actions based on the
2394 request's tags. Tags can be created with either the
2395 <link linkend="CLIENT-HEADER-TAGGER">client-header-tagger</link>
2396 or the <link linkend="SERVER-HEADER-TAGGER">server-header-tagger</link> action.
2400 Tag patterns have to start with <quote>TAG:</quote>, so &my-app;
2401 can tell them apart from URL patterns. Everything after the colon
2402 including white space, is interpreted as a regular expression with
2403 path pattern syntax, except that tag patterns aren't left-anchored
2404 automatically (&my-app; doesn't silently add a <quote>^</quote>,
2405 you have to do it yourself if you need it).
2409 To match all requests that are tagged with <quote>foo</quote>
2410 your pattern line should be <quote>TAG:^foo$</quote>,
2411 <quote>TAG:foo</quote> would work as well, but it would also
2412 match requests whose tags contain <quote>foo</quote> somewhere.
2413 <quote>TAG: foo</quote> wouldn't work as it requires white space.
2417 Sections can contain URL and tag patterns at the same time,
2418 but tag patterns are checked after the URL patterns and thus
2419 always overrule them, even if they are located before the URL patterns.
2423 Once a new tag is added, Privoxy checks right away if it's matched by one
2424 of the tag patterns and updates the action settings accordingly. As a result
2425 tags can be used to activate other tagger actions, as long as these other
2426 taggers look for headers that haven't already be parsed.
2430 For example you could tag client requests which use the
2431 <literal>POST</literal> method,
2432 then use this tag to activate another tagger that adds a tag if cookies
2433 are sent, and then use a block action based on the cookie tag. This allows
2434 the outcome of one action, to be input into a subsequent action. However if
2435 you'd reverse the position of the described taggers, and activated the
2436 method tagger based on the cookie tagger, no method tags would be created.
2437 The method tagger would look for the request line, but at the time
2438 the cookie tag is created, the request line has already been parsed.
2442 While this is a limitation you should be aware of, this kind of
2443 indirection is seldom needed anyway and even the example doesn't
2444 make too much sense.
2451 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2454 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2456 <sect2 id="actions">
2457 <title>Actions</title>
2459 All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
2460 somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
2461 <quote>+</quote>, and turned off if preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. So a
2462 <literal>+action</literal> means <quote>do that action</quote>, e.g.
2463 <literal>+block</literal> means <quote>please block URLs that match the
2464 following patterns</quote>, and <literal>-block</literal> means <quote>don't
2465 block URLs that match the following patterns, even if <literal>+block</literal>
2466 previously applied.</quote>
2471 Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
2472 separated by whitespace, like in
2473 <literal>{+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}}</literal>,
2474 followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
2475 Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
2476 of the actions file.
2480 Actions fall into three categories:
2487 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>enabled</quote> or
2488 <quote>disabled</quote>. Syntax:
2492 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # enable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>
2493 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable></screen>
2496 Example: <literal>+handle-as-image</literal>
2503 Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
2508 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and set parameter to <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>,
2509 # overwriting parameter from previous match if necessary
2510 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action. The parameter can be omitted</screen>
2513 Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action,
2514 the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
2517 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>
2523 Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions,
2524 but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the
2525 same URL, but with different parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> the parameters
2526 from <emphasis>all</emphasis> matches are remembered. This is used for actions
2527 that can be executed for the same request repeatedly, like adding multiple
2528 headers, or filtering through multiple filters. Syntax:
2532 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and add <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> to the list of parameters
2533 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # remove the parameter <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> from the list of parameters
2534 # If it was the last one left, disable the action.
2535 <replaceable class="parameter">-name</replaceable> # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list</screen>
2538 Examples: <literal>+add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text}</literal> and
2539 <literal>+filter{html-annoyances}</literal>
2547 If nothing is specified in any actions file, no <quote>actions</quote> are
2548 taken. So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
2549 normal, non-blocking, non-filtering proxy. You must specifically enable the
2550 privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions
2551 files will give a good starting point).
2555 Later defined action sections always over-ride earlier ones of the same type.
2556 So exceptions to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
2557 in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files such
2558 as <filename>user.action</filename>). For multi-valued actions, the actions
2559 are applied in the order they are specified. Actions files are processed in
2560 the order they are defined in <filename>config</filename> (the default
2561 installation has three actions files). It also quite possible for any given
2562 URL to match more than one <quote>pattern</quote> (because of wildcards and
2563 regular expressions), and thus to trigger more than one set of actions! Last
2567 <!-- start actions listing -->
2569 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> actions are:
2573 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2574 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
2575 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
2577 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2580 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2582 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="add-header">
2583 <title>add-header</title>
2587 <term>Typical use:</term>
2589 <para>Confuse log analysis, custom applications</para>
2594 <term>Effect:</term>
2597 Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
2604 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2606 <para>Multi-value.</para>
2611 <term>Parameter:</term>
2614 Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
2615 It is recommended that you use the <quote><literal>X-</literal></quote> prefix
2625 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
2626 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
2627 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
2634 <term>Example usage:</term>
2637 <screen>+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}</screen>
2645 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2646 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="block">
2647 <title>block</title>
2651 <term>Typical use:</term>
2653 <para>Block ads or other unwanted content</para>
2658 <term>Effect:</term>
2661 Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the
2662 requests are trapped by &my-app; and the requested URL is never retrieved,
2663 but is answered locally with a substitute page or image, as determined by
2665 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
2667 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>, and
2669 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> actions.
2677 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2679 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2684 <term>Parameter:</term>
2686 <para>A block reason that should be given to the user.</para>
2694 <application>Privoxy</application> sends a special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page
2695 for requests to blocked pages. This page contains the block reason given as
2696 parameter, a link to find out why the block action applies, and a click-through
2697 to the blocked content (the latter only if the force feature is available and
2701 A very important exception occurs if <emphasis>both</emphasis>
2702 <literal>block</literal> and <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
2703 apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If
2704 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
2705 (see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter,
2706 if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent.
2709 It is important to understand this process, in order
2710 to understand how <application>Privoxy</application> deals with
2711 ads and other unwanted content. Blocking is a core feature, and one
2712 upon which various other features depend.
2715 The <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
2716 action can perform a very similar task, by <quote>blocking</quote>
2717 banner images and other content through rewriting the relevant URLs in the
2718 document's HTML source, so they don't get requested in the first place.
2719 Note that this is a totally different technique, and it's easy to confuse the two.
2725 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2728 <screen>{+block{No nasty stuff for you.}}
2729 # Block and replace with "blocked" page
2730 .nasty-stuff.example.com
2732 {+block{Doubleclick banners.} +handle-as-image}
2733 # Block and replace with image
2737 {+block{Layered ads.} +handle-as-empty-document}
2738 # Block and then ignore
2739 adserver.example.net/.*\.js$</screen>
2749 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2750 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="change-x-forwarded-for">
2751 <title>change-x-forwarded-for</title>
2755 <term>Typical use:</term>
2757 <para>Improve privacy by not forwarding the source of the request in the HTTP headers.</para>
2762 <term>Effect:</term>
2765 Deletes the <quote>X-Forwarded-For:</quote> HTTP header from the client request,
2773 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2775 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2780 <term>Parameter:</term>
2784 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header.</para>
2788 <quote>add</quote> to create the header (or append
2789 the client's IP address to an already existing one).
2800 It is safe and recommended to use <literal>block</literal>.
2803 Forwarding the source address of the request may make
2804 sense in some multi-user setups but is also a privacy risk.
2809 <term>Example usage:</term>
2812 <screen>+change-x-forwarded-for{block}</screen>
2819 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2820 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-filter">
2821 <title>client-header-filter</title>
2825 <term>Typical use:</term>
2828 Rewrite or remove single client headers.
2834 <term>Effect:</term>
2837 All client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
2838 the specified regular expression based substitutions.
2845 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2847 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2852 <term>Parameter:</term>
2855 The name of a client-header filter, as defined in one of the
2856 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
2865 Client-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
2866 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
2867 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
2868 You can do that by using tags though.
2871 Client-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
2872 and use their output as input.
2875 If the request URL gets changed, &my-app; will detect that and use the new
2876 one. This can be used to rewrite the request destination behind the client's
2877 back, for example to specify a Tor exit relay for certain requests.
2880 Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
2881 to learn which client-header filters are available by default, and how to
2889 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2893 # Hide Tor exit notation in Host and Referer Headers
2894 {+client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}}
2905 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2906 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-tagger">
2907 <title>client-header-tagger</title>
2911 <term>Typical use:</term>
2914 Block requests based on their headers.
2920 <term>Effect:</term>
2923 Client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
2924 the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
2932 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2934 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2939 <term>Parameter:</term>
2942 The name of a client-header tagger, as defined in one of the
2943 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
2952 Client-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
2953 and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
2957 Client-header taggers are the first actions that are executed
2958 and their tags can be used to control every other action.
2964 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2968 # Tag every request with the User-Agent header
2969 {+client-header-tagger{user-agent}}
2972 # Tagging itself doesn't change the action
2973 # settings, sections with TAG patterns do:
2975 # If it's a download agent, use a different forwarding proxy,
2976 # show the real User-Agent and make sure resume works.
2977 {+forward-override{forward-socks5 10.0.0.2:2222 .} \
2978 -hide-if-modified-since \
2979 -overwrite-last-modified \
2984 TAG:^User-Agent: NetBSD-ftp/
2985 TAG:^User-Agent: Novell ZYPP Installer
2986 TAG:^User-Agent: RPM APT-HTTP/
2987 TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/
2988 TAG:^User-Agent: Ubuntu APT-HTTP/
2989 TAG:^User-Agent: MPlayer/
2999 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3000 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="content-type-overwrite">
3001 <title>content-type-overwrite</title>
3005 <term>Typical use:</term>
3007 <para>Stop useless download menus from popping up, or change the browser's rendering mode</para>
3012 <term>Effect:</term>
3015 Replaces the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header.
3022 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3024 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3029 <term>Parameter:</term>
3041 The <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header is used by the
3042 browser to decide what to do with the document. The value of this
3043 header can cause the browser to open a download menu instead of
3044 displaying the document by itself, even if the document's format is
3045 supported by the browser.
3048 The declared content type can also affect which rendering mode
3049 the browser chooses. If XHTML is delivered as <quote>text/html</quote>,
3050 many browsers treat it as yet another broken HTML document.
3051 If it is send as <quote>application/xml</quote>, browsers with
3052 XHTML support will only display it, if the syntax is correct.
3055 If you see a web site that proudly uses XHTML buttons, but sets
3056 <quote>Content-Type: text/html</quote>, you can use &my-app;
3057 to overwrite it with <quote>application/xml</quote> and validate
3058 the web master's claim inside your XHTML-supporting browser.
3059 If the syntax is incorrect, the browser will complain loudly.
3062 You can also go the opposite direction: if your browser prints
3063 error messages instead of rendering a document falsely declared
3064 as XHTML, you can overwrite the content type with
3065 <quote>text/html</quote> and have it rendered as broken HTML document.
3068 By default <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal> only replaces
3069 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> headers that look like some kind of text.
3070 If you want to overwrite it unconditionally, you have to combine it with
3071 <literal><link linkend="force-text-mode">force-text-mode</link></literal>.
3072 This limitation exists for a reason, think twice before circumventing it.
3075 Most of the time it's easier to replace this action with a custom
3076 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
3077 It allows you to activate it for every document of a certain site and it will still
3078 only replace the content types you aimed at.
3081 Of course you can apply <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal>
3082 to a whole site and then make URL based exceptions, but it's a lot
3083 more work to get the same precision.
3089 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
3092 <screen># Check if www.example.net/ really uses valid XHTML
3093 { +content-type-overwrite{application/xml} }
3096 # but leave the content type unmodified if the URL looks like a style sheet
3097 {-content-type-overwrite}
3098 www.example.net/.*\.css$
3099 www.example.net/.*style
3108 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3109 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-client-header">
3113 <title>crunch-client-header</title>
3117 <term>Typical use:</term>
3119 <para>Remove a client header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
3124 <term>Effect:</term>
3127 Deletes every header sent by the client that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
3134 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3136 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3141 <term>Parameter:</term>
3153 This action allows you to block client headers for which no dedicated
3154 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists.
3155 <application>Privoxy</application> will remove every client header that
3156 contains the string you supplied as parameter.
3159 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
3160 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
3161 they contain the same string.
3164 <literal>crunch-client-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
3165 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
3166 parts of them, you should use a
3167 <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header filter</link></literal>.
3171 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
3178 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3181 <screen># Block the non-existent "Privacy-Violation:" client header
3182 { +crunch-client-header{Privacy-Violation:} }
3192 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3193 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-if-none-match">
3194 <title>crunch-if-none-match</title>
3200 <term>Typical use:</term>
3202 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
3207 <term>Effect:</term>
3210 Deletes the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header.
3217 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3219 <para>Boolean.</para>
3224 <term>Parameter:</term>
3236 Removing the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header
3237 is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
3238 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote> which
3239 would cause the browser to use a cached copy of the page.
3242 It is also useful to make sure the header isn't used as a cookie
3243 replacement (unlikely but possible).
3246 Blocking the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> header shouldn't cause any
3247 caching problems, as long as the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> header
3248 isn't blocked or missing as well.
3251 It is recommended to use this action together with
3252 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hide-if-modified-since</link></literal>
3254 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>.
3260 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3263 <screen># Let the browser revalidate cached documents but don't
3264 # allow the server to use the revalidation headers for user tracking.
3265 {+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
3266 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
3267 +crunch-if-none-match}
3276 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3277 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-incoming-cookies">
3278 <title>crunch-incoming-cookies</title>
3282 <term>Typical use:</term>
3285 Prevent the web server from setting HTTP cookies on your system
3291 <term>Effect:</term>
3294 Deletes any <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from server replies.
3301 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3303 <para>Boolean.</para>
3308 <term>Parameter:</term>
3320 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
3321 <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
3322 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>.
3323 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
3326 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3327 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3328 since it would prevent the session cookies from being set. See also
3329 <literal><link linkend="filter-content-cookies">filter-content-cookies</link></literal>.
3335 <term>Example usage:</term>
3338 <screen>+crunch-incoming-cookies</screen>
3346 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3347 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-server-header">
3348 <title>crunch-server-header</title>
3354 <term>Typical use:</term>
3356 <para>Remove a server header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
3361 <term>Effect:</term>
3364 Deletes every header sent by the server that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
3371 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3373 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3378 <term>Parameter:</term>
3390 This action allows you to block server headers for which no dedicated
3391 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists. <application>Privoxy</application>
3392 will remove every server header that contains the string you supplied as parameter.
3395 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
3396 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
3397 they contain the same string.
3400 <literal>crunch-server-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
3401 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
3402 parts of them, you should use a custom
3403 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
3407 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
3414 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3417 <screen># Crunch server headers that try to prevent caching
3418 { +crunch-server-header{no-cache} }
3427 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3428 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-outgoing-cookies">
3429 <title>crunch-outgoing-cookies</title>
3433 <term>Typical use:</term>
3436 Prevent the web server from reading any HTTP cookies from your system
3442 <term>Effect:</term>
3445 Deletes any <quote>Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from client requests.
3452 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3454 <para>Boolean.</para>
3459 <term>Parameter:</term>
3471 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
3472 <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
3473 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>.
3474 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
3477 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3478 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3479 since it would prevent the session cookies from being read.
3485 <term>Example usage:</term>
3488 <screen>+crunch-outgoing-cookies</screen>
3497 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3498 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="deanimate-gifs">
3499 <title>deanimate-gifs</title>
3503 <term>Typical use:</term>
3505 <para>Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.</para>
3510 <term>Effect:</term>
3513 De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image.
3520 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3522 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3527 <term>Parameter:</term>
3530 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
3539 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
3540 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
3541 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
3542 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
3543 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
3544 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
3547 You can safely use this action with patterns that will also match non-GIF
3548 objects, because no attempt will be made at anything that doesn't look like
3555 <term>Example usage:</term>
3558 <screen>+deanimate-gifs{last}</screen>
3565 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3566 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="downgrade-http-version">
3567 <title>downgrade-http-version</title>
3571 <term>Typical use:</term>
3573 <para>Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1</para>
3578 <term>Effect:</term>
3581 Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0.
3588 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3590 <para>Boolean.</para>
3595 <term>Parameter:</term>
3607 This is a left-over from the time when <application>Privoxy</application>
3608 didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
3609 unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server
3610 out there. Not all HTTP/1.1 features and requirements are supported yet,
3611 so there is a chance you might need this action.
3617 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3620 <screen>{+downgrade-http-version}
3621 problem-host.example.com</screen>
3629 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3630 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="fast-redirects">
3631 <title>fast-redirects</title>
3635 <term>Typical use:</term>
3637 <para>Fool some click-tracking scripts and speed up indirect links.</para>
3642 <term>Effect:</term>
3645 Detects redirection URLs and redirects the browser without contacting
3646 the redirection server first.
3653 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3655 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3660 <term>Parameter:</term>
3665 <quote>simple-check</quote> to just search for the string <quote>http://</quote>
3666 to detect redirection URLs.
3671 <quote>check-decoded-url</quote> to decode URLs (if necessary) before searching
3672 for redirection URLs.
3683 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
3684 will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a
3685 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
3686 resulting from this scheme typically look like:
3687 <quote>http://www.example.org/click-tracker.cgi?target=http%3a//www.example.net/</quote>.
3690 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
3691 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
3692 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go
3693 to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your
3694 browser asks the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds
3698 This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement.
3699 If it is enabled by default, you will have to create some exceptions to
3700 this action. It can lead to failures in several ways:
3703 Not every URLs with other URLs as parameters is evil.
3704 Some sites offer a real service that requires this information to work.
3705 For example a validation service needs to know, which document to validate.
3706 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> assumes that every URL parameter that
3707 looks like another URL is a redirection target, and will always redirect to
3708 the last one. Most of the time the assumption is correct, but if it isn't,
3709 the user gets redirected anyway.
3712 Another failure occurs if the URL contains other parameters after the URL parameter.
3714 <quote>http://www.example.org/?redirect=http%3a//www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
3715 contains the redirection URL <quote>http://www.example.net/</quote>,
3716 followed by another parameter. <literal>fast-redirects</literal> doesn't know that
3717 and will cause a redirect to <quote>http://www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
3718 Depending on the target server configuration, the parameter will be silently ignored
3719 or lead to a <quote>page not found</quote> error. You can prevent this problem by
3720 first using the <literal><link linkend="redirect">redirect</link></literal> action
3721 to remove the last part of the URL, but it requires a little effort.
3724 To detect a redirection URL, <literal>fast-redirects</literal> only
3725 looks for the string <quote>http://</quote>, either in plain text
3726 (invalid but often used) or encoded as <quote>http%3a//</quote>.
3727 Some sites use their own URL encoding scheme, encrypt the address
3728 of the target server or replace it with a database id. In theses cases
3729 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> is fooled and the request reaches the
3730 redirection server where it probably gets logged.
3736 <term>Example usage:</term>
3740 { +fast-redirects{simple-check} }
3743 { +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} }
3744 another.example.com/testing</screen>
3753 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3754 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter">
3755 <title>filter</title>
3759 <term>Typical use:</term>
3761 <para>Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size),
3762 do fun text replacements, add personalized effects, etc.</para>
3767 <term>Effect:</term>
3770 All instances of text-based type, most notably HTML and JavaScript, to which
3771 this action applies, can be filtered on-the-fly through the specified regular
3772 expression based substitutions. (Note: as of version 3.0.3 plain text documents
3773 are exempted from filtering, because web servers often use the
3774 <literal>text/plain</literal> MIME type for all files whose type they don't know.)
3781 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3783 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3788 <term>Parameter:</term>
3791 The name of a content filter, as defined in the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>.
3792 Filters can be defined in one or more files as defined by the
3793 <literal><link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal>
3794 option in the <link linkend="config">config file</link>.
3795 <filename>default.filter</filename> is the collection of filters
3796 supplied by the developers. Locally defined filters should go
3797 in their own file, such as <filename>user.filter</filename>.
3800 When used in its negative form,
3801 and without parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> filtering is completely disabled.
3810 For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available
3811 in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the examples below for
3815 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
3816 slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
3817 passed the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way
3818 since the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more
3819 noticeable on slower connections.
3822 <quote>Rolling your own</quote>
3823 filters requires a knowledge of
3824 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
3825 Expressions</quote></ulink> and
3826 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html"><quote>HTML</quote></ulink>.
3827 This is very powerful feature, and potentially very intrusive.
3828 Filters should be used with caution, and where an equivalent
3829 <quote>action</quote> is not available.
3832 The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the
3833 <literal><link linkend="buffer-limit">buffer-limit</link></literal>
3834 option in the main <link linkend="config">config file</link>. The
3835 default is 4096 KB (4 Megs). Once this limit is exceeded, the buffered
3836 data, and all pending data, is passed through unfiltered.
3839 Inappropriate MIME types, such as zipped files, are not filtered at all.
3840 (Again, only text-based types except plain text). Encrypted SSL data
3841 (from HTTPS servers) cannot be filtered either, since this would violate
3842 the integrity of the secure transaction. In some situations it might
3843 be necessary to protect certain text, like source code, from filtering
3844 by defining appropriate <literal>-filter</literal> exceptions.
3847 Compressed content can't be filtered either, unless &my-app;
3848 is compiled with zlib support (requires at least &my-app; 3.0.7),
3849 in which case &my-app; will decompress the content before filtering
3853 If you use a &my-app; version without zlib support, but want filtering to work on
3854 as much documents as possible, even those that would normally be sent compressed,
3855 you must use the <literal><link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link></literal>
3856 action in conjunction with <literal>filter</literal>.
3859 Content filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
3860 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
3861 action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism
3862 works quite differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners
3863 based on their size (see below), since many of these seem to be somewhat
3867 <link linkend="contact">Feedback</link> with suggestions for new or
3868 improved filters is particularly welcome!
3871 The below list has only the names and a one-line description of each
3872 predefined filter. There are <link linkend="predefined-filters">more
3873 verbose explanations</link> of what these filters do in the <link
3874 linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>.
3880 <term>Example usage (with filters from the distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file).
3881 See <link linkend="PREDEFINED-FILTERS">the Predefined Filters section</link> for
3882 more explanation on each:</term>
3885 <anchor id="filter-js-annoyances">
3886 <screen>+filter{js-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse.</screen>
3889 <anchor id="filter-js-events">
3890 <screen>+filter{js-events} # Kill all JS event bindings and timers (Radically destructive! Only for extra nasty sites).</screen>
3893 <anchor id="filter-html-annoyances">
3894 <screen>+filter{html-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse.</screen>
3897 <anchor id="filter-content-cookies">
3898 <screen>+filter{content-cookies} # Kill cookies that come in the HTML or JS content.</screen>
3901 <anchor id="filter-refresh-tags">
3902 <screen>+filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups).</screen>
3905 <anchor id="filter-unsolicited-popups">
3906 <screen>+filter{unsolicited-popups} # Disable only unsolicited pop-up windows. Useful if your browser lacks this ability.</screen>
3909 <anchor id="filter-all-popups">
3910 <screen>+filter{all-popups} # Kill all popups in JavaScript and HTML. Useful if your browser lacks this ability.</screen>
3913 <anchor id="filter-img-reorder">
3914 <screen>+filter{img-reorder} # Reorder attributes in <img> tags to make the banners-by-* filters more effective.</screen>
3917 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-size">
3918 <screen>+filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners by size.</screen>
3921 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-link">
3922 <screen>+filter{banners-by-link} # Kill banners by their links to known clicktrackers.</screen>
3925 <anchor id="filter-webbugs">
3926 <screen>+filter{webbugs} # Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking).</screen>
3929 <anchor id="filter-tiny-textforms">
3930 <screen>+filter{tiny-textforms} # Extend those tiny textareas up to 40x80 and kill the hard wrap.</screen>
3933 <anchor id="filter-jumping-windows">
3934 <screen>+filter{jumping-windows} # Prevent windows from resizing and moving themselves.</screen>
3937 <anchor id="filter-frameset-borders">
3938 <screen>+filter{frameset-borders} # Give frames a border and make them resizable.</screen>
3941 <anchor id="filter-demoronizer">
3942 <screen>+filter{demoronizer} # Fix MS's non-standard use of standard charsets.</screen>
3945 <anchor id="filter-shockwave-flash">
3946 <screen>+filter{shockwave-flash} # Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects.</screen>
3949 <anchor id="filter-quicktime-kioskmode">
3950 <screen>+filter{quicktime-kioskmode} # Make Quicktime movies saveable.</screen>
3953 <anchor id="filter-fun">
3954 <screen>+filter{fun} # Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!</screen>
3957 <anchor id="filter-crude-parental">
3958 <screen>+filter{crude-parental} # Crude parental filtering. Note that this filter doesn't work reliably.</screen>
3961 <anchor id="filter-ie-exploits">
3962 <screen>+filter{ie-exploits} # Disable some known Internet Explorer bug exploits.</screen>
3965 <anchor id="filter-site-specifics">
3966 <screen>+filter{site-specifics} # Cure for site-specific problems. Don't apply generally!</screen>
3969 <anchor id="filter-no-ping">
3970 <screen>+filter{no-ping} # Removes non-standard ping attributes in <a> and <area> tags.</screen>
3973 <anchor id="filter-google">
3974 <screen>+filter{google} # CSS-based block for Google text ads. Also removes a width limitation and the toolbar advertisement.</screen>
3977 <anchor id="filter-yahoo">
3978 <screen>+filter{yahoo} # CSS-based block for Yahoo text ads. Also removes a width limitation.</screen>
3981 <anchor id="filter-msn">
3982 <screen>+filter{msn} # CSS-based block for MSN text ads. Also removes tracking URLs and a width limitation.</screen>
3985 <anchor id="filter-blogspot">
3986 <screen>+filter{blogspot} # Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this.</screen>
3994 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3995 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="force-text-mode">
3996 <title>force-text-mode</title>
4002 <term>Typical use:</term>
4004 <para>Force <application>Privoxy</application> to treat a document as if it was in some kind of <emphasis>text</emphasis> format. </para>
4009 <term>Effect:</term>
4012 Declares a document as text, even if the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> isn't detected as such.
4019 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4021 <para>Boolean.</para>
4026 <term>Parameter:</term>
4038 As explained <literal><link linkend="filter">above</link></literal>,
4039 <application>Privoxy</application> tries to only filter files that are
4040 in some kind of text format. The same restrictions apply to
4041 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite</link></literal>.
4042 <literal>force-text-mode</literal> declares a document as text,
4043 without looking at the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> first.
4047 Think twice before activating this action. Filtering binary data
4048 with regular expressions can cause file damage.
4055 <term>Example usage:</term>
4068 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4069 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="forward-override">
4070 <title>forward-override</title>
4076 <term>Typical use:</term>
4078 <para>Change the forwarding settings based on User-Agent or request origin</para>
4083 <term>Effect:</term>
4086 Overrules the forward directives in the configuration file.
4093 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4095 <para>Multi-value.</para>
4100 <term>Parameter:</term>
4104 <para><quote>forward .</quote> to use a direct connection without any additional proxies.</para>
4108 <quote>forward 127.0.0.1:8123</quote> to use the HTTP proxy listening at 127.0.0.1 port 8123.
4113 <quote>forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 .</quote> to use the socks4a proxy listening at
4114 127.0.0.1 port 9050. Replace <quote>forward-socks4a</quote> with <quote>forward-socks4</quote>
4115 to use a socks4 connection (with local DNS resolution) instead, use <quote>forward-socks5</quote>
4116 for socks5 connections (with remote DNS resolution).
4121 <quote>forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 proxy.example.org:8000</quote> to use the socks4a proxy
4122 listening at 127.0.0.1 port 9050 to reach the HTTP proxy listening at proxy.example.org port 8000.
4123 Replace <quote>forward-socks4a</quote> with <quote>forward-socks4</quote> to use a socks4 connection
4124 (with local DNS resolution) instead, use <quote>forward-socks5</quote>
4125 for socks5 connections (with remote DNS resolution).
4136 This action takes parameters similar to the
4137 <link linkend="forwarding">forward</link> directives in the configuration
4138 file, but without the URL pattern. It can be used as replacement, but normally it's only
4139 used in cases where matching based on the request URL isn't sufficient.
4143 Please read the description for the <link linkend="forwarding">forward</link> directives before
4144 using this action. Forwarding to the wrong people will reduce your privacy and increase the
4145 chances of man-in-the-middle attacks.
4148 If the ports are missing or invalid, default values will be used. This might change
4149 in the future and you shouldn't rely on it. Otherwise incorrect syntax causes Privoxy
4153 Use the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">show-url-info CGI page</ulink>
4154 to verify that your forward settings do what you thought the do.
4161 <term>Example usage:</term>
4165 # Always use direct connections for requests previously tagged as
4166 # <quote>User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2.0</quote> and make sure
4167 # resuming downloads continues to work.
4168 # This way you can continue to use Tor for your normal browsing,
4169 # without overloading the Tor network with your FreeBSD ports updates
4170 # or downloads of bigger files like ISOs.
4171 # Note that HTTP headers are easy to fake and therefore their
4172 # values are as (un)trustworthy as your clients and users.
4173 {+forward-override{forward .} \
4174 -hide-if-modified-since \
4175 -overwrite-last-modified \
4177 TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2\.0$
4186 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4187 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-empty-document">
4188 <title>handle-as-empty-document</title>
4194 <term>Typical use:</term>
4196 <para>Mark URLs that should be replaced by empty documents <emphasis>if they get blocked</emphasis></para>
4201 <term>Effect:</term>
4204 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs.
4205 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
4206 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote>
4207 page, or an empty document will be sent to the client as a substitute for the blocked content.
4208 The <emphasis>empty</emphasis> document isn't literally empty, but actually contains a single space.
4215 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4217 <para>Boolean.</para>
4222 <term>Parameter:</term>
4234 Some browsers complain about syntax errors if JavaScript documents
4235 are blocked with <application>Privoxy's</application>
4236 default HTML page; this option can be used to silence them.
4237 And of course this action can also be used to eliminate the &my-app;
4238 BLOCKED message in frames.
4241 The content type for the empty document can be specified with
4242 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite{}</link></literal>,
4243 but usually this isn't necessary.
4249 <term>Example usage:</term>
4252 <screen># Block all documents on example.org that end with ".js",
4253 # but send an empty document instead of the usual HTML message.
4254 {+block{Blocked JavaScript} +handle-as-empty-document}
4264 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4265 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-image">
4266 <title>handle-as-image</title>
4270 <term>Typical use:</term>
4272 <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>
4277 <term>Effect:</term>
4280 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs as images.
4281 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
4282 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>blocked</quote>
4283 page, or a replacement image (as determined by the <literal><link
4284 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> action) will be sent to the
4285 client as a substitute for the blocked content.
4292 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4294 <para>Boolean.</para>
4299 <term>Parameter:</term>
4311 The below generic example section is actually part of <filename>default.action</filename>.
4312 It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should
4316 Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with
4317 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>, to block sources of banners, whose URLs don't
4318 reflect the file type, like in the second example section.
4321 Note that you cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, (in-line) ad
4322 frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they won't display properly.
4323 Forcing <literal>handle-as-image</literal> in this situation will not replace the
4324 ad frame with an image, but lead to error messages.
4330 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
4333 <screen># Generic image extensions:
4336 /.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)$
4338 # These don't look like images, but they're banners and should be
4339 # blocked as images:
4341 {+block{Nasty banners.} +handle-as-image}
4342 nasty-banner-server.example.com/junk.cgi\?output=trash
4351 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4352 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-accept-language">
4353 <title>hide-accept-language</title>
4359 <term>Typical use:</term>
4361 <para>Pretend to use different language settings.</para>
4366 <term>Effect:</term>
4369 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> HTTP header in client requests.
4376 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4378 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4383 <term>Parameter:</term>
4386 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4395 Faking the browser's language settings can be useful to make a
4396 foreign User-Agent set with
4397 <literal><link linkend="hide-user-agent">hide-user-agent</link></literal>
4401 However some sites with content in different languages check the
4402 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> to decide which one to take by default.
4403 Sometimes it isn't possible to later switch to another language without
4404 changing the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header first.
4407 Therefore it's a good idea to either only change the
4408 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header to languages you understand,
4409 or to languages that aren't wide spread.
4412 Before setting the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header
4413 to a rare language, you should consider that it helps to
4414 make your requests unique and thus easier to trace.
4415 If you don't plan to change this header frequently,
4416 you should stick to a common language.
4422 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4425 <screen># Pretend to use Canadian language settings.
4426 {+hide-accept-language{en-ca} \
4427 +hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; OpenBSD i386; en-CA; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060628 Firefox/1.5.0.4} \
4437 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4438 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-content-disposition">
4439 <title>hide-content-disposition</title>
4445 <term>Typical use:</term>
4447 <para>Prevent download menus for content you prefer to view inside the browser.</para>
4452 <term>Effect:</term>
4455 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header set by some servers.
4462 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4464 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4469 <term>Parameter:</term>
4472 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4481 Some servers set the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header for
4482 documents they assume you want to save locally before viewing them.
4483 The <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header contains the file name
4484 the browser is supposed to use by default.
4487 In most browsers that understand this header, it makes it impossible to
4488 <emphasis>just view</emphasis> the document, without downloading it first,
4489 even if it's just a simple text file or an image.
4492 Removing the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header helps
4493 to prevent this annoyance, but some browsers additionally check the
4494 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> header, before they decide if they can
4495 display a document without saving it first. In these cases, you have
4496 to change this header as well, before the browser stops displaying
4500 It is also possible to change the server's file name suggestion
4501 to another one, but in most cases it isn't worth the time to set
4505 This action will probably be removed in the future,
4506 use server-header filters instead.
4512 <term>Example usage:</term>
4515 <screen># Disarm the download link in Sourceforge's patch tracker
4517 +content-type-overwrite{text/plain}\
4518 +hide-content-disposition{block} }
4519 .sourceforge.net/tracker/download\.php</screen>
4527 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4528 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-if-modified-since">
4529 <title>hide-if-modified-since</title>
4535 <term>Typical use:</term>
4537 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
4542 <term>Effect:</term>
4545 Deletes the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> HTTP client header or modifies its value.
4552 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4554 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4559 <term>Parameter:</term>
4562 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or a user defined value that specifies a range of hours.
4571 Removing this header is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
4572 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the
4573 browser to use a cached copy of the page.
4576 Instead of removing the header, <literal>hide-if-modified-since</literal> can
4577 also add or subtract a random amount of time to/from the header's value.
4578 You specify a range of minutes where the random factor should be chosen from and
4579 <application>Privoxy</application> does the rest. A negative value means
4580 subtracting, a positive value adding.
4583 Randomizing the value of the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> makes
4584 it less likely that the server can use the time as a cookie replacement,
4585 but you will run into caching problems if the random range is too high.
4588 It is a good idea to only use a small negative value and let
4589 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>
4590 handle the greater changes.
4593 It is also recommended to use this action together with
4594 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>,
4595 otherwise it's more or less pointless.
4601 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4604 <screen># Let the browser revalidate but make tracking based on the time less likely.
4605 {+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
4606 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
4607 +crunch-if-none-match}
4616 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4617 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-from-header">
4618 <title>hide-from-header</title>
4622 <term>Typical use:</term>
4624 <para>Keep your (old and ill) browser from telling web servers your email address</para>
4629 <term>Effect:</term>
4632 Deletes any existing <quote>From:</quote> HTTP header, or replaces it with the
4640 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4642 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4647 <term>Parameter:</term>
4650 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4659 The keyword <quote>block</quote> will completely remove the header
4660 (not to be confused with the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
4664 Alternately, you can specify any value you prefer to be sent to the web
4665 server. If you do, it is a matter of fairness not to use any address that
4666 is actually used by a real person.
4669 This action is rarely needed, as modern web browsers don't send
4670 <quote>From:</quote> headers anymore.
4676 <term>Example usage:</term>
4679 <screen>+hide-from-header{block}</screen> or
4680 <screen>+hide-from-header{spam-me-senseless@sittingduck.example.com}</screen>
4688 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4689 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-referrer">
4690 <title>hide-referrer</title>
4691 <anchor id="hide-referer">
4694 <term>Typical use:</term>
4696 <para>Conceal which link you followed to get to a particular site</para>
4701 <term>Effect:</term>
4704 Deletes the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) HTTP header from the client request,
4705 or replaces it with a forged one.
4712 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4714 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4719 <term>Parameter:</term>
4723 <para><quote>conditional-block</quote> to delete the header completely if the host has changed.</para>
4726 <para><quote>conditional-forge</quote> to forge the header if the host has changed.</para>
4729 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header unconditionally.</para>
4732 <para><quote>forge</quote> to pretend to be coming from the homepage of the server we are talking to.</para>
4735 <para>Any other string to set a user defined referrer.</para>
4745 <literal>conditional-block</literal> is the only parameter,
4746 that isn't easily detected in the server's log file. If it blocks the
4747 referrer, the request will look like the visitor used a bookmark or
4748 typed in the address directly.
4751 Leaving the referrer unmodified for requests on the same host
4752 allows the server owner to see the visitor's <quote>click path</quote>,
4753 but in most cases she could also get that information by comparing
4754 other parts of the log file: for example the User-Agent if it isn't
4755 a very common one, or the user's IP address if it doesn't change between
4759 Always blocking the referrer, or using a custom one, can lead to
4760 failures on servers that check the referrer before they answer any
4761 requests, in an attempt to prevent their content from being
4762 embedded or linked to elsewhere.
4765 Both <literal>conditional-block</literal> and <literal>forge</literal>
4766 will work with referrer checks, as long as content and valid referring page
4767 are on the same host. Most of the time that's the case.
4770 <literal>hide-referer</literal> is an alternate spelling of
4771 <literal>hide-referrer</literal> and the two can be can be freely
4772 substituted with each other. (<quote>referrer</quote> is the
4773 correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
4774 requires it to be spelled as <quote>referer</quote>.)
4780 <term>Example usage:</term>
4783 <screen>+hide-referrer{forge}</screen> or
4784 <screen>+hide-referrer{http://www.yahoo.com/}</screen>
4792 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4793 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-user-agent">
4794 <title>hide-user-agent</title>
4798 <term>Typical use:</term>
4800 <para>Try to conceal your type of browser and client operating system</para>
4805 <term>Effect:</term>
4808 Replaces the value of the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> HTTP header
4809 in client requests with the specified value.
4816 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4818 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4823 <term>Parameter:</term>
4826 Any user-defined string.
4836 This can lead to problems on web sites that depend on looking at this header in
4837 order to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the
4838 way, is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the right thing to do: good web sites
4839 work browser-independently).
4843 Using this action in multi-user setups or wherever different types of
4844 browsers will access the same <application>Privoxy</application> is
4845 <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>. In single-user, single-browser
4846 setups, you might use it to delete your OS version information from
4847 the headers, because it is an invitation to exploit known bugs for your
4848 OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
4849 sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
4850 reason in some cases). Example of this: some MSN sites will not
4851 let <application>Mozilla</application> enter, yet forging to a
4852 <application>Netscape 6.1</application> user-agent works just fine.
4853 (Must be just a silly MS goof, I'm sure :-).
4856 More information on known user-agent strings can be found at
4857 <ulink url="http://www.user-agents.org/">http://www.user-agents.org/</ulink>
4859 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent</ulink>.
4865 <term>Example usage:</term>
4868 <screen>+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}</screen>
4876 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4877 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="limit-connect">
4878 <title>limit-connect</title>
4882 <term>Typical use:</term>
4884 <para>Prevent abuse of <application>Privoxy</application> as a TCP proxy relay or disable SSL for untrusted sites</para>
4889 <term>Effect:</term>
4892 Specifies to which ports HTTP CONNECT requests are allowable.
4899 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4901 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4906 <term>Parameter:</term>
4909 A comma-separated list of ports or port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum
4910 defaulting to 0 and the maximum to 65K).
4919 By default, i.e. if no <literal>limit-connect</literal> action applies,
4920 <application>Privoxy</application> allows HTTP CONNECT requests to all
4921 ports. Use <literal>limit-connect</literal> if fine-grained control
4922 is desired for some or all destinations.
4925 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
4926 (<quote>https://</quote> URLs) through proxies. It works very simply:
4927 the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then
4928 short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote server.
4929 This means CONNECT-enabled proxies can be used as TCP relays very easily.
4932 <application>Privoxy</application> relays HTTPS traffic without seeing
4933 the decoded content. Websites can leverage this limitation to circumvent &my-app;'s
4934 filters. By specifying an invalid port range you can disable HTTPS entirely.
4940 <term>Example usages:</term>
4942 <!-- I had trouble getting the spacing to look right in my browser -->
4943 <!-- I probably have the wrong font setup, bollocks. -->
4944 <!-- Apparently the emphasis tag uses a proportional font no matter what -->
4946 <screen>+limit-connect{443} # Port 443 is OK.
4947 +limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
4948 +limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Ports less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
4949 +limit-connect{-} # All ports are OK
4950 +limit-connect{,} # No HTTPS/SSL traffic is allowed</screen>
4957 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4958 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="prevent-compression">
4959 <title>prevent-compression</title>
4963 <term>Typical use:</term>
4966 Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be
4967 passed through <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>s.
4973 <term>Effect:</term>
4976 Removes the Accept-Encoding header which can be used to ask for compressed transfer.
4983 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4985 <para>Boolean.</para>
4990 <term>Parameter:</term>
5002 More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which
5003 is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But the <literal><link
5004 linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> and
5005 <literal><link linkend="deanimate-gifs">deanimate-gifs</link></literal>
5006 actions need access to the uncompressed data.
5009 When compiled with zlib support (available since &my-app; 3.0.7), content that should be
5010 filtered is decompressed on-the-fly and you don't have to worry about this action.
5011 If you are using an older &my-app; version, or one that hasn't been compiled with zlib
5012 support, this action can be used to convince the server to send the content uncompressed.
5015 Most text-based instances compress very well, the size is seldom decreased by less than 50%,
5016 for markup-heavy instances like news feeds saving more than 90% of the original size isn't
5020 Not using compression will therefore slow down the transfer, and you should only
5021 enable this action if you really need it. As of &my-app; 3.0.7 it's disabled in all
5022 predefined action settings.
5025 Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed
5026 documents correctly. Broken PHP applications tend to send an empty document body,
5027 some IIS versions only send the beginning of the content. If you enable
5028 <literal>prevent-compression</literal> per default, you might want to add
5029 exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
5035 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
5039 # Selectively turn off compression, and enable a filter
5041 { +filter{tiny-textforms} +prevent-compression }
5042 # Match only these sites
5047 # Or instead, we could set a universal default:
5049 { +prevent-compression }
5052 # Then maybe make exceptions for broken sites:
5054 { -prevent-compression }
5055 .compusa.com/</screen>
5064 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5065 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="overwrite-last-modified">
5066 <title>overwrite-last-modified</title>
5072 <term>Typical use:</term>
5074 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
5079 <term>Effect:</term>
5082 Deletes the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> HTTP server header or modifies its value.
5089 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5091 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5096 <term>Parameter:</term>
5099 One of the keywords: <quote>block</quote>, <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote>
5100 and <quote>randomize</quote>
5109 Removing the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header is useful for filter
5110 testing, where you want to force a real reload instead of getting status
5111 code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the browser to reuse the old
5112 version of the page.
5115 The <quote>randomize</quote> option overwrites the value of the
5116 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with a randomly chosen time
5117 between the original value and the current time. In theory the server
5118 could send each document with a different <quote>Last-Modified:</quote>
5119 header to track visits without using cookies. <quote>Randomize</quote>
5120 makes it impossible and the browser can still revalidate cached documents.
5123 <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote> overwrites the value of the
5124 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with the current time. You could use
5125 this option together with
5126 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hided-if-modified-since</link></literal>
5127 to further customize your random range.
5130 The preferred parameter here is <quote>randomize</quote>. It is safe
5131 to use, as long as the time settings are more or less correct.
5132 If the server sets the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header to the time
5133 of the request, the random range becomes zero and the value stays the same.
5134 Therefore you should later randomize it a second time with
5135 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hided-if-modified-since</link></literal>,
5139 It is also recommended to use this action together with
5140 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>.
5146 <term>Example usage:</term>
5149 <screen># Let the browser revalidate without being tracked across sessions
5150 { +hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
5151 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
5152 +crunch-if-none-match}
5161 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5162 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="redirect">
5163 <title>redirect</title>
5169 <term>Typical use:</term>
5172 Redirect requests to other sites.
5178 <term>Effect:</term>
5181 Convinces the browser that the requested document has been moved
5182 to another location and the browser should get it from there.
5189 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5191 <para>Parameterized</para>
5196 <term>Parameter:</term>
5199 An absolute URL or a single pcrs command.
5208 Requests to which this action applies are answered with a
5209 HTTP redirect to URLs of your choosing. The new URL is
5210 either provided as parameter, or derived by applying a
5211 single pcrs command to the original URL.
5214 This action will be ignored if you use it together with
5215 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>.
5216 It can be combined with
5217 <literal><link linkend="fast-redirects">fast-redirects{check-decoded-url}</link></literal>
5218 to redirect to a decoded version of a rewritten URL.
5221 Use this action carefully, make sure not to create redirection loops
5222 and be aware that using your own redirects might make it
5223 possible to fingerprint your requests.
5226 In case of problems with your redirects, or simply to watch
5227 them working, enable <link linkend="DEBUG">debug 128</link>.
5233 <term>Example usages:</term>
5236 <screen># Replace example.com's style sheet with another one
5237 { +redirect{http://localhost/css-replacements/example.com.css} }
5238 example.com/stylesheet\.css
5240 # Create a short, easy to remember nickname for a favorite site
5241 # (relies on the browser accept and forward invalid URLs to &my-app;)
5242 { +redirect{http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/actions-file.html} }
5245 # Always use the expanded view for Undeadly.org articles
5246 # (Note the $ at the end of the URL pattern to make sure
5247 # the request for the rewritten URL isn't redirected as well)
5248 {+redirect{s@$@&mode=expanded@}}
5249 undeadly.org/cgi\?action=article&sid=\d*$
5251 # Redirect Google search requests to MSN
5252 {+redirect{s@^http://[^/]*/search\?q=([^&]*).*@http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=$1@}}
5255 # Redirect MSN search requests to Yahoo
5256 {+redirect{s@^http://[^/]*/results\.aspx\?q=([^&]*).*@http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=$1@}}
5257 search.msn.com//results\.aspx\?q=
5259 # Redirect remote requests for this manual
5260 # to the local version delivered by Privoxy
5261 {+redirect{s@^http://www@http://config@}}
5262 www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</screen>
5271 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5272 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="server-header-filter">
5273 <title>server-header-filter</title>
5277 <term>Typical use:</term>
5280 Rewrite or remove single server headers.
5286 <term>Effect:</term>
5289 All server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly
5290 through the specified regular expression based substitutions.
5297 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
5299 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5304 <term>Parameter:</term>
5307 The name of a server-header filter, as defined in one of the
5308 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
5317 Server-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
5318 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
5319 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
5320 You can do that by using tags though.
5323 Server-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
5324 and use their output as input.
5327 Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
5328 to learn which server-header filters are available by default, and how to
5335 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5339 {+server-header-filter{html-to-xml}}
5340 example.org/xml-instance-that-is-delivered-as-html
5342 {+server-header-filter{xml-to-html}}
5343 example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
5353 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5354 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="server-header-tagger">
5355 <title>server-header-tagger</title>
5359 <term>Typical use:</term>
5362 Enable or disable filters based on the Content-Type header.
5368 <term>Effect:</term>
5371 Server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
5372 the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
5380 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
5382 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5387 <term>Parameter:</term>
5390 The name of a server-header tagger, as defined in one of the
5391 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
5400 Server-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
5401 and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
5405 Server-header taggers are executed before all other header actions
5406 that modify server headers. Their tags can be used to control
5407 all of the other server-header actions, the content filters
5408 and the crunch actions (<link linkend="redirect">redirect</link>
5409 and <link linkend="block">block</link>).
5412 Obviously crunching based on tags created by server-header taggers
5413 doesn't prevent the request from showing up in the server's log file.
5420 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5424 # Tag every request with the content type declared by the server
5425 {+server-header-tagger{content-type}}
5436 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5437 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="session-cookies-only">
5438 <title>session-cookies-only</title>
5442 <term>Typical use:</term>
5445 Allow only temporary <quote>session</quote> cookies (for the current
5446 browser session <emphasis>only</emphasis>).
5452 <term>Effect:</term>
5455 Deletes the <quote>expires</quote> field from <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote>
5456 server headers. Most browsers will not store such cookies permanently and
5457 forget them in between sessions.
5464 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5466 <para>Boolean.</para>
5471 <term>Parameter:</term>
5483 This is less strict than <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> /
5484 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal> and allows you to browse
5485 websites that insist or rely on setting cookies, without compromising your privacy too badly.
5488 Most browsers will not permanently store cookies that have been processed by
5489 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal> and will forget about them between sessions.
5490 This makes profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
5491 that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
5492 sites, and is the recommended setting.
5495 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>
5496 together with <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> or
5497 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>. If you do, cookies
5498 will be plainly killed.
5501 Note that it is up to the browser how it handles such cookies without an <quote>expires</quote>
5502 field. If you use an exotic browser, you might want to try it out to be sure.
5505 This setting also has no effect on cookies that may have been stored
5506 previously by the browser before starting <application>Privoxy</application>.
5507 These would have to be removed manually.
5510 <application>Privoxy</application> also uses
5511 the <link linkend="filter-content-cookies">content-cookies filter</link>
5512 to block some types of cookies. Content cookies are not effected by
5513 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>.
5519 <term>Example usage:</term>
5522 <screen>+session-cookies-only</screen>
5530 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5531 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="set-image-blocker">
5532 <title>set-image-blocker</title>
5536 <term>Typical use:</term>
5538 <para>Choose the replacement for blocked images</para>
5543 <term>Effect:</term>
5546 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. If <emphasis>both</emphasis>
5547 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><link
5548 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> <emphasis>also</emphasis>
5549 apply, i.e. if the request is to be blocked as an image,
5550 <emphasis>then</emphasis> the parameter of this action decides what will be
5551 sent as a replacement.
5558 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5560 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5565 <term>Parameter:</term>
5570 <quote>pattern</quote> to send a built-in checkerboard pattern image. The image is visually
5571 decent, scales very well, and makes it obvious where banners were busted.
5576 <quote>blank</quote> to send a built-in transparent image. This makes banners disappear
5577 completely, but makes it hard to detect where <application>Privoxy</application> has blocked
5578 images on a given page and complicates troubleshooting if <application>Privoxy</application>
5579 has blocked innocent images, like navigation icons.
5584 <quote><replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable></quote> to
5585 send a redirect to <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>. You can redirect
5586 to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem via <quote>file:///</quote> URL.
5587 (But note that not all browsers support redirecting to a local file system).
5590 A good application of redirects is to use special <application>Privoxy</application>-built-in
5591 URLs, which send the built-in images, as <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>.
5592 This has the same visual effect as specifying <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote> in
5593 the first place, but enables your browser to cache the replacement image, instead of requesting
5594 it over and over again.
5605 The URLs for the built-in images are <quote>http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=<replaceable
5606 class="parameter">type</replaceable></quote>, where <replaceable class="parameter">type</replaceable> is
5607 either <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote>.
5610 There is a third (advanced) type, called <quote>auto</quote>. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> to be
5611 used in <literal>set-image-blocker</literal>, but meant for use from <link linkend="filter-file">filters</link>.
5612 Auto will select the type of image that would have applied to the referring page, had it been an image.
5618 <term>Example usage:</term>
5624 <screen>+set-image-blocker{pattern}</screen>
5627 Redirect to the BSD daemon:
5630 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://www.freebsd.org/gifs/dae_up3.gif}</screen>
5633 Redirect to the built-in pattern for better caching:
5636 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=pattern}</screen>
5644 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5646 <title>Summary</title>
5648 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
5649 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
5650 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
5651 content, and other criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard
5652 and fast rules for all sites. See the <link
5653 linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link> for a brief example on troubleshooting
5659 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5660 <sect2 id="aliases">
5661 <title>Aliases</title>
5663 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
5664 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other actions.
5665 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in actions.
5666 Currently, an alias name can contain any character except space, tab,
5668 <quote>{</quote> and <quote>}</quote>, but we <emphasis>strongly
5669 recommend</emphasis> that you only use <quote>a</quote> to <quote>z</quote>,
5670 <quote>0</quote> to <quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and <quote>-</quote>.
5671 Alias names are not case sensitive, and are not required to start with a
5672 <quote>+</quote> or <quote>-</quote> sign, since they are merely textually
5676 Aliases can be used throughout the actions file, but they <emphasis>must be
5677 defined in a special section at the top of the file!</emphasis>
5678 And there can only be one such section per actions file. Each actions file may
5679 have its own alias section, and the aliases defined in it are only visible
5683 There are two main reasons to use aliases: One is to save typing for frequently
5684 used combinations of actions, the other one is a gain in flexibility: If you
5685 decide once how you want to handle shops by defining an alias called
5686 <quote>shop</quote>, you can later change your policy on shops in
5687 <emphasis>one</emphasis> place, and your changes will take effect everywhere
5688 in the actions file where the <quote>shop</quote> alias is used. Calling aliases
5689 by their purpose also makes your actions files more readable.
5692 Currently, there is one big drawback to using aliases, though:
5693 <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in web-based action file
5694 editor honors aliases when reading the actions files, but it expands
5695 them before writing. So the effects of your aliases are of course preserved,
5696 but the aliases themselves are lost when you edit sections that use aliases
5701 Now let's define some aliases...
5706 # Useful custom aliases we can use later.
5708 # Note the (required!) section header line and that this section
5709 # must be at the top of the actions file!
5713 # These aliases just save typing later:
5714 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
5716 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
5717 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
5718 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked image.} +handle-as-image
5719 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
5721 # These aliases define combinations of actions
5722 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
5724 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>
5726 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link>
5728 # Short names for other aliases, for really lazy people ;-)
5730 c0 = +crunch-all-cookies
5731 c1 = -crunch-all-cookies</screen>
5735 ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
5736 actions file and define exceptions to the default actions (as specified further
5737 up for the <quote>/</quote> pattern):
5742 # These sites are either very complex or very keen on
5743 # user data and require minimal interference to work:
5746 .office.microsoft.com
5747 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
5748 # Gmail is really mail.google.com, not gmail.com
5752 # Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data)
5756 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
5759 # These shops require pop-ups:
5761 {-filter{all-popups} -filter{unsolicited-popups}}
5763 .overclockers.co.uk</screen>
5767 Aliases like <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> are typically used for
5768 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require more than one action to be disabled
5769 in order to function properly.
5775 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5776 <sect2 id="act-examples">
5777 <title>Actions Files Tutorial</title>
5779 The above chapters have shown <link linkend="actions-file">which actions files
5780 there are and how they are organized</link>, how actions are <link
5781 linkend="actions">specified</link> and <link linkend="actions-apply">applied
5782 to URLs</link>, how <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> work, and how to
5783 define and use <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link>. Now, let's look at an
5784 example <filename>default.action</filename> and <filename>user.action</filename>
5785 file and see how all these pieces come together:
5788 <sect3><title>default.action</title>
5791 Every config file should start with a short comment stating its purpose:
5795 <screen># Sample default.action file <ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net></screen>
5799 Then, since this is the <filename>default.action</filename> file, the
5800 first section is a special section for internal use that you needn't
5801 change or worry about:
5806 ##########################################################################
5807 # Settings -- Don't change! For internal Privoxy use ONLY.
5808 ##########################################################################
5811 for-privoxy-version=3.0</screen>
5815 After that comes the (optional) alias section. We'll use the example
5816 section from the above <link linkend="aliases">chapter on aliases</link>,
5817 that also explains why and how aliases are used:
5822 ##########################################################################
5824 ##########################################################################
5827 # These aliases just save typing later:
5828 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
5830 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
5831 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
5832 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked image.} +handle-as-image
5833 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
5835 # These aliases define combinations of actions
5836 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
5838 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>
5839 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link></screen>
5843 Now come the regular sections, i.e. sets of actions, accompanied
5844 by URL patterns to which they apply. Remember <emphasis>all actions
5845 are disabled when matching starts</emphasis>, so we have to explicitly
5846 enable the ones we want.
5850 The first regular section is probably the most important. It has only
5851 one pattern, <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, but this pattern
5852 <link linkend="af-patterns">matches all URLs</link>. Therefore, the
5853 set of actions used in this <quote>default</quote> section <emphasis>will
5854 be applied to all requests as a start</emphasis>. It can be partly or
5855 wholly overridden by later matches further down this file, or in user.action,
5856 but it will still be largely responsible for your overall browsing
5861 Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is
5862 no need to disable any actions here. (Remember: a <quote>+</quote>
5863 preceding the action name enables the action, a <quote>-</quote> disables!).
5864 Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into
5865 multiple lines with line continuation.
5870 ##########################################################################
5871 # "Defaults" section:
5872 ##########################################################################
5874 +<link linkend="CHANGE-X-FORWARDED-FOR">change-x-forwarded-for{block}</link> \
5875 +<link linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</link> \
5876 +<link linkend="FILTER-HTML-ANNOYANCES">filter{html-annoyances}</link> \
5877 +<link linkend="FILTER-REFRESH-TAGS">filter{refresh-tags}</link> \
5878 +<link linkend="FILTER-WEBBUGS">filter{webbugs}</link> \
5879 +<link linkend="FILTER-IE-EXPLOITS">filter{ie-exploits}</link> \
5880 +<link linkend="HIDE-FROM-HEADER">hide-from-header{block}</link> \
5881 +<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer{forge}</link> \
5882 +<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link> \
5883 +<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> \
5884 +<link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER">set-image-blocker{pattern}</link> \
5886 / # forward slash will match *all* potential URL patterns.</screen>
5890 The default behavior is now set.
5892 This needs rewording, but it can wait for now.
5895 Note that some actions, like not hiding
5896 the user agent, are part of a <quote>general policy</quote> that applies
5897 universally and won't get any exceptions defined later. Other choices,
5898 like not blocking (which is <emphasis>understandably</emphasis> the
5899 default!) need exceptions, i.e. we need to specify explicitly what we
5900 want to block in later sections.
5905 The first of our specialized sections is concerned with <quote>fragile</quote>
5906 sites, i.e. sites that require minimum interference, because they are either
5907 very complex or very keen on tracking you (and have mechanisms in place that
5908 make them unusable for people who avoid being tracked). We will simply use
5909 our pre-defined <literal>fragile</literal> alias instead of stating the list
5910 of actions explicitly:
5915 ##########################################################################
5916 # Exceptions for sites that'll break under the default action set:
5917 ##########################################################################
5919 # "Fragile" Use a minimum set of actions for these sites (see alias above):
5922 .office.microsoft.com # surprise, surprise!
5923 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
5924 mail.google.com</screen>
5928 Shopping sites are not as fragile, but they typically
5929 require cookies to log in, and pop-up windows for shopping
5930 carts or item details. Again, we'll use a pre-defined alias:
5939 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
5941 .scan.co.uk</screen>
5944 <!-- No longer needed BEGIN OF COMMENTED OUT BLOCK
5947 Then, there are sites which rely on pop-up windows (yuck!) to work.
5948 Since we made pop-up-killing our default above, we need to make exceptions
5949 now. <ulink url="http://www.mozilla.org/">Mozilla</ulink> users, who
5950 can turn on smart handling of unwanted pop-ups in their browsers, can
5952 -<literal><link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link></literal> above
5953 and hence don't need this section. Anyway, disabling an already disabled
5954 action doesn't hurt, so we'll define our exceptions regardless of what was
5955 chosen in the defaults section:
5960 # These sites require pop-ups too :(
5962 { -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link> }
5965 .deutsche-bank-24.de</screen>
5968 END OF COMMENTED OUT BLOCK -->
5971 The <literal><link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link></literal>
5972 action, which we enabled per default above, breaks some sites. So disable
5973 it for popular sites where we know it misbehaves:
5978 { -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> }
5982 .altavista.com/.*(like|url|link):http
5983 .altavista.com/trans.*urltext=http
5984 .nytimes.com</screen>
5988 It is important that <application>Privoxy</application> knows which
5989 URLs belong to images, so that <emphasis>if</emphasis> they are to
5990 be blocked, a substitute image can be sent, rather than an HTML page.
5991 Contacting the remote site to find out is not an option, since it
5992 would destroy the loading time advantage of banner blocking, and it
5993 would feed the advertisers (in terms of money <emphasis>and</emphasis>
5994 information). We can mark any URL as an image with the <literal><link
5995 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action,
5996 and marking all URLs that end in a known image file extension is a
6002 ##########################################################################
6004 ##########################################################################
6006 # Define which file types will be treated as images, in case they get
6007 # blocked further down this file:
6009 { +<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> }
6010 /.*\.(gif|jpe?g|png|bmp|ico)$</screen>
6014 And then there are known banner sources. They often use scripts to
6015 generate the banners, so it won't be visible from the URL that the
6016 request is for an image. Hence we block them <emphasis>and</emphasis>
6017 mark them as images in one go, with the help of our
6018 <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above. (We could of
6019 course just as well use <literal>+<link linkend="block">block</link>
6020 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> here.)
6021 Remember that the type of the replacement image is chosen by the
6022 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
6023 action. Since all URLs have matched the default section with its
6024 <literal>+<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link>{pattern}</literal>
6025 action before, it still applies and needn't be repeated:
6030 # Known ad generators:
6035 .ad.*.doubleclick.net
6036 .a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
6037 .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
6043 One of the most important jobs of <application>Privoxy</application>
6044 is to block banners. Many of these can be <quote>blocked</quote>
6045 by the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{banners-by-size}</literal>
6046 action, which we enabled above, and which deletes the references to banner
6047 images from the pages while they are loaded, so the browser doesn't request
6048 them anymore, and hence they don't need to be blocked here. But this naturally
6049 doesn't catch all banners, and some people choose not to use filters, so we
6050 need a comprehensive list of patterns for banner URLs here, and apply the
6051 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action to them.
6054 First comes many generic patterns, which do most of the work, by
6055 matching typical domain and path name components of banners. Then comes
6056 a list of individual patterns for specific sites, which is omitted here
6057 to keep the example short:
6062 ##########################################################################
6063 # Block these fine banners:
6064 ##########################################################################
6065 { <link linkend="BLOCK">+block{Banner ads.}</link> }
6073 /.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?)
6074 /(?:.*/)?(publicite|werbung|rekla(ma|me|am)|annonse|maino(kset|nta|s)?)/
6076 # Site-specific patterns (abbreviated):
6078 .hitbox.com</screen>
6082 It's quite remarkable how many advertisers actually call their banner
6083 servers ads.<replaceable>company</replaceable>.com, or call the directory
6084 in which the banners are stored simply <quote>banners</quote>. So the above
6085 generic patterns are surprisingly effective.
6088 But being very generic, they necessarily also catch URLs that we don't want
6089 to block. The pattern <literal>.*ads.</literal> e.g. catches
6090 <quote>nasty-<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.nasty-corp.com</quote> as intended,
6091 but also <quote>downlo<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.sourcefroge.net</quote> or
6092 <quote><emphasis>ads</emphasis>l.some-provider.net.</quote> So here come some
6093 well-known exceptions to the <literal>+<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
6097 Note that these are exceptions to exceptions from the default! Consider the URL
6098 <quote>downloads.sourcefroge.net</quote>: Initially, all actions are deactivated,
6099 so it wouldn't get blocked. Then comes the defaults section, which matches the
6100 URL, but just deactivates the <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
6101 action once again. Then it matches <literal>.*ads.</literal>, an exception to the
6102 general non-blocking policy, and suddenly
6103 <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link></literal> applies. And now, it'll match
6104 <literal>.*loads.</literal>, where <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">-block</link></literal>
6105 applies, so (unless it matches <emphasis>again</emphasis> further down) it ends up
6106 with no <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal> action applying.
6111 ##########################################################################
6112 # Save some innocent victims of the above generic block patterns:
6113 ##########################################################################
6117 { -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
6118 adv[io]*. # (for advogato.org and advice.*)
6119 adsl. # (has nothing to do with ads)
6120 adobe. # (has nothing to do with ads either)
6121 ad[ud]*. # (adult.* and add.*)
6122 .edu # (universities don't host banners (yet!))
6123 .*loads. # (downloads, uploads etc)
6131 www.globalintersec.com/adv # (adv = advanced)
6132 www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv</screen>
6136 Filtering source code can have nasty side effects,
6137 so make an exception for our friends at sourceforge.net,
6138 and all paths with <quote>cvs</quote> in them. Note that
6139 <literal>-<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link></literal>
6140 disables <emphasis>all</emphasis> filters in one fell swoop!
6145 # Don't filter code!
6147 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
6152 .sourceforge.net</screen>
6156 The actual <filename>default.action</filename> is of course much more
6157 comprehensive, but we hope this example made clear how it works.
6162 <sect3><title>user.action</title>
6165 So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies,
6166 which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
6167 you might want to be more specific and have customized rules that
6168 are more suitable to your personal habits and preferences. These would
6169 be for narrowly defined situations like your ISP or your bank, and should
6170 be placed in <filename>user.action</filename>, which is parsed after all other
6171 actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding any previously
6172 defined actions. <filename>user.action</filename> is also a
6173 <emphasis>safe</emphasis> place for your personal settings, since
6174 <filename>default.action</filename> is actively maintained by the
6175 <application>Privoxy</application> developers and you'll probably want
6176 to install updated versions from time to time.
6180 So let's look at a few examples of things that one might typically do in
6181 <filename>user.action</filename>:
6185 <!-- brief sample user.action here -->
6189 # My user.action file. <fred@example.com></screen>
6193 As <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link> are local to the actions
6194 file that they are defined in, you can't use the ones from
6195 <filename>default.action</filename>, unless you repeat them here:
6200 # Aliases are local to the file they are defined in.
6201 # (Re-)define aliases for this file:
6205 # These aliases just save typing later, and the alias names should
6206 # be self explanatory.
6208 +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
6209 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
6210 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
6211 allow-popups = -filter{all-popups}
6212 +block-as-image = +block{Blocked as image.} +handle-as-image
6213 -block-as-image = -block
6215 # These aliases define combinations of actions that are useful for
6216 # certain types of sites:
6218 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referrer
6219 shop = -crunch-all-cookies allow-popups
6221 # Allow ads for selected useful free sites:
6223 allow-ads = -block -filter{banners-by-size} -filter{banners-by-link}
6225 # Alias for specific file types that are text, but might have conflicting
6226 # MIME types. We want the browser to force these to be text documents.
6227 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>
6232 Say you have accounts on some sites that you visit regularly, and
6233 you don't want to have to log in manually each time. So you'd like
6234 to allow persistent cookies for these sites. The
6235 <literal>allow-all-cookies</literal> alias defined above does exactly
6236 that, i.e. it disables crunching of cookies in any direction, and the
6237 processing of cookies to make them only temporary.
6242 { allow-all-cookies }
6246 .redhat.com</screen>
6250 Your bank is allergic to some filter, but you don't know which, so you disable them all:
6255 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
6256 .your-home-banking-site.com</screen>
6260 Some file types you may not want to filter for various reasons:
6265 # Technical documentation is likely to contain strings that might
6266 # erroneously get altered by the JavaScript-oriented filters:
6271 # And this stupid host sends streaming video with a wrong MIME type,
6272 # so that Privoxy thinks it is getting HTML and starts filtering:
6274 stupid-server.example.com/</screen>
6278 Example of a simple <link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> action. Say you've
6279 seen an ad on your favourite page on example.com that you want to get rid of.
6280 You have right-clicked the image, selected <quote>copy image location</quote>
6281 and pasted the URL below while removing the leading http://, into a
6282 <literal>{ +block{} }</literal> section. Note that <literal>{ +handle-as-image
6283 }</literal> need not be specified, since all URLs ending in
6284 <literal>.gif</literal> will be tagged as images by the general rules as set
6285 in default.action anyway:
6290 { +<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link>{Nasty ads.} }
6291 www.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor\.gif
6292 another.example.net/more/junk/here/</screen>
6296 The URLs of dynamically generated banners, especially from large banner
6297 farms, often don't use the well-known image file name extensions, which
6298 makes it impossible for <application>Privoxy</application> to guess
6299 the file type just by looking at the URL.
6300 You can use the <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above for
6302 Note that objects which match this rule but then turn out NOT to be an
6303 image are typically rendered as a <quote>broken image</quote> icon by the
6304 browser. Use cautiously.
6313 ar.atwola.com/</screen>
6317 Now you noticed that the default configuration breaks Forbes Magazine,
6318 but you were too lazy to find out which action is the culprit, and you
6319 were again too lazy to give <link linkend="contact">feedback</link>, so
6320 you just used the <literal>fragile</literal> alias on the site, and
6321 -- <emphasis>whoa!</emphasis> -- it worked. The <literal>fragile</literal>
6322 aliases disables those actions that are most likely to break a site. Also,
6323 good for testing purposes to see if it is <application>Privoxy</application>
6324 that is causing the problem or not. We later find other regular sites
6325 that misbehave, and add those to our personalized list of troublemakers:
6333 .mybank.com</screen>
6337 You like the <quote>fun</quote> text replacements in <filename>default.filter</filename>,
6338 but it is disabled in the distributed actions file.
6339 So you'd like to turn it on in your private,
6340 update-safe config, once and for all:
6345 { +<link linkend="filter-fun">filter{fun}</link> }
6346 / # For ALL sites!</screen>
6350 Note that the above is not really a good idea: There are exceptions
6351 to the filters in <filename>default.action</filename> for things that
6352 really shouldn't be filtered, like code on CVS->Web interfaces. Since
6353 <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word, these exceptions
6354 won't be valid for the <quote>fun</quote> filtering specified here.
6358 You might also worry about how your favourite free websites are
6359 funded, and find that they rely on displaying banner advertisements
6360 to survive. So you might want to specifically allow banners for those
6361 sites that you feel provide value to you:
6373 Note that <literal>allow-ads</literal> has been aliased to
6374 <literal>-<link linkend="block">block</link></literal>,
6375 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-size">filter{banners-by-size}</link></literal>, and
6376 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-link">filter{banners-by-link}</link></literal> above.
6380 Invoke another alias here to force an over-ride of the MIME type <literal>
6381 application/x-sh</literal> which typically would open a download type
6382 dialog. In my case, I want to look at the shell script, and then I can save
6383 it should I choose to.
6393 <filename>user.action</filename> is generally the best place to define
6394 exceptions and additions to the default policies of
6395 <filename>default.action</filename>. Some actions are safe to have their
6396 default policies set here though. So let's set a default policy to have a
6397 <quote>blank</quote> image as opposed to the checkerboard pattern for
6398 <emphasis>ALL</emphasis> sites. <quote>/</quote> of course matches all URL
6404 { +<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker{blank}</link> }
6405 / # ALL sites</screen>
6411 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6415 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6417 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
6419 <sect1 id="filter-file">
6420 <title>Filter Files</title>
6423 On-the-fly text substitutions need
6424 to be defined in a <quote>filter file</quote>. Once defined, they
6425 can then be invoked as an <quote>action</quote>.
6429 &my-app; supports three different filter actions:
6430 <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> to
6431 rewrite the content that is send to the client,
6432 <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header-filter</link></literal>
6433 to rewrite headers that are send by the client, and
6434 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header-filter</link></literal>
6435 to rewrite headers that are send by the server.
6439 &my-app; also supports two tagger actions:
6440 <literal><link linkend="client-header-tagger">client-header-tagger</link></literal>
6442 <literal><link linkend="server-header-tagger">server-header-tagger</link></literal>.
6443 Taggers and filters use the same syntax in the filter files, the difference
6444 is that taggers don't modify the text they are filtering, but use a rewritten
6445 version of the filtered text as tag. The tags can then be used to change the
6446 applying actions through sections with <link linkend="tag-pattern">tag-patterns</link>.
6451 Multiple filter files can be defined through the <literal> <link
6452 linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal> config directive. The filters
6453 as supplied by the developers are located in
6454 <filename>default.filter</filename>. It is recommended that any locally
6455 defined or modified filters go in a separately defined file such as
6456 <filename>user.filter</filename>.
6460 Common tasks for content filters are to eliminate common annoyances in
6461 HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows,
6462 exit consoles, crippled windows without navigation tools, the
6463 infamous <BLINK> tag etc, to suppress images with certain
6464 width and height attributes (standard banner sizes or web-bugs),
6465 or just to have fun.
6469 Enabled content filters are applied to any content whose
6470 <quote>Content Type</quote> header is recognised as a sign
6471 of text-based content, with the exception of <literal>text/plain</literal>.
6472 Use the <link linkend="FORCE-TEXT-MODE">force-text-mode</link> action
6473 to also filter other content.
6477 Substitutions are made at the source level, so if you want to <quote>roll
6478 your own</quote> filters, you should first be familiar with HTML syntax,
6479 and, of course, regular expressions.
6483 Just like the <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, the
6484 filter file is organized in sections, which are called <emphasis>filters</emphasis>
6485 here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with one of the
6486 <emphasis>keywords</emphasis> <literal>FILTER:</literal>,
6487 <literal>CLIENT-HEADER-FILTER:</literal> or <literal>SERVER-HEADER-FILTER:</literal>
6488 followed by the filter's <emphasis>name</emphasis>, and a short (one line)
6489 <emphasis>description</emphasis> of what it does. Below that line
6490 come the <emphasis>jobs</emphasis>, i.e. lines that define the actual
6491 text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter
6492 should describe what the filter <emphasis>eliminates</emphasis>. The
6493 comment is used in the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
6494 user interface</ulink>.
6498 Once a filter called <replaceable>name</replaceable> has been defined
6499 in the filter file, it can be invoked by using an action of the form
6500 +<literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>name</replaceable>}</literal>
6501 in any <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>.
6505 Filter definitions start with a header line that contains the filter
6506 type, the filter name and the filter description.
6507 A content filter header line for a filter called <quote>foo</quote> could look
6512 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"</screen>
6516 Below that line, and up to the next header line, come the jobs that
6517 define what text replacements the filter executes. They are specified
6518 in a syntax that imitates <ulink url="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</ulink>'s
6519 <literal>s///</literal> operator. If you are familiar with Perl, you
6520 will find this to be quite intuitive, and may want to look at the
6521 PCRS documentation for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour. Most
6522 notably, the non-standard option letter <literal>U</literal> is supported,
6523 which turns the default to ungreedy matching.
6528 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
6529 Expressions</quote></ulink>, you might want to take a look at
6530 the <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>, and
6531 see the <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">Perl
6533 <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlop.html">the
6534 <literal>s///</literal> operator's syntax</ulink> and <ulink
6535 url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">Perl-style regular
6536 expressions</ulink> in general.
6537 The below examples might also help to get you started.
6541 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
6543 <sect2><title>Filter File Tutorial</title>
6545 Now, let's complete our <quote>foo</quote> content filter. We have already defined
6546 the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace
6547 <quote>foo</quote> with <quote>bar</quote>, there is only one (trivial) job
6552 <screen>s/foo/bar/</screen>
6556 But wait! Didn't the comment say that <emphasis>all</emphasis> occurrences
6557 of <quote>foo</quote> should be replaced? Our current job will only take
6558 care of the first <quote>foo</quote> on each page. For global substitution,
6559 we'll need to add the <literal>g</literal> option:
6563 <screen>s/foo/bar/g</screen>
6567 Our complete filter now looks like this:
6570 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"
6571 s/foo/bar/g</screen>
6575 Let's look at some real filters for more interesting examples. Here you see
6576 a filter that protects against some common annoyances that arise from JavaScript
6577 abuse. Let's look at its jobs one after the other:
6583 FILTER: js-annoyances Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
6585 # Get rid of JavaScript referrer tracking. Test page: http://www.randomoddness.com/untitled.htm
6587 s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|Usg</screen>
6591 Following the header line and a comment, you see the job. Note that it uses
6592 <literal>|</literal> as the delimiter instead of <literal>/</literal>, because
6593 the pattern contains a forward slash, which would otherwise have to be escaped
6594 by a backslash (<literal>\</literal>).
6598 Now, let's examine the pattern: it starts with the text <literal><script.*</literal>
6599 enclosed in parentheses. Since the dot matches any character, and <literal>*</literal>
6600 means: <quote>Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself</quote>, this
6601 matches <quote><script</quote>, followed by <emphasis>any</emphasis> text, i.e.
6602 it matches the whole page, from the start of the first <script> tag.
6606 That's more than we want, but the pattern continues: <literal>document\.referrer</literal>
6607 matches only the exact string <quote>document.referrer</quote>. The dot needed to
6608 be <emphasis>escaped</emphasis>, i.e. preceded by a backslash, to take away its
6609 special meaning as a joker, and make it just a regular dot. So far, the meaning is:
6610 Match from the start of the first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including,
6611 the text <quote>document.referrer</quote>, if <emphasis>both</emphasis> are present
6612 in the page (and appear in that order).
6616 But there's still more pattern to go. The next element, again enclosed in parentheses,
6617 is <literal>.*</script></literal>. You already know what <literal>.*</literal>
6618 means, so the whole pattern translates to: Match from the start of the first <script>
6619 tag in a page to the end of the last <script> tag, provided that the text
6620 <quote>document.referrer</quote> appears somewhere in between.
6624 This is still not the whole story, since we have ignored the options and the parentheses:
6625 The portions of the page matched by sub-patterns that are enclosed in parentheses, will be
6626 remembered and be available through the variables <literal>$1, $2, ...</literal> in
6627 the substitute. The <literal>U</literal> option switches to ungreedy matching, which means
6628 that the first <literal>.*</literal> in the pattern will only <quote>eat up</quote> all
6629 text in between <quote><script</quote> and the <emphasis>first</emphasis> occurrence
6630 of <quote>document.referrer</quote>, and that the second <literal>.*</literal> will
6631 only span the text up to the <emphasis>first</emphasis> <quote></script></quote>
6632 tag. Furthermore, the <literal>s</literal> option says that the match may span
6633 multiple lines in the page, and the <literal>g</literal> option again means that the
6634 substitution is global.
6638 So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text
6639 <quote>document.referrer</quote>. Remember the parts of the script from
6640 (and including) the start tag up to (and excluding) the string
6641 <quote>document.referrer</quote> as <literal>$1</literal>, and the part following
6642 that string, up to and including the closing tag, as <literal>$2</literal>.
6646 Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So
6647 lets look at the substitute: <literal>$1"Not Your Business!"$2</literal> is
6648 easy to read: The text remembered as <literal>$1</literal>, followed by
6649 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> (<emphasis>including</emphasis>
6650 the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as <literal>$2</literal>.
6651 This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part
6652 (the <quote>document.referrer</quote>) replaced by <literal>"Not Your
6653 Business!"</literal>.
6657 The whole job now reads: Replace <quote>document.referrer</quote> by
6658 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> wherever it appears inside a
6659 <script> tag. Note that this job won't break JavaScript syntax,
6660 since both the original and the replacement are syntactically valid
6661 string objects. The script just won't have access to the referrer
6662 information anymore.
6666 We'll show you two other jobs from the JavaScript taming department, but
6667 this time only point out the constructs of special interest:
6672 # The status bar is for displaying link targets, not pointless blahblah
6674 s/window\.status\s*=\s*(['"]).*?\1/dUmMy=1/ig</screen>
6678 <literal>\s</literal> stands for whitespace characters (space, tab, newline,
6679 carriage return, form feed), so that <literal>\s*</literal> means: <quote>zero
6680 or more whitespace</quote>. The <literal>?</literal> in <literal>.*?</literal>
6681 makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the <literal>U</literal>
6682 option is not set). The <literal>['"]</literal> construct means: <quote>a single
6683 <emphasis>or</emphasis> a double quote</quote>. Finally, <literal>\1</literal> is
6684 a back-reference to the first parenthesis just like <literal>$1</literal> above,
6685 with the difference that in the <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>, a backslash indicates
6686 a back-reference, whereas in the <emphasis>substitute</emphasis>, it's the dollar.
6690 So what does this job do? It replaces assignments of single- or double-quoted
6691 strings to the <quote>window.status</quote> object with a dummy assignment
6692 (using a variable name that is hopefully odd enough not to conflict with
6693 real variables in scripts). Thus, it catches many cases where e.g. pointless
6694 descriptions are displayed in the status bar instead of the link target when
6695 you move your mouse over links.
6700 # Kill OnUnload popups. Yummy. Test: http://www.zdnet.com/zdsubs/yahoo/tree/yfs.html
6702 s/(<body [^>]*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU</screen>
6707 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">OnUnload
6708 event binding</ulink> in the HTML DOM was a <emphasis>CRIME</emphasis>.
6709 When I close a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta.
6710 This job replaces the <quote>onunload</quote> attribute in
6711 <quote><body></quote> tags with the dummy word <literal>never</literal>.
6712 Note that the <literal>i</literal> option makes the pattern matching
6713 case-insensitive. Also note that ungreedy matching alone doesn't always guarantee
6714 a minimal match: In the first parenthesis, we had to use <literal>[^>]*</literal>
6715 instead of <literal>.*</literal> to prevent the match from exceeding the
6716 <body> tag if it doesn't contain <quote>OnUnload</quote>, but the page's
6721 The last example is from the fun department:
6726 FILTER: fun Fun text replacements
6728 # Spice the daily news:
6730 s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig</screen>
6734 Note the <literal>(?!\.com)</literal> part (a so-called negative lookahead)
6735 in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
6736 <quote>.com</quote> appears directly following <quote>microsoft</quote>
6737 in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being trashed, while
6738 still replacing the word everywhere else.
6743 # Buzzword Bingo (example for extended regex syntax)
6745 s* industry[ -]leading \
6747 | customer[ -]focused \
6748 | market[ -]driven \
6749 | award[ -]winning # Comments are OK, too! \
6750 | high[ -]performance \
6751 | solutions[ -]based \
6755 *<font color="red"><b>BINGO!</b></font> \
6760 The <literal>x</literal> option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for
6761 e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
6769 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
6771 <sect2 id="predefined-filters"><title>The Pre-defined Filters</title>
6775 Note each filter is also listed in the +filter action section above. Please
6776 keep these listings in sync.
6781 The distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file contains a selection of
6782 pre-defined filters for your convenience:
6787 <term><emphasis>js-annoyances</emphasis></term>
6790 The purpose of this filter is to get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse.
6795 replaces JavaScript references to the browser's referrer information
6796 with the string "Not Your Business!". This compliments the <literal><link
6797 linkend="hide-referrer">hide-referrer</link></literal> action on the content level.
6802 removes the bindings to the DOM's
6803 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">unload
6804 event</ulink> which we feel has no right to exist and is responsible for most <quote>exit consoles</quote>, i.e.
6805 nasty windows that pop up when you close another one.
6810 removes code that causes new windows to be opened with undesired properties, such as being
6811 full-screen, non-resizeable, without location, status or menu bar etc.
6817 Use with caution. This is an aggressive filter, and can break sites that
6818 rely heavily on JavaScript.
6824 <term><emphasis>js-events</emphasis></term>
6827 This is a very radical measure. It removes virtually all JavaScript event bindings, which
6828 means that scripts can not react to user actions such as mouse movements or clicks, window
6829 resizing etc, anymore. Use with caution!
6832 We <emphasis>strongly discourage</emphasis> using this filter as a default since it breaks
6833 many legitimate scripts. It is meant for use only on extra-nasty sites (should you really
6840 <term><emphasis>html-annoyances</emphasis></term>
6843 This filter will undo many common instances of HTML based abuse.
6846 The <literal>BLINK</literal> and <literal>MARQUEE</literal> tags
6847 are neutralized (yeah baby!), and browser windows will be created as
6848 resizeable (as of course they should be!), and will have location,
6849 scroll and menu bars -- even if specified otherwise.
6855 <term><emphasis>content-cookies</emphasis></term>
6858 Most cookies are set in the HTTP dialog, where they can be intercepted
6860 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>
6861 and <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>
6862 actions. But web sites increasingly make use of HTML meta tags and JavaScript
6863 to sneak cookies to the browser on the content level.
6866 This filter disables most HTML and JavaScript code that reads or sets
6867 cookies. It cannot detect all clever uses of these types of code, so it
6868 should not be relied on as an absolute fix. Use it wherever you would also
6869 use the cookie crunch actions.
6875 <term><emphasis>refresh tags</emphasis></term>
6878 Disable any refresh tags if the interval is greater than nine seconds (so
6879 that redirections done via refresh tags are not destroyed). This is useful
6880 for dial-on-demand setups, or for those who find this HTML feature
6887 <term><emphasis>unsolicited-popups</emphasis></term>
6890 This filter attempts to prevent only <quote>unsolicited</quote> pop-up
6891 windows from opening, yet still allow pop-up windows that the user
6892 has explicitly chosen to open. It was added in version 3.0.1,
6893 as an improvement over earlier such filters.
6896 Technical note: The filter works by redefining the window.open JavaScript
6897 function to a dummy function, <literal>PrivoxyWindowOpen()</literal>,
6898 during the loading and rendering phase of each HTML page access, and
6899 restoring the function afterward.
6902 This is recommended only for browsers that cannot perform this function
6903 reliably themselves. And be aware that some sites require such windows
6904 in order to function normally. Use with caution.
6910 <term><emphasis>all-popups</emphasis></term>
6913 Attempt to prevent <emphasis>all</emphasis> pop-up windows from opening.
6914 Note this should be used with even more discretion than the above, since
6915 it is more likely to break some sites that require pop-ups for normal
6916 usage. Use with caution.
6922 <term><emphasis>img-reorder</emphasis></term>
6925 This is a helper filter that has no value if used alone. It makes the
6926 <literal>banners-by-size</literal> and <literal>banners-by-link</literal>
6927 (see below) filters more effective and should be enabled together with them.
6933 <term><emphasis>banners-by-size</emphasis></term>
6936 This filter removes image tags purely based on what size they are. Fortunately
6937 for us, many ads and banner images tend to conform to certain standardized
6938 sizes, which makes this filter quite effective for ad stripping purposes.
6941 Occasionally this filter will cause false positives on images that are not ads,
6942 but just happen to be of one of the standard banner sizes.
6945 Recommended only for those who require extreme ad blocking. The default
6946 block rules should catch 95+% of all ads <emphasis>without</emphasis> this filter enabled.
6952 <term><emphasis>banners-by-link</emphasis></term>
6955 This is an experimental filter that attempts to kill any banners if
6956 their URLs seem to point to known or suspected click trackers. It is currently
6957 not of much value and is not recommended for use by default.
6963 <term><emphasis>webbugs</emphasis></term>
6966 Webbugs are small, invisible images (technically 1X1 GIF images), that
6967 are used to track users across websites, and collect information on them.
6968 As an HTML page is loaded by the browser, an embedded image tag causes the
6969 browser to contact a third-party site, disclosing the tracking information
6970 through the requested URL and/or cookies for that third-party domain, without
6971 the user ever becoming aware of the interaction with the third-party site.
6972 HTML-ized spam also uses a similar technique to verify email addresses.
6975 This filter removes the HTML code that loads such <quote>webbugs</quote>.
6981 <term><emphasis>tiny-textforms</emphasis></term>
6984 A rather special-purpose filter that can be used to enlarge textareas (those
6985 multi-line text boxes in web forms) and turn off hard word wrap in them.
6986 It was written for the sourceforge.net tracker system where such boxes are
6987 a nuisance, but it can be handy on other sites, too.
6990 It is not recommended to use this filter as a default.
6996 <term><emphasis>jumping-windows</emphasis></term>
6999 Many consider windows that move, or resize themselves to be abusive. This filter
7000 neutralizes the related JavaScript code. Note that some sites might not display
7001 or behave as intended when using this filter. Use with caution.
7007 <term><emphasis>frameset-borders</emphasis></term>
7010 Some web designers seem to assume that everyone in the world will view their
7011 web sites using the same browser brand and version, screen resolution etc,
7012 because only that assumption could explain why they'd use static frame sizes,
7013 yet prevent their frames from being resized by the user, should they be too
7014 small to show their whole content.
7017 This filter removes the related HTML code. It should only be applied to sites
7024 <term><emphasis>demoronizer</emphasis></term>
7027 Many Microsoft products that generate HTML use non-standard extensions (read:
7028 violations) of the ISO 8859-1 aka Latin-1 character set. This can cause those
7029 HTML documents to display with errors on standard-compliant platforms.
7032 This filter translates the MS-only characters into Latin-1 equivalents.
7033 It is not necessary when using MS products, and will cause corruption of
7034 all documents that use 8-bit character sets other than Latin-1. It's mostly
7035 worthwhile for Europeans on non-MS platforms, if weird garbage characters
7036 sometimes appear on some pages, or user agents that don't correct for this on
7039 My version of Mozilla (ancient) shows litte square boxes for quote
7040 characters, and apostrophes on moronized pages. So many pages have this, I
7041 can read them fine now. HB 08/27/06
7048 <term><emphasis>shockwave-flash</emphasis></term>
7051 A filter for shockwave haters. As the name suggests, this filter strips code
7052 out of web pages that is used to embed shockwave flash objects.
7060 <term><emphasis>quicktime-kioskmode</emphasis></term>
7063 Change HTML code that embeds Quicktime objects so that kioskmode, which
7064 prevents saving, is disabled.
7070 <term><emphasis>fun</emphasis></term>
7073 Text replacements for subversive browsing fun. Make fun of your favorite
7074 Monopolist or play buzzword bingo.
7080 <term><emphasis>crude-parental</emphasis></term>
7083 A demonstration-only filter that shows how <application>Privoxy</application>
7084 can be used to delete web content on a keyword basis.
7090 <term><emphasis>ie-exploits</emphasis></term>
7093 An experimental collection of text replacements to disable malicious HTML and JavaScript
7094 code that exploits known security holes in Internet Explorer.
7097 Presently, it only protects against Nimda and a cross-site scripting bug, and
7098 would need active maintenance to provide more substantial protection.
7104 <term><emphasis>site-specifics</emphasis></term>
7107 Some web sites have very specific problems, the cure for which doesn't apply
7108 anywhere else, or could even cause damage on other sites.
7111 This is a collection of such site-specific cures which should only be applied
7112 to the sites they were intended for, which is what the supplied
7113 <filename>default.action</filename> file does. Users shouldn't need to change
7114 anything regarding this filter.
7120 <term><emphasis>google</emphasis></term>
7123 A CSS based block for Google text ads. Also removes a width limitation
7124 and the toolbar advertisement.
7130 <term><emphasis>yahoo</emphasis></term>
7133 Another CSS based block, this time for Yahoo text ads. And removes
7134 a width limitation as well.
7140 <term><emphasis>msn</emphasis></term>
7143 Another CSS based block, this time for MSN text ads. And removes
7144 tracking URLs, as well as a width limitation.
7150 <term><emphasis>blogspot</emphasis></term>
7153 Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this one!
7156 This filter also intentionally removes some navigation stuff and sets the
7157 page width to 100%. As a result, some rounded <quote>corners</quote> would
7158 appear to early or not at all and as fixing this would require a browser
7159 that understands background-size (CSS3), they are removed instead.
7165 <term><emphasis>xml-to-html</emphasis></term>
7168 Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from xml to html.
7174 <term><emphasis>html-to-xml</emphasis></term>
7177 Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from html to xml.
7183 <term><emphasis>no-ping</emphasis></term>
7186 Removes the non-standard <literal>ping</literal> attribute from
7187 anchor and area HTML tags.
7193 <term><emphasis>hide-tor-exit-notation</emphasis></term>
7196 Client-header filter to remove the <command>Tor</command> exit node notation
7197 found in Host and Referer headers.
7200 If &my-app; and <command>Tor</command> are chained and &my-app;
7201 is configured to use socks4a, one can use <quote>http://www.example.org.foobar.exit/</quote>
7202 to access the host <quote>www.example.org</quote> through the
7203 <command>Tor</command> exit node <quote>foobar</quote>.
7206 As the HTTP client isn't aware of this notation, it treats the
7207 whole string <quote>www.example.org.foobar.exit</quote> as host and uses it
7208 for the <quote>Host</quote> and <quote>Referer</quote> headers. From the
7209 server's point of view the resulting headers are invalid and can cause problems.
7212 An invalid <quote>Referer</quote> header can trigger <quote>hot-linking</quote>
7213 protections, an invalid <quote>Host</quote> header will make it impossible for
7214 the server to find the right vhost (several domains hosted on the same IP address).
7217 This client-header filter removes the <quote>foo.exit</quote> part in those headers
7218 to prevent the mentioned problems. Note that it only modifies
7219 the HTTP headers, it doesn't make it impossible for the server
7220 to detect your <command>Tor</command> exit node based on the IP address
7221 the request is coming from.
7228 <term><emphasis> </emphasis></term>
7242 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7246 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7248 <sect1 id="templates">
7249 <title>Privoxy's Template Files</title>
7251 All <application>Privoxy</application> built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
7252 <ulink url="http://show-the-404-error.page"><quote>404 - No Such Domain</quote>
7253 error page</ulink>, the <ulink
7254 url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
7256 and all pages of its <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
7257 user interface</ulink>, are generated from <emphasis>templates</emphasis>.
7258 (<application>Privoxy</application> must be running for the above links to work as
7263 These templates are stored in a subdirectory of the <link linkend="confdir">configuration
7264 directory</link> called <filename>templates</filename>. On Unixish platforms,
7266 <ulink url="file:///etc/privoxy/templates/"><filename>/etc/privoxy/templates/</filename></ulink>.
7270 The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols
7271 or exports), which <application>Privoxy</application> fills at run time. It
7272 is possible to edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want
7273 to customize them. (<emphasis>Not recommended for the casual
7274 user</emphasis>). Should you create your own custom templates, you should use
7275 the <filename>config</filename> setting <link linkend="templdir">templdir</link>
7276 to specify an alternate location, so your templates do not get overwritten
7280 Note that just like in configuration files, lines starting
7281 with <literal>#</literal> are ignored when the templates are filled in.
7285 The place-holders are of the form <literal>@name@</literal>, and you will
7286 find a list of available symbols, which vary from template to template,
7287 in the comments at the start of each file. Note that these comments are not
7288 always accurate, and that it's probably best to look at the existing HTML
7289 code to find out which symbols are supported and what they are filled in with.
7293 A special application of this substitution mechanism is to make whole
7294 blocks of HTML code disappear when a specific symbol is set. We use this
7295 for many purposes, one of them being to include the beta warning in all
7296 our user interface (CGI) pages when <application>Privoxy</application>
7297 is in an alpha or beta development stage:
7302 <!-- @if-unstable-start -->
7304 ... beta warning HTML code goes here ...
7306 <!-- if-unstable-end@ --></screen>
7310 If the "unstable" symbol is set, everything in between and including
7311 <literal>@if-unstable-start</literal> and <literal>if-unstable-end@</literal>
7312 will disappear, leaving nothing but an empty comment:
7316 <screen><!-- --></screen>
7320 There's also an if-then-else construct and an <literal>#include</literal>
7321 mechanism, but you'll sure find out if you are inclined to edit the
7326 All templates refer to a style located at
7327 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet"><literal>http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet</literal></ulink>.
7328 This is, of course, locally served by <application>Privoxy</application>
7329 and the source for it can be found and edited in the
7330 <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> template.
7335 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7339 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7341 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
7344 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
7346 <!-- end boilerplate -->
7350 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7353 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7354 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Privoxy Copyright, License and History</title>
7356 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
7358 <!-- end copyright -->
7360 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7361 <sect2><title>License</title>
7362 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
7364 <!-- end copyright -->
7366 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7369 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7371 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
7372 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
7374 <!-- end history -->
7377 <sect2 id="authors"><title>Authors</title>
7378 <!-- Include p-authors.sgml: -->
7380 <!-- end authors -->
7385 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7388 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7389 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
7390 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
7392 <!-- end seealso -->
7397 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7398 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
7401 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7403 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
7405 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl-style <quote>regular
7406 expressions</quote> in its <link linkend="actions-file">actions
7407 files</link> and <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>,
7408 through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> and
7411 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/">PCRS</ulink> libraries.
7413 <application>PCRS</application> libraries.
7417 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
7418 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
7419 introduction only. A full explanation would require a <ulink
7420 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/">book</ulink> ;-)
7424 Regular expressions provide a language to describe patterns that can be
7425 run against strings of characters (letter, numbers, etc), to see if they
7426 match the string or not. The patterns are themselves (sometimes complex)
7427 strings of literal characters, combined with wild-cards, and other special
7428 characters, called meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have
7429 special meanings and are used to build complex patterns to be matched against.
7430 Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are an especially convenient
7431 <quote>dialect</quote> of the regular expression language.
7435 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
7436 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
7437 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
7438 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
7439 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
7440 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
7441 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
7442 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
7446 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
7447 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
7448 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
7449 and then some examples:
7454 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
7455 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
7457 </simplelist></para>
7461 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
7464 </simplelist></para>
7468 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
7471 </simplelist></para>
7475 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
7478 </simplelist></para>
7482 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
7483 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
7484 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
7485 not as a special meta-character. Example: <quote>example\.com</quote>, makes
7486 sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
7487 meta-character meaning of any single character).
7489 </simplelist></para>
7493 <emphasis>[ ]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
7494 any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, <quote>[0-9]</quote>
7495 matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
7496 this with <quote>+</quote> to match any digit one of more times: <quote>[0-9]+</quote>.
7498 </simplelist></para>
7502 <emphasis>( )</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
7503 or multiple sub-expressions.
7505 </simplelist></para>
7509 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
7510 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
7511 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches. As an example:
7512 <quote>/(this|that) example/</quote> uses grouping and the bar character
7513 and would match either <quote>this example</quote> or <quote>that
7514 example</quote>, and nothing else.
7516 </simplelist></para>
7519 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
7520 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
7521 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
7522 be more illuminating:
7526 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
7527 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
7528 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
7529 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
7530 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
7531 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
7532 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
7533 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
7534 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
7535 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
7536 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
7537 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
7538 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
7539 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
7544 And now something a little more complex:
7548 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
7549 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
7550 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
7551 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
7552 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
7553 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
7554 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
7559 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
7560 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
7561 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
7562 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
7563 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
7564 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
7565 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
7566 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
7567 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
7568 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
7569 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
7570 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
7571 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
7572 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
7573 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
7574 changing our regular expression to:
7575 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
7580 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
7581 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
7582 <quote>[ ]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
7583 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
7584 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
7585 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
7586 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
7587 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
7588 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
7589 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
7590 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
7591 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
7592 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
7593 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
7594 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
7595 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
7596 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
7597 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
7598 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
7599 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
7600 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
7601 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
7602 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
7603 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
7604 in the expression anywhere).
7608 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
7609 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
7610 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
7611 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
7612 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
7617 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
7618 <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html</ulink>
7622 For information on regular expression based substitutions and their applications
7623 in filters, please see the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file tutorial</link>
7628 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7631 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7633 <title>Privoxy's Internal Pages</title>
7636 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
7637 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
7638 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
7639 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
7640 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
7641 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
7642 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
7648 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
7649 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
7650 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
7651 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
7664 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
7668 There is a shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> (But it
7669 doesn't provide a fall-back to a real page, in case the request is not
7670 sent through <application>Privoxy</application>)
7676 Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
7677 editing of actions files:
7681 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
7688 Show the source code version numbers:
7692 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
7699 Show the browser's request headers:
7703 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
7710 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
7714 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
7721 Toggle Privoxy on or off. This feature can be turned off/on in the main
7722 <filename>config</filename> file. When toggled <quote>off</quote>, <quote>Privoxy</quote>
7723 continues to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking
7728 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
7732 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
7736 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
7741 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
7750 These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
7754 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
7755 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
7757 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
7758 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
7759 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
7760 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
7761 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
7762 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
7765 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
7766 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
7767 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
7768 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
7769 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
7770 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
7779 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>
7786 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>
7793 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)
7800 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>
7806 <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>
7812 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info?url='+escape(location.href),'Why').focus());">Privoxy - Why?</ulink>
7819 Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
7820 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com/">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
7821 have more information about bookmarklets.
7830 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7832 <title>Chain of Events</title>
7834 Let's take a quick look at how some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
7835 core features are triggered, and the ensuing sequence of events when a web
7836 page is requested by your browser:
7843 First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
7844 the request to <application>Privoxy</application>, which will in turn,
7845 relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
7851 <application>Privoxy</application> traps any request for its own internal CGI
7852 pages (e.g <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
7857 Next, <application>Privoxy</application> checks to see if the URL
7859 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link> patterns. If
7860 so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
7861 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>
7863 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-EMPTY-DOCUMENT"><quote>+handle-as-empty-document</quote></link>
7864 are then checked, and if there is no match, an
7865 HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page is sent back to the browser. Otherwise, if
7866 it does match, an image is returned for the former, and an empty text
7867 document for the latter. The type of image would depend on the setting of
7868 <link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></link>
7869 (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
7874 Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
7875 <filename>trust</filename> file, then that is done.
7880 If the URL pattern matches the <link
7881 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link> action,
7882 it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
7887 Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
7888 of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. <link
7889 linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT"><quote>+hide-user-agent</quote></link>,
7890 etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
7896 Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web
7902 First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
7903 things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
7904 filtered as determined by the
7905 <link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES"><quote>+crunch-incoming-cookies</quote></link>,
7906 <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>,
7907 and <link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION"><quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote></link>
7913 If any <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
7915 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
7916 action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
7917 read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from
7918 <filename>default.filter</filename> and any other filter files) are
7919 processed against the buffered content. Filters are applied in the order
7920 they are specified in one of the filter files. Animated GIFs, if present,
7921 are reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
7922 setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
7923 <application>Privoxy</application> back to your browser.
7926 If neither a <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
7928 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
7929 matches, then <application>Privoxy</application> passes the raw data through
7930 to the client browser as it becomes available.
7935 As the browser receives the now (possibly filtered) page content, it
7936 reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
7937 source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
7938 frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a
7939 separate request (this is easily viewable in <application>Privoxy's</application>
7940 logs). And each such request is in turn processed just as above. Note that a
7941 complex web page will have many, many such embedded URLs. If these
7942 secondary requests are to a different server, then quite possibly a very
7943 differing set of actions is triggered.
7950 NOTE: This is somewhat of a simplistic overview of what happens with each URL
7951 request. For the sake of brevity and simplicity, we have focused on
7952 <application>Privoxy's</application> core features only.
7958 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7959 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
7960 <title>Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</title>
7963 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies
7964 <link linkend="ACTIONS">actions</link> and <link linkend="FILTER">filters</link>
7965 to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
7966 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
7967 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
7968 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
7969 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
7970 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
7971 <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> whose consequences are not
7976 One quick test to see if <application>Privoxy</application> is causing a problem
7977 or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
7978 step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
7979 and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!). Looking at the
7980 logs is a good idea too. (Note that both the toggle feature and logging are
7981 enabled via <filename>config</filename> file settings, and may need to be
7982 turned <quote>on</quote>.)
7985 Another easy troubleshooting step to try is if you have done any
7986 customization of your installation, revert back to the installed
7987 defaults and see if that helps. There are times the developers get complaints
7988 about one thing or another, and the problem is more related to a customized
7989 configuration issue.
7993 <application>Privoxy</application> also provides the
7994 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
7995 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
7996 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
8000 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
8001 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
8002 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
8003 help with filtering effects (i.e. the <link
8004 linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action) from
8005 one of the filter files since this is handled very
8006 differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other
8007 URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images
8008 such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So
8009 you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area
8010 -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you
8011 will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View
8012 Page Source</quote> option for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the
8017 Let's try an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
8018 and look at it one section at a time in a sample configuration (your real
8019 configuration may vary):
8024 Matches for http://www.google.com:
8026 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8028 {+change-x-forwarded-for{block}
8029 +deanimate-gifs {last}
8030 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
8031 +filter {refresh-tags}
8032 +filter {img-reorder}
8033 +filter {banners-by-size}
8035 +filter {jumping-windows}
8036 +filter {ie-exploits}
8037 +hide-from-header {block}
8038 +hide-referrer {forge}
8039 +session-cookies-only
8040 +set-image-blocker {pattern}
8043 { -session-cookies-only }
8049 In file: user.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8050 (no matches in this file)
8055 This is telling us how we have defined our
8056 <link linkend="ACTIONS"><quote>actions</quote></link>, and
8057 which ones match for our test case, <quote>google.com</quote>.
8058 Displayed is all the actions that are available to us. Remember,
8059 the <literal>+</literal> sign denotes <quote>on</quote>. <literal>-</literal>
8060 denotes <quote>off</quote>. So some are <quote>on</quote> here, but many
8061 are <quote>off</quote>. Each example we try may provide a slightly different
8062 end result, depending on our configuration directives.
8066 is for our <filename>default.action</filename> file. The large, multi-line
8067 listing, is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default
8068 settings. If you look at your <quote>actions</quote> file, this would be the
8069 section just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section near the top. This
8070 will apply to all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end
8071 of the listing -- <quote> / </quote>.
8075 But we have defined additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
8076 rules, and then we list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions
8077 would apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit
8078 matches for <quote>.google.com</quote>. The first is negating our previous
8079 cookie setting, which was for <link
8080 linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>
8081 (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google, at
8082 least that is how it is in this example. The second turns
8083 <emphasis>off</emphasis> any <link
8084 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link>
8085 action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading
8086 dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will match any hosts and
8087 sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
8088 <quote>www.google.com</quote> or <quote>mail.google.com</quote>. But it would not
8089 match <quote>www.google.de</quote>! So, apparently, we have these two actions
8090 defined as exceptions to the general rules at the top somewhere in the lower
8091 part of our <filename>default.action</filename> file, and
8092 <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced somewhere in these latter sections.
8096 Then, for our <filename>user.action</filename> file, we again have no hits.
8097 So there is nothing google-specific that we might have added to our own, local
8098 configuration. If there was, those actions would over-rule any actions from
8099 previously processed files, such as <filename>default.action</filename>.
8100 <filename>user.action</filename> typically has the last word. This is the
8101 best place to put hard and fast exceptions,
8105 And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
8106 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
8107 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
8118 +change-x-forwarded-for{block}
8119 -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
8120 -content-type-overwrite
8121 -crunch-client-header
8122 -crunch-if-none-match
8123 -crunch-incoming-cookies
8124 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
8125 -crunch-server-header
8126 +deanimate-gifs {last}
8127 -downgrade-http-version
8130 -filter {content-cookies}
8131 -filter {all-popups}
8132 -filter {banners-by-link}
8133 -filter {tiny-textforms}
8134 -filter {frameset-borders}
8135 -filter {demoronizer}
8136 -filter {shockwave-flash}
8137 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
8139 -filter {crude-parental}
8140 -filter {site-specifics}
8141 -filter {js-annoyances}
8142 -filter {html-annoyances}
8143 +filter {refresh-tags}
8144 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
8145 +filter {img-reorder}
8146 +filter {banners-by-size}
8148 +filter {jumping-windows}
8149 +filter {ie-exploits}
8156 -handle-as-empty-document
8158 -hide-accept-language
8159 -hide-content-disposition
8160 +hide-from-header {block}
8161 -hide-if-modified-since
8162 +hide-referrer {forge}
8165 -overwrite-last-modified
8166 -prevent-compression
8168 -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
8169 -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
8170 -session-cookies-only
8171 +set-image-blocker {pattern} </screen>
8175 Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
8176 <quote>fast-redirects</quote> and <quote>session-cookies-only</quote>,
8177 which are activated specifically for this site in our configuration,
8178 and thus show in the <quote>Final Results</quote>.
8182 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
8188 { +block{Domains starts with "ad"} }
8191 { +block{Domain contains "ad"} }
8194 { +block{Doubleclick banner server} +handle-as-image }
8195 .[a-vx-z]*.doubleclick.net
8200 We'll just show the interesting part here - the explicit matches. It is
8201 matched three different times. Two <quote>+block{}</quote> sections,
8202 and a <quote>+block{} +handle-as-image</quote>,
8203 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
8204 <quote>+block-as-image</quote>. (<link
8205 linkend="ALIASES"><quote>Aliases</quote></link> are defined in
8206 the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
8211 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
8212 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
8213 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
8214 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
8215 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
8216 is done here -- as both a <link
8217 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block{}</quote></link>
8218 <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
8219 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>.
8220 The custom alias <quote><literal>+block-as-image</literal></quote> just
8221 simplifies the process and make it more readable.
8225 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
8226 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm ...
8232 Matches for http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
8234 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8238 +change-x-forwarded-for{block}
8239 -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
8240 -content-type-overwrite
8241 -crunch-client-header
8242 -crunch-if-none-match
8243 -crunch-incoming-cookies
8244 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
8245 -crunch-server-header
8247 -downgrade-http-version
8248 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
8250 -filter {content-cookies}
8251 -filter {all-popups}
8252 -filter {banners-by-link}
8253 -filter {tiny-textforms}
8254 -filter {frameset-borders}
8255 -filter {demoronizer}
8256 -filter {shockwave-flash}
8257 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
8259 -filter {crude-parental}
8260 -filter {site-specifics}
8261 -filter {js-annoyances}
8262 -filter {html-annoyances}
8263 +filter {refresh-tags}
8264 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
8265 +filter {img-reorder}
8266 +filter {banners-by-size}
8268 +filter {jumping-windows}
8269 +filter {ie-exploits}
8276 -handle-as-empty-document
8278 -hide-accept-language
8279 -hide-content-disposition
8280 +hide-from-header{block}
8281 +hide-referer{forge}
8283 -overwrite-last-modified
8284 +prevent-compression
8286 -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
8287 -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
8288 +session-cookies-only
8289 +set-image-blocker{blank} }
8292 { +block{Path contains "ads".} +handle-as-image }
8298 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote> in our
8299 configuration! But we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the
8300 blank page. It is actually triggering two different actions here, and
8301 the effects are aggregated so that the URL is blocked, and &my-app; is told
8302 to treat the block as if it were an image. But this is, of course, all wrong.
8303 We could now add a new action below this (or better in our own
8304 <filename>user.action</filename> file) that explicitly
8305 <emphasis>un</emphasis> blocks (
8306 <link linkend="BLOCK"><quote>{-block}</quote></link>) paths with
8307 <quote>adsl</quote> in them (remember, last match in the configuration
8308 wins). There are various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
8320 Now the page displays ;-)
8321 Remember to flush your browser's caches when making these kinds of changes to
8322 your configuration to insure that you get a freshly delivered page! Or, try
8323 using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
8327 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
8334 { +block{Path starts with "ads".} +handle-as-image }
8340 That actually was very helpful and pointed us quickly to where the problem
8341 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
8342 rules in the first section of <filename>default.action</filename> is causing
8343 the problem. This would require some guesswork, and maybe a little trial and
8344 error to isolate the offending rule. One likely cause would be one of the
8345 <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> actions.
8346 These tend to be harder to troubleshoot.
8347 Try adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off
8348 <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>:
8356 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
8364 <quote><literal>{ shop }</literal></quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
8365 <quote><literal>{ -filter -session-cookies-only }</literal></quote>.
8366 Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
8374 # Disable ALL filter actions for sites in this section
8382 This would turn off all filtering for these sites. This is best
8383 put in <filename>user.action</filename>, for local site
8384 exceptions. Note that when a simple domain pattern is used by itself (without
8385 the subsequent path portion), all sub-pages within that domain are included
8386 automatically in the scope of the action.
8390 Images that are inexplicably being blocked, may well be hitting the
8391 <link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE"><quote>+filter{banners-by-size}</quote></link>
8393 that images of certain sizes are ad banners (works well
8394 <emphasis>most of the time</emphasis> since these tend to be standardized).
8398 <quote><literal>{ fragile }</literal></quote> is an alias that disables most
8399 actions that are the most likely to cause trouble. This can be used as a
8400 last resort for problem sites.
8406 # Handle with care: easy to break
8408 mybank.example.com</screen>
8413 <emphasis>Remember to flush caches!</emphasis> Note that the
8414 <literal>mail.google</literal> reference lacks the TLD portion (e.g.
8415 <quote>.com</quote>). This will effectively match any TLD with
8416 <literal>google</literal> in it, such as <literal>mail.google.de.</literal>,
8420 If this still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining
8421 actions one by one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
8430 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
8431 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
8432 Public License as published by the Free Software
8433 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
8434 your option) any later version.
8436 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
8437 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
8438 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
8439 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
8440 License for more details.
8442 The GNU General Public License should be included with
8443 this file. If not, you can view it at
8444 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
8445 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
8446 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301,
8449 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
8450 Revision 2.91 2009/01/13 16:50:35 fabiankeil
8451 The standard.action file is gone.
8453 Revision 2.90 2008/09/26 16:53:09 fabiankeil
8454 Update "What's new" section.
8456 Revision 2.89 2008/09/21 15:38:56 fabiankeil
8457 Fix Portage tree sync instructions in Gentoo section.
8458 Anonymously reported at ijbswa-developers@.
8460 Revision 2.88 2008/09/21 14:42:52 fabiankeil
8461 Add documentation for change-x-forwarded-for{},
8462 remove documentation for hide-forwarded-for-headers.
8464 Revision 2.87 2008/08/30 15:37:35 fabiankeil
8467 Revision 2.86 2008/08/16 10:12:23 fabiankeil
8468 Merge two sentences and move the URL to the end of the item.
8470 Revision 2.85 2008/08/16 10:04:59 fabiankeil
8471 Some more syntax fixes. This version actually builds.
8473 Revision 2.84 2008/08/16 09:42:45 fabiankeil
8474 Turns out building docs works better if the syntax is valid.
8476 Revision 2.83 2008/08/16 09:32:02 fabiankeil
8477 Mention changes since 3.0.9 beta.
8479 Revision 2.82 2008/08/16 09:00:52 fabiankeil
8480 Fix example URL pattern (once more with feeling).
8482 Revision 2.81 2008/08/16 08:51:28 fabiankeil
8483 Update version-related entities.
8485 Revision 2.80 2008/07/18 16:54:30 fabiankeil
8486 Remove erroneous whitespace in documentation link.
8487 Reported by John Chronister in #2021611.
8489 Revision 2.79 2008/06/27 18:00:53 markm68k
8490 remove outdated startup information for mac os x
8492 Revision 2.78 2008/06/21 17:03:03 fabiankeil
8495 Revision 2.77 2008/06/14 13:45:22 fabiankeil
8496 Re-add a colon I unintentionally removed a few revisions ago.
8498 Revision 2.76 2008/06/14 13:21:28 fabiankeil
8499 Prepare for the upcoming 3.0.9 beta release.
8501 Revision 2.75 2008/06/13 16:06:48 fabiankeil
8502 Update the "What's New in this Release" section with
8503 the ChangeLog entries changelog2doc.pl could handle.
8505 Revision 2.74 2008/05/26 15:55:46 fabiankeil
8506 - Update "default profiles" table.
8507 - Add some more pcrs redirect examples and note that
8508 enabling debug 128 helps to get redirects working.
8510 Revision 2.73 2008/05/23 14:43:18 fabiankeil
8511 Remove previously out-commented block that caused syntax problems.
8513 Revision 2.72 2008/05/12 10:26:14 fabiankeil
8514 Synchronize content filter descriptions with the ones in default.filter.
8516 Revision 2.71 2008/04/10 17:37:16 fabiankeil
8517 Actually we use "modern" POSIX 1003.2 regular
8518 expressions in path patterns, not PCRE.
8520 Revision 2.70 2008/04/10 15:59:12 fabiankeil
8521 Add another section to the client-header-tagger example that shows
8522 how to actually change the action settings once the tag is created.
8524 Revision 2.69 2008/03/29 12:14:25 fabiankeil
8525 Remove send-wafer and send-vanilla-wafer actions.
8527 Revision 2.68 2008/03/28 15:13:43 fabiankeil
8528 Remove inspect-jpegs action.
8530 Revision 2.67 2008/03/27 18:31:21 fabiankeil
8531 Remove kill-popups action.
8533 Revision 2.66 2008/03/06 16:33:47 fabiankeil
8534 If limit-connect isn't used, don't limit CONNECT requests to port 443.
8536 Revision 2.65 2008/03/04 18:30:40 fabiankeil
8537 Remove the treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks action. We now
8538 use the "blocked" page for forbidden CONNECT requests by default.
8540 Revision 2.64 2008/03/01 14:10:28 fabiankeil
8541 Use new block syntax. Still needs some polishing.
8543 Revision 2.63 2008/02/22 05:50:37 markm68k
8546 Revision 2.62 2008/02/11 11:52:23 hal9
8547 Fix entity ... s/&/&
8549 Revision 2.61 2008/02/11 03:41:47 markm68k
8550 more updates for mac os x
8552 Revision 2.60 2008/02/11 03:40:25 markm68k
8553 more updates for mac os x
8555 Revision 2.59 2008/02/11 00:52:34 markm68k
8556 reflect new changes for mac os x
8558 Revision 2.58 2008/02/03 21:37:40 hal9
8559 Apply patch from Mark: s/OSX/OS X/
8561 Revision 2.57 2008/02/03 19:10:14 fabiankeil
8562 Mention forward-socks5.
8564 Revision 2.56 2008/01/31 19:11:35 fabiankeil
8565 Let the +client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation} example apply
8566 to all requests as "tainted" Referers aren't limited to exit TLDs.
8568 Revision 2.55 2008/01/19 21:26:37 hal9
8569 Add IE7 to configuration section per Gerry.
8571 Revision 2.54 2008/01/19 17:52:39 hal9
8572 Re-commit to fix various minor issues for new release.
8574 Revision 2.53 2008/01/19 15:03:05 hal9
8575 Doc sources tagged for 3.0.8 release.
8577 Revision 2.52 2008/01/17 01:49:51 hal9
8578 Change copyright notice for docs s/2007/2008/. All these will be rebuilt soon
8581 Revision 2.51 2007/12/23 16:48:24 fabiankeil
8582 Use more precise example descriptions for the mysterious domain patterns.
8584 Revision 2.50 2007/12/08 12:44:36 fabiankeil
8585 - Remove already commented out pre-3.0.7 changes.
8586 - Update the "new log defaults" paragraph.
8588 Revision 2.49 2007/12/06 18:21:55 fabiankeil
8589 Update hide-forwarded-for-headers description.
8591 Revision 2.48 2007/11/24 19:07:17 fabiankeil
8592 - Mention request rewriting.
8593 - Enable the conditional-forge paragraph.
8596 Revision 2.47 2007/11/18 14:59:47 fabiankeil
8597 A few "Note to Upgraders" updates.
8599 Revision 2.46 2007/11/17 17:24:44 fabiankeil
8600 - Use new action defaults.
8601 - Minor fixes and rewordings.
8603 Revision 2.45 2007/11/16 11:48:46 hal9
8604 Fix one typo, and add a couple of small refinements.
8606 Revision 2.44 2007/11/15 03:30:20 hal9
8607 Results of spell check.
8609 Revision 2.43 2007/11/14 18:45:39 fabiankeil
8610 - Mention some more contributors in the "New in this Release" list.
8613 Revision 2.42 2007/11/12 03:32:40 hal9
8614 Updates for "What's New" and "Notes to Upgraders". Various other changes in
8615 preparation for new release. User Manual is almost ready.
8617 Revision 2.41 2007/11/11 16:32:11 hal9
8618 This is primarily syncing What's New and Note to Upgraders sections with the many
8619 new features and changes (gleaned from memory but mostly from ChangeLog).
8621 Revision 2.40 2007/11/10 17:10:59 fabiankeil
8622 In the first third of the file, mention several times that
8623 the action editor is disabled by default in 3.0.7 beta and later.
8625 Revision 2.39 2007/11/05 02:34:49 hal9
8626 Various changes in preparation for the upcoming release. Much yet to be done.
8628 Revision 2.38 2007/09/22 16:01:42 fabiankeil
8629 Update embedded show-url-info output.
8631 Revision 2.37 2007/08/27 16:09:55 fabiankeil
8632 Fix pre-chroot-nslookup description which I failed to
8633 copy and paste properly. Reported by Stephen Gildea.
8635 Revision 2.36 2007/08/26 16:47:14 fabiankeil
8636 Add Stephen Gildea's pre-chroot-nslookup patch [#1276666],
8637 extensive comments moved to user manual.
8639 Revision 2.35 2007/08/26 14:59:49 fabiankeil
8640 Minor rewordings and fixes.
8642 Revision 2.34 2007/08/05 15:19:50 fabiankeil
8643 - Don't claim HTTP/1.1 compliance.
8644 - Use $ in some of the path pattern examples.
8645 - Use a hide-user-agent example argument without
8646 leading and trailing space.
8647 - Make it clear that the cookie actions work with
8649 - Rephrase the inspect-jpegs text to underline
8650 that it's only meant to protect against a single
8653 Revision 2.33 2007/07/27 10:57:35 hal9
8654 Add references for user-agent strings for hide-user-agenet
8656 Revision 2.32 2007/06/07 12:36:22 fabiankeil
8657 Apply Roland's 29_usermanual.dpatch to fix a bunch
8658 of syntax errors I collected over the last months.
8660 Revision 2.31 2007/06/02 14:01:37 fabiankeil
8661 Start to document forward-override{}.
8663 Revision 2.30 2007/04/25 15:10:36 fabiankeil
8664 - Describe installation for FreeBSD.
8665 - Start to document taggers and tag patterns.
8666 - Don't confuse devils and daemons.
8668 Revision 2.29 2007/04/05 11:47:51 fabiankeil
8669 Some updates regarding header filtering,
8670 handling of compressed content and redirect's
8671 support for pcrs commands.
8673 Revision 2.28 2006/12/10 23:42:48 hal9
8674 Fix various typos reported by Adam P. Thanks.
8676 Revision 2.27 2006/11/14 01:57:47 hal9
8677 Dump all docs prior to 3.0.6 release. Various minor changes to faq and user
8680 Revision 2.26 2006/10/24 11:16:44 hal9
8683 Revision 2.25 2006/10/18 10:50:33 hal9
8684 Add note that since filters are off in Cautious, compression is ON. Turn off
8685 compression to make filters work on all sites.
8687 Revision 2.24 2006/10/03 11:13:54 hal9
8688 More references to the new filters. Include html this time around.
8690 Revision 2.23 2006/10/02 22:43:53 hal9
8691 Contains new filter definitions from Fabian, and few other miscellaneous
8694 Revision 2.22 2006/09/22 01:27:55 hal9
8695 Final commit of probably various minor changes here and there. Unless
8696 something changes this should be ready for pending release.
8698 Revision 2.21 2006/09/20 03:21:36 david__schmidt
8699 Just the tiniest tweak. Wafer thin!
8701 Revision 2.20 2006/09/10 14:53:54 hal9
8702 Results of spell check. User manual has some updates to standard.actions file
8705 Revision 2.19 2006/09/08 12:19:02 fabiankeil
8706 Adjust hide-if-modified-since example values
8707 to reflect the recent changes.
8709 Revision 2.18 2006/09/08 02:38:57 hal9
8711 -Fix a number of broken links.
8712 -Migrate the new Windows service command line options, and reference as
8714 -Rebuild so that can be used with the new "user-manual" config capabilities.
8717 Revision 2.17 2006/09/05 13:25:12 david__schmidt
8718 Add Windows service invocation stuff (duplicated) in FAQ and in user manual under Windows startup. One probably ought to reference the other.
8720 Revision 2.16 2006/09/02 12:49:37 hal9
8721 Various small updates for new actions, filterfiles, etc.
8723 Revision 2.15 2006/08/30 11:15:22 hal9
8724 More work on the new actions, especially filter-*-headers, and What's New
8725 section. User Manual is close to final form for 3.0.4 release. Some tinkering
8726 and proof reading left to do.
8728 Revision 2.14 2006/08/29 10:59:36 hal9
8729 Add a "Whats New in this release" Section. Further work on multiple filter
8730 files, and assorted other minor changes.
8732 Revision 2.13 2006/08/22 11:04:59 hal9
8733 Silence warnings and errors. This should build now. New filters were only
8734 stubbed in. More to be done.
8736 Revision 2.12 2006/08/14 08:40:39 fabiankeil
8737 Documented new actions that were part of
8738 the "minor Privoxy improvements".
8740 Revision 2.11 2006/07/18 14:48:51 david__schmidt
8741 Reorganizing the repository: swapping out what was HEAD (the old 3.1 branch)
8742 with what was really the latest development (the v_3_0_branch branch)
8744 Revision 1.123.2.43 2005/05/23 09:59:10 hal9
8747 Revision 1.123.2.42 2004/12/04 14:39:57 hal9
8748 Fix two minor typos per bug SF report.
8750 Revision 1.123.2.41 2004/03/23 12:58:42 oes
8753 Revision 1.123.2.40 2004/02/27 12:48:49 hal9
8754 Add comment re: redirecting to local file system for set-image-blocker may
8755 is dependent on browser.
8757 Revision 1.123.2.39 2004/01/30 22:31:40 oes
8758 Added a hint re bookmarklets to Quickstart section
8760 Revision 1.123.2.38 2004/01/30 16:47:51 oes
8761 Some minor clarifications
8763 Revision 1.123.2.37 2004/01/29 22:36:11 hal9
8764 Updates for no longer filtering text/plain, and demoronizer default settings,
8765 and copyright notice dates.
8767 Revision 1.123.2.36 2003/12/10 02:26:26 hal9
8768 Changed the demoronizer filter description.
8770 Revision 1.123.2.35 2003/11/06 13:36:37 oes
8771 Updated link to nightly CVS tarball
8773 Revision 1.123.2.34 2003/06/26 23:50:16 hal9
8774 Add a small bit on filtering and problems re: source code being corrupted.
8776 Revision 1.123.2.33 2003/05/08 18:17:33 roro
8777 Use apt-get instead of dpkg to install Debian package, which is more
8778 solid, uses the correct and most recent Debian version automatically.
8780 Revision 1.123.2.32 2003/04/11 03:13:57 hal9
8781 Add small note about only one filterfile (as opposed to multiple actions
8784 Revision 1.123.2.31 2003/03/26 02:03:43 oes
8785 Updated hard-coded copyright dates
8787 Revision 1.123.2.30 2003/03/24 12:58:56 hal9
8788 Add new section on Predefined Filters.
8790 Revision 1.123.2.29 2003/03/20 02:45:29 hal9
8791 More problems with \-\-chroot causing markup problems :(
8793 Revision 1.123.2.28 2003/03/19 00:35:24 hal9
8794 Manual edit of revision log because 'chroot' (even inside a comment) was
8795 causing Docbook to hang here (due to double hyphen and the processor thinking
8798 Revision 1.123.2.27 2003/03/18 19:37:14 oes
8799 s/Advanced|Radical/Adventuresome/g to avoid complaints re fun filter
8801 Revision 1.123.2.26 2003/03/17 16:50:53 oes
8802 Added documentation for new chroot option
8804 Revision 1.123.2.25 2003/03/15 18:36:55 oes
8805 Adapted to the new filters
8807 Revision 1.123.2.24 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9
8808 Move default profiles table from FAQ to U-M, and other minor related changes.
8811 Revision 1.123.2.23 2002/10/21 02:32:01 hal9
8812 Updates to the user.action examples section. A few new ones.
8814 Revision 1.123.2.22 2002/10/12 00:51:53 hal9
8815 Add demoronizer to filter section.
8817 Revision 1.123.2.21 2002/10/10 04:09:35 hal9
8818 s/Advanced/Radical/ and added very brief note.
8820 Revision 1.123.2.20 2002/10/10 03:49:21 hal9
8821 Add notes to session-cookies-only and Quickstart about pre-existing
8822 cookies. Also, note content-cookies work differently.
8824 Revision 1.123.2.19 2002/09/26 01:25:36 hal9
8825 More explanation on Privoxy patterns, more on content-cookies and SSL.
8827 Revision 1.123.2.18 2002/08/22 23:47:58 hal9
8828 Add 'Documentation' to Privoxy Menu shot in Configuration section to match
8831 Revision 1.123.2.17 2002/08/18 01:13:05 hal9
8832 Spell checked (only one typo this time!).
8834 Revision 1.123.2.16 2002/08/09 19:20:54 david__schmidt
8835 Update to Mac OS X startup script name
8837 Revision 1.123.2.15 2002/08/07 17:32:11 oes
8838 Converted some internal links from ulink to link for PDF creation; no content changed
8840 Revision 1.123.2.14 2002/08/06 09:16:13 oes
8841 Nits re: actions file download
8843 Revision 1.123.2.13 2002/08/02 18:23:19 g_sauthoff
8844 Just 2 small corrections to the Gentoo sections
8846 Revision 1.123.2.12 2002/08/02 18:17:21 g_sauthoff
8847 Added 2 Gentoo sections
8849 Revision 1.123.2.11 2002/07/26 15:20:31 oes
8850 - Added version info to title
8851 - Added info on new filters
8852 - Revised parts of the filter file tutorial
8853 - Added info on where to get updated actions files
8855 Revision 1.123.2.10 2002/07/25 21:42:29 hal9
8856 Add brief notes on not proxying non-HTTP protocols.
8858 Revision 1.123.2.9 2002/07/11 03:40:28 david__schmidt
8860 Updated Mac OS X sections due to installation location change
8862 Revision 1.123.2.8 2002/06/09 16:36:32 hal9
8863 Clarifications on filtering and MIME. Hardcode 'latest release' in index.html.
8865 Revision 1.123.2.7 2002/06/09 00:29:34 hal9
8866 Touch ups on filtering, in actions section and Anatomy.
8868 Revision 1.123.2.6 2002/06/06 23:11:03 hal9
8869 Fix broken link. Linkchecked all docs.
8871 Revision 1.123.2.5 2002/05/29 02:01:02 hal9
8872 This is break out of the entire config section from u-m, so it can
8873 eventually be used to generate the comments, etc in the main config file
8874 so that these are in sync with each other.
8876 Revision 1.123.2.4 2002/05/27 03:28:45 hal9
8877 Ooops missed something from David.
8879 Revision 1.123.2.3 2002/05/27 03:23:17 hal9
8880 Fix FIXMEs for OS2 and Mac OS X startup. Fix Redhat typos (should be Red Hat).
8881 That's a wrap, I think.
8883 Revision 1.123.2.2 2002/05/26 19:02:09 hal9
8884 Move Amiga stuff around to take of FIXME in start up section.
8886 Revision 1.123.2.1 2002/05/26 17:04:25 hal9
8887 -Spellcheck, very minor edits, and sync across branches
8889 Revision 1.123 2002/05/24 23:19:23 hal9
8890 Include new image (Proxy setup). More fun with guibutton.
8891 Minor corrections/clarifications here and there.
8893 Revision 1.122 2002/05/24 13:24:08 oes
8894 Added Bookmarklet for one-click pre-filled access to show-url-info
8896 Revision 1.121 2002/05/23 23:20:17 oes
8897 - Changed more (all?) references to actions to the
8898 <literal><link> style.
8899 - Small fixes in the actions chapter
8900 - Small clarifications in the quickstart to ad blocking
8901 - Removed <emphasis> from <title>s since the new doc CSS
8902 renders them red (bad in TOC).
8904 Revision 1.120 2002/05/23 19:16:43 roro
8905 Correct Debian specials (installation and startup).
8907 Revision 1.119 2002/05/22 17:17:05 oes
8910 Revision 1.118 2002/05/21 04:54:55 hal9
8911 -New Section: Quickstart to Ad Blocking
8912 -Reformat Actions Anatomy to match new CGI layout
8914 Revision 1.117 2002/05/17 13:56:16 oes
8915 - Reworked & extended Templates chapter
8916 - Small changes to Regex appendix
8917 - #included authors.sgml into (C) and hist chapter
8919 Revision 1.116 2002/05/17 03:23:46 hal9
8920 Fixing merge conflict in Quickstart section.
8922 Revision 1.115 2002/05/16 16:25:00 oes
8923 Extended the Filter File chapter & minor fixes
8925 Revision 1.114 2002/05/16 09:42:50 oes
8926 More ulink->link, added some hints to Quickstart section
8928 Revision 1.113 2002/05/15 21:07:25 oes
8929 Extended and further commented the example actions files
8931 Revision 1.112 2002/05/15 03:57:14 hal9
8932 Spell check. A few minor edits here and there for better syntax and
8935 Revision 1.111 2002/05/14 23:01:36 oes
8938 Revision 1.110 2002/05/14 19:10:45 oes
8939 Restored alphabetical order of actions
8941 Revision 1.109 2002/05/14 17:23:11 oes
8942 Renamed the prevent-*-cookies actions, extended aliases section and moved it before the example AFs
8944 Revision 1.108 2002/05/14 15:29:12 oes
8945 Completed proofreading the actions chapter
8947 Revision 1.107 2002/05/12 03:20:41 hal9
8948 Small clarifications for 127.0.0.1 vs localhost for listen-address since this
8949 apparently an important distinction for some OS's.
8951 Revision 1.106 2002/05/10 01:48:20 hal9
8952 This is mostly proposed copyright/licensing additions and changes. Docs
8953 are still GPL, but licensing and copyright are more visible. Also, copyright
8954 changed in doc header comments (eliminate references to JB except FAQ).
8956 Revision 1.105 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
8957 Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
8959 Revision 1.104 2002/05/04 08:44:45 swa
8962 Revision 1.103 2002/05/04 00:40:53 hal9
8963 -Remove the TOC first page kludge. It's fixed proper now in ldp.dsl.in.
8964 -Some minor additions to Quickstart.
8966 Revision 1.102 2002/05/03 17:46:00 oes
8967 Further proofread & reactivated short build instructions
8969 Revision 1.101 2002/05/03 03:58:30 hal9
8970 Move the user-manual config directive to top of section. Add note about
8971 Privoxy needing read permissions for configs, and write for logs.
8973 Revision 1.100 2002/04/29 03:05:55 hal9
8974 Add clarification on differences of new actions files.
8976 Revision 1.99 2002/04/28 16:59:05 swa
8977 more structure in starting section
8979 Revision 1.98 2002/04/28 05:43:59 hal9
8980 This is the break up of configuration.html into multiple files. This
8981 will probably break links elsewhere :(
8983 Revision 1.97 2002/04/27 21:04:42 hal9
8984 -Rewrite of Actions File example.
8985 -Add section for user-manual directive in config.
8987 Revision 1.96 2002/04/27 05:32:00 hal9
8988 -Add short section to Filter Files to tie in with +filter action.
8989 -Start rewrite of examples in Actions Examples (not finished).
8991 Revision 1.95 2002/04/26 17:23:29 swa
8992 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
8994 Revision 1.94 2002/04/26 05:24:36 hal9
8995 -Add most of Andreas suggestions to Chain of Events section.
8996 -A few other minor corrections and touch up.
8998 Revision 1.92 2002/04/25 18:55:13 hal9
8999 More catchups on new actions files, and new actions names.
9000 Other assorted cleanups, and minor modifications.
9002 Revision 1.91 2002/04/24 02:39:31 hal9
9003 Add 'Chain of Events' section.
9005 Revision 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 hal9
9006 Linuxconf is deprecated on RH, substitute chkconfig.
9008 Revision 1.89 2002/04/23 21:05:28 oes
9009 Added hint for startup on Red Hat
9011 Revision 1.88 2002/04/23 05:37:54 hal9
9012 Add AmigaOS install stuff.
9014 Revision 1.87 2002/04/23 02:53:15 david__schmidt
9015 Updated Mac OS X installation section
9016 Added a few English tweaks here an there
9018 Revision 1.86 2002/04/21 01:46:32 hal9
9019 Re-write actions section.
9021 Revision 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9
9022 Fix ugly typo (mine).
9024 Revision 1.84 2002/04/18 21:17:13 hal9
9025 Spell Redhat correctly (ie Red Hat). A few minor grammar corrections.
9027 Revision 1.83 2002/04/18 18:21:12 oes
9028 Added RPM install detail
9030 Revision 1.82 2002/04/18 12:04:50 oes
9033 Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
9034 Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
9036 Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
9037 Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
9039 Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
9040 Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
9042 Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
9045 Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
9046 Proofreading, part one
9048 Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
9049 -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
9050 -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
9052 Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
9053 Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
9055 Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
9056 Add small section on submitting actions.
9058 Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
9061 Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
9062 Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
9064 Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
9065 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
9067 Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
9070 Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
9071 -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
9072 -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
9073 -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
9074 -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
9076 Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
9077 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
9079 Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
9080 more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
9082 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
9083 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
9084 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
9085 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
9086 eventually be set by Makefile.
9087 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
9089 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
9090 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
9092 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
9093 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
9095 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
9096 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
9098 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
9099 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
9100 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
9101 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
9103 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
9106 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
9107 Added more to Anatomy section.
9109 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
9110 Touch up intro for new name.
9112 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
9113 we have a new homepage!
9115 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
9116 A few minor catch ups with name change.
9118 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
9119 configure needs to be generated.
9121 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
9122 we are too lazy to make a block-built
9123 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
9125 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
9126 name change related issue.
9128 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
9129 name change. changed filenames.
9131 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
9134 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
9135 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
9136 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
9137 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
9138 comments and remarks to history untouched.
9140 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
9143 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
9144 New section in Appendix.
9146 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
9147 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
9149 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
9150 correct feedback channels
9152 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
9153 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
9155 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
9158 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
9159 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
9161 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
9162 Added imageblock{pattern}.
9164 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
9167 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
9168 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
9170 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
9171 provide correct feedback channels
9173 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
9174 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
9176 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
9177 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
9179 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
9180 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
9182 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
9183 Add new - - user option.
9185 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
9186 Added section on command line options.
9188 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
9189 Changed default port to 8118
9191 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
9192 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
9194 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
9195 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
9196 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
9199 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
9202 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
9203 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
9205 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
9206 Update OS/2 build section
9208 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
9209 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
9210 will work - no other changes are needed.
9212 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
9213 Added a very short section on Templates
9215 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
9216 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
9218 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
9219 Touch ups for *.action files.
9221 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
9224 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
9225 Updates for recent changes.
9227 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
9228 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
9230 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
9231 Correct 2 minor errors
9233 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
9234 *** empty log message ***
9236 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
9237 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
9239 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
9240 wrong url in documentation
9242 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
9243 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
9245 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
9248 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
9251 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
9254 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
9255 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
9257 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
9258 Some additions, and re-arranging.
9260 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
9263 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
9264 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
9266 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
9269 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
9270 source files for junkbuster documentation
9272 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
9273 first proposal of a structure.
9275 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
9276 docs should have an author.
9278 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
9279 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.