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3 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/faq.sgml,v $
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9 $Id: faq.sgml,v 1.23 2002/03/24 12:33:01 swa Exp $
11 Written by and Copyright (C) 2001 the SourceForge
12 PRIVOXY team. http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net
14 Based on the Internet Junkbuster originally written
15 by and Copyright (C) 1997 Anonymous Coders and
16 Junkbusters Corporation. http://www.junkbusters.com
21 <title>Privoxy Frequently Asked Questions</title>
23 <pubdate>$Id: faq.sgml,v 1.23 2002/03/24 12:33:01 swa Exp $</pubdate>
28 <orgname>By: Privoxy Developers</orgname>
35 The FAQ document gives users and developers alike answers to frequently asked
37 <application>Privoxy</application>. <application>Privoxy</application> is a web
38 proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for protecting privacy, filtering
39 web page content, managing cookies, controlling access, and removing ads,
40 banners, pop-ups and other obnoxious Internet
41 Junk. <application>Privoxy</application> has a very flexible configuration and
42 can be customized to suit individual needs and
43 tastes. <application>Privoxy</application> has application for both stand-alone
44 systems and multi-user networks.
47 You can find the latest version of the document at <ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/faq/">http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/faq/</ulink>.
48 Please see the Contact section in the
49 <ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/user-manual/contact.html">user-manual</ulink> if you want to contact the developers.
53 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
59 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
62 <sect1 id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
68 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
70 <sect1 id="questions"><title>Frequently Asked Questions</title>
72 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
74 <sect2 id="general"><title>General Information</title>
76 <sect3 id="newjb"><title>What is this new version of <application>Privoxy</application>?</title>
78 The original <application>Internet Junkbuster</application> (tm) is a
79 coyrighted product of <ulink url="http://www.junkbusters.com">Junkbusters
80 Corporation</ulink>. Development of this effort stopped some time ago as of
81 version 2.0.2. Stefan Waldherr started the ijbswa project on <ulink
82 url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net">Sourceforge</ulink> to rekindle
83 development. Other developers subsequently joined with Stefan, and have
84 since added many new features, refinements and enhancements.
87 The new <application>Privoxy</application> started with the same
88 code base, but has changed significantly at this point.
93 <sect3 id="differs"><title>How does it differ from the old <application>Junkbuster?</application></title>
95 All the old features remain. The new <application>Privoxy</application>
96 still blocks ads and banners, still manages cookies, and still helps protect
97 your privacy. But, these are all enhanced, and many new features have been
98 added, all in the same vein.
101 The configuration has changed significantly as well. This is something that
102 users will notice right off the bat. The <quote>blocklist</quote> file does
103 not exist any more. This is replaced by <quote>actions</quote> files, such
104 as <filename>default.actions</filename>. This is where most of the per site
105 configuration is now.
110 <sect3 id="features"><title>What are some of the new features?</title>
112 The section is in both user-manual and faq. Please keep in sync!!!
119 Integrated browser based configuration and control utility (<ulink
120 url="http://p.p">http://p.p</ulink>). Browser-based tracing of rule
127 Modularized configuration that will allow for system wide settings, and
128 individual user settings. (not implemented yet, probably a 3.1 feature)
134 Blocking of annoying pop-up browser windows.
140 HTTP/1.1 compliant (most, but not all 1.1 features are supported).
146 Support for Perl Compatible Regular Expressions in the configuration files, and
147 generally a more sophisticated and flexible configuration syntax over
160 Web page content filtering (removes banners based on size,
161 invisible <quote>web-bugs</quote>, JavaScript, pop-ups, status bar abuse,
168 Bypass many click-tracking scripts (avoids script redirection).
175 Multi-threaded (POSIX and native threads).
181 Auto-detection and re-reading of config file changes.
187 User-customizable HTML templates (e.g. 404 error page).
193 Improved cookie management features (e.g. session based cookies).
199 Builds from source on most UNIX-like systems. Packages available for: Linux
200 (RedHat, SuSE, or Debian), Windows, Sun Solaris, Mac OSX, OS/2, HP-UX 11 and AmigaOS.
207 In addition, the configuration is much more powerful and versatile over-all.
216 <sect3 id="proxymoron"><title>What is a <quote>proxy</quote>? How does
217 <application>Privoxy</application> work? </title>
219 When you connect to a web site with <application>Privoxy</application>,
220 you are really connecting to your locally running version of
221 <application>Privoxy</application>. <application>Privoxy</application>
222 intercepts your requests for the web page, and relays that to the
223 <quote>real</quote> web site. The web site sends the HTTP data stream
224 back to <application>Privoxy</application>, where
225 <application>Privoxy</application> can work its magic before it
226 relays this data back to your web browser.
230 Since <application>Privoxy</application> sits between you and the
231 WWW, it is in a position to intercept and completely manage all web traffic and
232 HTTP content before it gets to your browser.
233 <application>Privoxy</application> uses various programming methods to do
234 this, all of which is under your control via the various configuration
239 There are many kinds of proxies. <application>Privoxy</application> best
240 fits the <quote>filtering proxy</quote> category.
245 <sect3 id="browsers2"><title>My browser does the same things as
246 <application>Privoxy</application>. Why should I use
247 <application>Privoxy</application> at all?</title>
249 Modern browsers do indeed have <emphasis>some</emphasis> of the same
250 functionality as <application>Privoxy</application>. Maybe this is
251 adequate for you. But <application>Privoxy</application> is much more
252 verstatile and powerful, and can do a number of things that browsers just can't.
255 In addition, a proxy is good choice if you use multiple browsers, or
256 have a LAN with multiple computers. This way all the configuration
257 is in one place, and you don't have to maintain a similar configuration
258 for possibly many browsers.
265 <sect3 id="license"><title>Is there is a license or fee? What about a
266 warranty? Registration?</title>
268 <application>Privoxy</application> is licensed under the
269 GNU General Public License (GPL). It is free to use, copy,
270 modify or distribute as you wish under the terms of this license.
272 url="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html</ulink>
276 There is no warranty of any kind, expressed, implied or otherwise. That is
277 something that would cost real money ;-) There is no registration either.
278 <application>Privoxy</application> really is <emphasis>free</emphasis>
284 <sect3 id="jointeam"><title>I would like to help you, what do I do?</title>
286 <sect4 id="jointeam-money"><title>Money Money Money</title>
288 We, of course, welcome donations and use the money for domain registering,
289 regular world-wide get-togethers (hahaha). Anyway, we'll soon describe the
290 process how to donate money to the team.
294 <sect4 id="jointeam-work"><title>You want to work with us?</title>
296 Well, helping the team is always a good idea. We welcome new developers,
297 RPM gurus or documentation makers. Simply get an account on sourceforge.net
298 and mail your id to the developer mailing list. Then read the
299 section Quickstart in the developers manual.
302 Once we have added you to the team, you'll have write access to the CVS
303 repository, and together we'll find a suitable task for you.
312 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
314 <sect2 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
316 <sect3 id="newinstall"><title>Can I install the new
317 <application>Privoxy</application> over the old one?</title>
319 We recommend you uninstall the old <application>Junkbuster</application>
320 first to minimize conflicts and confusion. You may want to
321 save your old configuration files for future reference. The configuration
322 is substantially changed.
326 url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/user-manual/">user-manual</ulink> for
327 platform specific installation instructions. [FIXME: This is meant for after
328 the name change for 3.0!]
334 <title id="firststep">I just installed <application>Privoxy</application>. Is there anything
335 special I have to do now?</title>
338 All browsers must be told to use <application>Privoxy</application>
339 as a proxy by specifying the correct proxy address and port number
340 in the appropriate configuration area for the browser. See below.
347 <sect3 id="localhost"><title>What is the proxy address of <application>Privoxy</application>?</title>
349 If you set up the <application>Privoxy</application> to run on
350 the computer you browse from (rather than your ISP's server or some
351 networked computer on a LAN), the proxy will be on <quote>localhost</quote>
352 (which is the special name used by every computer on the Internet to refer
353 to itself) and the port will be 8118 (unless you have <application>Privoxy</application> to run on a different port with the
354 <emphasis>listen-address</emphasis> config option).
357 When configuring your browser's proxy settings you typically enter
358 the word <quote>localhost</quote> in the boxes next to <quote>HTTP</quote>
359 and <quote>Secure</quote> (HTTPS) and then the number <quote>8118</quote>
360 for <quote>port</quote>. This tells your browser to send all web
361 requests to <application>Privoxy</application> instead of directly to the
365 <application>Privoxy</application> can also be used to proxy for
366 a Local Area Network. In this case, your would enter either the IP
367 address of the LAN host where <application>Privoxy</application>
368 is running, or the equivalent hostname. Port assignment would be
372 <application>Privoxy</application> does not currently handle
373 protocols such as FTP, SMTP, IM, IRC, ICQ, or other Internet
379 <title id="nothing">I just installed <application>Privoxy</application>, and nothing is happening.
380 All the ads are there. What's wrong?</title>
383 Did you configure your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application>
384 as a proxy? It does not sound like it. See above. You might also try flushing
385 the browser's caches to force a full re-reading of pages. You can verify
386 that <application>Privoxy</application> is running, and your browser
387 is correctly configured by entering the special URL:
388 <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>. This should give you
389 a banner that says <quote>This is Privoxy</quote> and
390 access to <application>Privoxy's</application> internal configuration.
391 If you see this, then you are good to go. If not, the browser or
392 <application>Privoxy</application> are not set up correctly.
401 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
403 <sect2 id="configuration"><title>Configuration</title>
405 <sect3 id="newconfig"><title>Can I use my old config files?</title>
407 There are major changes to <application>Junkbuster</application>
408 configuration from version 2.0.x to 2.9.x and later. The older files will
409 not work at all. If this is the case, you will need to re-enter your old
410 data into the new configuration structure. This is probably also a good
411 recommendation even if upgrading from 2.9.x to 3.x since there were
412 many minor changes along the way.
417 <title id="actionsfile">What is an <quote>actions</quote> file?</title>
420 <quote>actions</quote> files are where various actions that
421 <application>Privoxy</application> might take, are configured.
422 Typically, you would define a set of default actions that apply
423 to all URLs, then add exceptions to these defaults.
427 Actions can be defined on a per site basis, or for groups of sites. Actions
428 can also be grouped together and then applied to one or more sites. There
429 are many possible actions that might apply to any given site. As an example,
430 if we are blocking cookies as one of our default
431 <application>actions</application>, but need to accept cookies from a given
432 site, we would define this in our <quote>actions</quote> file.
437 <application>Privoxy</application> comes with several default
438 <application>actions</application> files, with varying degrees
439 of filtering and blocking, as starting points for your own
440 configuration (see below).
445 <sect3 id="actionss">
446 <title>The <quote>actions</quote>concept confuses me. Please list
447 some of these <quote>actions</quote>.</title>
449 These are all explained in the
450 <ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/user-manual/configuration.html#ACTIONSFILE">user-manual</ulink>.
451 Please refer to that.
457 <title id="actconfig">How are actions files configured? What is the easiest
458 way to do this?</title>
461 The easiest way to do this, is to access <application>Privoxy</application>
462 with your web browser at <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>,
464 "<ulink url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/edit-actions">Edit the actions list</ulink>"
465 from the selection list. You can also do this by editing the appropriate
466 file with a text editor.
472 url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/user-manual/configuration.html#ACTIONSFILE">user-manual</ulink> for a
473 detailed explanation of these and other configuration files, and their
474 various options and syntax.
480 FIXME: Commenting these out until we have some data there. HB 03/17/02.
482 <sect3 id="yahoo"><title>How can I make my Yahoo account work?</title>
488 <sect3 id="hotmail"> <title>How can I make my Hotmail account work?</title>
494 <sect3 id="gmx"> <title>How can I make my GMX account work?</title>
501 <sect3 id="configfiles"> <title>What are the differences between
502 intermediate.action, basic.action, etc.?</title>
504 Configuring <application>Privoxy</application> is not easy. To help you get
505 started, we provide you with three different default configurations. The
506 following table shows you, which features are enabled in each configuration.
509 <table frame=all><title>Default Configurations</title>
510 <tgroup cols=5 align=left colsep=1 rowsep=1>
518 <entry>Feature</entry>
519 <entry>default.action</entry>
520 <entry>basic.action</entry>
521 <entry>intermediate.action</entry>
522 <entry>advanced.action</entry>
528 <!-- <entry>f1</entry> -->
529 <!-- <entry>f2</entry> -->
530 <!-- <entry>f3</entry> -->
531 <!-- <entry>f4</entry> -->
532 <!-- <entry>f5</entry> -->
539 <entry>ad-filtering</entry>
547 <entry>blank image</entry>
555 <entry>de-animate GIFs</entry>
563 <entry>referer forging</entry>
571 <entry>jon's +no-cookies-keep (i.e. session cookies only)</entry>
579 <entry>no-popup windows</entry>
587 <entry>fast redirects</entry>
595 <entry>hide-referrer</entry>
603 <entry>hide-useragent</entry>
611 <entry>content-modification</entry>
619 <entry>feature-x</entry>
627 <entry>feature-y</entry>
635 <entry>feature-z</entry>
648 <sect3 id="browseconfig"> <title>Why can I change the configuration with a
649 browser? Does that not raise security issues?</title>
651 What I don't understand, is how I can browser edit the config file as a
652 regular user, while the whole /etc/privoxy hierarchy belongs to the user
653 "privoxy", with only 644 perms.
656 When you use the browser-based editor, <application>Privoxy</application>
657 itself is writing to the config files. Because
658 <application>Privoxy</application> is running as the user "privoxy", it can
659 update the config files.
662 If you don't like this, setting "enable-edit-actions 0" in the config file
663 will disable the browser-based editor. If you're that paranoid, you should
664 also consider setting "enable-remote-toggle 0" to prevent browser-based
665 enabling/disabling of <application>Privoxy</application>.
668 Note that normally only local users can connect to <application>Privoxy</application>, so this is not
669 (normally) a security problem.
674 <title id="lanconfig">How can I set up <application>Privoxy</application> to act as a proxy for my
677 By default, <application>Privoxy</application> only responds to requests
678 from localhost. To have it act as a server for a network, this needs to be
679 changed in the main config file where the <application>Privoxy</application>
680 configuration is located. In that file is a <quote>listen-address</quote>
681 option. It may be commented out with a <quote>#</quote> symbol. Make sure
682 it is uncommented, and assign it the address of the LAN gateway interface,
683 and port number to use:
688 listen-address 192.168.1.1:8118
693 Save the file, and restart <application>Privoxy</application>. Configure
694 all browsers on the network then to use this address and port number.
701 <title id="noseeum">Instead of ads, now I get a Privoxy logo [or
702 checkerboard]. I don't want to see anything.</title>
704 This is a configuration option for images that
705 <application>Privoxy</application> is stopping. You have the choice of the
706 <application>Privoxy</application> logo, a checkerboard pattern (this
707 scales better), a transparent 1x1 GIF image, or a custom URL or your choice.
711 If you want to see nothing, then change the <quote>+image-blocker</quote>
712 action to <quote>+image-blocker{blank}</quote>. This can be done from the
713 <quote>Edit Actions List</quote> selection at <ulink
714 url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>. Or by hand editing the appropriate
715 actions file. This will only effect what is defined as <quote>images</quote>
724 <title id="whyseeum">Why would anybody want to see the logo or checkerboard?</title>
726 This can be helpful for troubleshooting problems. It might also be good
727 for anyone new to <application>Privoxy</application> so that they can
728 see if their favorite pages are displaying correctly, and
729 <application>Privoxy</application> is not inadvertantly removing something
736 <title id="blockedisugly">I see large red banners on some pages that say
737 <quote>Blocked</quote>. How do I get rid of this?</title>
739 These are URLs that match something in one of
740 <application>Privoxy's</application> block actions (+block). It is meant
741 to be a warning so that you know something has been blocked and an easy way
742 for you to see why. These are handled differently than what has been defined
743 as <quote>images</quote> (e.g. ad banners). If you want them to be treated
744 as if they were images, so that they can be invisible, then move the
745 offending URL from the <quote>+block</quote> section to the
746 <quote>+imageblock</quote> section of your actions file. Alternately, you
747 could modify the <quote><filename>block</filename></quote> HTML template that
748 is used by <application>Privoxy</application> to display this, and make it
749 something more to your liking.
756 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
758 <sect2 id="misc"><title>Misc</title>
761 <title id="slowsme">How much does <application>Privoxy</application> slow my browsing down? This
762 has to add extra time to browsing.</title>
764 It should not slow you down any in real terms, and may actually help
765 speed things up since ads, banners and other junk are not being displayed.
766 The actual processing time required by <application>Privoxy</application>
767 itself for each page, is relatively small in the overall scheme of things,
768 and happens very quickly. This is typically more than offset by time saved
769 not downloading and rendering ad images.
773 <quote>Filtering</quote> via the <filename>filterfile</filename>
774 mechanism may cause a perceived slowdown, since the entire page is buffered
775 before displaying. See below.
782 <sect3 id="loadingtimes"><title>I noticed considerable
783 delays in page requests compared to the old Junkbuster. What's wrong?</title>
785 Using the default filtering configuration, I noticed considerable delays in
786 page requests compared to the old Junkbuster. Loading pages with large contents
787 seemed to take forever, then suddenly delivering all the content at once.
790 The whole content must be loaded in order to filter, and nothing is is
791 sent to the browser during this time. The loading time does not really
792 change in real numbers, but the feeling is different, because most
793 browsers are able to start rendering incomplete content, giving the
794 user a feeling of "it works".
797 To modify the content of a page (i.e. make frames resizeable again, etc.) and
798 not just replace ads, <application>Privoxy</application> needs to download the
799 entire page first, do its content magic and then send the page to the browser.
804 <sect3 id="configurl"><title>What is the "http://p.p/"?</title>
806 Since <application>Privoxy</application> sits between your web browser and the Internet, it can be
807 programmed to handle certain pages specially.
811 With recent versions of <application>Privoxy</application> (version 2.9.x), you can get some
812 information about <application>Privoxy</application> and change some settings by going to
813 http://p.p/ or, equivalently, http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/
814 (Note that p.p is far easier to type but may not work in some
819 These pages are *not* forwarded to a server on the internet - instead they are
820 handled by a special web server which is built in to <application>Privoxy</application>.
824 If you are not running <application>Privoxy</application>, then http://p.p/ will fail, and
825 http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/ will return a web page telling you
826 you're not running <application>Privoxy</application>.
830 If you have version 2.0.2, then the equivalent is
831 http://example.com/show-proxy-args (but you get far less information, and you
832 should really consider upgrading to 2.9.x).
837 FIXME: commented out until we have data. HB 03/18/02.
839 <sect3 id="badfiledesc"><title>I get the message 'Bad File Descriptor', why?</title>
845 <sect3 id="proxy-chaining"><title>How do I chain <application>Privoxy</application> with other proxies
846 (e.g. squid)?</title>
853 <sect3 id="blocklist"><title>Do you still maintain the blocklists?</title>
855 No. The format of the blocklists has changed significantly in the versions
856 2.9.x. Once we have released the new version, there will again be
857 blocklists that you can update automatically.
861 <sect3 id="newads"><title>How can I submit new ads?</title>
863 As of now, please discontinue to submit new ad blocking infos. Once we
864 have released the new version, there will again be a form on the website,
865 which you can use to contribute new ads.
869 <sect3 id="ip"><title>How can I hide my IP address?</title>
871 You cannot hide your IP address with <application>Privoxy</application> or any other software, since
872 the server needs to know your IP address to send the answer to you.
875 Fortunately there are many publicly usable anonymous proxies out there, which
876 solve the problem by providing a further level of indirection between you and
877 the web server, shared by many people and thus letting your requests "drown"
878 in white noise of unrelated requests as far as user tracking is concerned.
881 Most of them will, however, log your IP address and make it available to the
882 authorities in case you abuse that anonymity for criminal purposes. In fact
883 you can't even rule out that some of them only exist to *collect* information
884 on (those suspicious) people with a more than average preference for privacy.
887 You can find a list of anonymous public proxies at <ulink
888 url="http://www.multiproxy.org/anon_list.htm">multiproxy.org</ulink> and many
893 <!-- <sect3 id="image"><title>What is the imagefile (simage.ini, etc.) for?</title> -->
895 <!-- Anytime <application>Privoxy</application> determines (with the help of the blocklist) that a URL -->
896 <!-- contains an advertisement, it has to decide whether this advertisement is an -->
897 <!-- image or not. <application>Privoxy</application> uses the imagefile for that purpose. -->
902 <title id="anonforsure">Can <application>Privoxy</application> guarantee I am anonymous?</title>
904 No. Your chances of remaining anonymous are greatly improved, but unless you
905 are an expert on Internet security it would be safest to assume that
906 everything you do on the Web can be traced back to you.
909 <application>Privoxy</application> can remove various information about you,
910 and allows <emphasis>you</emphasis> more freedom to decide which sites
911 you can trust. But it's still possible that web sites can find out who you
912 are. Here's one way this can happen.
915 A few browsers disclose the user's email address in certain situations, such
916 as when transferring a file by FTP. <application>Privoxy</application>
917 does not filter FTP. If you need this feature, or are concerned about the
918 mail handler of your browser disclosing your email address, you might
919 consider products such as <application>NSClean</application>.
922 Browsers available only as binaries could use non-standard headers to give
923 out any information they can have access to: see the manufacturer's license
924 agreement. It's impossible to anticipate and prevent every breach of privacy
925 that might occur. The professionally paranoid prefer browsers available as
926 source code, because anticipating their behavior is easier. Trust the source,
933 <title id="sitebreak">Might some things break because header information is
934 being altered?</title>
937 Definitely. More and more sites use HTTP header content to decide what to
938 display and how to display it. There is many ways that this can be handled,
939 so having hard and fast rules, is tricky.
943 <quote>USER AGENT</quote> in particular is often used in this way to identify
944 the browser, and adjust content accordingly. Changing this now is not
945 recommended, since so many sites do look for this. You may get undesirable
946 results by changing this.
950 For instance, different browsers use different encodings of Russian and Czech
951 characters, certain web servers convert pages on-the-fly according to the
952 User Agent header. Giving a <quote>User Agent</quote> with the wrong
953 operating system or browser manufacturer causes some sites in these languages
954 to be garbled; Surfers to Eastern European sites should change it to
955 something closer. And then some page access counters work by looking at the
956 <quote>REFERER</quote> header; they may fail or break if unavailable. The
957 weather maps of Intellicast have been blocked by their server when no
958 <quote>REFERER</quote> or cookie is provided, is another example. There are
959 many, many other ways things can go wrong when trying to fool a web server.
963 If you have problems with a site, you will have to adjust your configuration
964 accordingly. Cookies are probably the most likely adjustment that may
965 be required, but by no means the only one.
973 <title id="caching">Can <application>Privoxy</application> act as a <quote>caching</quote> proxy to
974 speed up web browsing?</title>
976 No, it does not have this ability at all. You want something like
977 <ulink url="http://www.squid-cache.org/">Squid</ulink> for this. And, yes,
978 before you ask, <application>Privoxy</application> can co-exist
979 with other kinds of proxies like <quote>Squid</quote>.
984 <title id="firewall">What about as a firewall? Can <application>Privoxy</application> protect me?</title>
986 Not in the way you mean, or in the way a true firewall can, or a proxy that
987 has this specific capability. <application>Privoxy</application> can help
988 protect your privacy, but not really protect you from intrusion attempts.
994 <title id="logo">The <application>Privoxy</application> logo that replaces ads is very blocky
995 and ugly looking. Can't a better font be used?</title>
998 This is not a font problem. The logo is an image that is created by
999 <application>Privoxy</application> on the fly. So as to not waste
1000 memory, the image is rather small. The blockiness comes when the
1001 image is scaled to fill a largish area. There is not much to be done
1002 about this, other than to use one of the other
1003 <quote>imageblock</quote> directives: <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>,
1004 <emphasis>blank</emphasis>, or a URL of your chosing.
1010 <title id="wasted">I have large empty spaces now where ads used to be.
1011 Why does <application>Privoxy</application> leave these large gaps?</title>
1013 It would be easy enough to just eliminate this space altogether, rather than
1014 fill it with blank space. But, this would create problems with many pages
1015 that use the overall size of the ad to help organize the page layout and
1016 position the various components of the page where they were intended to be.
1017 It is best left this way.
1023 <title id="ssl">How can <application>Privoxy</application> filter Secure (HTTPS) URLs?</title>
1025 This is a limitation since HTTPS transactions are encrypted SSL sessions
1026 between your browser and the secure site, and are meant to be reliably
1027 <emphasis>secure</emphasis> and private. This means that all cookies and HTTP
1028 header information are also encrypted from the time they leave your browser,
1029 to the site, and vice versa. <application>Privoxy</application> does not
1030 try to unencrypt this information, so it just passes through as is.
1031 <application>Privoxy</application> can still catch images and ads that
1032 are embedded in the SSL stream though.
1039 <title id="secure"><application>Privoxy</application> runs as a <quote>server</quote>. How
1040 secure is it? Do I need to take any special precautions?</title>
1042 There are no known exploits that might effect
1043 <application>Privoxy</application>. On Unix-like systems,
1044 <application>Privoxy</application> can run as a non-privileged
1045 user, which is how we recommend it be run. Also, by default
1046 <application>Privoxy</application> only listens to requests
1047 from <quote>localhost</quote>. It is not itself directly exposed to the
1048 Internet in this configuration. If you want to have
1049 <application>Privoxy</application> serve as a LAN proxy, this will have to
1050 be opened up to allow for LAN requests. In this case, we'd recommend
1051 you specify only the LAN gateway address, e.g. 192.168.1.1 in the main
1052 <application>Privoxy</application> config file. All LAN hosts can then use
1053 this as their proxy address in the browser proxy configuration. In this way,
1054 <application>Privoxy</application> will not listen on any external ports.
1055 Of course, a firewall is always good too. Better safe than sorry.
1061 <title id="filterfile">What is a <quote>default.filter</quote>?</title>
1063 The <quote>default.filter</quote> is used to <quote>filter</quote> any
1064 page content. By <quote>filtering</quote> we mean it can modify, remove,
1065 or change <emphasis>anything</emphasis> on the page, including HTML tags, and
1066 JavaScript. Regular expressions are used to accomplish this. This is
1067 potentially a very powerful feature, but requires some expertise.
1071 If you are familiar with regular expressions, and HTML, you can look at
1072 the provided <filename>default.filter</filename> with a text editor and see
1073 some of things it can be used for.
1077 Presently, there is no GUI editor option for this part of the configuration.
1084 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1087 <title id="trouble">Troubleshooting</title>
1090 <title id="refused">I just upgraded and am getting <quote>connection refused</quote>
1091 with every web page?</title>
1093 Either <application>Privoxy</application> is not running, or your
1094 browser is configured for a different port than what
1095 <application>Privoxy</application> is using.
1099 The old <application>Privoxy</application> used port 8000 by
1100 default. This has been changed to port 8118 now, due to a conflict
1101 with NAS (Network Audio Service), which uses port 8000. If you haven't,
1102 you need to change your browser to the new port number, or alternately
1103 change <application>Privoxy's</application> <quote>listen-address</quote>
1104 setting in the <filename>config</filename> file used to start
1105 <application>Privoxy</application>.
1111 <title id="flushit">I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is
1112 still getting through. How?</title>
1114 If the ad had been displayed before you added its URL, it will probably be
1115 held in the browser's cache for some time, so it will be displayed without
1116 the need for any request to the server, and <application>Privoxy</application>
1117 will not be in the picture. The best thing to do is try flusing the browser's
1118 caches. And then try again.
1122 If this doesn't help, you probably have an error in the rule you
1123 applied. Try pasting the full URL of the offending ad into <ulink
1124 url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/show-url-info">http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/config/show-url-info</ulink>
1125 and see if any actions match your new rule.
1131 <title id="badsite">One of my favorite sites does not work with <application>Privoxy</application>.
1132 What can I do?</title>
1135 First verify that it is indeed a <application>Privoxy</application> problem,
1136 by disabling <application>Privoxy</application> filtering and blocking.
1137 Go to <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> and click on
1138 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote>, then disable it. Now try that
1143 If still a problem, go to <quote>Show which actions apply to a URL and
1144 why</quote> from <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> and paste
1145 the full URL of the page in question into the prompt. See which actions are
1146 being applied to the URL. Now, armed with this information, go to <quote>Edit
1147 the actions list</quote>. Here you should see various sections that have
1148 various <application>Privoxy</application> features disabled for specific
1149 sites. Disabled <quote>actions</quote> will have a <quote>-</quote> (minus
1150 sign) in front of them. Add your problem page URL to one of these sections
1151 that looks like it is disabling the feature that is causing the
1152 problem. Re-try the page. There might be some trial and error involved. This
1153 is discussed in a little more detail in the <ulink
1154 url="http://ijbswa.sourceforge.net/user-manual/appenix.html#ACTIONSANAT">user-manual
1160 Alternately, if you are comfortable with a text editor, you can accomplish
1161 the same thing by editing the appropriate <quote>actions</quote> file.
1167 <title id="time">What time is it?</title>
1178 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1180 FIXME: Commented out until we have something to put here. HB 03/18/02.
1181 <sect1 id="knownissues"><title>Known Issues</title>
1187 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1188 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contact the developers</title>
1189 <para>Please see the user manual for information on how to contact the developers.
1193 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1194 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Copyright and History</title>
1195 <para>Please see the user manual for information on Copyright and History.
1199 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1200 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See also</title>
1201 <para>Please see the user manual for information on references.
1207 Tue 09/11/01 06:38:14 PM EST: Test SGML doc by Hal Burgiss.
1209 Last modified: Mon Sep 10 19:22:09 CEST 2001
1211 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
1212 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
1213 Public License as published by the Free Software
1214 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
1215 your option) any later version.
1217 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
1218 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
1219 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
1220 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
1221 License for more details.
1223 The GNU General Public License should be included with
1224 this file. If not, you can view it at
1225 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
1226 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
1227 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
1230 Revision 1.23 2002/03/24 12:33:01 swa
1233 Revision 1.22 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
1234 name change. changed filenames.
1236 Revision 1.21 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
1239 Revision 1.20 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
1240 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
1241 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
1242 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
1243 comments and remarks to history untouched.
1245 Revision 1.19 2002/03/21 17:01:54 hal9
1248 Revision 1.18 2002/03/18 16:40:31 hal9
1251 Revision 1.17 2002/03/18 03:53:53 hal9
1254 Revision 1.16 2002/03/17 21:32:56 hal9
1255 A few more additions.
1257 Revision 1.15 2002/03/17 07:25:59 hal9
1258 Correcting some of my typos, and some additions.
1260 Revision 1.14 2002/03/17 02:39:13 hal9
1261 A little more added ...
1263 Revision 1.13 2002/03/17 00:22:20 hal9
1264 Adding new stuff, and trying to incorporate stuff from old faq.
1266 Revision 1.12 2002/03/11 20:13:21 swa
1269 Revision 1.11 2002/03/11 18:42:27 swa
1272 Revision 1.10 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
1273 correct feedback channels
1275 Revision 1.9 2002/03/10 23:34:04 swa
1276 more info on not hiding ip address
1278 Revision 1.8 2002/03/09 15:55:48 swa
1279 added default config section
1281 Revision 1.7 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
1284 Revision 1.6 2002/03/07 13:16:31 oes
1285 Committing changes by Stefan
1287 Revision 1.5 2002/03/02 15:50:04 swa
1288 2.9.11 version. more input for docs.
1290 Revision 1.4 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
1291 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
1292 will work - no other changes are needed.
1294 Revision 1.3 2001/09/23 10:13:48 swa
1295 upload process established. run make webserver and
1296 the documentation is moved to the webserver. documents
1297 are now linked correctly.
1299 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:20:17 swa
1300 merged standards into developer manual
1302 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
1303 source files for junkbuster documentation
1305 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
1306 first proposal of a structure.
1308 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
1309 docs should have an author.
1311 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
1312 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.