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5 <!entity p-intro SYSTEM "privoxy.sgml">
6 <!entity seealso SYSTEM "seealso.sgml">
7 <!entity contacting SYSTEM "contacting.sgml">
8 <!entity history SYSTEM "history.sgml">
9 <!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
10 <!entity license SYSTEM "license.sgml">
11 <!entity p-version "3.0.3">
12 <!entity p-status "stable">
13 <!entity % p-not-stable "IGNORE">
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15 <!entity % p-text "IGNORE"> <!-- define we are not a text only doc -->
16 <!entity % p-doc "INCLUDE"> <!-- and we are a formal doc -->
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18 <!entity my-copy "©"> <!-- kludge for docbook2man -->
21 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/faq.sgml,v $
24 This file belongs into
25 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
27 $Id: faq.sgml,v 1.61.2.41 2004/04/05 13:44:05 oes Exp $
29 Copyright (C) 2001-2004 Privoxy Developers <developers@privoxy.org>
32 Based partially on the Internet Junkbuster FAQ originally written by and
33 Copyright (C) 1997 Anonymous Coders and Junkbusters Corporation.
34 http://www.junkbusters.com/
36 <Qandaset defaultlabel='qanda'>
51 ========================================================================
52 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
55 Please we keep the info in this file as version independent as possible
56 so we only have to maintain one FAQ. Where significant changes are
57 made to Privoxy configuration, please note the change in such a way that
58 it makes sense to both users of older and newer versions.
59 ========================================================================
65 <article id="index" class="faq">
67 <title>Privoxy Frequently Asked Questions</title>
71 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
72 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
73 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001-2004 by
74 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
78 <pubdate>$Id: faq.sgml,v 1.61.2.41 2004/04/05 13:44:05 oes Exp $</pubdate>
82 Note: this should generate a separate page, and a live link to it.
83 But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave commented
84 unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the copyright
85 statement will be in copyright.smgl.
89 <legalnotice id="legalnotice">
91 text goes here ........
101 <orgname>By: Privoxy Developers</orgname>
110 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
111 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
112 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
117 This FAQ gives quick answers to frequently asked questions about
118 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy</ulink>.
119 It can't and doesn't replace the
120 <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html"><citetitle>User Manual</citetitle></ulink>.
122 This works, at least in some situtations:
123 Test: <ulink url="privoxy-user-manual.pdf"><citetitle>User Manual</citetitle></ulink>.
127 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
129 <!-- end boilerplate -->
132 Please note that this document is constantly evolving. This copy represents
133 the state at the release of version &p-version;.
134 You can find the latest version of the document at <ulink
135 url="http://www.privoxy.org/faq/">http://www.privoxy.org/faq/</ulink>.
136 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> if you want to
137 contact the developers.
141 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
147 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
149 <sect1 id="general"><title>General Information</title>
151 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newjb"><title>What is this new version of <application>Privoxy</application>?</title>
153 <!-- Include history.sgml -->
160 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
161 <title id="whyprivoxy">Why <quote>Privoxy</quote>? Why a name change at all?</title>
163 <application>Privoxy</application> is the
164 <quote><emphasis>Privacy Enhancing Proxy</emphasis></quote>. Also, its content
165 modification and junk suppression allow you to browse your
166 <quote><emphasis>private</emphasis> edition</quote> of the web.
169 <ulink url="http://junkbusters.com/">Junkbusters Corporation</ulink>
170 continues to offer their original version of the <application>Internet
171 Junkbuster</application>, so publishing our
172 <application> Junkbuster</application>-derived software under the same name
176 There are also potential legal complications from the continued use of the
177 <application>Junkbuster</application> name, which is a registered trademark of
178 <ulink url="http://junkbusters.com/">Junkbusters Corporation</ulink>.
179 There are, however, no objections from Junkbusters Corporation to the
180 <application>Privoxy</application> project itself, and they, in fact, still
181 share our ideals and goals.
184 The developers also believed that there are so many changes from the original
185 code, that it was time to make a clean break from the past and make
186 a name in their own right<![%p-not-stable;[, especially now with the pending
187 release of version 3.0]]>.
192 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="differs"><title>How does <application>Privoxy</application> differ
193 from the old <application>Junkbuster?</application></title>
195 <application>Privoxy</application> picks up where
196 <application>Junkbuster</application> left off. All the old features remain.
197 The new <application>Privoxy</application> still blocks ads and banners,
198 still manages cookies, and still helps protect your privacy. But, these are
199 all enhanced, and many new features have been added, all in the same vein.
202 The configuration has changed significantly as well. This is something that
203 users will notice right off the bat if upgrading from
204 <application>Junkbuster</application> 2.0.x. The <quote>blocklist</quote>
205 <quote>cookielist</quote>, <quote>imagelist</quote> and much more has been
206 combined into the <quote>actions</quote> files, with a completely different
207 syntax. See the <ulink url="../user-manual/upgradersnote.html">note to
208 upgraders</ulink> for details.
211 <application>Privoxy</application>'s new features include:
214 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml: -->
220 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="proxymoron"><title>What is a <quote>proxy</quote>? How does
221 <application>Privoxy</application> work? </title>
223 A web proxy is a service, based on a software such as <application>Privoxy</application>,
224 that clients (i.e. browsers) can use instead of connecting directly to the web
225 servers on the Internet. The clients then ask the proxy to fetch the objects
226 they need (web pages, images, movies etc) on their behalf, and when the proxy
227 has done so, it hands the results back to the client.
230 There are many reasons to use web proxies, such as security (firewalling),
231 efficiency (caching) and others, and there are just as many different proxies
232 to accommodate those needs.
235 <application>Privoxy</application> is a proxy that is solely focused on privacy
236 protection and junk elimination. Sitting between your browser(s) and the Internet,
237 it is in a perfect position to filter outbound personal information that your
238 browser is leaking, as well as inbound junk. It uses a variety of techniques to do
239 this, all of which are under your control via the various configuration
245 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whatsanad">
246 <title id="knows">How does <application>Privoxy</application> know what is
247 an ad, and what is not?</title>
249 <application>Privoxy</application>'s approach to blocking ads is twofold:
252 First, there are certain patterns in the <emphasis>locations</emphasis> (URLs)
253 of banner images. This applies to both the path (you wouldn't guess how many
254 web sites serve their banners from a directory called <quote>banners</quote>!)
255 and the host (blocking the big banner hosting services like doublecklick.net
256 already helps a lot). <application>Privoxy</application> takes advantage of this
257 fact by using <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#AF-PATTERNS">URL
258 patterns</ulink> to sort out and block the requests for banners.
261 Second, banners tend to come in certain <emphasis>sizes</emphasis>. But you
262 can't tell the size of an image by its URL without downloading it, and if you
263 do, it's too late to save bandwidth. Therefore, <application>Privoxy</application>
264 also inspects the HTML sources of web pages while they are loaded, and replaces
265 references to images with standard banner sizes by dummy references, so that
266 your browser doesn't request them anymore in the first place.
269 Both of this involves a certain amount of guesswork and is, of course, freely
274 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
275 <title id="mistakes">Can <application>Privoxy</application> make mistakes?
276 This does not sound very scientific.</title>
278 Actually, it's a black art ;-) And yes, it is always possible to have a broad
279 rule accidentally block or change something by mistake. You will almost surely
280 run into such situations at some point. It is tricky writing rules to
281 cover every conceivable possibility, and not occasionally get false positives.
285 But this should not be a big concern since the
286 <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is very flexible, and
287 includes tools to help identify these types of situations so they can be
288 addressed as needed, allowing you to customize your installation.
289 (<link linkend="badsite">See the Troubleshooting section below</link>.)
295 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
296 <title id="configornot">Will I have to configure <application>Privoxy</application>
297 before I can use it?</title>
299 No, not really. The default installation should give you a good starting
300 point, and block <emphasis>most</emphasis> unwanted content.
303 But you will certainly run into situations where there are false positives,
304 or ads not being blocked that you may not want to see. In these cases, you
305 would certainly benefit by customizing <application>Privoxy's</application>
306 configuration to more closely match your individual situation. And we would
307 encourage you to do this. This is where the real power of
308 <application>Privoxy</application> lies!
313 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="browsers2"><title>My browser does the same things as
314 <application>Privoxy</application>. Why should I use
315 <application>Privoxy</application> at all?</title>
317 Modern browsers do indeed have <emphasis>some</emphasis> of the same
318 functionality as <application>Privoxy</application>. Maybe this is
319 adequate for you. But <application>Privoxy</application> is much more
320 versatile and powerful, and can do a number of things that browsers just can't.
323 In addition, a proxy is good choice if you use multiple browsers, or
324 have a LAN with multiple computers. This way all the configuration
325 is in one place, and you don't have to maintain a similar configuration
326 for possibly many browsers.
332 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="license"><title>Is there is a license or fee? What about a
333 warranty? Registration?</title>
335 <application>Privoxy</application> is licensed under the <ulink
336 url="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html">GNU General Public License (GPL)</ulink>.
337 It is free to use, copy, modify or distribute as you wish under the terms of this
338 license. Please see the <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> section for more
339 information on the license and copyright. Or the <filename>LICENSE</filename> file
340 that should be included.
343 There is <emphasis>no warranty</emphasis> of any kind, expressed, implied or otherwise.
344 That is something that would cost real money ;-) There is no registration either.
345 <application>Privoxy</application> really is <emphasis>free</emphasis>
351 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="jointeam"><title>I would like to help you, what do I do?</title>
353 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="jointeam-money"><title>Money Money Money</title>
355 We, of course, welcome donations and could use money for domain registering,
356 buying software to test <application>Privoxy</application> with, and, of course,
357 for regular world-wide get-togethers (hahaha). If you enjoy the software and feel
358 like helping us with a donation, just <ulink
359 url="mailto:developers@privoxy.org">drop us a note</ulink>.
363 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="jointeam-software"><title>Software</title>
365 If you are a vendor of a web-related software like a browser, web server
366 or proxy, and would like us to ensure that <application>Privoxy</application>
367 runs smoothly with your product, you might consider supplying us with a
368 copy or license. We can't, however, guarantee that we will fix all potential
369 compatibility issues as a result.
373 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="jointeam-work"><title>You want to work with us?</title>
375 Well, helping the team is always a good idea. We welcome new developers,
376 packaging gurus or documentation writers. Simply <ulink
377 url="https://sourceforge.net/account/register.php">get an account on SourceForge.net</ulink>
378 and mail your id to the <ulink url="mailto:developers@privoxy.org">developers
379 mailing list</ulink>. Then read the <ulink
380 url="../developer-manual/index.html">Developer's Manual</ulink>.
383 Once we have added you to the team, you'll have write access to the <ulink
384 url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">CVS repository</ulink>, and
385 together we'll find a suitable task for you.
394 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
396 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
398 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whichbrowsers">
399 <title>Which browsers are supported by <application>Privoxy</application>?</title>
401 Any browser that can be configured to use a proxy, which
402 should be virtually all browsers. Direct browser support is not necessary
403 since <application>Privoxy</application> runs as a separate application and
404 talks to the browser in the standardized HTTP protocol, just like a web server
409 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="whichos">
410 <title>Which operating systems are supported?</title>
412 Include supported.sgml here:
417 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="email-client">
418 <title>Can I use <application>Privoxy</application> with my email client?</title>
420 As long as there is some way to set a HTTP proxy for the client, then yes,
421 any application can be used, whether it is strictly speaking a
422 <quote>browser</quote> or not. Though this may not be the best approach for
423 dealing with some of the common abuses of HTML in email. See <link
424 linkend="outlook">How can I configure <application>Privoxy</application>
425 with <application>Outlook Express</application>?</link> below for more on
429 Be aware that HTML email presents a number of unique security and privacy
430 related issues, that can require advanced skills to overcome. The developers
431 recommend using email clients that can be configured to convert HTML to plain
432 text for these reasons.
436 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newinstall"><title>Can I install
437 <application>Privoxy</application> over <application>Junkbuster</application>?</title>
439 We recommend you un-install <application>Junkbuster</application>
440 first to minimize conflicts and confusion. You may want to
441 save your old configuration files for future reference. The configuration
442 files and syntax have substantially changed, so you will need to manually
443 port your old patterns. See the <ulink url="../user-manual/upgradersnote.html">note
444 to upgraders</ulink> and <ulink url="../user-manual/installation.html">installation
445 chapter</ulink> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">user manual</ulink>
449 Note: Some installers may automatically un-install
450 <application>Junkbuster</application>, if present!
455 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
456 <title id="firststep">I just installed <application>Privoxy</application>. Is there anything
457 special I have to do now?</title>
460 All browsers must be told to use <application>Privoxy</application>
461 as a proxy by specifying the correct proxy address and port number
462 in the appropriate configuration area for the browser. See below.
463 You should also flush your browser's memory and disk cache to get rid of any
464 cached junk items, and remove any stored cookies.
471 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="localhost"><title>What is the proxy address of <application>Privoxy</application>?</title>
473 If you set up the <application>Privoxy</application> to run on
474 the computer you browse from (rather than your ISP's server or some
475 networked computer on a LAN), the proxy will be on <literal>127.0.0.1</literal>
476 (sometimes referred to as <quote>localhost</quote>,
477 which is the special name used by every computer on the Internet to refer
478 to itself) and the port will be 8118 (unless you have <application>Privoxy</application>
479 to run on a different port with the <ulink
480 url="../user-manual/config.html#LISTEN-ADDRESS">listen-address</ulink> config option).
483 When configuring your browser's proxy settings you typically enter
484 the word <quote>localhost</quote> or the IP address <quote>127.0.0.1</quote>
485 in the boxes next to <quote>HTTP</quote> and <quote>Secure</quote> (HTTPS) and
486 then the number <quote>8118</quote> for <quote>port</quote>.
487 This tells your browser to send all web requests to <application>Privoxy</application>
488 instead of directly to the Internet.
491 <application>Privoxy</application> can also be used to proxy for
492 a Local Area Network. In this case, your would enter either the IP
493 address of the LAN host where <application>Privoxy</application>
494 is running, or the equivalent hostname. Port assignment would be
495 same as above. Note that <application>Privoxy</application> doesn't
496 listen on any LAN interfaces by default.
499 <application>Privoxy</application> does not currently handle
500 any other protocols such as FTP, SMTP, IM, IRC, ICQ, etc.
504 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="nothing">
505 <title>I just installed <application>Privoxy</application>, and nothing is happening.
506 All the ads are there. What's wrong?</title>
509 Did you configure your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application>
510 as a proxy? It does not sound like it. See above. You might also try flushing
511 the browser's caches to force a full re-reading of pages. You can verify
512 that <application>Privoxy</application> is running, and your browser
513 is correctly configured by entering the special URL:
514 <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>.
515 <!-- Use http://p.p/ instead of http://config.privoxy.org/ here because
516 of potential redirect caching problem (see next Q). -->
517 This should take you to a page titled <quote>This is Privoxy..</quote> with
518 access to <application>Privoxy's</application> internal configuration.
519 If you see this, then you are good to go. If you receive a page saying
520 <quote>Privoxy is not running</quote>, then the browser is not set up to use
521 your <application>Privoxy</application> installation.
522 If you receive anything else (probably nothing at all), it could either
523 be that the browser is not set up correctly, or that
524 <application>Privoxy</application> is not running at all. Check the <ulink
525 url="../user-manual/config.html#LOGFILE">log file</ulink>. For instructions
526 on starting <application>Privoxy</application> and browser configuration,
527 see the <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/startup.html">chapter
528 on starting <application>Privoxy</application></ulink> in the
529 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">user manual</ulink>.
534 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="notused">
535 <title>I get a <quote>Privoxy is not being used</quote> dummy page although
536 <application>Privoxy</application> is running and being used.</title>
539 First, make sure that Privoxy is <emphasis>really</emphasis> running and
540 being used by visiting <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>. You
541 should see the <application>Privoxy</application> main page. If not, see
542 the <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/startup.html">chapter
543 on starting <application>Privoxy</application></ulink> in the
544 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">user manual</ulink>.
548 Now if <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> works for you, but
549 other parts of <application>Privoxy</application>'s web interface show
550 the dummy page, your browser has cached a redirection it encountered before
551 <application>Privoxy</application> was being used. You need to clear your
552 browser's cache. Note that shift-reloading the dummy page won't help, since
553 that'll only refresh the dummy page, not the redirection that lead you there.
557 The procedure for clearing the cache varies from browser to browser. As an
558 example, <application>Mozilla</application> users would click
559 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> --> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -->
560 <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> --> <guibutton>Cache</guibutton> and
561 then click both <quote><guibutton>Clear Memory Cache</guibutton></quote>
562 and <quote><guibutton>Clear Disk Cache</guibutton></quote>.
569 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
571 <sect1 id="configuration"><title>Configuration</title>
573 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="getupdates"><title>Where can I get updated Actions Files?</title>
575 Based on your feedback and the continuing development, updated actions files will be
576 made available on the <ulink
577 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">files section</ulink> of
578 our <ulink url="http://sf.net/projects/ijbswa/">project page</ulink>.
582 If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
583 <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
584 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce/">subscribe
585 to our announce mailing list</ulink>, ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
590 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newconfig"><title>Can I use my old config files?</title>
592 The syntax, number, and purpose of configuration files has substantially
593 changed from <application>Junkbuster</application> and earlier versions
594 of <application>Privoxy</application>. The old files, like <filename>blocklist</filename>
595 will not work at all. If you are upgrading from a 2.0.x version, you will
596 need to port your configuration data to the new format. Note that even the
597 pattern syntax has changed! Even configuration files from the 2.9.x versions
598 will need to be adapted, as configuration syntax has been very much in flow
603 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
604 <title id="actionsfile">What is an <quote>actions</quote> file?</title>
607 <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">Actions files</ulink>
608 are where various <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACTIONS">actions</ulink>
609 that <application>Privoxy</application> might take while processing a certain
610 request, are configured. Typically, you would define a set of default actions
611 that apply to all URLs, then add exceptions to these defaults where needed.
615 Actions can be defined on a <ulink
616 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#AF-PATTERNS">URL pattern</ulink> basis, i.e.
617 for single URLs, whole web sites, groups or parts thereof etc. Actions can also be
618 grouped together and then applied to requests matching one or more patterns.
619 There are many possible actions that might apply to any given site. As an example,
620 if you are blocking cookies as one of your default actions, but need to accept
621 cookies from a given site, you would need to define an exception for this
622 site in one of your actions files, preferably in <filename>user.action</filename>.
627 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="actionss">
628 <title>The <quote>actions</quote> concept confuses me. Please list
629 some of these <quote>actions</quote>.</title>
631 For a comprehensive discussion of the actions concept, please refer
632 to the <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">actions file
633 chapter</ulink> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">user
634 manual</ulink>. It includes a <ulink
635 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACTIONS">list of all actions</ulink>
636 and an <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACT-EXAMPLES">actions
637 file tutorial</ulink> to get you started.
642 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
643 <title id="actconfig">How are actions files configured? What is the easiest
644 way to do this?</title>
647 Actions files are just text files in a special syntax and can be edited
648 with a text editor. But probably the easiest way is to access
649 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface with your web browser
650 at <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
651 (Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>) and then select
652 <quote><ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View &
653 change the current configuration</ulink></quote> from the menu.
658 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
659 <title>There are several different <quote>actions</quote> files. What are
660 the differences?</title>
662 As of <application>Privoxy</application> v2.9.15, three actions files
663 are being included, to be used for
664 different purposes: These are
665 <filename>default.action</filename>, the <quote>main</quote> actions file
666 which is actively maintained by the <application>Privoxy</application>
667 developers, <filename>user.action</filename>, where users are encouraged
668 to make their private customizations, and <filename>standard.action</filename>,
669 which is for internal <application>Privoxy</application> use only.
670 Please see <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">the actions chapter</ulink>
671 in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">user manual</ulink> for a more
672 detailed explanation.
676 Earlier versions included three different versions of the
677 <filename>default.action</filename> file. The new scheme allows for
678 greater flexibility of local configuration, and for browser based
679 selection of pre-defined <quote>aggressiveness</quote> levels.
684 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="yahoo"><title>How can I make my Yahoo/Hotmail/GMX account work?</title>
686 The default configuration shouldn't impact the usability of any of these services.
687 It will, however, make all cookies temporary, so that your browser will forget your
688 login credentials in between browser sessions. If you would like not to have to log
689 in manually each time you access those websites, simply turn off all cookie handling
690 for them in the <filename>user.action</filename> file. An example for yahoo might
694 <screen># Allow all cookies for Yahoo login:
696 { -<ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</ulink> -<ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</ulink> -<ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</ulink> }
697 .login.yahoo.com</screen>
702 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="configfiles"> <title>What's the difference between the
703 <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> and <quote>Adventuresome</quote> defaults?</title>
705 Configuring <application>Privoxy</application> is not entirely trivial. To
706 help you get started, we provide you with three different default action
707 <quote>profiles</quote> in the web based actions file editor at <ulink
708 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
709 See the <ulink url="../user-manual/actions-file.html"><citetitle>User
710 Manual</citetitle></ulink> for a list of actions, and how the default
715 Where the defaults are likely to break some sites, exceptions for
716 known popular <quote>problem</quote> sites are included, but in
717 general, the more aggressive your default settings are, the more exceptions
718 you will have to make later. See the <ulink
719 url="../user-manual/index.html"><citetitle>User Manual</citetitle></ulink>
720 for a more deatiled discussion.
724 It should be noted that the <quote>Adventuresome</quote> profile (formerly known
725 as the <quote>Advanced</quote> profile) is not only more
726 aggressive, but also includes fun and, extreme usage of most of
727 <application>Privoxy's</application> features. Use at your own risk!
732 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="browseconfig"> <title>Why can I change the configuration
733 with a browser? Does that not raise security issues?</title>
735 It may seem strange that regular users can edit the config files with their
736 browsers, although the whole <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> hierarchy
737 belongs to the user <quote>privoxy</quote>, with only 644 permissions.
740 When you use the browser-based editor, <application>Privoxy</application>
741 itself is writing to the config files. Because
742 <application>Privoxy</application> is running as the user <quote>privoxy</quote>,
743 it can update the config files.
746 If you run <application>Privoxy</application> for multiple untrusted users (e.g. in
747 a LAN), you will probably want to turn the web-based editor and remote toggle
748 features off by setting <quote><literal><ulink
749 url="../user-manual/config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions</ulink>
750 0</literal></quote> and <quote><literal><ulink
751 url="../user-manual/config.html#ENABLE-REMOTE-TOGGLE">enable-remote-toggle</ulink>
752 0</literal></quote> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html">main configuration file</ulink>.
755 Note that in the default configuration, only local users (i.e. those on
756 <quote>localhost</quote>) can connect to <application>Privoxy</application>,
757 so this is not (normally) a security problem.
762 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
763 <title id="filterfile">What is the <filename>default.filter</filename> file? What is a <quote>filter</quote>?</title>
765 The <ulink url="../user-manual/filter-file.html"><filename>default.filter</filename></ulink>
766 file is where <emphasis>filters</emphasis> are defined, which can be used to modify or
767 remove, web page content on the fly. Filters apply to <emphasis>anything</emphasis>
768 in the page source, including HTML tags, and JavaScript. Regular expressions are used
769 to accomplish this. There are a number of pre-defined filters to deal with common
770 annoyances. The filters are only defined here, to invoke them, you need to use the
772 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER"><literal>filter</literal>
773 action</ulink> in one of the actions files. Filtering is automatically
774 disabled for inappropriate MIME types.
778 If you are familiar with regular expressions, and HTML, you can look at
779 the provided <filename>default.filter</filename> with a text editor and define
780 your own filters. This is potentially a very powerful feature, but
781 requires some expertise in both regular expressions and HTML/HTTP.
785 Presently, there is no GUI editor option for this part of the configuration,
786 but you can disable/enable the various pre-defined filters of the included
787 <filename>default.filter</filename> file with the <ulink
788 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">web-based actions file editor</ulink>.
793 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
794 <title id="lanconfig">How can I set up <application>Privoxy</application> to act as a proxy for my
797 By default, <application>Privoxy</application> only responds to requests
798 from <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> (localhost). To have it act as a server for
799 a network, this needs to be changed in the <ulink
800 url="../user-manual/config.html">main configuration file</ulink>. Look for
802 url="../user-manual/config.html#LISTEN-ADDRESS">listen-address</ulink></literal>
803 option, which may be commented out with a <quote>#</quote> symbol. Make sure
804 it is uncommented, and assign it the address of the LAN gateway interface,
805 and port number to use. Assuming your LAN address is 192.168.1.1 and you
806 wish to run <application>Privoxy</application> on port 8118, this line
812 listen-address 192.168.1.1:8118</screen>
816 Save the file, and restart <application>Privoxy</application>. Configure
817 all browsers on the network then to use this address and port number.
821 Alternately, you can have <application>Privoxy</application> listen on
822 all available interfaces:
827 listen-address :8118</screen>
831 And then use <application>Privoxy's</application>
833 url="../user-manual/config.html#PERMIT-ACCESS">permit-access</ulink>
834 feature to limit connections. A firewall in this situation is recommended
839 The above steps should be the same for any TCP network, regardless of
844 If you run <application>Privoxy</application> on a LAN with untrusted users,
845 we recommend that you double-check the <ulink
846 url="../user-manual/config.html#ACCESS-CONTROL">access control and security</ulink>
853 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
854 <title id="noseeum">Instead of ads, now I get a checkerboard pattern. I don't want to see anything.</title>
856 The replacement for blocked images can be controlled with the <ulink
857 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><literal>set-image-blocker</literal>
858 action</ulink>. You have the choice of a checkerboard pattern, a transparent 1x1 GIF
859 image (aka <quote>blank</quote>), or a redirect to a custom image of your choice.
860 Note that this choice only has effect for images which are blocked as images, i.e.
861 whose URLs match both a <literal><ulink
862 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</ulink></literal>
863 <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><ulink
864 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">block</ulink></literal> action.
867 If you want to see nothing, then change the <ulink
868 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><literal>set-image-blocker</literal>
869 action</ulink> to <quote>blank</quote>. This can be done by editing the
870 <filename>default.action</filename> file, or trough the <ulink
871 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">web-based actions file editor</ulink>.
876 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
877 <title id="whyseeum">Why would anybody want to see a checkerboard pattern?</title>
879 Remember that <link linkend="whatsanad">telling which image is an ad and which
880 isn't</link>, is mostly guesswork. While we hope that the standard configuration
881 is rather smart, it can and will make errors. The checkerboard image is visually
882 decent, but it shows you that and where images were blocked, which can be very
883 helpful in case some navigation aid or otherwise innocent image was
884 erraneously blocked. Some people might also enjoy seeing how many banners
885 they <emphasis>don't</emphasis> have to see..
890 <!-- This has changed with the adaptive "blocked" page
892 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
893 <title id="blockedisugly">I see large red banners on some pages that say
894 <quote>Blocked</quote>. Why and how do I get rid of this?</title>
896 These are URLs that match something in one of
897 <application>Privoxy's</application> block actions
899 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></ulink>).
900 It is meant to be a warning so that you know something has been blocked and
901 an easy way for you to see why. These are handled differently than what has
902 been defined explicitly as <quote>images</quote> (e.g. ads that are GIF image
903 files). Depending on the URL itself, it is sometimes hard for
904 <application>Privoxy</application> to really know whether there is indeed an
905 ad image there or not. And there are limitations as to what
906 <application>Privoxy</application> can do to <quote>fool</quote> the
911 For instance, if the ad is in a frame, then it is embedded in the separate
912 HTML page used for the frame. In this case, you cannot just substitute an
913 aribitrary image (like we would for a <quote>blank</quote> image), for an HTML
914 page. The browser is expecting an HTML page, and that is what it must have
915 for frames. Such situations can be a little trickier to deal with, and
916 <application>Privoxy</application> may show the <quote>Blocked</quote> page,
917 despite your best efforts.
921 If you want these to be treated as if they were images, so that they can be
922 made invisible, you can try moving the offending URL from the
923 <quote>+block</quote> section to the <quote>+imageblock</quote> section of
924 your actions file. Just be forewarned, if any URL is made
925 <quote>invisible</quote>, you may not have any inkling that something has
926 been removed from that page, or why. If this approach does not work, then you are
927 probably dealing with a frame (or <quote>ilayer</quote>), and the only thing
928 that can go there is an HTML page of some sort.
931 To deal with this situation, you could modify the
932 <quote><filename>block</filename></quote> HTML template that is used by
933 <application>Privoxy</application> to display this, and make it something
934 more to your liking. Currently, there is no configuration option for this.
935 You will have to modify, or create your own page, and use this to replace
936 <filename>templates/blocked</filename>, which is what
937 <application>Privoxy</application> uses to display the <quote>Blocked</quote>
941 Another way to deal with this is find why and where
942 <application>Privoxy</application> is blocking the frame, and
943 diable this. Then let the <quote>+set-image-blocker</quote> action
944 handle the ad that is embedded in the frame's HTML page.
949 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="alliseeisred">
950 <title>I cannot see all of the <quote>Blocked</quote> page banner. Help.</title>
952 There is not enough available space to fit the entire Blocked page. Try right
953 clicking on the visible portion, and select <quote>Show Frame</quote>,
954 or equivalent. This will usually allow you to see the entire Privoxy
955 <quote>Blocked</quote> page, and from there you can see just what is being
959 As of Privoxy 2.9.14, the Blocked banner page is re-sizeable, and tries
960 to adjust to the allotted space. There may be occassions where there
961 just isn't enough room to display much of anything useful though.
968 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
969 <title id="blockedbytext">I see some images being replaced by a text
970 instead of the checkerboard image. Why and how do I get rid of this?</title>
972 This happens when the banners are not embedded in the HTML code of the
973 page itself, but in separate HTML (sub)documents that are loaded into (i)frames
974 or (i)layers, and these external HTML documents are blocked. Being non-images
975 they get replaced by a substitute HTML page rather than a substitute image,
976 which wouldn't work out technically, since the browser expects and accepts
977 only HTML when it has requested an HTML document.
980 The substitute page adapts to the available space and shows itself as a
981 miniature two-liner if loaded into small frames, or full-blown with a
982 large red "BLOCKED" banner if space allows.
985 If you prefer the banners to be blocked by images, you must see to it that
986 the HTML documents in which they are embedded are not blocked. Clicking
987 the <quote>See why</quote> link offered in the substitute page will show
988 you which rule blocked the page. After changing the rule and un-blocking
989 the HTML documents, the browser will try to load the actual banner images
990 and the usual image blocking will (hopefully!) kick in.
995 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="srvany">
996 <title>Can <application>Privoxy</application> run as a service
999 Yes, it can run as a system service using <command>srvany.exe</command>.
1000 See the discussion at <ulink
1001 url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=361118&aid=485617&group_id=11118">http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=361118&aid=485617&group_id=11118</ulink>,
1002 for details, and a sample configuration.
1005 Version 3.0.1 fixes the problem where the icon and menu where not available
1006 in the taskbar for this usage.
1011 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="otherproxy">
1012 <title>How can I make <application>Privoxy</application> work with other
1013 proxies like <application>Squid</application>?</title>
1015 This can be done and is often useful to combine the benefits of
1016 <application>Privoxy</application> with those of a caching proxy.
1018 url="../user-manual/config.html#FORWARDING">forwarding chapter</ulink>
1019 in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">user manual</ulink> which
1020 describes how to do this.
1024 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="port-80">
1025 <title>Can I just set <application>Privoxy</application> to use port 80
1026 and thus avoid individual browser configuration?</title>
1029 No, its more complicated than that. This only works with special kinds
1030 of proxies known as <quote>transparent</quote> proxies (see below).
1035 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="transparent">
1036 <title>Can <application>Privoxy</application> run as a <quote>transparent
1037 </quote> proxy?</title>
1039 No, <application>Privoxy</application> currently does not have this ability,
1040 though it is planned for a future release. Transparent proxies require
1041 special handling of the request headers beyond what
1042 <application>Privoxy</application> is now capable of.
1046 Chaining <application>Privoxy</application> behind another proxy that has
1047 this ability should work though.
1049 url="../user-manual/config.html#FORWARDING">forwarding chapter</ulink>
1050 in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">user manual</ulink>. As
1051 a transparent proxy to be used for chaining we recommend Transproxy
1052 (<ulink url="http://www.transproxy.nlc.net.au/">http://www.transproxy.nlc.net.au/</ulink>).
1057 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="outlook">
1058 <title>How can I configure <application>Privoxy</application> for use with <application>Outlook
1059 Express</application>?</title>
1061 <application>Outlook Express</application> uses <application>Internet Explorer</application>
1062 components to both render HTML, and fetch any HTTP requests that may be embedded in an HTML email.
1063 So however you have <application>Privoxy</application> configured to work
1064 with IE, this configuration should automatically be shared.
1068 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="outlook-more">
1069 <title>How can I have separate rules just for HTML mail?</title>
1071 The short answer is, you can't. <application>Privoxy</application> has no way
1072 of knowing which particular application makes a request, so there is no way to
1073 distinguish between web pages and HTML mail.
1074 <application>Privoxy</application> just blindly proxies all requests. In the
1075 case of <application>Outlook Express</application> (see above), OE uses
1076 IE anyway, and there is no way for <application>Privoxy</application> to ever
1077 be able to distinguish between them (nor could any other proxy type application for
1081 For a good discussion of some of the issues involved (including privacy and
1082 security issues), see
1083 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=211118&aid=629518&group_id=11118">http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=211118&aid=629518&group_id=11118</ulink>.
1087 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="allow-cookies">
1088 <title>How can I allow permanent cookies for my trusted sites?</title>
1091 There are several actions that relate to cookies. The default behavior is to
1092 allow only <quote>session cookies</quote>, which means the cookies only last
1093 for the current browser session. This eliminates most kinds of abuse related
1094 to cookies. But there may be cases where we want cookies to last.
1097 To disable all cookie actions, so that cookies are allowed unrestricted,
1098 both in and out, for <literal>example.com</literal>:
1102 { -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies -session-cookies-only -filter{content-cookies} }
1103 .example.com</screen>
1106 Place the above in <filename>user.action</filename>. Note some of these may
1107 be off by default anyway, so this might be redundant, but there is no harm
1108 being explicit in what you want to happen. <filename>user.action</filename>
1109 includes an alias for this situation, called
1110 <literal>allow-all-cookies</literal>.
1116 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1119 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1121 <sect1 id="misc"><title>Miscellaneous</title>
1123 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1124 <title id="slowsme">How much does <application>Privoxy</application> slow my browsing down? This
1125 has to add extra time to browsing.</title>
1127 It should not slow you down any in real terms, and may actually help
1128 speed things up since ads, banners and other junk are not being displayed.
1129 The actual processing time required by <application>Privoxy</application>
1130 itself for each page, is relatively small in the overall scheme of things,
1131 and happens very quickly. This is typically more than offset by time saved
1132 not downloading and rendering ad images.
1136 <quote>Filtering</quote> content via the <literal><ulink
1137 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER">filter</ulink></literal> or
1139 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</ulink></literal>
1140 actions may cause a perceived slowdown, since the entire document needs to be buffered
1141 before displaying. See below.
1147 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="loadingtimes"><title>I noticed considerable
1148 delays in page requests compared to the old Junkbuster. What's wrong?</title>
1150 If you use any <literal><ulink
1151 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER">filter</ulink></literal> action,
1152 such as filtering banners by size, web-bugs etc, or the <literal><ulink
1153 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</ulink></literal>
1154 action, the entire document must be loaded into memory in order for the filtering
1155 mechanism to work, and nothing is sent to the browser during this time.
1158 The loading time does not really change in real numbers, but the feeling is
1159 different, because most browsers are able to start rendering incomplete
1160 content, giving the user a feeling of "it works". This effect is especially
1161 noticeable on slow dialup connections.
1164 Filtering is automatically disabled for inappropriate MIME types. But note
1165 that if the web server mis-reports the MIME type, then content that should
1166 not be filtered, could be. <application>Privoxy</application> only knows how
1167 to differentiate filterable content because of the MIME type as reported by
1168 the server, or because of some configuration setting that enables/disables
1175 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="configurl"><title>What are "http://config.privoxy.org/" and
1176 "http://p.p/"?</title>
1178 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink> is the
1179 address of <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in user interface, and
1180 <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> is a shortcut for it.
1183 Since <application>Privoxy</application> sits between your web browser and the Internet,
1184 it can simply intercept requests for these addresses and answer them with its built-in
1185 <quote>web server</quote>.
1188 This also makes for a good test for your browser configuration: If entering the
1189 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1190 takes you to a page saying <quote>This is Privoxy ...</quote>, everything is OK.
1191 If you get a page saying <quote>Privoxy is not working</quote> instead, then
1192 your browser didn't use <application>Privoxy</application> for the request,
1193 hence it could not be intercepted, and you have accessed the <emphasis>real</emphasis>
1194 web site at config.privoxy.org.
1197 With recent versions of <application>Privoxy</application> (version 2.9.x and
1198 later), the user interface features information on the run time status, the
1199 configuration, and even a built-in editor for the <ulink
1200 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">actions files</ulink>.
1204 Note that the built-in URLs from earlier versions of <application>Junkbuster</application>
1205 / <application>Privoxy</application>, http://example.com/show-proxy-args and http://i.j.b/,
1206 are no longer supported. If you still use such an old version, you should really consider
1207 upgrading to &p-version;.
1212 FIXME: commented out until we have data. HB 03/18/02.
1214 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="badfiledesc"><title>I get the message 'Bad File Descriptor', why?</title>
1222 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="blocklist"><title>Do you still maintain the blocklists?</title>
1224 No. The patterns for blocking now reside (among other things) in the <ulink
1225 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html">actions files</ulink>, which are
1226 actively maintained instead. See next question ...
1230 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="newads"><title>How can I submit new ads?</title>
1232 Yes, absolutely! Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> for
1233 how to do that. Please note that you (technically) need the latest
1234 <application>Privoxy</application> version for this to work.
1239 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="ip"><title>How can I hide my IP address?</title>
1241 If you run both the browser and the proxy locally, you cannot hide your IP
1242 address with <application>Privoxy</application> or any other software. The
1243 server needs to know your IP address to send the answers back to you.
1246 Fortunately there are many publicly usable anonymous proxies out there, which
1247 solve the problem by providing a further level of indirection between you and
1248 the web server, shared by many people, and thus letting your requests "drown"
1249 in white noise of unrelated requests as far as user tracking is concerned.
1252 Most of them will, however, log your IP address and make it available to the
1253 authorities in case you abuse that anonymity for criminal purposes. In fact
1254 you can't even rule out that some of them only exist to *collect* information
1255 on (those suspicious) people with a more than average preference for privacy.
1258 You can find a list of anonymous public proxies at <ulink
1259 url="http://www.multiproxy.org/anon_list.htm">multiproxy.org</ulink> and many
1260 more through Google. A particularly interesting project is the JAP service
1261 offered by the Technical University of Dresden (<ulink
1262 url="http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/index_en.html">http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/index_en.html</ulink>).
1265 There is, however, even in the single-machine case the possibility to make the
1266 server believe that your machine is in fact a shared proxy serving a whole big
1267 LAN, and we are looking into that.
1271 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1272 <title id="anonforsure">Can <application>Privoxy</application> guarantee I am anonymous?</title>
1274 No. Your chances of remaining anonymous are greatly improved, but unless you
1275 are an expert on Internet security it would be safest to assume that
1276 everything you do on the Web can be traced back to you.
1279 <application>Privoxy</application> can remove various information about you,
1280 and allows <emphasis>you</emphasis> more freedom to decide which sites
1281 you can trust, and what details you want to reveal. But it's still possible
1282 that web sites can find out who you are. Here's one way this can happen.
1285 A few browsers disclose the user's email address in certain situations, such
1286 as when transferring a file by FTP. <application>Privoxy</application>
1287 does not filter FTP. If you need this feature, or are concerned about the
1288 mail handler of your browser disclosing your email address, you might
1289 consider products such as <application>NSClean</application>.
1292 Browsers available only as binaries could use non-standard headers to give
1293 out any information they can have access to: see the manufacturer's license
1294 agreement. It's impossible to anticipate and prevent every breach of privacy
1295 that might occur. The professionally paranoid prefer browsers available as
1296 source code, because anticipating their behavior is easier. Trust the source,
1302 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1303 <title id="sitebreak">Might some things break because header information or
1304 content is being altered?</title>
1307 Definitely. More and more sites use HTTP header content to decide what to
1308 display and how to display it. There is many ways that this can be handled,
1309 so having hard and fast rules, is tricky.
1313 <quote>User-Agent</quote> in particular is often used in this way to identify
1314 the browser, and adjust content accordingly. Changing this now (at least not
1315 further than removing the OS information) is not recommended, since so many
1316 sites do look for it. You may get undesirable results by changing this.
1320 For instance, different browsers use different encodings of Russian and Czech
1321 characters, certain web servers convert pages on-the-fly according to the
1322 User Agent header. Giving a <quote>User Agent</quote> with the wrong
1323 operating system or browser manufacturer causes some sites in these languages
1324 to be garbled; Surfers to Eastern European sites should change it to
1325 something closer. And then some page access counters work by looking at the
1326 <quote>Referer</quote> header; they may fail or break if unavailable. The
1327 weather maps of Intellicast have been blocked by their server when no
1328 <quote>Referer</quote> or cookie is provided, is another example. (But you
1329 can forge both headers without giving information away). There are
1330 many other ways things can go wrong when trying to fool a web server.
1334 Similar thoughts apply to modifying JavaScript, and, to a lesser degree,
1339 If you have problems with a site, you will have to adjust your configuration
1340 accordingly. Cookies are probably the most likely adjustment that may
1341 be required, but by no means the only one.
1347 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1348 <title id="caching">Can <application>Privoxy</application> act as a <quote>caching</quote> proxy to
1349 speed up web browsing?</title>
1351 No, it does not have this ability at all. You want something like
1352 <ulink url="http://www.squid-cache.org/">Squid</ulink> for this. And, yes,
1353 before you ask, <application>Privoxy</application> can co-exist
1354 with other kinds of proxies like <application>Squid</application>.
1355 See the <ulink url="../user-manual/config.html#FORWARDING">forwarding
1356 chapter</ulink> in the <ulink url="../user-manual/index.html">user
1357 manual</ulink> for details.
1361 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1362 <title id="firewall">What about as a firewall? Can <application>Privoxy</application> protect me?</title>
1364 Not in the way you mean, or in the way a true firewall can.
1365 <application>Privoxy</application> can help protect your privacy, but not
1366 protect you from intrusion attempts. It is, of course, perfectly possible
1367 and recommended to use <emphasis>both</emphasis>.
1371 <!-- No longer needed
1372 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1373 <title id="logo">The <application>Privoxy</application> logo that replaces ads is very blocky
1374 and ugly looking. Can't a better font be used?</title>
1377 This is not a font problem. The logo is an image that is created by
1378 <application>Privoxy</application> on the fly. So as to not waste
1379 memory, the image is rather small. The blockiness comes when the
1380 image is scaled to fill a largish area. There is not much to be done
1381 about this, other than to use one of the other
1382 <quote>imageblock</quote> directives: <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>,
1383 <emphasis>blank</emphasis>, or a URL of your choosing.
1386 Given the above problem, we have decided to remove the logo option entirely
1392 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1393 <title id="wasted">I have large empty spaces / a checkerboard pattern now where
1394 ads used to be. Why?</title>
1396 It would be technically possible eliminate the banners in a way that frees
1397 their screen estate in many cases, by doing all banner blocking with filters,
1398 i.e. eliminating the whole image references from the HTML pages instead
1399 of letting them stay in, and blocking the resulting requests for the
1403 But this would consume considerable CPU resources, would likely destroy
1404 the layout of many web pages which rely on the banners consuming a certain
1405 amount of screen space, and would fail in other cases, where the screen space
1406 is reserved e.g. by tables anyway. Also, making the banners disappear without
1407 a visual trace complicates troubleshooting.
1410 So we won't support this in the default configuration, but you can of course
1411 define appropriate filters yourself.
1415 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1416 <title id="ssl">How can <application>Privoxy</application> filter Secure (HTTPS) URLs?</title>
1418 Since secure HTTP connections are encrypted SSL sessions between your browser
1419 and the secure site, and are meant to be reliably <emphasis>secure</emphasis>,
1420 there is little that <application>Privoxy</application> can do but hand the raw
1421 gibberish data though from one end to the other unprocessed.
1424 The only exception to this is blocking by host patterns, as the client needs
1425 to tell <application>Privoxy</application> the name of the remote server,
1426 so that <application>Privoxy</application> can establish the connection.
1427 If that name matches a host-only pattern, the connection will be blocked.
1430 As far as ad blocking is concerned, this is less of a restriction than it may
1431 seem, since ad sources are often identifiable by the host name, and often
1432 the banners to be placed in an encrypted page come unencrypted nonetheless
1433 for efficiency reasons, which exposes them to the full power of
1434 <application>Privoxy</application>'s ad blocking.
1437 <quote>Content cookies</quote> (those that are embedded in the actual HTML or
1438 JS page content, see <literal><ulink
1439 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</ulink></literal>),
1440 in an SSL transaction will be impossible to block under these conditions.
1441 Fortunately, this does not seem to be a very common scenario since most
1442 cookies come by traditional means.
1447 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1448 <title id="secure"><application>Privoxy</application> runs as a <quote>server</quote>. How
1449 secure is it? Do I need to take any special precautions?</title>
1451 There are no known exploits that might affect
1452 <application>Privoxy</application>. On Unix-like systems,
1453 <application>Privoxy</application> can run as a non-privileged
1454 user, which is how we recommend it be run. Also, by default
1455 <application>Privoxy</application> only listens to requests
1456 from <quote>localhost</quote> only. The server aspect of
1457 <application>Privoxy</application> is not itself directly exposed to the
1458 Internet in this configuration. If you want to have
1459 <application>Privoxy</application> serve as a LAN proxy, this will have to
1460 be opened up to allow for LAN requests. In this case, we'd recommend
1461 you specify only the LAN gateway address, e.g. 192.168.1.1, in the main
1462 <application>Privoxy</application> configuration file and check all <ulink
1463 url="../user-manual/config.html#ACCESS-CONTROL">access control and security
1464 options</ulink>. All LAN hosts can then use this as their proxy address
1465 in the browser proxy configuration, but <application>Privoxy</application>
1466 will not listen on any external interfaces. ACLs can be defined in addition,
1467 and using a firewall is always good too. Better safe than sorry.
1472 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="turnoff">
1473 <title>How can I temporarily disable <application>Privoxy</application>?</title>
1475 The easiest way is to access <application>Privoxy</application> with your
1476 browser by using the remote toggle URL: <ulink
1477 url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>.
1478 See the <ulink url="../user-manual/appendix.html#BOOKMARKLETS">Bookmarklets section</ulink>
1479 of the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> for an easy way to access this
1484 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="reallyoff">
1485 <title>When <quote>disabled</quote> is <application>Privoxy</application> totally
1486 out of the picture?</title>
1488 No, this just means all filtering and actions are disabled.
1489 <application>Privoxy</application> is still acting as a proxy, but just not
1490 doing any of the things that <application>Privoxy</application> would
1491 normally be expected to do. It is still a <quote>middle-man</quote> in
1492 the interaction between your browser and web sites.
1496 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="crunch">
1497 <title>My logs show <application>Privoxy</application> <quote>crunches</quote>
1498 ads, but also its own CGI pages. What is a <quote>crunch</quote>?</title>
1500 A <quote>crunch</quote> simply means <application>Privoxy</application> intercepted
1501 <emphasis>something</emphasis>, nothing more. Often this is indeed ads or
1502 banners, but <application>Privoxy</application> uses the same mechanism for
1503 trapping requests for its own internal pages. For instance, a request for
1504 <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration page at: <ulink
1505 url="http://config.privoxy.org">http://config.privoxy.org</ulink>, is
1506 intercepted (i.e. it does not go out to the 'net), and the familiar CGI
1507 configuration is returned to the browser, and the log consequently will show
1508 a <quote>crunch</quote>.
1512 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="downloads">
1513 <title>Can <application>Privoxy</application> effect files that I download
1514 from a webserver? FTP server?</title>
1516 From the webserver's perspective, there is no difference between
1517 viewing a document (i.e. a page), and downloading a file. The same is true of
1518 <application>Privoxy</application>. If there is a match for a <literal><ulink
1519 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#BLOCK">block</ulink></literal> pattern,
1520 it will still be blocked, and of course this is obvious.
1523 Filtering is potentially more of a concern since the results are not always
1524 so obvious, and the effects of filtering are there whether the file is simply
1525 viewed, or downloaded. And potentially whether the content is some obnoxious
1526 advertizement, or Mr. Jimmy's latest/greatest source code jewel. Of course,
1527 one of these presumably is <quote>bad</quote> content that we don't want, and
1528 the other is <quote>good</quote> content that we do want.
1529 <application>Privoxy</application> is blind to the differences, and can only
1530 distinguish <quote>good from bad</quote> by the configuration parameters
1531 <emphasis>we</emphasis> give it.
1534 <application>Privoxy</application> knows the differences in files according
1535 to the <quote>Document Type</quote> as reported by the webserver. If this is
1536 reported accurately (e.g. <quote>application/zip</quote> for a zip archive),
1537 then <application>Privoxy</application> knows to ignore these where
1538 appropriate. <application>Privoxy</application> potentially can filter HTML
1539 as well as plain text documents, subject to configuration parameters of
1540 course. Also, documents that are of an unknown type (generally assumed to be
1541 <quote>text/plain</quote>) can be filtered, as will those that might be
1542 incorrectly reported by the webserver. If such a file is a downloaded file
1543 that is intended to be saved to disk, then any content that might have been
1544 altered by filtering, will be saved too, for these (probably rare) cases.
1547 Note that versions later than 3.0.2 do NOT filter document types of
1548 <quote>text/plain</quote>. Prior to this, <application>Privoxy</application>
1549 did filter this document type.
1552 In short, filtering is <quote>ON</quote> if a) the Document Type as reported
1553 by the webserver is appropriate <emphasis>and</emphasis> b) the configuration
1554 allows it (or at least does not disallow it). That's it. There is no magic
1555 cookie anywhere to say this is <quote>good</quote> and this is
1556 <quote>bad</quote>. It's the configuration that let's it all happen or not.
1559 If you download text files, you probably do not want these to be filtered,
1560 particularly if the content is source code, or other critical content. Source
1561 code sometimes might be mistaken for Javascript (i.e. the kind that might
1562 open a pop-up window). It is recommended to turn off filtering for download
1563 sites (particularly if the content may be plain text files and you are using
1564 version 3.0.2 or earlier) in your <filename>user.action</filename> file. And
1565 also, for any site or page where making <emphasis>any</emphasis> changes at
1566 all to the content is to be avoided.
1569 <application>Privoxy</application> does not do FTP at all, only HTTP
1570 protocols, so please don't even try.
1574 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="downloads2">
1575 <title>I just downloaded a Perl script, and <application>Privoxy</application>
1576 altered it! Yikes, what is wrong!</title>
1583 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="seealso">
1584 <title>Where can I find more information about <application>Privoxy</application>
1585 and related issues?</title>
1586 <!-- Include seealso.sgml boilerplate: -->
1588 <!-- end boilerplate -->
1593 <ulink url="../user-manual/seealso.html">user-manual</ulink> for
1599 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="microsuck">
1600 <title>I've noticed that Privoxy changes <quote>Microsoft</quote> to
1601 <quote>MicroSuck</quote>! Why are you manipulating my browsing?</title>
1604 We're not. The text substitutions that you are seeing are disabled
1605 in the default configuration as shipped. You have either manually
1606 activated the <quote><literal>fun</literal></quote> filter which
1607 is clearly labeled <quote>Text replacements for subversive browsing
1608 fun!</quote> or you have implicitly activated it by choosing the
1609 <quote>Adventuresome</quote> profile in the web-based editor (formerly known
1610 as the <application>Advanced</application> profile).
1617 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1619 <sect1 id="trouble">
1620 <title>Troubleshooting</title>
1622 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1623 <title id="refused">I just upgraded and am getting <quote>connection refused</quote>
1624 with every web page?</title>
1626 Either <application>Privoxy</application> is not running, or your
1627 browser is configured for a different port than what
1628 <application>Privoxy</application> is using.
1632 The old <application>Privoxy</application> (and also
1633 <application>Junkbuster</application>) used port 8000 by
1634 default. This has been changed to port 8118 now, due to a conflict
1635 with NAS (Network Audio Service), which uses port 8000. If you haven't,
1636 you need to change your browser to the new port number, or alternately
1638 url="../user-manual/config.html#LISTEN-ADDRESS"><literal>listen-address</literal>
1639 option</ulink> in <application>Privoxy's</application> <ulink
1640 url="../user-manual/config.html">main configuration file</ulink>.
1645 <sect2 renderas="sect3">
1646 <title id="flushit">I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is
1647 still getting through. How?</title>
1649 If the ad had been displayed before you added its URL, it will probably be
1650 held in the browser's cache for some time, so it will be displayed without
1651 the need for any request to the server, and <application>Privoxy</application>
1652 will not be in the picture. The best thing to do is try flushing the browser's
1653 caches. And then try again.
1657 If this doesn't help, you probably have an error in the rule you
1658 applied. Try pasting the full URL of the offending ad into <ulink
1659 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
1660 and see if it really matches your new rule.
1665 <sect2 id="badsite" renderas="sect3">
1666 <title >One of my favorite sites does not work with <application>Privoxy</application>.
1667 What can I do?</title>
1670 First verify that it is indeed a <application>Privoxy</application> problem,
1671 by toggling off <application>Privoxy</application> through <ulink
1672 url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>,
1673 and then shift-reloading the problem page (i.e. holding down the shift key
1674 while clicking reload. Alternatively, flush your browser's disk and memory
1679 If still a problem, go to <ulink
1680 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
1681 and paste the full URL of the page in question into the prompt. See which actions
1682 are being applied to the URL, and which matches in which actions files are
1683 responsible for that. Now, armed with this information, go to <ulink
1684 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1685 and select the appropriate actions files for editing.
1688 You can now either look for a section which disables the actions that
1689 you suspect to cause the problem and add a pattern for your site there,
1690 or make up a completely new section for your site. In any case, the recommended
1691 way is to disable only the prime suspect, reload the problem page, and only
1692 if the problem persists, disable more and more actions until you have
1693 identified the culprit. You may or may not want to turn the other actions
1694 on again. Remember to flush your browser's caches in between any such changes!
1697 Alternately, if you are comfortable with a text editor, you can accomplish
1698 the same thing by editing the appropriate actions file. Probably the easiest
1699 way to deal with such problems when editing by hand is to add your
1700 site to a <literal>{ fragile }</literal> section in <filename>user.action</filename>,
1701 which is an alias that turns off most <quote>dangerous</quote>
1702 actions, but is also likely to turn off more actions then needed, and thus lower
1703 your privacy and protection more than necessary,
1706 Troubleshooting actions is discussed in more detail in the <ulink
1707 url="../user-manual/appendix.html#ACTIONSANAT">user-manual appendix</ulink>.
1708 There is also an <ulink
1709 url="../user-manual/actions-file.html#ACT-EXAMPLES">actions tutorial</ulink>.
1715 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1716 <sect2 id="dun" renderas="sect3">
1717 <title>After installing <application>Privoxy</application>, I have to log in
1718 every time I start IE. What gives?</title>
1721 This is a quirk that effects the installation of
1722 <application>Privoxy</application>, in conjunction with Internet Explorer and
1723 Internet Connection Sharing on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The symptoms may
1724 appear to be corrupted or invalid DUN settings, or passwords.
1728 When setting up an NT based Windows system with
1729 <application>Privoxy</application> you may find that things do not seem to be
1730 doing what you expect. When you set your system up you will probably have set
1731 up Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) with Dial up Networking (DUN) when
1732 logged in with administrator privileges. You will probably have made this DUN
1733 connection available to other accounts that you may have set-up on your
1734 system. E.g. Mum or Dad sets up the system and makes accounts suitably
1735 configured for the kids.
1739 When setting up <application>Privoxy</application> in this environment you
1740 will have to alter the proxy set-up of Internet Explorer (IE) for the
1741 specific DUN connection on which you wish to use
1742 <application>Privoxy</application>. When you do this the ICS DUN set-up
1743 becomes user specific. In this instance you will see no difference if you
1744 change the DUN connection under the account used to set-up the connection.
1745 However when you do this from another user you will notice that the DUN
1746 connection changes to make available to "Me only". You will also find that
1747 you have to store the password under each different user!
1751 The reason for this is that each user's set-up for IE is user specific. Each
1752 set-up DUN connection and each LAN connection in IE store the settings for
1753 each user individually. As such this enforces individual configurations
1754 rather than common ones. Hence the first time you use a DUN connection after
1755 re-booting your system it may not perform as you expect, and prompt you for
1756 the password. Just set and save the password again and all should be OK.
1760 [Thanks to Ray Griffith for this submission.]
1765 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1766 <sect2 id="ftp" renderas="sect3">
1767 <title>I cannot connect to any FTP sites. <application>Privoxy</application>
1768 seems to be blocking me.</title>
1770 <application>Privoxy</application> cannot act as a proxy for FTP traffic,
1771 so do not configure your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application>
1772 as an FTP proxy. The same is true for <emphasis>any protocol other than HTTP
1773 or HTTPS</emphasis>.
1776 Most browsers understand FTP as well as HTTP. If you connect to a site, with
1777 a URL like <literal>ftp://ftp.example.com</literal>, your browser is making
1778 an FTP connection, and not a HTTP connection. So while your browser may
1779 speak FTP, <application>Privoxy</application> does not, and cannot proxy
1783 To complicate matters, some systems may have a generic <quote>proxy</quote>
1784 setting, which will silently enable <emphasis>both</emphasis> HTTP and FTP
1785 proxying! So it is possible to accidentally enable FTP proxying in these
1786 cases. And of course, if this happens, <application>Privoxy</application>
1787 will indeed cause problems since it does not know FTP.
1790 Will <application>Privoxy</application> ever proxy FTP traffic? Unlikely.
1791 There just is not much reason, and the work to make this happen is more than
1796 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1797 <sect2 id="osxie" renderas="sect3">
1798 <title>In Mac OSX, I can't configure Microsoft Internet Explorer to use
1799 <application>Privoxy</application> as the HTTP proxy.</title>
1801 Microsoft Internet Explorer (in versions like 5.1) respects system-wide
1802 network settings. In order to change the HTTP proxy, open System
1803 Preferences, and click on the Network icon. In the settings pane that
1804 comes up, click on the Proxies tab. Ensure the "Web Proxy (HTTP)" checkbox
1805 is checked and enter <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> in the entry field.
1806 Enter <literal>8118</literal> in the Port field. The next time you start
1807 IE, it should reflect these values.
1811 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1812 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="osxuninstall">
1813 <title>In Mac OSX, I dragged the Privoxy folder to the trash in order to
1814 uninstall it. Now the finder tells me I don't have sufficient privileges to
1815 empty the trash.</title>
1817 Just dragging the <application>Privoxy</application> folder to the trash is
1818 not enough to delete it. <application>Privoxy</application> supplies an
1819 <application>uninstall.command</application> file that takes care of
1820 these details. Open the trash, drag the <application>uninstall.command</application>
1821 file out of the trash and double-click on it. You will be prompted for
1822 confirmation and the administration password.
1825 The trash may still appear full after this command; emptying the trash
1826 from the desktop should make it appear empty again.
1831 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1832 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="osximages">
1833 <title>In Mac OSX Panther (10.3), images often fail to load and/or I
1834 experience random delays in page loading. I'm using
1835 <literal>localhost</literal> as my browser's proxy setting.</title>
1837 We believe this is due to an IPv6-related bug in OSX, but don't fully
1838 understand the issue yet. In any case, changing the proxy setting to
1839 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> instead of <literal>localhost</literal>
1840 works around the problem.
1844 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1845 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="blankpage">
1846 <title>I get a completely blank page at one site. <quote>View Source</quote>
1847 shows only: <markup><![CDATA[<html><body></body></html>]]></markup>. Without
1848 <application>Privoxy</application> the page loads fine.</title>
1850 Chances are that the site suffers from a bug in
1851 <ulink url="http://www.php.net/"><application>PHP</application></ulink>,
1852 which results in empty pages being sent if the client explicitly requests
1853 an uncompressed page, like <application>Privoxy</application> does.
1854 This bug has been fixed in PHP 4.2.3.
1857 To find out if this is in fact the source of the problem, try adding
1858 the site to a <literal>-prevent-compression</literal> section in
1859 <filename>user.action</filename>:
1862 # Make exceptions for ill-behaved sites:
1864 {-prevent-compression}
1865 .example.com</screen>
1867 If that works, you may also want to report the problem to the
1868 site's webmasters, telling them to use zlib.output_compression
1869 instead of ob_gzhandler in their PHP applications (workaround)
1870 or upgrade to PHP 4.2.3 or later (fix).
1874 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1875 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="error503">
1876 <title>Why am I getting a 503 Error (WSAECONNREFUSED) on every page?</title>
1878 More than likely this is a problem with the network stack. ZoneAlarm has
1879 been reported to cause this symptom -- even if not running. The solution is
1880 to either fight the ZA configuration, or uninstall ZoneAlarm, and then find
1881 something better behaved in its place. Other firewall type products may
1882 cause similar type problems if not configured correctly.
1886 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="nohostname">
1887 <title>My logs show many <quote>Unable to get my own hostname</quote> lines.
1890 <application>Privoxy</application> tries to get the hostname of the system
1891 its running on from the IP address of the system interface it is bound to
1892 (from the <filename>config</filename> file
1893 <emphasis>listen-address</emphasis> setting). If the system cannot supply
1894 this information, <application>Privoxy</application> logs this condition.
1897 Typically, this would be considered a system configuration error. It is not a
1898 fatal error to <application>Privoxy</application> however, but may result in
1899 a much slower response from <application>Privoxy</application> due to DNS
1904 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="inuse">
1905 <title>When I try to launch <application>Privoxy</application>, I get an
1906 error message <quote>port 8118 is already in use</quote> (or similar wording).
1909 Port 8118 is <application>Privoxy's</application> default TCP
1910 <quote>listening</quote> port. Typically this message would mean that there
1911 is already one instance of <application>Privoxy</application> running, and
1912 you are actually trying to start a second <application>Privoxy</application>
1913 on the same port, which will not work. How and why this might happen varies
1914 from platform to platform, but you need to check your installation and
1915 start-up procedures.
1919 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="demoronizer">
1921 Pages with UTF-8 fonts are garbled.
1924 This is caused by the <quote>demoronizer</quote> filter, which was introduced
1925 in version 3.0.2, and was inappropriately turned on by default. You should
1926 either upgrade <application>Privoxy</application>, or at least upgrade to the most
1927 recent <filename>default.action</filename> file available from
1928 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">SourceForge</ulink>.
1929 Or you can simply disable the demoronizer filter.
1933 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="demoronizer2">
1935 Why are binary files (such as images) corrupted when <application>Privoxy</application>
1939 This may also be caused by the <quote>demoronizer</quote> filter,
1940 in conjunction with a web server that is misreporting a file type. Binary
1941 files are exempted from <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering
1942 (unless the web server by mistake says the file is a plain text file). Either
1943 upgrade <application>Privoxy</application>, or go to the most recent
1944 <filename>default.action</filename> file available from <ulink
1945 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">SourceForge</ulink>.
1949 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="demoronizer3">
1951 What is the <quote>demoronizer</quote> and why is it there?
1954 The original demoronizer was a Perl script that cleaned up HTML pages which
1955 were created with certain Microsoft products. MS has used proprietary extensions
1956 to standardized font encodings (ISO 8859-1), which has caused problems for pages
1957 that are viewed with non-Microsoft products (and are expecting to see a
1958 standard set of fonts). The demoronizer corrected these errors so the pages
1959 displayed correctly. <application>Privoxy</application> borrowed from this
1960 script, introducing a filter based on the original demoronizer, which in turn could
1961 correct these errors on the fly.
1964 But this is only needed in some situations, and will cause serious problems in some
1968 If you are using Microsoft products, you do not need it. If you need to view
1969 pages with UTF-8 characters (such as Cyrillic or Chinese), then it will
1970 cause corruption of the fonts, and thus <emphasis>should not be on</emphasis>.
1973 On the other hand, if you use non-Microsoft products, and you occasionally
1974 notice wierd characters on pages, you might want to try it.
1977 This filter was introduced with version 3.0.2 of <application>Privoxy</application>,
1978 and was on by default in that version. It is off in all subsequent versions
1979 (unless turned on by the user).
1983 <sect2 renderas="sect3" id="windowopen">
1985 Why do I keep seeing <quote>PrivoxyWindowOpen()</quote> in raw source code?
1988 <application>Privoxy</application> is attempting to disable malicious
1989 Javascript in this case, with the <literal>unsolicited-popups</literal>
1990 filter. <application>Privoxy</application> cannot tell very well
1991 <quote>good</quote> code snippets from <quote>bad</quote> code snippets.
1994 If you see this in HTML source, and the page displays without problems, then
1995 this is good, and likely some pop-up window was disabled. If you see this
1996 where it is causing a problem, such as a downloaded program source code file,
1997 then you should set an exception for this site or page such that the
1998 integrity of the page stays in tact by disabling all filtering.
2004 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2005 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests</title>
2006 <!-- Include contacting.sgml -->
2008 <!-- end contacting -->
2011 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2012 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Privoxy Copyright, License and History</title>
2014 <!-- Include copyright.sgml -->
2020 Portions of this document are <quote>borrowed</quote> from the original
2021 <application>Junkbuster</application> (tm) FAQ, and modified as
2022 appropriate for <application>Privoxy</application>.
2025 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2026 <sect2><title>License</title>
2027 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
2029 <!-- end copyright -->
2031 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2033 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2034 <sect2><title>History</title>
2035 <!-- Include history.sgml -->
2041 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2044 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2046 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See also</title>
2048 <!-- Include seealso.sgml -->
2059 Tue 09/11/01 06:38:14 PM EST: Test SGML doc by Hal Burgiss.
2061 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
2062 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
2063 Public License as published by the Free Software
2064 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
2065 your option) any later version.
2067 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
2068 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
2069 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
2070 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
2071 License for more details.
2073 The GNU General Public License should be included with
2074 this file. If not, you can view it at
2075 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
2076 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
2077 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
2080 Revision 1.61.2.41 2004/04/05 13:44:05 oes
2081 Fixed allow-all-cookies alias name; closes SR #929746
2083 Revision 1.61.2.40 2004/01/30 17:00:33 oes
2084 Added OSX Panther problem
2086 Revision 1.61.2.39 2004/01/29 22:53:08 hal9
2087 Minor changes for exempting docs of text/plain. Change copyright date.
2089 Revision 1.61.2.38 2003/12/10 03:39:45 hal9
2090 Added FAQs for: demoronizer, related problems and why its included. Also,
2091 port 8118 already in use questions, and PrivoxyWindowOpen() questions. All in
2092 troubleshooting section.
2094 Revision 1.61.2.37 2003/10/17 11:01:50 oes
2095 Added Q&A for "not being used" page problem
2097 Revision 1.61.2.36 2003/06/26 23:49:20 hal9
2098 More on the filter/source code problem.
2100 Revision 1.61.2.35 2003/06/26 13:38:08 hal9
2101 Add FAQ on whether configuring Privoxy is necessary or not.
2103 Revision 1.61.2.34 2003/06/26 03:00:03 hal9
2104 Sorry, found another copyright date.
2106 Revision 1.61.2.33 2003/06/26 02:57:05 hal9
2107 Fix typo (finally!) and very minor modifications.
2109 Revision 1.61.2.32 2003/06/26 02:52:04 hal9
2112 Revision 1.61.2.31 2003/06/25 01:27:51 hal9
2113 Fix copyright, and a few nits.
2115 Revision 1.61.2.30 2003/06/25 01:13:52 hal9
2118 - FAQ on "Unable to get my own hostname"
2119 - Another one on filtering effects on text files.
2121 Revision 1.61.2.29 2003/06/15 21:32:58 hal9
2122 Add to the 4.17 (filtering effects on downloaded files).
2124 Revision 1.61.2.28 2003/03/18 19:37:21 oes
2125 s/Advanced|Radical/Adventuresome/g to avoid complaints re fun filter
2127 Revision 1.61.2.27 2002/12/01 06:31:58 hal9
2128 Add faq on win32 error 503 due to ZoneAlarm.
2130 Revision 1.61.2.26 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9
2131 Move default profiles table from FAQ to U-M, and other minor related changes.
2134 Revision 1.61.2.25 2002/10/29 03:21:50 hal9
2135 Add 3 Q/A's relating to HTML in email. Other minor touchups.
2137 Revision 1.61.2.24 2002/10/15 12:50:22 oes
2138 s/Advanced/Radical/ (stupid me)
2140 Revision 1.61.2.23 2002/10/15 12:38:56 oes
2141 Added Microsuck faq; more detail for PHP problem
2143 Revision 1.61.2.22 2002/10/12 01:13:13 hal9
2144 Updates for demoronizer, more commentary on Radical profile, and update on
2145 the srvany.exe/icon fix.
2147 Revision 1.61.2.21 2002/10/10 04:09:35 hal9
2148 s/Advanced/Radical/ and added very brief note.
2150 Revision 1.61.2.20 2002/09/26 01:22:45 hal9
2151 Small additions for LAN setup, content-cookies/SSL, and FTP non-support.
2153 Revision 1.61.2.19 2002/08/25 23:31:56 hal9
2154 Fix one grammatical error. Add brief FAQ relating to tranparent proxies (ie
2155 port 80 setting). Add FAQ on effects of Privoxy on downloaded files
2156 (especially filtering).
2158 Revision 1.61.2.18 2002/08/14 16:39:37 hal9
2159 Fix wrong tag on FAQ addition.
2161 Revision 1.61.2.17 2002/08/14 00:01:18 hal9
2164 Revision 1.61.2.16 2002/08/13 00:10:38 hal9
2165 Add faq to troubleshooting re: blank page syndrome, ie {-prevent-compression}.
2167 Revision 1.61.2.15 2002/08/10 11:34:22 oes
2168 Add disclaimer about probably being out-of-date
2170 Revision 1.61.2.14 2002/08/07 02:53:43 hal9
2171 Fix some minor markup errors, and move one OSX Q/A to troubleshooting section.
2173 Revision 1.61.2.13 2002/08/06 11:55:32 oes
2174 Added missing close tag
2176 Revision 1.61.2.12 2002/08/06 11:43:46 david__schmidt
2177 Updated OSX uninstall FAQ... we have an uninstall script now.
2179 Revision 1.61.2.11 2002/08/06 08:54:03 oes
2180 Style police: Fixed formatting details
2182 Revision 1.61.2.10 2002/08/02 14:00:25 david__schmidt
2183 Made the OSX removal commands far less dangerous
2185 Revision 1.61.2.9 2002/08/02 13:14:45 oes
2186 Added warning about sudo rm -r for Mac OSX deinstallation; moved this item to install section
2188 Revision 1.61.2.8 2002/08/02 02:01:42 david__schmidt
2189 Add FAQ item for MSIE on OSX HTTP proxy confusion
2191 Revision 1.61.2.7 2002/08/02 01:46:01 david__schmidt
2192 Added FAQ item for Mac OSX uninstall woes
2194 Revision 1.61.2.6 2002/07/30 20:04:56 hal9
2195 Fix typo: 'schould'.
2197 Revision 1.61.2.5 2002/07/26 15:22:58 oes
2198 - Updated to reflect changes in standard.action
2199 - Added info on where to get updated actions files
2201 Revision 1.61.2.4 2002/07/25 21:42:29 hal9
2202 Add brief notes on not proxying non-HTTP protocols.
2204 Revision 1.61.2.3 2002/06/09 16:36:33 hal9
2205 Clarifications on filtering and MIME. Hardcode 'latest release' in index.html.
2207 Revision 1.61.2.2 2002/06/06 02:51:34 hal9
2208 Fix typo in URL http:/config.privoxy.org
2210 Revision 1.61.2.1 2002/06/05 23:10:43 hal9
2211 Add new FAQ re: DUN/IE. Change release date from May to June :)
2213 Revision 1.61 2002/05/25 12:37:25 hal9
2214 Various minor changes and edits.
2216 Revision 1.60 2002/05/22 17:17:48 oes
2217 Proofread & added more links into u-m
2219 Revision 1.59 2002/05/15 04:03:30 hal9
2220 Fix ulink -> link markup.
2222 Revision 1.58 2002/05/10 01:48:20 hal9
2223 This is mostly proposed copyright/licensing additions and changes. Docs
2224 are still GPL, but licensing and copyright are more visible. Also, copyright
2225 changed in doc header comments (eliminate references to JB except FAQ).
2227 Revision 1.57 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
2228 Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
2230 Revision 1.56 2002/05/04 08:44:44 swa
2233 Revision 1.55 2002/05/04 00:41:56 hal9
2234 -Remove TOC/first page kludge in favor of proper handling via dsl file.
2236 Revision 1.54 2002/05/03 05:06:44 hal9
2237 Add brief Q/A on transparent proxies.
2239 Revision 1.53 2002/05/03 01:34:52 hal9
2240 Fix section numbering for new sections (due to TOC kludge).
2242 Revision 1.52 2002/04/29 03:08:43 hal9
2243 -Added new Q/A on new actions file set up (pointer to u-m)
2244 -Fixed a few broken links and converted old actions as a result of
2247 Revision 1.51 2002/04/26 17:24:31 swa
2248 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
2250 Revision 1.50 2002/04/26 05:25:23 hal9
2251 Mass commit to catch a few scattered fixes.
2253 Revision 1.49 2002/04/12 10:10:18 swa
2256 Revision 1.48 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
2259 Revision 1.47 2002/04/10 04:05:32 hal9
2262 Revision 1.45 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
2263 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
2265 Revision 1.44 2002/04/07 21:24:29 hal9
2266 Touch up on name change.
2268 Revision 1.43 2002/04/04 21:59:53 hal9
2269 Added NT/W2K service/icon situation.
2271 Revision 1.42 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
2272 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
2274 Revision 1.41 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
2275 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
2276 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
2277 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
2278 eventually be set by Makefile.
2279 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
2281 Revision 1.40 2002/04/03 04:22:03 hal9
2282 Fixed several typos.
2284 Revision 1.39 2002/04/03 03:53:03 hal9
2285 Revert some changes, and then make some news, to layout, and appearance.
2287 Revision 1.38 2002/04/02 03:49:10 hal9
2288 Major changes to doc structure and layout. Sections are not automatically
2289 numbered now. TOC is on page by itself.
2291 Revision 1.37 2002/04/01 16:24:07 hal9
2292 -Rework of supported Q/A.
2293 -Set up entities to include boilerplate text.
2295 Revision 1.36 2002/03/31 23:18:47 hal9
2296 More on dealing with BLOCKED.
2298 Revision 1.35 2002/03/30 04:14:19 hal9
2299 Fix privoxy.org/config links.
2301 Revision 1.34 2002/03/29 04:35:56 hal9
2304 Revision 1.33 2002/03/29 01:31:48 hal9
2305 Several new Q/A's and other touch ups.
2307 Revision 1.32 2002/03/27 00:57:03 hal9
2308 Touch ups for name change.
2310 Revision 1.31 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
2311 we have a new homepage!
2313 Revision 1.30 2002/03/25 16:39:22 hal9
2314 A few new sections. Made all links relative to user-manual.
2316 Revision 1.29 2002/03/25 05:23:57 hal9
2317 Moved section, and touch ups.
2319 Revision 1.28 2002/03/25 04:27:33 hal9
2320 New section related to name change.
2322 Revision 1.25 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
2323 we are too lazy to make a block-built
2324 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
2326 Revision 1.24 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
2327 name change related issue.
2329 Revision 1.23 2002/03/24 12:33:01 swa
2332 Revision 1.22 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
2333 name change. changed filenames.
2335 Revision 1.21 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
2338 Revision 1.20 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
2339 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
2340 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
2341 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
2342 comments and remarks to history untouched.
2344 Revision 1.19 2002/03/21 17:01:54 hal9
2347 Revision 1.18 2002/03/18 16:40:31 hal9
2350 Revision 1.17 2002/03/18 03:53:53 hal9
2353 Revision 1.16 2002/03/17 21:32:56 hal9
2354 A few more additions.
2356 Revision 1.15 2002/03/17 07:25:59 hal9
2357 Correcting some of my typos, and some additions.
2359 Revision 1.14 2002/03/17 02:39:13 hal9
2360 A little more added ...
2362 Revision 1.13 2002/03/17 00:22:20 hal9
2363 Adding new stuff, and trying to incorporate stuff from old faq.
2365 Revision 1.12 2002/03/11 20:13:21 swa
2368 Revision 1.11 2002/03/11 18:42:27 swa
2371 Revision 1.10 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
2372 correct feedback channels
2374 Revision 1.9 2002/03/10 23:34:04 swa
2375 more info on not hiding ip address
2377 Revision 1.8 2002/03/09 15:55:48 swa
2378 added default config section
2380 Revision 1.7 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
2383 Revision 1.6 2002/03/07 13:16:31 oes
2384 Committing changes by Stefan
2386 Revision 1.5 2002/03/02 15:50:04 swa
2387 2.9.11 version. more input for docs.
2389 Revision 1.4 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
2390 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
2391 will work - no other changes are needed.
2393 Revision 1.3 2001/09/23 10:13:48 swa
2394 upload process established. run make webserver and
2395 the documentation is moved to the webserver. documents
2396 are now linked correctly.
2398 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:20:17 swa
2399 merged standards into developer manual
2401 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
2402 source files for junkbuster documentation
2404 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
2405 first proposal of a structure.
2407 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
2408 docs should have an author.
2410 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
2411 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.