1 Privoxy Frequently Asked Questions
3 Copyright © 2001-2006 by Privoxy Developers
5 $Id: faq.sgml,v 2.17 2006/09/17 14:56:32 hal9 Exp $
7 This FAQ gives quick answers to frequently asked questions about Privoxy. It is
8 not a substitute for the Privoxy User Manual.
12 Privoxy is a web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for protecting
13 privacy, modifying web page data, managing cookies, controlling access, and
14 removing ads, banners, pop-ups and other obnoxious Internet junk. Privoxy has a
15 very flexible configuration and can be customized to suit individual needs and
16 tastes. Privoxy has application for both stand-alone systems and multi-user
19 Privoxy is based on Internet Junkbuster (tm).
21 Please note that this document is a work in progress. This copy represents the
22 state at the release of version 3.0.5. You can find the latest version of the
23 document at http://www.privoxy.org/faq/. Please see the Contact section if you
24 want to contact the developers.
26 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
29 1. General Information
31 1.1. Who should use Privoxy?
32 1.2. Is Privoxy the best choice for me?
33 1.3. What is a "proxy"? How does Privoxy work?
34 1.4. What is this new version of "Junkbuster"?
35 1.5. Why "Privoxy"? Why change the name from Junkbuster at all?
36 1.6. How does Privoxy differ from the old Junkbuster?
37 1.7. How does Privoxy know what is an ad, and what is not?
38 1.8. Can Privoxy make mistakes? This does not sound very scientific.
39 1.9. Will I have to configure Privoxy before I can use it?
40 1.10. My browser does the same things as Privoxy. Why should I use Privoxy
42 1.11. Why should I trust Privoxy?
43 1.12. Is there is a license or fee? What about a warranty? Registration?
44 1.13. Can Privoxy remove spyware? Adware? Viruses?
45 1.14. Can I use Privoxy with other ad-blocking software?
46 1.15. I would like to help you, what can I do?
48 1.15.1. Would you like to participate?
54 2.1. Which browsers are supported by Privoxy?
55 2.2. Which operating systems are supported?
56 2.3. Can I use Privoxy with my email client?
57 2.4. Can I install Privoxy over Junkbuster?
58 2.5. I just installed Privoxy. Is there anything special I have to do now?
59 2.6. What is the proxy address of Privoxy?
60 2.7. I just installed Privoxy, and nothing is happening. All the ads are
62 2.8. I get a "Privoxy is not being used" dummy page although Privoxy is
63 running and being used.
67 3.1. Where can I get updated Actions Files?
68 3.2. Can I use my old config files?
69 3.3. What exactly is an "actions" file?
70 3.4. The "actions" concept confuses me. Please list some of these
72 3.5. How are actions files configured? What is the easiest way to do this?
73 3.6. There are several different "actions" files. What are the differences?
74 3.7. How can I make my Yahoo/Hotmail/Gmail account work?
75 3.8. What's the difference between the "Cautious", "Medium" and "Advanced"
77 3.9. Why can I change the configuration with a browser? Does that not raise
79 3.10. What is the default.filter file? What is a "filter"?
80 3.11. How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my LAN?
81 3.12. Instead of ads, now I get a checkerboard pattern. I don't want to see
83 3.13. Why would anybody want to see a checkerboard pattern?
84 3.14. I see some images being replaced by a text instead of the
85 checkerboard image. Why and how do I get rid of this?
86 3.15. Can Privoxy run as a service on Win2K/NT/XP?
87 3.16. How can I make Privoxy work with other proxies like Squid or Tor?
88 3.17. Can I just set Privoxy to use port 80 and thus avoid individual
89 browser configuration?
90 3.18. Can Privoxy run as a "transparent" proxy?
91 3.19. How can I configure Privoxy for use with Outlook Express?
92 3.20. How can I have separate rules just for HTML mail?
93 3.21. I sometimes notice cookies sneaking through. How?
94 3.22. Are all cookies bad? Why?
95 3.23. How can I allow permanent cookies for my trusted sites?
96 3.24. Can I have separate configurations for different users?
97 3.25. Can I set-up Privoxy as a whitelist of "good" sites?
101 4.1. How much does Privoxy slow my browsing down? This has to add extra
103 4.2. I notice considerable delays in page requests compared to the old
104 Junkbuster. What's wrong?
105 4.3. What are "http://config.privoxy.org/" and "http://p.p/"?
106 4.4. How can I submit new ads, or report problems?
107 4.5. Why doesn't anyone answer my support request?
108 4.6. How can I hide my IP address?
109 4.7. Can Privoxy guarantee I am anonymous?
110 4.8. A test site says I am not using a Proxy.
111 4.9. How do I use Privoxy together with Tor?
112 4.10. Might some things break because header information or content is
114 4.11. Can Privoxy act as a "caching" proxy to speed up web browsing?
115 4.12. What about as a firewall? Can Privoxy protect me?
116 4.13. I have large empty spaces / a checkerboard pattern now where ads used
118 4.14. How can Privoxy filter Secure (HTTPS) URLs?
119 4.15. Privoxy runs as a "server". How secure is it? Do I need to take any
121 4.16. How can I temporarily disable Privoxy?
122 4.17. When "disabled" is Privoxy totally out of the picture?
123 4.18. My logs show Privoxy "crunches" ads, but also its own internal CGI
124 pages. What is a "crunch"?
125 4.19. Can Privoxy effect files that I download from a webserver? FTP
127 4.20. I just downloaded a Perl script, and Privoxy altered it! Yikes, what
129 4.21. Should I continue to use a "HOSTS" file for ad-blocking?
130 4.22. Where can I find more information about Privoxy and related issues?
131 4.23. I've noticed that Privoxy changes "Microsoft" to "MicroSuck"! Why are
132 you manipulating my browsing?
136 5.1. I am getting "connection refused" with every web page?
137 5.2. I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is still getting through.
139 5.3. One of my favorite sites does not work with Privoxy. What can I do?
140 5.4. After installing Privoxy, I have to log in every time I start IE. What
142 5.5. I cannot connect to any FTP sites. Privoxy is blocking me.
143 5.6. In Mac OSX, I can't configure Microsoft Internet Explorer to use
144 Privoxy as the HTTP proxy.
145 5.7. In Mac OSX, I dragged the Privoxy folder to the trash in order to
146 uninstall it. Now the finder tells me I don't have sufficient
147 privileges to empty the trash.
148 5.8. In Mac OSX Panther (10.3), images often fail to load and/or I
149 experience random delays in page loading. I'm using localhost as my
150 browser's proxy setting.
151 5.9. I get a completely blank page at one site. "View Source" shows only:
152 <html><body></body></html>. Without Privoxy the page loads fine.
153 5.10. Why am I getting a 503 Error (WSAECONNREFUSED) on every page?
154 5.11. My logs show many "Unable to get my own hostname" lines. Why?
155 5.12. When I try to launch Privoxy, I get an error message "port 8118 is
156 already in use" (or similar wording). Why?
157 5.13. Pages with UTF-8 fonts are garbled.
158 5.14. Why are binary files (such as images) corrupted when Privoxy is used?
159 5.15. What is the "demoronizer" and why is it there?
160 5.16. Why do I keep seeing "PrivoxyWindowOpen()" in raw source code?
161 5.17. I am getting too many DNS errors like "404 No Such Domain". Why can't
162 Privoxy do this better?
163 5.18. At one site Privoxy just hangs, and starts taking all CPU. Why is
165 5.19. I just installed Privoxy, and all my browsing has slowed to a crawl.
168 6. Contacting the developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests
171 6.2. Reporting Problems
173 6.2.1. Reporting Ads or Other Configuration Problems
174 6.2.2. Reporting Bugs
176 6.3. Request New Features
179 7. Privoxy Copyright, License and History
184 1. General Information
186 1.1. Who should use Privoxy?
188 Anyone that is interested in security, privacy, or in finer-grained control
189 over their web and Internet experience. Everyone is encouraged to try Privoxy.
191 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
193 1.2. Is Privoxy the best choice for me?
195 Privoxy is certainly a good choice, especially for those who want more control
196 and security. Those that have the ability to fine-tune their installation will
197 benefit the most. One of Privoxy's strength's is that it is highly configurable
198 giving you the ability to completely personalize your installation. Being
199 familiar with, or at least having an interest in learning about HTTP and other
200 networking protocols, HTML, IP (Internet Protocol), and "Regular Expressions"
201 will be a big plus and will help you get the most out of Privoxy.
203 Much of Privoxy's configuration can be done with a Web browser. But there are
204 areas where configuration is done using a text editor to edit configuration
207 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
209 1.3. What is a "proxy"? How does Privoxy work?
211 A web proxy is a service, based on a software such as Privoxy, that clients
212 (i.e. browsers) can use instead of connecting directly to web servers on the
213 Internet. The clients then ask the proxy to fetch the objects they need (web
214 pages, images, movies etc) on their behalf, and when the proxy has done so, it
215 hands the results back to the client. It is a "go-between". See the Wikipedia
216 proxy definition for more.
218 There are many reasons to use web proxies, such as security (firewalling),
219 efficiency (caching) and others, and there are any number of proxies to
220 accommodate those needs.
222 Privoxy is a proxy that is primarily focused on privacy protection, ad and junk
223 elimination and freeing the user from restrictions placed on his activities.
224 Sitting between your browser(s) and the Internet, it is in a perfect position
225 to filter outbound personal information that your browser is leaking, as well
226 as inbound junk. It uses a variety of techniques to do this, all of which are
227 under your complete control via the various configuration files and options.
229 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
231 1.4. What is this new version of "Junkbuster"?
233 Along time ago, there was the Internet Junkbuster, by Anonymous Coders and
234 Junkbusters Corporation. This saved many users a lot of pain in the early days
235 of web advertising and user tracking.
237 But the web, its protocols and standards, and with it, the techniques for
238 forcing ads on users, give up autonomy over their browsing, and for tracking
239 them, keeps evolving. Unfortunately, the Internet Junkbuster did not. Version
240 2.0.2, published in 1998, was (and is) the last official release available from
241 Junkbusters Corporation. Fortunately, it had been released under the GNU GPL,
242 which allowed further development by others.
244 So Stefan Waldherr started maintaining an improved version of the software, to
245 which eventually a number of people contributed patches. It could already
246 replace banners with a transparent image, and had a first version of pop-up
247 killing, but it was still very closely based on the original, with all its
248 limitations, such as the lack of HTTP/1.1 support, flexible per-site
249 configuration, or content modification. The last release from this effort was
250 version 2.0.2-10, published in 2000.
252 Then, some developers picked up the thread, and started turning the software
253 inside out, upside down, and then reassembled it, adding many new features
256 The result of this is Privoxy, whose first stable version, 3.0, was released
259 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
261 1.5. Why "Privoxy"? Why change the name from Junkbuster at all?
263 Junkbusters Corporation continues to offer their original version of the
264 Internet Junkbuster, so publishing our Junkbuster-derived software under the
265 same name led to confusion.
267 There are also potential legal complications from the continued use of the
268 Junkbuster name, which is a registered trademark of Junkbusters Corporation.
269 There are, however, no objections from Junkbusters Corporation to the Privoxy
270 project itself, and they, in fact, still share our ideals and goals.
272 The developers also believed that there are so many improvements over the
273 original code, that it was time to make a clean break from the past and make a
274 name in their own right.
276 Privoxy is the "Privacy Enhancing Proxy". Also, its content modification and
277 junk suppression gives you, the user, more control, more freedom, and allows
278 you to browse your personal and "private edition" of the web.
280 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
282 1.6. How does Privoxy differ from the old Junkbuster?
284 Privoxy picks up where Junkbuster left off. All the old features remain. The
285 new Privoxy still blocks ads and banners, still manages cookies, and still
286 helps protect your privacy. But, these are all greatly enhanced, and many, many
287 new features have been added, all in the same vein.
289 The configuration has changed significantly as well. This is something that
290 users will notice right off the bat if upgrading from Junkbuster 2.0.x. The
291 "blocklist" "cookielist", "imagelist" and much more has been combined into the
292 "actions" files, with a completely different syntax. See the What's New page
293 for the latest updates.
295 Privoxy's new features include:
297 * Integrated browser based configuration and control utility at http://
298 config.privoxy.org/ (shortcut: http://p.p/). Browser-based tracing of rule
299 and filter effects. Remote toggling.
301 * Web page content filtering (removes banners based on size, invisible
302 "web-bugs", JavaScript and HTML annoyances, pop-up windows, etc.)
304 * Modularized configuration that allows for standard settings and user
305 settings to reside in separate files, so that installing updated actions
306 files won't overwrite individual user settings.
308 * HTTP/1.1 compliant (but not all optional 1.1 features are supported).
310 * Support for Perl Compatible Regular Expressions in the configuration files,
311 and generally a more sophisticated and flexible configuration syntax over
314 * Improved cookie management features (e.g. session based cookies).
318 * Bypass many click-tracking scripts (avoids script redirection).
320 * Multi-threaded (POSIX and native threads).
322 * User-customizable HTML templates for all proxy-generated pages (e.g.
325 * Auto-detection and re-reading of config file changes.
327 * Improved signal handling, and a true daemon mode (Unix).
329 * Every feature now controllable on a per-site or per-location basis,
330 configuration more powerful and versatile over-all.
332 * Many smaller new features added, limitations and bugs removed, and security
335 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
337 1.7. How does Privoxy know what is an ad, and what is not?
339 Privoxy's approach to blocking ads is twofold:
341 First, there are certain patterns in the locations (URLs) of banner images.
342 This applies to both the path (you wouldn't guess how many web sites serve
343 their banners from a directory called "banners"!) and the host (blocking the
344 big banner hosting services like doublecklick.net already helps a lot). Privoxy
345 takes advantage of this fact by using URL patterns to sort out and block the
346 requests for things that sound like they would be ads or banners.
348 Second, banners tend to come in certain sizes. But you can't tell the size of
349 an image by its URL without downloading it, and if you do, it's too late to
350 save bandwidth. Therefore, Privoxy also inspects the HTML sources of web pages
351 while they are loaded, and replaces references to images with standard banner
352 sizes by dummy references, so that your browser doesn't request them anymore in
355 Both of this involves a certain amount of guesswork and is, of course, freely
356 and readily configurable.
358 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
360 1.8. Can Privoxy make mistakes? This does not sound very scientific.
362 Actually, it's a black art ;-) And yes, it is always possible to have a broad
363 rule accidentally block or change something by mistake. You will almost surely
364 run into such situations at some point. It is tricky writing rules to cover
365 every conceivable possibility, and not occasionally get false positives.
367 But this should not be a big concern since the Privoxy configuration is very
368 flexible, and includes tools to help identify these types of situations so they
369 can be addressed as needed, allowing you to customize your installation. (See
370 the Troubleshooting section below.)
372 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
374 1.9. Will I have to configure Privoxy before I can use it?
376 No, not really. The default installation should give you a good starting point,
377 and block most unwanted content.
379 But you will certainly run into situations where there are false positives, or
380 ads not being blocked that you may not want to see. In these cases, you would
381 certainly benefit by customizing Privoxy's configuration to more closely match
382 your individual situation. And we would encourage you to do this. This is where
383 the real power of Privoxy lies!
385 You will have to tell your browser about Privoxy (see the Installation section
388 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
390 1.10. My browser does the same things as Privoxy. Why should I use Privoxy at
393 Modern browsers do indeed have some of the same functionality as Privoxy. Maybe
394 this is adequate for you. But Privoxy is much more versatile and powerful, and
395 can do a number of things that browsers just can't.
397 In addition, a proxy is good choice if you use multiple browsers, or have a LAN
398 with multiple computers. This way all the configuration is in one place, and
399 you don't have to maintain a similar configuration for possibly many browsers.
401 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
403 1.11. Why should I trust Privoxy?
405 The most important reason is because you have access to everything, and you can
406 control everything. You can check every line of every configuration file
407 yourself. You can check every last bit of source code should you desire. And
408 even if you can't read code, there should be some comfort in knowing that
409 thousands of other people can, and do read it. You can build the software from
410 scratch, if you want, so that you know the executable is clean, and that it is
411 yours. In fact, we encourage this level of scrutiny. It is one reason we use
414 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
416 1.12. Is there is a license or fee? What about a warranty? Registration?
418 Privoxy is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It is free to
419 use, copy, modify or distribute as you wish under the terms of this license.
420 Please see the Copyright section for more information on the license and
421 copyright. Or the LICENSE file that should be included.
423 There is no warranty of any kind, expressed, implied or otherwise. That is
424 something that would cost real money ;-) There is no registration either.
425 Privoxy really is free in every respect!
427 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
429 1.13. Can Privoxy remove spyware? Adware? Viruses?
431 No. Privoxy cannot remove anything. It is not a removal tool. It is a
432 preventative. Privoxy can help prevent contact from sites that use such
433 tactics, and thus could conceivably prevent contamination from such sites.
435 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
437 1.14. Can I use Privoxy with other ad-blocking software?
439 Privoxy should work fine with other proxies and other software in general.
441 But it is probably not necessary to use Privoxy in conjunction with other
442 ad-blocking products, and this could conceivably cause undesirable results. It
443 would be better to choose one software or the other and work a little to tweak
444 its configuration to your liking.
446 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
448 1.15. I would like to help you, what can I do?
450 1.15.1. Would you like to participate?
452 Well, we always need help. There is something for everybody who wants to help
453 us. We welcome new developers, packagers, testers, documentation writers or
454 really anyone with a desire to help in any way. You DO NOT need to be a
455 "programmer". There are many other tasks available. In fact, the programmers
456 often can't spend as much time programming because of some of the other, more
457 mundane things that need to be done, like checking the Tracker feedback
460 So first thing, get an account on SourceForge.net and mail your id to the
461 developers mailing list. Then, please read the Developer's Manual, at least the
464 Once we have added you to the team, you'll have access to the CVS repository,
465 and together we'll find a suitable task for you.
467 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
471 We, of course, welcome donations and could use money for domain registering,
472 buying software to test Privoxy with, and, of course, for regular world-wide
473 get-togethers (hahaha). If you enjoy the software and feel like helping us with
474 a donation, just drop us a note.
476 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
480 If you are a vendor of a web-related software like a browser, web server or
481 proxy, and would like us to ensure that Privoxy runs smoothly with your
482 product, you might consider supplying us with a copy or license. We can't,
483 however, guarantee that we will fix all potential compatibility issues as a
486 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
490 2.1. Which browsers are supported by Privoxy?
492 Any browser that can be configured to use a proxy, which should be virtually
493 all browsers, including Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Opera among others.
494 Direct browser support is not an absolute requirement since Privoxy runs as a
495 separate application and talks to the browser in the standardized HTTP
496 protocol, just like a web server does.
498 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
500 2.2. Which operating systems are supported?
502 At present, Privoxy is known to run on Windows(95, 98, ME, 2000, XP), Linux
503 (RedHat, SuSE, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Slackware and others), Mac OSX, OS/2,
504 AmigaOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, and various other flavors of Unix.
506 But any operating system that runs TCP/IP, can conceivably take advantage of
507 Privoxy in a networked situation where Privoxy would run as a server on a LAN
508 gateway. Then only the "gateway" needs to be running one of the above operating
511 Source code is freely available, so porting to other operating systems is
512 always a possibility.
514 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
516 2.3. Can I use Privoxy with my email client?
518 As long as there is some way to set a HTTP proxy for the client, then yes, any
519 application can be used, whether it is strictly speaking a "browser" or not.
520 Though this may not be the best approach for dealing with some of the common
521 abuses of HTML in email. See How can I configure Privoxy with Outlook Express?
522 below for more on this.
524 Be aware that HTML email presents a number of unique security and privacy
525 related issues, that can require advanced skills to overcome. The developers
526 recommend using email clients that can be configured to convert HTML to plain
527 text for these reasons.
529 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
531 2.4. Can I install Privoxy over Junkbuster?
533 We recommend you un-install Junkbuster first to minimize conflicts and
534 confusion. You may want to save your old configuration files for future
535 reference. The configuration files and syntax have substantially changed, so
536 you will need to manually port your old patterns. See the note to upgraders and
537 installation chapter in the User Manual for details.
539 Note: Some installers may automatically un-install Junkbuster, if present!
541 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
543 2.5. I just installed Privoxy. Is there anything special I have to do now?
545 All browsers must be told to use Privoxy as a proxy by specifying the correct
546 proxy address and port number in the appropriate configuration area for the
547 browser. See below. You should also flush your browser's memory and disk cache
548 to get rid of any cached junk items, and remove any stored cookies.
550 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
552 2.6. What is the proxy address of Privoxy?
554 If you set up the Privoxy to run on the computer you browse from (rather than
555 your ISP's server or some networked computer on a LAN), the proxy will be on
556 127.0.0.1 (sometimes referred to as "localhost", which is the special name used
557 by every computer on the Internet to refer to itself) and the port will be 8118
558 (unless you have Privoxy to run on a different port with the listen-address
561 When configuring your browser's proxy settings you typically enter the word
562 "localhost" or the IP address "127.0.0.1" in the boxes next to "HTTP" and
563 "Secure" (HTTPS) and then the number "8118" for "port". This tells your browser
564 to send all web requests to Privoxy instead of directly to the Internet.
566 Privoxy can also be used to proxy for a Local Area Network. In this case, your
567 would enter either the IP address of the LAN host where Privoxy is running, or
568 the equivalent hostname. Port assignment would be same as above. Note that
569 Privoxy doesn't listen on any LAN interfaces by default.
571 Privoxy does not currently handle any other protocols such as FTP, SMTP, IM,
572 IRC, ICQ, etc. Be sure that proxying any of these other protocols is not
575 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
577 2.7. I just installed Privoxy, and nothing is happening. All the ads are there.
580 Did you configure your browser to use Privoxy as a proxy? It does not sound
581 like it. See above. You might also try flushing the browser's caches to force a
582 full re-reading of pages. You can verify that Privoxy is running, and your
583 browser is correctly configured by entering the special URL: http://p.p/. This
584 should take you to a page titled "This is Privoxy.." with access to Privoxy's
585 internal configuration. If you see this, then you are good to go. If you
586 receive a page saying "Privoxy is not running", then the browser is not set up
587 to use your Privoxy installation. If you receive anything else (probably
588 nothing at all), it could either be that the browser is not set up correctly,
589 or that Privoxy is not running at all. Check the log file. For instructions on
590 starting Privoxy and browser configuration, see the chapter on starting Privoxy
593 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
595 2.8. I get a "Privoxy is not being used" dummy page although Privoxy is running
598 First, make sure that Privoxy is really running and being used by visiting
599 http://p.p/. You should see the Privoxy main page. If not, see the chapter on
600 starting Privoxy in the User Manual.
602 Now if http://p.p/ works for you, but other parts of Privoxy's web interface
603 show the dummy page, your browser has cached a redirection it encountered
604 before Privoxy was being used. You need to clear your browser's cache. Note
605 that shift-reloading the dummy page won't help, since that'll only refresh the
606 dummy page, not the redirection that lead you there.
608 The procedure for clearing the cache varies from browser to browser. For
609 example, Mozilla/Netscape users would click Edit --> Preferences --> Advanced
610 --> Cache and then click both "Clear Memory Cache" and "Clear Disk Cache". And,
611 Firefox users would click Tools --> Options --> Privacy --> Cache and then
612 click "Clear Cache Now".
614 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
618 3.1. Where can I get updated Actions Files?
620 Based on your feedback and the continuing development, updates of
621 default.action will be made available from time to time on the files section of
624 If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
625 Privoxy or the actions file, subscribe to our announce mailing list,
626 ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
628 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
630 3.2. Can I use my old config files?
632 The syntax and purpose of configuration files has remained the same throughout
633 the 3.x series. Although each release contains updated, "improved" versions and
634 it is recommended to use the newer configuration files. If upgrading from
635 version prior to 3.0.4 the syntax for fast-redirects has changed. See the
636 What's New section of the User Manual for details.
638 But all configuration files have substantially changed from the Junkbuster
639 days, and early versions of Privoxy 2.x. The old files, like blocklist will not
642 Refer to the What's New page for information on configuration changes that may
643 occur from one release to another.
645 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
647 3.3. What exactly is an "actions" file?
649 Actions files are where various actions that Privoxy could take while
650 processing a certain request, are configured. Typically, you would define a set
651 of default actions that apply to all URLs, then add exceptions to these
652 defaults where needed. There is a wide array of actions available that give the
653 user a high degree of control and flexibility on how to process each and every
656 Actions can be defined on a URL pattern basis, i.e. for single URLs, whole web
657 sites, groups or parts thereof etc. Actions can also be grouped together and
658 then applied to requests matching one or more patterns. There are many possible
659 actions that might apply to any given site. As an example, if you are blocking
660 cookies as one of your default actions, but need to accept cookies from a given
661 site, you would need to define an exception for this site in one of your
662 actions files, preferably in user.action.
664 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
666 3.4. The "actions" concept confuses me. Please list some of these "actions".
668 For a comprehensive discussion of the actions concept, please refer to the
669 actions file chapter in the user manual. It includes a list of all actions and
670 an actions file tutorial to get you started.
672 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
674 3.5. How are actions files configured? What is the easiest way to do this?
676 Actions files are just text files in a special syntax and can be edited with a
677 text editor. But probably the easiest way is to access Privoxy's user interface
678 with your web browser at http://config.privoxy.org/ (Shortcut: http://p.p/) and
679 then select "View & change the current configuration" from the menu.
681 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
683 3.6. There are several different "actions" files. What are the differences?
685 As of Privoxy v2.9.15, three actions files are being included, to be used for
686 different purposes: These are default.action, the "main" actions file which is
687 actively maintained by the Privoxy developers, user.action, where users are
688 encouraged to make their private customizations, and standard.action, which is
689 for internal Privoxy use only. Please see the actions chapter in the User
690 Manual for a more detailed explanation.
692 Earlier versions included three different versions of the default.action file.
693 The new scheme allows for greater flexibility of local configuration, and for
694 browser based selection of pre-defined "aggressiveness" levels.
696 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
698 3.7. How can I make my Yahoo/Hotmail/Gmail account work?
700 The default configuration shouldn't impact the usability of any of these
701 services. It will, however, make all cookies temporary, so that your browser
702 will forget your login credentials in between browser sessions. If you would
703 like not to have to log in manually each time you access those websites, simply
704 turn off all cookie handling for them in the user.action file. An example for
705 yahoo might look like:
707 # Allow all cookies for Yahoo login:
709 { -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies -session-cookies-only }
712 These kinds of sites are often quite complex and heavy with Javascript and thus
713 "fragile". So if still a problem, we have an alias just for such sticky
716 # Gmail is a _fragile_ site:
721 Be sure to flush your browser's caches whenever making these kinds of changes,
722 just to make sure the changes "take".
724 Make sure the domain, host and path are appropriate as well. Your browser can
725 tell you where you are specifically and you should use that information for
726 your configuration settings. Note that above it is not referenced as gmail.com,
727 which is a valid domain name.
729 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
731 3.8. What's the difference between the "Cautious", "Medium" and "Advanced"
734 Configuring Privoxy is not entirely trivial. To help you get started, we
735 provide you with three different default action "profiles" in the web based
736 actions file editor at http://config.privoxy.org/show-status. See the User
737 Manual for a list of actions, and how the default profiles are set.
739 Where the defaults are likely to break some sites, exceptions for known popular
740 "problem" sites are included, but in general, the more aggressive your default
741 settings are, the more exceptions you will have to make later. See the User
742 Manual for a more detailed discussion.
744 It should be noted that the "Advanced" profile (formerly known as the
745 "Adventuresome" profile) is more aggressive, and will make use of some of
746 Privoxy's advanced features. Use at your own risk!
748 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
750 3.9. Why can I change the configuration with a browser? Does that not raise
753 It may seem strange that regular users can edit the config files with their
754 browsers, although the whole /etc/privoxy hierarchy belongs to the user
755 "privoxy", with only 644 permissions.
757 When you use the browser-based editor, Privoxy itself is writing to the config
758 files. Because Privoxy is running as the user "privoxy", it can update the
761 If you run Privoxy for multiple untrusted users (e.g. in a LAN), you will
762 probably want to turn the web-based editor and remote toggle features off by
763 setting "enable-edit-actions 0" and "enable-remote-toggle 0" in the main
766 Note that in the default configuration, only local users (i.e. those on
767 "localhost") can connect to Privoxy, so this is not (normally) a security
770 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
772 3.10. What is the default.filter file? What is a "filter"?
774 The default.filter file is where filters as supplied by the developers are
775 defined. Filters are a special subset of actions that can be used to modify or
776 remove, web page content on the fly. Filters apply to anything in the page
777 source (and optionally both client and server headers), including HTML tags,
778 and JavaScript. Regular expressions are used to accomplish this. There are a
779 number of pre-defined filters to deal with common annoyances. The filters are
780 only defined here, to invoke them, you need to use the filter action in one of
781 the actions files. Filtering is automatically disabled for inappropriate MIME
784 If you are familiar with regular expressions, and HTML, you can look at the
785 provided default.filter with a text editor and define your own filters. This is
786 potentially a very powerful feature, but requires some expertise in both
787 regular expressions and HTML/HTTP. You should place any modifications to the
788 default filters, or any new ones you create in a separate file, such as
789 user.filter, so they won't be overwritten during upgrades. The ability to
790 define multiple filter files in config is a new feature as of v. 3.0.4.
792 There is no GUI editor option for this part of the configuration, but you can
793 disable/enable the various pre-defined filters of the included default.filter
794 file with the web-based actions file editor.
796 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
798 3.11. How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my LAN?
800 By default, Privoxy only responds to requests from 127.0.0.1 (localhost). To
801 have it act as a server for a network, this needs to be changed in the main
802 configuration file. Look for the listen-address option, which may be commented
803 out with a "#" symbol. Make sure it is uncommented, and assign it the address
804 of the LAN gateway interface, and port number to use. Assuming your LAN address
805 is 192.168.1.1 and you wish to run Privoxy on port 8118, this line should look
808 listen-address 192.168.1.1:8118
810 Save the file, and restart Privoxy. Configure all browsers on the network then
811 to use this address and port number.
813 Alternately, you can have Privoxy listen on all available interfaces:
817 And then use Privoxy's permit-access feature to limit connections. A firewall
818 in this situation is recommended as well.
820 The above steps should be the same for any TCP network, regardless of operating
823 If you run Privoxy on a LAN with untrusted users, we recommend that you
824 double-check the access control and security options!
826 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
828 3.12. Instead of ads, now I get a checkerboard pattern. I don't want to see
831 The replacement for blocked images can be controlled with the set-image-blocker
832 action. You have the choice of a checkerboard pattern, a transparent 1x1 GIF
833 image (aka "blank"), or a redirect to a custom image of your choice. Note that
834 this choice only has effect for images which are blocked as images, i.e. whose
835 URLs match both a handle-as-image and block action.
837 If you want to see nothing, then change the set-image-blocker action to
838 "blank". This can be done by editing the default.action file, or trough the
839 web-based actions file editor.
841 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
843 3.13. Why would anybody want to see a checkerboard pattern?
845 Remember that telling which image is an ad and which isn't, is mostly
846 guesswork. While we hope that the standard configuration is rather smart, it
847 can and will make errors. The checkerboard image is visually decent, but it
848 shows you that and where images were blocked, which can be very helpful in case
849 some navigation aid or otherwise innocent image was erroneously blocked. Some
850 people might also enjoy seeing how many banners they don't have to see..
852 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
854 3.14. I see some images being replaced by a text instead of the checkerboard
855 image. Why and how do I get rid of this?
857 This happens when the banners are not embedded in the HTML code of the page
858 itself, but in separate HTML (sub)documents that are loaded into (i)frames or
859 (i)layers, and these external HTML documents are blocked. Being non-images they
860 get replaced by a substitute HTML page rather than a substitute image, which
861 wouldn't work out technically, since the browser expects and accepts only HTML
862 when it has requested an HTML document.
864 The substitute page adapts to the available space and shows itself as a
865 miniature two-liner if loaded into small frames, or full-blown with a large red
866 "BLOCKED" banner if space allows.
868 If you prefer the banners to be blocked by images, you must see to it that the
869 HTML documents in which they are embedded are not blocked. Clicking the "See
870 why" link offered in the substitute page will show you which rule blocked the
871 page. After changing the rule and un-blocking the HTML documents, the browser
872 will try to load the actual banner images and the usual image blocking will
873 (hopefully!) kick in.
875 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
877 3.15. Can Privoxy run as a service on Win2K/NT/XP?
879 Yes. Version 3.0.4 introduces full Windows service functionality. See the User
880 Manual for details on how to install and configure Privoxy as a service.
882 Earlier 3.x versions could run as a system service using srvany.exe. See the
883 discussion at http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=361118&aid=
884 485617&group_id=11118, for details, and a sample configuration.
886 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
888 3.16. How can I make Privoxy work with other proxies like Squid or Tor?
890 This can be done and is often useful to combine the benefits of Privoxy with
891 those of a another proxy. See the forwarding chapter in the User Manual which
892 describes how to do this, and the How do I use Privoxy together with Tor
895 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
897 3.17. Can I just set Privoxy to use port 80 and thus avoid individual browser
900 No, its more complicated than that. This only works with special kinds of
901 proxies known as "transparent" proxies (see below).
903 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
905 3.18. Can Privoxy run as a "transparent" proxy?
907 No, Privoxy currently does not have this ability, though it may be added in a
908 future release. Transparent proxies require special handling of the request
909 headers beyond what Privoxy is now capable of.
911 Chaining Privoxy behind another proxy that has this ability should work though.
912 See the forwarding chapter in the User Manual. As a transparent proxy to be
913 used for chaining we recommend Transproxy (http://transproxy.sourceforge.net/).
915 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
917 3.19. How can I configure Privoxy for use with Outlook Express?
919 Outlook Express uses Internet Explorer components to both render HTML, and
920 fetch any HTTP requests that may be embedded in an HTML email. So however you
921 have Privoxy configured to work with IE, this configuration should
922 automatically be shared.
924 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
926 3.20. How can I have separate rules just for HTML mail?
928 The short answer is, you can't. Privoxy has no way of knowing which particular
929 application makes a request, so there is no way to distinguish between web
930 pages and HTML mail. Privoxy just blindly proxies all requests. In the case of
931 Outlook Express (see above), OE uses IE anyway, and there is no way for Privoxy
932 to ever be able to distinguish between them (nor could any other proxy type
933 application for that matter).
935 For a good discussion of some of the issues involved (including privacy and
936 security issues), see http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=211118&
937 aid=629518&group_id=11118.
939 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
941 3.21. I sometimes notice cookies sneaking through. How?
943 Cookies can be set in several ways. The classic method is via the Set-Cookie
944 HTTP header. This is straightforward, and an easy one to manipulate, such as
945 the Privoxy concept of session-cookies-only. There is also the possibility of
946 using Javascript to set cookies (Privoxy calls these content-cookies). This is
947 trickier because the syntax can vary widely, and thus requires a certain amount
948 of guesswork. It is not realistic to catch all of these short of disabling
949 Javascript, which would break many sites. And lastly, if the cookies are
950 embedded in a HTTPS/SSL secure session via Javascript, they are beyond
953 All in all, Privoxy can help manage cookies in general, can help minimize the
954 loss of privacy posed by cookies, but can't realistically stop all cookies.
956 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
958 3.22. Are all cookies bad? Why?
960 No, in fact there are many beneficial uses of cookies. Cookies are just a
961 method that browsers can use to store data between pages, or between browser
962 sessions. Sometimes there is a good reason for this, and the user's life is a
963 bit easier as a result. But there is a long history of some websites taking
964 advantage of this layer of trust, and using the data they glean from you and
965 your browsing habits for their own purposes, and maybe to your potential
966 detriment. Such sites are using you and storing their data on your system. That
967 is why the security conscious watch from whom those cookies come, and why they
968 really need to be there.
970 See the Wikipedia cookie definition for more.
972 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
974 3.23. How can I allow permanent cookies for my trusted sites?
976 There are several actions that relate to cookies. The default behavior is to
977 allow only "session cookies", which means the cookies only last for the current
978 browser session. This eliminates most kinds of abuse related to cookies. But
979 there may be cases where we want cookies to last.
981 To disable all cookie actions, so that cookies are allowed unrestricted, both
982 in and out, for example.com:
984 { -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies -session-cookies-only -filter{content-cookies} }
987 Place the above in user.action. Note some of these may be off by default
988 anyway, so this might be redundant, but there is no harm being explicit in what
989 you want to happen. user.action includes an alias for this situation, called
992 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
994 3.24. Can I have separate configurations for different users?
996 Each instance of Privoxy has its own configuration, including such attributes
997 as the TCP port that it listens on. What you can do is run multiple instances
998 of Privoxy, each with a unique listen-address and configuration path, and then
999 each of these can have their own configurations. Think of it as per-port
1002 Simple enough for a few users, but for large installations, consider having
1003 groups of users that might share like configurations.
1005 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1007 3.25. Can I set-up Privoxy as a whitelist of "good" sites?
1009 Sure. There are a couple of things you can do for simple whitelisting. Here's
1012 ############################################################
1014 ############################################################
1016 / # Block *all* URLs
1018 ############################################################
1020 ############################################################
1026 This allows access to only those three sites.
1028 A more interesting approach is Privoxy's trustfile concept, which incorporates
1029 the notion of "trusted referrers". See the User Manual Trust documentation.
1031 These are fairly simple approaches and are not completely foolproof. There are
1032 various other configuration options that should be disabled (described
1033 elsewhere here and in the User Manual) so that users can't modify their own
1034 configuration and easily circumvent the whitelist.
1036 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1040 4.1. How much does Privoxy slow my browsing down? This has to add extra time to
1043 How much of an impact depends on many things, including the CPU of the host
1044 system, how aggressive the configuration is, which specific actions are being
1045 triggered, the size of the page, etc.
1047 Overall, it should not slow you down any in real terms, and may actually help
1048 speed things up since ads, banners and other junk are not typically being
1049 retrieved and displayed. The actual processing time required by Privoxy itself
1050 for each page, is relatively small in the overall scheme of things, and happens
1051 very quickly. This is typically more than offset by time saved not downloading
1052 and rendering ad images (if ad blocking is being used).
1054 "Filtering" content via the filter or deanimate-gifs actions will certainly
1055 cause a perceived slowdown, since the entire document needs to be buffered
1056 before displaying. And on very large documents, there may be some impact. How
1057 much depends on the page size, the actual definition of the filter(s), etc. See
1058 below. Most other actions have little to no impact on speed.
1060 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1062 4.2. I notice considerable delays in page requests compared to the old
1063 Junkbuster. What's wrong?
1065 If you use any filter action, such as filtering banners by size, web-bugs etc,
1066 or the deanimate-gifs action, the entire document must be loaded into memory in
1067 order for the filtering mechanism to work, and nothing is sent to the browser
1070 The loading time typically does not really change much in real numbers, but the
1071 feeling is different, because most browsers are able to start rendering
1072 incomplete content, giving the user a feeling of "it works". This effect is
1073 more noticeable on slower dialup connections. Extremely large documents may
1074 have some impact on the time to load the page where there is filtering being
1075 done. But overall, the difference should be very minimal. If there is a big
1076 impact, then probably some other problem is contributing.
1078 Filtering is automatically disabled for inappropriate MIME types. But note that
1079 if the web server mis-reports the MIME type, then content that should not be
1080 filtered, could be. Privoxy only knows how to differentiate filterable content
1081 because of the MIME type as reported by the server, or because of some
1082 configuration setting that enables/disables filtering.
1084 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1086 4.3. What are "http://config.privoxy.org/" and "http://p.p/"?
1088 http://config.privoxy.org/ is the address of Privoxy's built-in user interface,
1089 and http://p.p/ is a shortcut for it.
1091 Since Privoxy sits between your web browser and the Internet, it can simply
1092 intercept requests for these addresses and answer them with its built-in "web
1095 This also makes for a good test for your browser configuration: If entering the
1096 URL http://config.privoxy.org/ takes you to a page saying "This is Privoxy
1097 ...", everything is OK. If you get a page saying "Privoxy is not working"
1098 instead, then your browser didn't use Privoxy for the request, hence it could
1099 not be intercepted, and you have accessed the real web site at
1102 With recent versions of Privoxy (version 2.9.x and later), the user interface
1103 features information on the run time status, the configuration, and even a
1104 built-in editor for the actions files.
1106 Note that the built-in URLs from earlier versions of Junkbuster / Privoxy,
1107 http://example.com/show-proxy-args and http://i.j.b/, are no longer supported.
1108 If you still use such an old version, you should really consider upgrading to
1111 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1113 4.4. How can I submit new ads, or report problems?
1115 Please see the Contact section for various ways to interact with the
1118 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1120 4.5. Why doesn't anyone answer my support request?
1122 Rest assured that it has been read and considered. Why it is not answered,
1123 could be for various reasons, including no one has a good answer for it, no one
1124 has had time to yet investigate it thoroughly, it has been reported numerous
1125 times already, or because not enough information was provided to help us help
1126 you. Your efforts are not wasted, and we do appreciate them.
1128 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1130 4.6. How can I hide my IP address?
1132 If you run both the browser and the proxy locally, you cannot hide your IP
1133 address with Privoxy or ultimately any other software. The server needs to know
1134 your IP address so that it knows where to send the responses back.
1136 There are many publicly usable "anonymous" proxies out there, which provide a
1137 further level of indirection between you and the web server.
1139 However, these proxies are called "anonymous" because you don't need a
1140 password, not because they would offer any real anonymity. Most of them will
1141 log your IP address and make it available to the authorities in case you
1142 violate the law of the country they run in. In fact you can't even rule out
1143 that some of them only exist to *collect* information on (those suspicious)
1144 people with a more than average preference for privacy.
1146 Your best bet is to chain Privoxy with Tor, an EFF supported onion routing
1147 system. The configuration details can be found in How do I use Privoxy together
1148 with Tor section just below.
1150 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1152 4.7. Can Privoxy guarantee I am anonymous?
1154 No. Your chances of remaining anonymous are greatly improved, but unless you
1155 chain Privoxy with Tor or a similar system and know what you're doing when it
1156 comes to configuring the rest of your system, it would be safest to assume that
1157 everything you do on the Web can be traced back to you.
1159 Privoxy can remove various information about you, and allows you more freedom
1160 to decide which sites you can trust, and what details you want to reveal. But
1161 it neither hides your ip address, nor can it guarantee that the rest of the
1162 system behaves correctly. There are several possibilities how a web sites can
1163 find out who you are, even if you are using a strict Privoxy configuration and
1164 chained it with Tor.
1166 Most of Privoxy's protection can be easily subverted by an insecure browser
1167 configuration, therefore you should use a browser that can be configured to
1168 only execute code from trusted sites, and be careful which sites you trust. For
1169 example there is no point in having Privoxy modify the User-Agent header, if
1170 websites can get all the information they want through JavaScript, ActiveX,
1173 A few browsers disclose the user's email address in certain situations, such as
1174 when transferring a file by FTP. Privoxy does not filter FTP. If you need this
1175 feature, or are concerned about the mail handler of your browser disclosing
1176 your email address, you might consider products such as NSClean.
1178 Browsers available only as binaries could use non-standard headers to give out
1179 any information they can have access to: see the manufacturer's license
1180 agreement. It's impossible to anticipate and prevent every breach of privacy
1181 that might occur. The professionally paranoid prefer browsers available as
1182 source code, because anticipating their behavior is easier. Trust the source,
1185 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1187 4.8. A test site says I am not using a Proxy.
1189 Good! Actually, they are probably testing for some other kinds of proxies.
1190 Hiding yourself completely would require additional steps.
1192 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1194 4.9. How do I use Privoxy together with Tor?
1196 Before you configure Privoxy to use Tor (http://tor.eff.org/), please follow
1197 the User Manual chapters 2. Installation and 5. Startup to make sure Privoxy
1198 itself is setup correctly.
1200 If it is, refer to Tor's extensive documentation to learn how to install Tor,
1201 and make sure Tor's logfile says that "Tor has successfully opened a circuit"
1202 and it "looks like client functionality is working".
1204 If either Tor or Privoxy isn't working, their combination most likely will
1205 neither. Testing them on their own will also help you to direct problem reports
1206 to the right audience. If Privoxy isn't working, don't bother the Tor
1207 developers. If Tor isn't working, don't send bug reports to the Privoxy Team.
1209 If you verified that Privoxy and Tor are working, it is time to connect them.
1210 As far as Privoxy is concerned, Tor is just another proxy that can be reached
1211 by socks4 or socks4a. Most likely you are interested in Tor to increase your
1212 anonymity level, therefore you should use socks4a, to make sure Privoxy's DNS
1213 requests are done through Tor and thus invisible to your local network.
1215 Since Privoxy 3.0.4, its configuration (section 5.2) is already prepared for
1216 Tor, if you are using a default Tor configuration and run it on the same system
1217 as Privoxy, you just have to uncomment the line:
1219 # forward-socks4a / 127.0.0.1:9050 .
1222 This is enough to reach the Internet, but additionally you should uncomment the
1223 following forward rules, to make sure your local network is still reachable
1226 # forward 192.168.*.*/ .
1227 # forward 10.*.*.*/ .
1228 # forward 127.*.*.*/ .
1231 Unencrypted connections to systems in these address ranges will be as (un)
1232 secure as the local network is, but the alternative is that you can't reach the
1233 network at all. If you also want to be able to reach servers in your local
1234 network by using their names, you will need additional exceptions that look
1237 # forward localhost/ .
1240 Save the modified configuration file and open http://config.privoxy.org/
1241 show-status/ in your browser, confirm that Privoxy has reloaded its
1242 configuration and that there are no other forward lines, unless you know that
1243 you need them. I everything looks good, refer to Tor Faq 4.2 to learn how to
1244 verify that you are really using Tor.
1246 Afterward, please take the time to at least skim through the rest of Tor's
1247 documentation. Make sure you understand what Tor does, why it is no replacement
1248 for application level security, and why you shouldn't use it for unencrypted
1251 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1253 4.10. Might some things break because header information or content is being
1256 Definitely. More and more sites use HTTP header content to decide what to
1257 display and how to display it. There is many ways that this can be handled, so
1258 having hard and fast rules, is tricky.
1260 "User-Agent" in particular is often used in this way to identify the browser,
1261 and adjust content accordingly. Changing this now (at least not further than
1262 removing the OS information) is not recommended, since so many sites do look
1263 for it. You may get undesirable results by changing this.
1265 For instance, different browsers use different encodings of Russian and Czech
1266 characters, certain web servers convert pages on-the-fly according to the User
1267 Agent header. Giving a "User Agent" with the wrong operating system or browser
1268 manufacturer causes some sites in these languages to be garbled; Surfers to
1269 Eastern European sites should change it to something closer. And then some page
1270 access counters work by looking at the "Referer" header; they may fail or break
1271 if unavailable. The weather maps of Intellicast have been blocked by their
1272 server when no "Referer" or cookie is provided, is another example. (But you
1273 can forge both headers without giving information away). There are many other
1274 ways things can go wrong when trying to fool a web server.
1276 Similar thoughts apply to modifying JavaScript, and, to a lesser degree, HTML
1279 If you have problems with a site, you will have to adjust your configuration
1280 accordingly. Cookies are probably the most likely adjustment that may be
1281 required, but by no means the only one.
1283 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1285 4.11. Can Privoxy act as a "caching" proxy to speed up web browsing?
1287 No, it does not have this ability at all. You want something like Squid for
1288 this. And, yes, before you ask, Privoxy can co-exist with other kinds of
1289 proxies like Squid. See the forwarding chapter in the user manual for details.
1291 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1293 4.12. What about as a firewall? Can Privoxy protect me?
1295 Not in the way you mean, or in the way a true firewall can. Privoxy can help
1296 protect your privacy, but not protect you from intrusion attempts. It is, of
1297 course, perfectly possible and recommended to use both.
1299 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1301 4.13. I have large empty spaces / a checkerboard pattern now where ads used to
1304 It would be technically possible eliminate the banners in a way that frees
1305 their screen estate in many cases, by doing all banner blocking with filters,
1306 i.e. eliminating the whole image references from the HTML pages instead of
1307 letting them stay in, and blocking the resulting requests for the banners
1310 But this would consume considerable CPU resources, would likely destroy the
1311 layout of many web pages which rely on the banners consuming a certain amount
1312 of screen space, and would fail in other cases, where the screen space is
1313 reserved e.g. by tables anyway. Also, making the banners disappear without a
1314 visual trace complicates troubleshooting.
1316 So we won't support this in the default configuration, but you can of course
1317 define appropriate filters yourself.
1319 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1321 4.14. How can Privoxy filter Secure (HTTPS) URLs?
1323 Since secure HTTP connections are encrypted SSL sessions between your browser
1324 and the secure site, and are meant to be reliably secure, there is little that
1325 Privoxy can do but hand the raw gibberish data though from one end to the other
1328 The only exception to this is blocking by host patterns, as the client needs to
1329 tell Privoxy the name of the remote server, so that Privoxy can establish the
1330 connection. If that name matches a host-only pattern, the connection will be
1333 As far as ad blocking is concerned, this is less of a restriction than it may
1334 seem, since ad sources are often identifiable by the host name, and often the
1335 banners to be placed in an encrypted page come unencrypted nonetheless for
1336 efficiency reasons, which exposes them to the full power of Privoxy's ad
1339 "Content cookies" (those that are embedded in the actual HTML or JS page
1340 content, see filter{content-cookies}), in an SSL transaction will be impossible
1341 to block under these conditions. Fortunately, this does not seem to be a very
1342 common scenario since most cookies come by traditional means.
1344 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1346 4.15. Privoxy runs as a "server". How secure is it? Do I need to take any
1347 special precautions?
1349 There are no known exploits that might affect Privoxy. On Unix-like systems,
1350 Privoxy can run as a non-privileged user, which is how we recommend it be run.
1351 Also, by default Privoxy only listens to requests from "localhost" only. The
1352 server aspect of Privoxy is not itself directly exposed to the Internet in this
1353 configuration. If you want to have Privoxy serve as a LAN proxy, this will have
1354 to be opened up to allow for LAN requests. In this case, we'd recommend you
1355 specify only the LAN gateway address, e.g. 192.168.1.1, in the main Privoxy
1356 configuration file and check all access control and security options. All LAN
1357 hosts can then use this as their proxy address in the browser proxy
1358 configuration, but Privoxy will not listen on any external interfaces. ACLs can
1359 be defined in addition, and using a firewall is always good too. Better safe
1362 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1364 4.16. How can I temporarily disable Privoxy?
1366 The easiest way is to access Privoxy with your browser by using the remote
1367 toggle URL: http://config.privoxy.org/toggle. See the Bookmarklets section of
1368 the User Manual for an easy way to access this feature.
1370 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1372 4.17. When "disabled" is Privoxy totally out of the picture?
1374 No, this just means all filtering and actions are disabled. Privoxy is still
1375 acting as a proxy, but just not doing any of the things that Privoxy would
1376 normally be expected to do. It is still a "middle-man" in the interaction
1377 between your browser and web sites.
1379 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1381 4.18. My logs show Privoxy "crunches" ads, but also its own internal CGI pages.
1384 A "crunch" simply means Privoxy intercepted something, nothing more. Often this
1385 is indeed ads or banners, but Privoxy uses the same mechanism for trapping
1386 requests for its own internal pages. For instance, a request for Privoxy's
1387 configuration page at: http://config.privoxy.org, is intercepted (i.e. it does
1388 not go out to the 'net), and the familiar CGI configuration is returned to the
1389 browser, and the log consequently will show a "crunch".
1391 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1393 4.19. Can Privoxy effect files that I download from a webserver? FTP server?
1395 From the webserver's perspective, there is no difference between viewing a
1396 document (i.e. a page), and downloading a file. The same is true of Privoxy. If
1397 there is a match for a block pattern, it will still be blocked, and of course
1400 Filtering is potentially more of a concern since the results are not always so
1401 obvious, and the effects of filtering are there whether the file is simply
1402 viewed, or downloaded. And potentially whether the content is some obnoxious
1403 advertisement, or Mr. Jimmy's latest/greatest source code jewel. Of course, one
1404 of these presumably is "bad" content that we don't want, and the other is
1405 "good" content that we do want. Privoxy is blind to the differences, and can
1406 only distinguish "good from bad" by the configuration parameters we give it.
1408 Privoxy knows the differences in files according to the "Document Type" as
1409 reported by the webserver. If this is reported accurately (e.g. "application/
1410 zip" for a zip archive), then Privoxy knows to ignore these where appropriate.
1411 Privoxy potentially can filter HTML as well as plain text documents, subject to
1412 configuration parameters of course. Also, documents that are of an unknown type
1413 (generally assumed to be "text/plain") can be filtered, as will those that
1414 might be incorrectly reported by the webserver. If such a file is a downloaded
1415 file that is intended to be saved to disk, then any content that might have
1416 been altered by filtering, will be saved too, for these (probably rare) cases.
1418 Note that versions later than 3.0.2 do NOT filter document types reported as
1419 "text/plain". Prior to this, Privoxy did filter this document type.
1421 In short, filtering is "ON" if a) the Document Type as reported by the
1422 webserver is appropriate and b) the configuration allows it (or at least does
1423 not disallow it). That's it. There is no magic cookie anywhere to say this is
1424 "good" and this is "bad". It's the configuration that let's it all happen or
1427 If you download text files, you probably do not want these to be filtered,
1428 particularly if the content is source code, or other critical content. Source
1429 code sometimes might be mistaken for Javascript (i.e. the kind that might open
1430 a pop-up window). It is recommended to turn off filtering for download sites
1431 (particularly if the content may be plain text files and you are using version
1432 3.0.2 or earlier) in your user.action file. And also, for any site or page
1433 where making any changes at all to the content is to be avoided.
1435 Privoxy does not do FTP at all, only HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) protocols, so please
1438 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1440 4.20. I just downloaded a Perl script, and Privoxy altered it! Yikes, what is
1445 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1447 4.21. Should I continue to use a "HOSTS" file for ad-blocking?
1449 One time-tested technique to defeat common ads is to trick the local DNS system
1450 by giving a phony IP address for the ad generator in the local HOSTS file,
1451 typically using 127.0.0.1, aka localhost. This effectively blocks the ad.
1453 There is no reason to use this technique in conjunction with Privoxy. Privoxy
1454 does essentially the same thing, much more elegantly and with much more
1455 flexibility. A large HOSTS file, in fact, not only duplicates effort, but may
1456 get in the way. It is recommended to remove such entries from your HOSTS file.
1457 If you think your hosts list is neglected by Privoxy's configuration, consider
1458 adding your list to your user.action file:
1463 ads.galore.example.com
1466 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1468 4.22. Where can I find more information about Privoxy and related issues?
1470 Other references and sites of interest to Privoxy users:
1472 http://www.privoxy.org/, the Privoxy Home page.
1474 http://www.privoxy.org/faq/, the Privoxy FAQ.
1476 http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/, the Project Page for Privoxy on
1479 http://config.privoxy.org/, the web-based user interface. Privoxy must be
1480 running for this to work. Shortcut: http://p.p/
1482 http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=460288, to submit "misses"
1483 and other configuration related suggestions to the developers.
1485 http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/cookies.html, an explanation how cookies are
1486 used to track web users.
1488 http://www.junkbusters.com/ijb.html, the original Internet Junkbuster.
1490 http://privacy.net/, a useful site to check what information about you is
1491 leaked while you browse the web.
1493 http://www.squid-cache.org/, a very popular caching proxy, which is often used
1494 together with Privoxy.
1496 http://tor.eff.org/, Tor can help anonymize web browsing, web publishing,
1497 instant messaging, IRC, SSH, and other applications.
1499 http://www.privoxy.org/developer-manual/, the Privoxy developer manual.
1501 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1503 4.23. I've noticed that Privoxy changes "Microsoft" to "MicroSuck"! Why are you
1504 manipulating my browsing?
1506 We're not. The text substitutions that you are seeing are disabled in the
1507 default configuration as shipped. You have either manually activated the "fun"
1508 filter which is clearly labeled "Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!
1509 " or you are using an older Privoxy version and have implicitly activated it by
1510 choosing the "Adventuresome" profile in the web-based editor. Please upgrade!
1512 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1516 5.1. I am getting "connection refused" with every web page?
1518 Either Privoxy is not running, or your browser is configured for a different
1519 port than what Privoxy is using.
1521 Early Privoxy 2.x versions (and also Junkbuster) used port 8000 by default.
1522 This has been changed to port 8118 now, due to a conflict with NAS (Network
1523 Audio Service), which uses port 8000. If you haven't, you need to change your
1524 browser to the new port number, or alternately change the listen-address option
1525 in Privoxy's main configuration file.
1527 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1529 5.2. I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is still getting through.
1532 If the ad had been displayed before you added its URL, it will probably be held
1533 in the browser's cache for some time, so it will be displayed without the need
1534 for any request to the server, and Privoxy will not be in the picture. The best
1535 thing to do is try flushing the browser's caches. And then try again.
1537 If this doesn't help, you probably have an error in the rule you applied. Try
1538 pasting the full URL of the offending ad into http://config.privoxy.org/
1539 show-url-info and see if it really matches your new rule. Blocking ads is like
1540 blocking spam: a lot of tinkering is required to stay ahead of the game.
1542 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1544 5.3. One of my favorite sites does not work with Privoxy. What can I do?
1546 First verify that it is indeed a Privoxy problem, by toggling off Privoxy
1547 through http://config.privoxy.org/toggle, and then shift-reloading the problem
1548 page (i.e. holding down the shift key while clicking reload. Alternatively,
1549 flush your browser's disk and memory caches).
1551 If still a problem, go to http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info and paste the
1552 full URL of the page in question into the prompt. See which actions are being
1553 applied to the URL, and which matches in which actions files are responsible
1554 for that. Now, armed with this information, go to http://config.privoxy.org/
1555 show-status and select the appropriate actions files for editing.
1557 You can now either look for a section which disables the actions that you
1558 suspect to cause the problem and add a pattern for your site there, or make up
1559 a completely new section for your site. In any case, the recommended way is to
1560 disable only the prime suspect, reload the problem page, and only if the
1561 problem persists, disable more and more actions until you have identified the
1562 culprit. You may or may not want to turn the other actions on again. Remember
1563 to flush your browser's caches in between any such changes!
1565 Alternately, if you are comfortable with a text editor, you can accomplish the
1566 same thing by editing the appropriate actions file. Probably the easiest way to
1567 deal with such problems when editing by hand is to add your site to a { fragile
1568 } section in user.action, which is an alias that turns off most "dangerous"
1569 actions, but is also likely to turn off more actions then needed, and thus
1570 lower your privacy and protection more than necessary,
1572 Troubleshooting actions is discussed in more detail in the User Manual
1573 appendix, Troubleshooting: the Anatomy of an Action. There is also an actions
1574 tutorial with general configuration information and examples.
1576 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1578 5.4. After installing Privoxy, I have to log in every time I start IE. What
1581 This is a quirk that effects the installation of Privoxy, in conjunction with
1582 Internet Explorer and Internet Connection Sharing on Windows 2000 and Windows
1583 XP. The symptoms may appear to be corrupted or invalid DUN settings, or
1586 When setting up an NT based Windows system with Privoxy you may find that
1587 things do not seem to be doing what you expect. When you set your system up you
1588 will probably have set up Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) with Dial up
1589 Networking (DUN) when logged in with administrator privileges. You will
1590 probably have made this DUN connection available to other accounts that you may
1591 have set-up on your system. E.g. Mum or Dad sets up the system and makes
1592 accounts suitably configured for the kids.
1594 When setting up Privoxy in this environment you will have to alter the proxy
1595 set-up of Internet Explorer (IE) for the specific DUN connection on which you
1596 wish to use Privoxy. When you do this the ICS DUN set-up becomes user specific.
1597 In this instance you will see no difference if you change the DUN connection
1598 under the account used to set-up the connection. However when you do this from
1599 another user you will notice that the DUN connection changes to make available
1600 to "Me only". You will also find that you have to store the password under each
1603 The reason for this is that each user's set-up for IE is user specific. Each
1604 set-up DUN connection and each LAN connection in IE store the settings for each
1605 user individually. As such this enforces individual configurations rather than
1606 common ones. Hence the first time you use a DUN connection after re-booting
1607 your system it may not perform as you expect, and prompt you for the password.
1608 Just set and save the password again and all should be OK.
1610 [Thanks to Ray Griffith for this submission.]
1612 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1614 5.5. I cannot connect to any FTP sites. Privoxy is blocking me.
1616 Privoxy cannot act as a proxy for FTP traffic, so do not configure your browser
1617 to use Privoxy as an FTP proxy. The same is true for any protocol other than
1618 HTTP or HTTPS (SSL).
1620 Most browsers understand FTP as well as HTTP. If you connect to a site, with a
1621 URL like ftp://ftp.example.com, your browser is making an FTP connection, and
1622 not a HTTP connection. So while your browser may speak FTP, Privoxy does not,
1623 and cannot proxy such traffic.
1625 To complicate matters, some systems may have a generic "proxy" setting, which
1626 will silently enable various protocols, including both HTTP and FTP proxying!
1627 So it is possible to accidentally enable FTP proxying in these cases. And of
1628 course, if this happens, Privoxy will indeed cause problems since it does not
1629 know FTP. Newer version will give a sane error message if a FTP connection is
1630 attempted. Just disable the FTP setting and all will be well again.
1632 Will Privoxy ever proxy FTP traffic? Unlikely. There just is not much reason,
1633 and the work to make this happen is more than it may seem.
1635 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1637 5.6. In Mac OSX, I can't configure Microsoft Internet Explorer to use Privoxy
1640 Microsoft Internet Explorer (in versions like 5.1) respects system-wide network
1641 settings. In order to change the HTTP proxy, open System Preferences, and click
1642 on the Network icon. In the settings pane that comes up, click on the Proxies
1643 tab. Ensure the "Web Proxy (HTTP)" checkbox is checked and enter 127.0.0.1 in
1644 the entry field. Enter 8118 in the Port field. The next time you start IE, it
1645 should reflect these values.
1647 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1649 5.7. In Mac OSX, I dragged the Privoxy folder to the trash in order to
1650 uninstall it. Now the finder tells me I don't have sufficient privileges to
1653 Just dragging the Privoxy folder to the trash is not enough to delete it.
1654 Privoxy supplies an uninstall.command file that takes care of these details.
1655 Open the trash, drag the uninstall.command file out of the trash and
1656 double-click on it. You will be prompted for confirmation and the
1657 administration password.
1659 The trash may still appear full after this command; emptying the trash from the
1660 desktop should make it appear empty again.
1662 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1664 5.8. In Mac OSX Panther (10.3), images often fail to load and/or I experience
1665 random delays in page loading. I'm using localhost as my browser's proxy
1668 We believe this is due to an IPv6-related bug in OSX, but don't fully
1669 understand the issue yet. In any case, changing the proxy setting to 127.0.0.1
1670 instead of localhost works around the problem.
1672 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1674 5.9. I get a completely blank page at one site. "View Source" shows only:
1675 <html><body></body></html>. Without Privoxy the page loads fine.
1677 Chances are that the site suffers from a bug in PHP, which results in empty
1678 pages being sent if the client explicitly requests an uncompressed page, like
1679 Privoxy does. This bug has been fixed in PHP 4.2.3.
1681 To find out if this is in fact the source of the problem, try adding the site
1682 to a -prevent-compression section in user.action:
1684 # Make exceptions for ill-behaved sites:
1686 {-prevent-compression}
1689 If that works, you may also want to report the problem to the site's
1690 webmasters, telling them to use zlib.output_compression instead of ob_gzhandler
1691 in their PHP applications (workaround) or upgrade to PHP 4.2.3 or later (fix).
1693 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1695 5.10. Why am I getting a 503 Error (WSAECONNREFUSED) on every page?
1697 More than likely this is a problem with your TCP/IP networking. ZoneAlarm has
1698 been reported to cause this symptom -- even if not running. The solution is to
1699 either fight the ZA configuration, or uninstall ZoneAlarm, and then find
1700 something better behaved in its place. Other personal firewall type products
1701 may cause similar type problems if not configured correctly.
1703 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1705 5.11. My logs show many "Unable to get my own hostname" lines. Why?
1707 Privoxy tries to get the hostname of the system its running on from the IP
1708 address of the system interface it is bound to (from the config file
1709 listen-address setting). If the system cannot supply this information, Privoxy
1710 logs this condition.
1712 Typically, this would be considered a minor system configuration error. It is
1713 not a fatal error to Privoxy however, but may result in a much slower response
1714 from Privoxy on some platforms due to DNS timeouts.
1716 This can be caused by a problem with the local HOSTS file. If this file has
1717 been changed from the original, try reverting it to see if that helps.
1719 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1721 5.12. When I try to launch Privoxy, I get an error message "port 8118 is
1722 already in use" (or similar wording). Why?
1724 Port 8118 is Privoxy's default TCP "listening" port. Typically this message
1725 would mean that there is already one instance of Privoxy running, and you are
1726 actually trying to start a second Privoxy on the same port, which will not
1727 work. (You can have multiple instances but they must be assigned different
1728 ports.) How and why this might happen varies from platform to platform, but you
1729 need to check your installation and start-up procedures.
1731 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1733 5.13. Pages with UTF-8 fonts are garbled.
1735 This is caused by the "demoronizer" filter. You should either upgrade Privoxy,
1736 or at least upgrade to the most recent default.action file available from
1737 SourceForge. Or you can simply disable the demoronizer filter.
1739 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1741 5.14. Why are binary files (such as images) corrupted when Privoxy is used?
1743 This may also be caused by the "demoronizer" filter, in conjunction with a web
1744 server that is misreporting a file type. Binary files are exempted from
1745 Privoxy's filtering (unless the web server by mistake says the file is
1746 something else). Either upgrade Privoxy, or go to the most recent
1747 default.action file available from SourceForge.
1749 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1751 5.15. What is the "demoronizer" and why is it there?
1753 The original demoronizer was a Perl script that cleaned up HTML pages which
1754 were created with certain Microsoft products. MS has used proprietary
1755 extensions to standardized font encodings (ISO 8859-1), which has caused
1756 problems for pages that are viewed with non-Microsoft products (and are
1757 expecting to see a standard set of fonts). The demoronizer corrected these
1758 errors so the pages displayed correctly. Privoxy borrowed from this script,
1759 introducing a filter based on the original demoronizer, which in turn could
1760 correct these errors on the fly.
1762 But this is only needed in some situations, and will cause serious problems in
1763 some other situations.
1765 If you are using Microsoft products, you do not need it. If you need to view
1766 pages with UTF-8 characters (such as Cyrillic or Chinese), then it will cause
1767 corruption of the fonts, and thus should not be on.
1769 On the other hand, if you use non-Microsoft products, and you occasionally
1770 notice wierd characters on pages, you might want to try it.
1772 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1774 5.16. Why do I keep seeing "PrivoxyWindowOpen()" in raw source code?
1776 Privoxy is attempting to disable malicious Javascript in this case, with the
1777 unsolicited-popups filter. Privoxy cannot tell very well "good" code snippets
1778 from "bad" code snippets.
1780 If you see this in HTML source, and the page displays without problems, then
1781 this is good, and likely some pop-up window was disabled. If you see this where
1782 it is causing a problem, such as a downloaded program source code file, then
1783 you should set an exception for this site or page such that the integrity of
1784 the page stays in tact by disabling all filtering.
1786 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1788 5.17. I am getting too many DNS errors like "404 No Such Domain". Why can't
1789 Privoxy do this better?
1791 There are potentially several factors here. First of all, the DNS resolution is
1792 done by the underlying operating system -- not Privoxy itself. Privoxy merely
1793 initiates the process and hands it off, and then later reports whatever the
1794 outcome was. And tries to give a coherent message if there seems to be a
1795 problem. In some cases, this might otherwise be mitigated by the browser itself
1796 which might try some work-arounds and alternate approaches (e.g adding "www."
1797 to the URL). In other cases, if Privoxy is being chained with another proxy,
1798 this could complicate the issue, and cause undue delays and timeouts. In the
1799 case of a "socks4a" proxy, the socks server handles all the DNS. Privoxy would
1800 just be the "messenger" which is reporting whatever problem occurred
1801 downstream, and not the root cause of the error.
1803 In any case, v. 3.0.4 includes various improvements to help Privoxy better
1806 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1808 5.18. At one site Privoxy just hangs, and starts taking all CPU. Why is this?
1810 This is probably a manifestation of the "100% cpu" problem that occurs on pages
1811 containing many (thousands upon thousands) of blank lines. The blank lines are
1812 in the raw HTML source of the page, and the browser just ignores them. But the
1813 pattern matching in Privoxy's page filtering mechanism is trying to match
1814 against absurdly long strings and this becomes very CPU-intensive, taking a
1815 long, long time to complete. Until a better solution comes along, disable
1816 filtering on these pages, particularly the js-annoyances and unsolicited-popups
1819 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1821 5.19. I just installed Privoxy, and all my browsing has slowed to a crawl. What
1824 This should not happen, and for the overwhelming number of users world-wide, it
1825 does not happen. I would suspect some inadvertent interaction of software
1826 components such as anti-virus software, spyware protectors, personal firewalls
1827 or similar components. Try disabling (or uninstalling) these one at a time and
1830 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1832 6. Contacting the developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests
1834 We value your feedback. In fact, we rely on it to improve Privoxy and its
1835 configuration. However, please note the following hints, so we can provide you
1836 with the best support:
1838 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1842 For casual users, our support forum at SourceForge is probably best suited:
1843 http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=211118
1845 All users are of course welcome to discuss their issues on the users mailing
1846 list, where the developers also hang around.
1848 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1850 6.2. Reporting Problems
1852 "Problems" for our purposes, come in two forms:
1854 * Configuration issues, such as ads that slip through, or sites that don't
1855 function properly due to one Privoxy "action" or another being turned "on".
1857 * "Bugs" in the programming code that makes up Privoxy, such as that might
1860 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1862 6.2.1. Reporting Ads or Other Configuration Problems
1864 Please send feedback on ads that slipped through, innocent images that were
1865 blocked, sites that don't work properly, and other configuration related
1866 problem of default.action file, to http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=
1867 11118&atid=460288, the Actions File Tracker.
1869 New, improved default.action files may occasionally be made available based on
1870 your feedback. These will be announced on the ijbswa-announce list and
1871 available from our the files section of our project page.
1873 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1875 6.2.2. Reporting Bugs
1877 Please report all bugs only through our bug tracker: http://sourceforge.net/
1878 tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=111118.
1880 Before doing so, please make sure that the bug has not already been submitted
1881 and observe the additional hints at the top of the submit form. If already
1882 submitted, please feel free to add any info to the original report that might
1883 help solve the issue.
1885 Please try to verify that it is a Privoxy bug, and not a browser or site bug
1886 first. If unsure, try toggling off Privoxy, and see if the problem persists. If
1887 you are using your own custom configuration, please try the stock configs to
1888 see if the problem is configuration related.
1890 If not using the latest version, the bug may have been found and fixed in the
1891 meantime. We would appreciate if you could take the time to upgrade to the
1892 latest version (or even the latest CVS snapshot) and verify your bug.
1894 Please be sure to provide the following information:
1896 * The exact Privoxy version of the proxy software (if you got the source from
1897 CVS, please also give the date).
1899 * The operating system and versions you run Privoxy on, (e.g. Windows XP).
1901 * The name, platform, and version of the browser you were using (e.g.
1902 Internet Explorer v5.5 for Mac).
1904 * The URL where the problem occurred, or some way for us to duplicate the
1905 problem (e.g. http://somesite.example.com?somethingelse=123).
1907 * Whether your version of Privoxy is one supplied by the developers of
1908 Privoxy via SourceForge, or somewhere else.
1910 * Whether you are using Privoxy in tandem with another proxy such as TOR. If
1911 so, please try disabling the other proxy.
1913 * Whether you are using a personal firewall product. If so, does Privoxy work
1916 * Any other pertinent information to help identify the problem such as config
1917 or log file excerpts (yes, you should have log file entries for each action
1920 * Please provide your SF login, or email address, in case we need to contact
1923 The appendix of the Privoxy User Manual also has helpful information on
1924 understanding actions, and action debugging.
1926 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1928 6.3. Request New Features
1930 You are welcome to submit ideas on new features or other proposals for
1931 improvement through our feature request tracker at http://sourceforge.net/
1932 tracker/?atid=361118&group_id=11118.
1934 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1938 For any other issues, feel free to use the mailing lists. Technically
1939 interested users and people who wish to contribute to the project are also
1940 welcome on the developers list! You can find an overview of all Privoxy-related
1941 mailing lists, including list archives, at: http://sourceforge.net/mail/?
1944 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1946 7. Privoxy Copyright, License and History
1948 Copyright © 2001 - 2006 by Privoxy Developers <
1949 ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net>
1951 Some source code is based on code Copyright © 1997 by Anonymous Coders and
1952 Junkbusters, Inc. and licensed under the GNU General Public License.
1954 Portions of this document are "borrowed" from the original Junkbuster (tm) FAQ,
1955 and modified as appropriate for Privoxy.
1957 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1961 Privoxy is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the
1962 terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2, as published by the Free
1963 Software Foundation.
1965 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
1966 WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
1967 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details, which
1968 is available from the Free Software Foundation, Inc, 51 Franklin Street, Fifth
1969 Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA
1971 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
1972 this program; if not, write to the
1975 Foundation, Inc. 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor
1976 Boston, MA 02110-1301
1979 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1983 Along time ago, there was the Internet Junkbuster, by Anonymous Coders and
1984 Junkbusters Corporation. This saved many users a lot of pain in the early days
1985 of web advertising and user tracking.
1987 But the web, its protocols and standards, and with it, the techniques for
1988 forcing ads on users, give up autonomy over their browsing, and for tracking
1989 them, keeps evolving. Unfortunately, the Internet Junkbuster did not. Version
1990 2.0.2, published in 1998, was (and is) the last official release available from
1991 Junkbusters Corporation. Fortunately, it had been released under the GNU GPL,
1992 which allowed further development by others.
1994 So Stefan Waldherr started maintaining an improved version of the software, to
1995 which eventually a number of people contributed patches. It could already
1996 replace banners with a transparent image, and had a first version of pop-up
1997 killing, but it was still very closely based on the original, with all its
1998 limitations, such as the lack of HTTP/1.1 support, flexible per-site
1999 configuration, or content modification. The last release from this effort was
2000 version 2.0.2-10, published in 2000.
2002 Then, some developers picked up the thread, and started turning the software
2003 inside out, upside down, and then reassembled it, adding many new features
2006 The result of this is Privoxy, whose first stable version, 3.0, was released