1 <!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook V3.1//EN" [
2 <!entity % dummy "IGNORE">
3 <!entity supported SYSTEM "supported.sgml">
4 <!entity newfeatures SYSTEM "newfeatures.sgml">
5 <!entity p-intro SYSTEM "privoxy.sgml">
6 <!entity seealso SYSTEM "seealso.sgml">
7 <!entity buildsource SYSTEM "buildsource.sgml">
8 <!entity contacting SYSTEM "contacting.sgml">
9 <!entity history SYSTEM "history.sgml">
10 <!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
11 <!entity license SYSTEM "license.sgml">
12 <!entity p-authors SYSTEM "p-authors.sgml">
13 <!entity config SYSTEM "p-config.sgml">
14 <!entity p-version "3.0.8">
15 <!entity p-status "stable">
16 <!entity % p-authors-formal "INCLUDE"> <!-- include additional text, etc -->
17 <!entity % p-not-stable "IGNORE">
18 <!entity % p-stable "INCLUDE">
19 <!entity % p-text "IGNORE"> <!-- define we are not a text only doc -->
20 <!entity % p-doc "INCLUDE"> <!-- and we are a formal doc -->
21 <!entity % p-readme "IGNORE">
22 <!entity % user-man "IGNORE">
23 <!entity % config-file "IGNORE">
24 <!entity % p-supp-userman "IGNORE"> <!-- Omit some from supported.sgml -->
25 <!entity my-copy "©"> <!-- kludge for docbook2man -->
26 <!entity % draft "IGNORE"> <!-- WIP stuff -->
27 <!entity my-app "<application>Privoxy</application>">
30 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
33 This file belongs into
34 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
36 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.54 2008/01/19 17:52:39 hal9 Exp $
38 Copyright (C) 2001-2008 Privoxy Developers http://www.privoxy.org/
41 ========================================================================
42 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
43 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
44 ========================================================================
51 <title>Privoxy &p-version; User Manual</title>
55 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
56 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
57 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001 - 2008 by
58 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
62 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 2.54 2008/01/19 17:52:39 hal9 Exp $</pubdate>
66 Note: the following should generate a separate page, and a live link to it,
67 all nicely done. But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave
68 commented unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the
69 copyright/license declarations will be in their own sgml.
82 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
83 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
84 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
90 The <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> gives users information on how to
91 install, configure and use <ulink
92 url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy</ulink>.
95 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
97 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
100 You can find the latest version of the <citetitle>Privoxy User Manual</citetitle> at <ulink
101 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
102 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> on how to
103 contact the developers.
107 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
113 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
114 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
116 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
117 <application>Privoxy</application>, v.&p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
118 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
119 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
120 configuration files. Development of a new version is currently nearing
121 completion, and includes significant changes and enhancements over
122 earlier versions. ]]>.
125 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
128 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
129 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
130 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
135 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
136 <sect2 id="features"><title>Features</title>
138 In addition to the core
139 features of ad blocking and
140 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookie</ulink> management,
141 <application>Privoxy</application> provides many supplemental
142 features<![%p-not-stable;[, some of them currently under development]]>,
143 that give the end-user more control, more privacy and more freedom:
145 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
147 <!-- end boilerplate -->
152 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
155 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
156 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
159 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
160 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
161 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
162 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project
168 On some platforms, the installer may remove previously installed versions, if
169 found. (See below for your platform). In any case <emphasis>be sure to backup
170 your old configuration if it is valuable to you.</emphasis> See the <link
171 linkend="upgradersnote">note to upgraders</link> section below.
174 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
175 <sect2 id="installation-packages"><title>Binary Packages</title>
177 How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
180 <!-- XXX: The installation sections should be sorted -->
182 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
183 <sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Red Hat and Fedora RPMs</title>
186 RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm</literal>,
187 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location
188 of configuration files.
192 Note that on Red Hat, <application>Privoxy</application> will
193 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be automatically started on system boot. You will
194 need to enable that using <command>chkconfig</command>,
195 <command>ntsysv</command>, or similar methods.
199 If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM:
200 <literal>rpm --rebuild privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm</literal>. This
201 will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.
205 Also note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
206 on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
207 Otherwise, RPM will try to remove <application>Junkbuster</application>
208 automatically if found, before installing <application>Privoxy</application>.
212 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
213 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian and Ubuntu</title>
215 DEBs can be installed with <literal>apt-get install privoxy</literal>,
216 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location of
221 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
222 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
225 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
226 the installation process. You will find the configuration files
227 in the same directory as you installed <application>Privoxy</application> in.
230 Version 3.0.5 beta introduced full <application>Windows</application> service
231 functionality. On Windows only, the <application>Privoxy</application>
232 program has two new command line arguments to install and uninstall
233 <application>Privoxy</application> as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>.
237 <term>Arguments:</term>
240 <replaceable class="parameter">--install</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
243 <replaceable class="parameter">--uninstall</replaceable>[:<replaceable class="parameter">service_name</replaceable>]
249 After invoking <application>Privoxy</application> with
250 <command>--install</command>, you will need to bring up the
251 <application>Windows</application> service console to assign the user you
252 want <application>Privoxy</application> to run under, and whether or not you
253 want it to run whenever the system starts. You can start the
254 <application>Windows</application> services console with the following
255 command: <command>services.msc</command>. If you do not take the manual step
256 of modifying <application>Privoxy's</application> service settings, it will
257 not start. Note too that you will need to give Privoxy a user account that
258 actually exists, or it will not be permitted to
259 write to its log and configuration files.
264 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
265 <sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris <!--, NetBSD, HP-UX--></title>
268 Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
269 untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
270 things go. <!-- FIXME, more info needed? -->
274 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
275 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
278 First, make sure that no previous installations of
279 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
280 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
281 system. Check that no <application>Junkbuster</application>
282 or <application>Privoxy</application> objects are in
288 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
289 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
290 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
291 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
295 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
296 into will contain all of the configuration files.
300 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
301 <sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Mac OSX</title>
303 Unzip the downloaded file (you can either double-click on the file
304 from the finder, or from the desktop if you downloaded it there).
305 Then, double-click on the package installer icon named
306 <literal>Privoxy.pkg</literal>
307 and follow the installation process.
308 <application>Privoxy</application> will be installed in the folder
309 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal>.
310 It will start automatically whenever you start up. To prevent it from
311 starting automatically, remove or rename the folder
312 <literal>/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal>.
315 To start Privoxy by hand, double-click on
316 <literal>StartPrivoxy.command</literal> in the
317 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal> folder.
318 Or, type this command in the Terminal:
322 /Library/Privoxy/StartPrivoxy.command
326 You will be prompted for the administrator password.
330 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
331 <sect3 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
333 Copy and then unpack the <filename>lha</filename> archive to a suitable location.
334 All necessary files will be installed into <application>Privoxy</application>
335 directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just
336 remove this directory.
340 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
341 <sect3 id="installation-tbz"><title>FreeBSD</title>
344 Privoxy is part of FreeBSD's Ports Collection, you can build and install
345 it with <literal>cd /usr/ports/www/privoxy; make install clean</literal>.
348 If you don't use the ports, you can fetch and install
349 the package with <literal>pkg_add -r privoxy</literal>.
352 The port skeleton and the package can also be downloaded from the
353 <ulink url="https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118">File Release
354 Page</ulink>, but there's no reason to use them unless you're interested in the
355 beta releases which are only available there.
359 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
360 <sect3 id="installattion-gentoo"><title>Gentoo</title>
362 Gentoo source packages (Ebuilds) for <application>Privoxy</application> are
363 contained in the Gentoo Portage Tree (they are not on the download page,
364 but there is a Gentoo section, where you can see when a new
365 <application>Privoxy</application> Version is added to the Portage Tree).
368 Before installing <application>Privoxy</application> under Gentoo just do
369 first <literal>emerge rsync</literal> to get the latest changes from the
370 Portage tree. With <literal>emerge privoxy</literal> you install the latest
374 Configuration files are in <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename>, the
375 documentation is in <filename>/usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;</filename>
376 and the Log directory is in <filename>/var/log/privoxy</filename>.
382 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
383 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
386 The most convenient way to obtain the <application>Privoxy</application> sources
387 is to download the source tarball from our
388 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&package_id=10571">project download
393 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
394 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
395 version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
396 CVS repository</ulink>.
398 deprecated...out of business.
399 or simply download <ulink
400 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.bz2">the nightly CVS
405 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
407 <!-- end boilerplate -->
410 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
411 <sect2 id="installation-keepupdated"><title>Keeping your Installation Up-to-Date</title>
413 As user feedback comes in and development continues, we will make updated versions
414 of both the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link> (as a <ulink
415 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&release_id=103670">separate
416 package</ulink>) and the software itself (including the actions file) available for
421 If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
422 <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
423 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce/">subscribe
424 to our announce mailing list</ulink>, ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
428 In order not to lose your personal changes and adjustments when updating
429 to the latest <literal>default.action</literal> file we <emphasis>strongly
430 recommend</emphasis> that you use <literal>user.action</literal> and
431 <literal>user.filter</literal> for your local
432 customizations of <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
433 linkend="actions-file">Chapter on actions files</link> for details.
441 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
443 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
444 <sect1 id="whatsnew">
445 <title>What's New in this Release</title>
447 There are many improvements and new features since <application>Privoxy 3.0.6</application>, the last stable release:
454 Two new actions <link
455 linkend="server-header-tagger">server-header-tagger</link>
457 linkend="client-header-tagger">client-header-tagger</link>
458 that can be used to create arbitrary <quote>tags</quote>
459 based on client and server headers.
460 These <quote>tags</quote> can then subsequently be used
461 to control the other actions used for the current request,
462 greatly increasing &my-app;'s flexibility and selectivity. See <link
463 linkend="tag-pattern">tag patterns</link> for more information on tags.
469 Header filtering is done with dedicated header filters now. As a result
470 the actions <quote>filter-client-headers</quote> and <quote>filter-server-headers</quote>
471 that were introduced with <application>Privoxy 3.0.5</application> to apply
472 content filters to the headers have been removed.
473 See the new actions <link
474 linkend="server-header-filter">server-header-filter</link>
476 linkend="client-header-filter">client-header-filter</link> for details.
481 There are four new options for the main <filename>config</filename> file:
488 linkend="allow-cgi-request-crunching">allow-cgi-request-crunching</link>
489 which allows requests for Privoxy's internal CGI pages to be
490 blocked, redirected or (un)trusted like ordinary requests.
496 linkend="split-large-forms">split-large-forms</link>
497 that will work around a browser bug that caused IE6 and IE7 to
498 ignore the Submit button on the Privoxy's edit-actions-for-url CGI
505 linkend="accept-intercepted-requests">accept-intercepted-requests</link>
506 which allows to combine Privoxy with any packet filter to create an
507 intercepting proxy for HTTP/1.1 requests (and for HTTP/1.0 requests
508 with Host header set). This means clients can be forced to use
509 &my-app; even if their proxy settings are configured differently.
515 linkend="templdir">templdir</link>
516 to designate an alternate location for &my-app;'s
517 locally customized CGI templates so that
518 these are not overwritten during upgrades.
526 A new command line option <literal>--pre-chroot-nslookup hostname</literal> to
527 initialize the resolver library before chroot'ing. On some systems this
528 reduces the number of files that must be copied into the chroot tree.
529 (Patch provided by Stephen Gildea)
536 linkend="forward-override">forward-override</link> action
537 allows changing of the forwarding settings through the actions files.
538 Combined with tags, this allows to choose the forwarder based on
539 client headers like the <literal>User-Agent</literal>, or the request origin.
546 linkend="redirect">redirect</link> action can now use regular
547 expression substitutions against the original URL.
553 <application>zlib</application> support is now available as a compile
554 time option to filter compressed content. Patch provided by Wil Mahan.
559 Improve various filters, and add new ones.
566 Include support for RFC 3253 so that <filename>Subversion</filename> works
567 with &my-app;. Patch provided by Petr Kadlec.
573 Logging can be completely turned off by not specifying a logfile directive.
580 A number of improvements to Privoxy's internal CGI pages, including the
581 use of favicons for error and control pages.
587 Many bugfixes, memory leaks addressed, code improvements, and logging
595 For a more detailed list of changes please have a look at the ChangeLog.
598 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
600 <sect2 id="upgradersnote">
601 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
604 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading from earlier
605 versions of <application>Privoxy</application>:
613 The recommended way to upgrade &my-app; is to backup your old
614 configuration files, install the new ones, verify that &my-app;
615 is working correctly and finally merge back your changes using
616 <application>diff</application> and maybe <application>patch</application>.
619 There are a number of new features in each &my-app; release and
620 most of them have to be explicitly enabled in the configuration
621 files. Old configuration files obviously don't do that and due
622 to syntax changes using old configuration files with a new
623 &my-app; isn't always possible anyway.
628 Note that some installers remove earlier versions completely,
629 including configuration files, therefore you should really save
630 any important configuration files!
635 On the other hand, other installers don't overwrite existing configuration
636 files, thinking you will want to do that yourself.
641 <filename>standard.action</filename> now only includes the enabled actions.
642 Not all actions as before.
647 In the default configuration only fatal errors are logged now.
648 You can change that in the <link linkend="DEBUG">debug section</link>
649 of the configuration file. You may also want to enable more verbose
650 logging until you verified that the new &my-app; version is working
657 Three other config file settings are now off by default:
658 <link linkend="enable-remote-toggle">enable-remote-toggle</link>,
659 <link linkend="enable-remote-http-toggle">enable-remote-http-toggle</link>,
660 and <link linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link>.
661 If you use or want these, you will need to explicitly enable them, and
662 be aware of the security issues involved.
668 The <quote>filter-client-headers</quote> and
669 <quote>filter-server-headers</quote> actions that were introduced with
670 <application>Privoxy 3.0.5</application> to apply content filters to
671 the headers have been removed and replaced with new actions.
673 linkend="whatsnew">What's New section</link> above.
681 What constitutes a <quote>default</quote> configuration has changed,
682 and you may want to review which actions are <quote>on</quote> by
683 default. This is primarily a matter of emphasis, but some features
684 you may have been used to, may now be <quote>off</quote> by default.
685 There are also a number of new actions and filters you may want to
686 consider, most of which are not fully incorporated into the default
687 settings as yet (see above).
694 The default actions setting is now <literal>Cautious</literal>. Previous
695 releases had a default setting of <literal>Medium</literal>. Experienced
696 users may want to adjust this, as it is fairly conservative by &my-app;
697 standards and past practices. See <ulink
698 url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default">
699 http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default</ulink>. New users
700 should try the default settings for a while before turning up the volume.
706 The default setting has filtering turned <emphasis>off</emphasis>, which
707 subsequently means that compression is <emphasis>on</emphasis>. Remember
708 that filtering does not work on compressed pages, so if you use, or want to
709 use, filtering, you will need to force compression off. Example:
713 { +<link linkend="filter">filter</link>{google} +<link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link> }
717 Or if you use a number of filters, or filter many sites, you may just want
718 to turn off compression for all sites in
719 <filename>default.action</filename> (or
720 <filename>user.action</filename>).
727 Also, <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> is
728 off by default now. If you've liked this feature in the past, you may want
729 to turn it back on in <filename>user.action</filename> now.
736 Some installers may not automatically start
737 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
748 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
749 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using Privoxy</title>
755 Install <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
756 linkend="installation">Installation Section</link> below for platform specific
763 Advanced users and those who want to offer <application>Privoxy</application>
764 service to more than just their local machine should check the <link
765 linkend="config">main config file</link>, especially the <link
766 linkend="access-control">security-relevant</link> options. These are
773 Start <application>Privoxy</application>, if the installation program has
774 not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
775 <link linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link>.
781 Set your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application> as HTTP and
782 HTTPS (SSL) <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>
783 by setting the proxy configuration for address of
784 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> and port <literal>8118</literal>.
785 <emphasis>DO NOT</emphasis> activate proxying for <literal>FTP</literal> or
786 any protocols besides HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) unless you intend to prevent your
787 browser from using these protocols.
793 Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
794 If using <application>Privoxy</application> to manage
795 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
796 you should remove any currently stored cookies too.
802 A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
803 most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
804 configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
805 to no initial configuration is required in most cases, you may want
807 <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">web-based action editor</ulink> though.
808 Be sure to read the warnings first.
811 See the <link linkend="configuration">Configuration section</link> for more
812 configuration options, and how to customize your installation.
813 You might also want to look at the <link
814 linkend="quickstart-ad-blocking">next section</link> for a quick
815 introduction to how <application>Privoxy</application> blocks ads and
822 If you experience ads that slip through, innocent images that are
823 blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
824 <application>Privoxy's</application> behavior, take a look at the <link
825 linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>. As a quick start, you might
826 find the <link linkend="act-examples">richly commented examples</link>
827 helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the <ulink
828 url="http://config.privoxy.org">web-based user interface</ulink>. The
829 Appendix <quote><link linkend="actionsanat">Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an
830 Action</link></quote> has hints on how to understand and debug actions that
831 <quote>misbehave</quote>.
836 Did anyone test these lately?
840 For easy access to &my-app;'s most important controls, drag the provided
841 <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklets</link> into your browser's
849 Please see the section <link linkend="contact">Contacting the
850 Developers</link> on how to report bugs, problems with websites or to get
857 Now enjoy surfing with enhanced control, comfort and privacy!
865 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
867 <sect2 id="quickstart-ad-blocking">
868 <title>Quickstart to Ad Blocking</title>
870 NOTE: This section is deliberately redundant for those that don't
871 want to read the whole thing (which is getting lengthy).
874 Ad blocking is but one of <application>Privoxy's</application>
875 array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
876 user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody.
879 This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
880 you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive
881 information provided below, though this is highly recommended.
884 First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
885 more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
886 things that were not intended. And the more likely that some things
887 may not work as intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
888 extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
889 <quote>problem</quote> sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
890 configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
891 not an easy way to eliminate <emphasis>all</emphasis> ads. Either take
892 the easy way and settle for <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads blocked with the
893 default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing
894 habits and preferences.
897 Secondly, a brief explanation of <application>Privoxy's </application>
898 <quote>actions</quote>. <quote>Actions</quote> in this context, are
899 the directives we use to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to perform
900 some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell
901 <application>Privoxy</application> to take some <quote>action</quote>. Each
902 action has a unique name and function. While there are many potential
903 <application>actions</application> in <application>Privoxy's</application>
904 arsenal, only a few are used for ad blocking. <link
905 linkend="actions">Actions</link>, and <link linkend="actions-file">action
906 configuration files</link>, are explained in depth below.
909 Actions are specified in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
910 followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
911 can actually be URL type <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> that use
912 wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs. The
913 actions, together with the URL patterns are called a section.
916 When you connect to a website, the full URL will either match one or more
917 of the sections as defined in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
918 or not. If so, then <application>Privoxy</application> will perform the
919 respective actions. If not, then nothing special happens. Furthermore, web
920 pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your web browser will
921 use to load additional components of the page, as it parses the
922 original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just an URL
923 embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server,
924 or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many
925 such embedded URLs. &my-app; can deal with each URL individually, so, for
926 instance, the main page text is not touched, but images from such-and-such
931 The most important actions for basic ad blocking are: <literal><link
932 linkend="block">block</link></literal>, <literal><link
933 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
935 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal>,and
936 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>:
944 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> - this is perhaps
945 the single most used action, and is particularly important for ad blocking.
946 This action stops any contact between your browser and any URL patterns
947 that match this action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads,
948 but also anything that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply
949 stops any communication with the remote server and sends
950 <application>Privoxy</application>'s own built-in BLOCKED page instead to
951 let you now what has happened (with some exceptions, see below).
957 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> -
958 tells <application>Privoxy</application> to treat this URL as an image.
959 <application>Privoxy</application>'s default configuration already does this
960 for all common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this
961 is not so easy to determine. So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly
962 important for ad blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of
963 some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the
964 <application>Privoxy</application> BLOCKED page (which would only result in
965 a <quote>broken image</quote> icon). There are some limitations to this
966 though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an image substitution for
967 an entire HTML page in most situations.
973 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> -
974 sends an empty document instead of <application>Privoxy's</application>
975 normal BLOCKED HTML page. This is useful for file types that are neither
976 HTML nor images, such as blocking JavaScript files.
983 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> - tells
984 <application>Privoxy</application> what to display in place of an ad image that
985 has hit a block rule. For this to come into play, the URL must match a
986 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action somewhere in the
987 configuration, <emphasis>and</emphasis>, it must also match an
988 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action.
991 The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are:
995 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad
996 replacement is obvious. This is the default.
1001 <emphasis>blank</emphasis> - A very small empty GIF image is displayed.
1002 This is the so-called <quote>invisible</quote> configuration option.
1007 <emphasis>http://<URL></emphasis> - A redirect to any image anywhere
1008 of the user's choosing (advanced usage).
1017 Advanced users will eventually want to explore &my-app;
1018 <literal><link linkend="filter">filters</link></literal> as well. Filters
1019 are very different from <literal><link
1020 linkend="block">blocks</link></literal>.
1021 A <quote>block</quote> blocks a site, page, or unwanted contented. Filters
1022 are a way of filtering or modifying what is actually on the page. An example
1023 filter usage: a text replacement of <quote>no-no</quote> for
1024 <quote>nasty-word</quote>. That is a very simple example. This process can be
1025 used for ad blocking, but it is more in the realm of advanced usage and has
1026 some pitfalls to be wary off.
1030 The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
1031 the special <application>Privoxy</application> editor at <ulink
1032 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1033 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>). This
1034 is an internal page, and does not require Internet access.
1038 Note that as of <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta the
1039 action editor is disabled by default. Check the
1040 <ulink url="config.html#ENABLE-EDIT-ACTIONS">enable-edit-actions
1041 section in the configuration file</ulink> to learn why and in which
1042 cases it's safe to enable again.
1046 If you decided to enable the action editor, select the appropriate
1047 <quote>actions</quote> file, and click
1048 <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>. It is best to put personal or
1049 local preferences in <filename>user.action</filename> since this is not
1050 meant to be overwritten during upgrades, and will over-ride the settings in
1051 other files. Here you can insert new <quote>actions</quote>, and URLs for ad
1052 blocking or other purposes, and make other adjustments to the configuration.
1053 <application>Privoxy</application> will detect these changes automatically.
1057 A quick and simple step by step example:
1065 Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
1066 <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote> from the
1074 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1079 Find <filename>user.action</filename> in the top section, and click
1080 on <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>:
1083 <!-- image of editor and actions files selections -->
1085 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Actions Files in Use</title>
1088 <imagedata fileref="files-in-use.jpg" format="jpg">
1091 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ]</phrase>
1100 You should have a section with only
1101 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> listed under
1102 <quote>Actions:</quote>.
1103 If not, click a <quote><guibutton>Insert new section below</guibutton></quote>
1104 button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the
1105 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button right under the word <quote>Actions:</quote>.
1106 This will bring up a list of all actions. Find
1107 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> near the top, and click
1108 in the <quote>Enabled</quote> column, then <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote>
1109 just below the list.
1114 Now, in the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> actions section,
1115 click the <quote><guibutton>Add</guibutton></quote> button, and paste the URL the
1116 browser got from <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote>.
1117 Remove the <literal>http://</literal> at the beginning of the URL. Then, click
1118 <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote> (or
1119 <quote><guibutton>OK</guibutton></quote> if in a pop-up window).
1124 Now go back to the original page, and press <keycap>SHIFT-Reload</keycap>
1125 (or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now.
1133 This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
1134 wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same
1135 site. For a more extensive explanation of <quote>patterns</quote>, and
1136 the entire actions concept, see <link linkend="actions-file">the Actions
1141 For advanced users who want to hand edit their config files, you might want
1142 to now go to the <link linkend="act-examples">Actions Files Tutorial</link>.
1143 The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor.
1146 There are also various
1147 <link linkend="filter">filters</link> that can be used for ad blocking
1148 (filters are a special subset of actions). These
1149 fall into the <quote>advanced</quote> usage category, and are explained in
1150 depth in later sections.
1157 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1160 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1161 <sect1 id="startup">
1162 <title>Starting Privoxy</title>
1164 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
1165 will want to configure your browser(s) to use
1166 <application>Privoxy</application> as a HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)
1167 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server">proxy</ulink>. The default is
1168 127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions
1169 used port 8000). This is the one configuration step <emphasis>that must be done
1173 Please note that <application>Privoxy</application> can only proxy HTTP and
1174 HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols.
1177 <!-- image of Mozilla Proxy configuration -->
1179 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
1180 Mozilla/Netscape HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) Settings</title>
1183 <imagedata fileref="proxy_setup.jpg" format="jpg">
1186 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
1194 With <application>Firefox</application>, this is typically set under:
1198 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Network</guibutton> -><guibutton>Connection</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Settings</guibutton>
1203 Or optionally on some platforms:
1207 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>General</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connection Settings</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Manual Proxy Configuration</guibutton>
1213 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
1214 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under:
1219 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
1220 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
1221 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Proxies</guibutton> -> <guibutton>HTTP Proxy</guibutton>
1226 For <application>Internet Explorer v.5-7</application>:
1230 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Internet Options</guibutton> -> <guibutton>Connections</guibutton> -> <guibutton>LAN Settings</guibutton>
1234 Then, check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info
1235 (Address: 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include HTTPS (SSL), if you want HTTPS
1236 proxy support too (sometimes labeled <quote>Secure</quote>). Make sure any
1237 checkboxes like <quote>Use the same proxy server for all protocols</quote> is
1238 <emphasis>UNCHECKED</emphasis>. You want only HTTP and HTTPS (SSL)!
1241 <!-- image of IE Proxy configuration -->
1243 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration Showing
1244 Internet Explorer HTTP and HTTPS (Secure) Settings</title>
1247 <imagedata fileref="proxy2.jpg" format="jpg">
1250 <phrase>[ Screenshot of IE Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
1258 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
1259 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. Remove
1260 any <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Browser_cookie">cookies</ulink>,
1261 if you want <application>Privoxy</application> to manage that. You are now
1262 ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
1263 <application>Privoxy</application>!
1267 <application>Privoxy</application> itself is typically started by specifying the
1268 main configuration file to be used on the command line. If no configuration
1269 file is specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application>
1270 will look for a file named <filename>config</filename> in the current
1271 directory. Except on Win32 where it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>.
1274 <sect2 id="start-redhat">
1275 <title>Red Hat and Fedora</title>
1277 A default Red Hat installation may not start &my-app; upon boot. It will use
1278 the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
1283 # /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
1291 # service privoxy start
1296 <sect2 id="start-debian">
1297 <title>Debian</title>
1299 We use a script. Note that Debian typically starts &my-app; upon booting per
1300 default. It will use the file
1301 <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
1306 # /etc/init.d/privoxy start
1311 <sect2 id="start-windows">
1312 <title>Windows</title>
1314 Click on the &my-app; Icon to start <application>Privoxy</application>. If no configuration file is
1315 specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application> will look
1316 for a file named <filename>config.txt</filename>. Note that Windows will
1317 automatically start &my-app; when the system starts if you chose that option
1321 <application>Privoxy</application> can run with full Windows service functionality.
1322 On Windows only, the &my-app; program has two new command line arguments
1323 to install and uninstall &my-app; as a service. See the
1324 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Windows Installation
1325 instructions</link> for details.
1329 <sect2 id="start-unices">
1330 <title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others</title>
1332 Example Unix startup command:
1336 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
1341 <sect2 id="start-os2">
1344 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
1345 start automatically when the system restarts. You can start it manually by
1346 double-clicking on the <application>Privoxy</application> icon in the
1347 <application>Privoxy</application> folder.
1351 <sect2 id="start-macosx">
1352 <title>Mac OSX</title>
1354 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
1355 start automatically when the system restarts. To start &my-app; manually,
1356 double-click on the <literal>StartPrivoxy.command</literal> icon in the
1357 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal> folder. Or, type this command
1362 /Library/Privoxy/StartPrivoxy.command
1366 You will be prompted for the administrator password.
1371 <sect2 id="start-amigaos">
1372 <title>AmigaOS</title>
1374 Start <application>Privoxy</application> (with RUN <>NIL:) in your
1375 <filename>startnet</filename> script (AmiTCP), in
1376 <filename>s:user-startup</filename> (RoadShow), as startup program in your
1377 startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
1378 <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically quit when you quit your
1379 TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that
1380 <application>Privoxy</application> is still running).
1384 <sect2 id="start-gentoo">
1385 <title>Gentoo</title>
1387 A script is again used. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config
1388 </filename> as its main configuration file.
1392 /etc/init.d/privoxy start
1396 Note that <application>Privoxy</application> is not automatically started at
1397 boot time by default. You can change this with the <literal>rc-update</literal>
1402 rc-update add privoxy default
1410 See the section <link linkend="cmdoptions">Command line options</link> for
1414 must find a better place for this paragraph
1417 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
1418 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
1419 <ulink url="actions-file.html"><quote>actions</quote></ulink> files. These are
1420 where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking, and other
1421 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several
1422 such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
1426 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites for which you may prefer
1427 persistent cookies, and add these to your actions configuration as needed. By
1428 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
1429 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), unless you add them to the
1430 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
1431 to edit <filename>user.action</filename> (or through the web based interface)
1432 and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser, it would make
1433 more sense to let <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which
1434 case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
1438 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
1439 sites is the popup-killing (through the <ulink
1440 url="actions-file.html#KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></ulink> and
1442 url="actions-file.html#FILTER-POPUPS"><quote>+filter{popups}</quote></ulink>
1443 actions), because your favorite shopping, banking, or leisure site may need
1444 popups (explained below).
1448 <application>Privoxy</application> does not support all of the optional HTTP/1.1
1449 features yet. In the unlikely event that you experience inexplicable problems
1450 with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
1451 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
1452 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
1453 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
1454 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote> config option in
1455 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
1456 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
1460 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
1461 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
1462 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
1463 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote>
1464 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
1465 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1466 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1467 and then follow the link to <quote>View & Change the Current Configuration</quote>.
1468 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
1472 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
1473 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
1474 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
1475 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
1476 to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
1477 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
1478 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
1482 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
1483 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
1484 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
1485 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
1486 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
1487 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
1492 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <link
1493 linkend="actions-file">read more about the actions concept</link>
1494 or even dive deep into the <link linkend="actionsanat">Appendix
1499 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
1500 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
1501 section <link linkend="contact"><quote>Contacting the
1502 Developers</quote></link> below.
1507 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1508 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
1509 <title>Command Line Options</title>
1511 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
1512 command-line options:
1520 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
1523 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
1528 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
1531 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
1536 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
1539 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
1540 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
1545 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
1548 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
1549 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
1550 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
1551 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
1556 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
1559 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
1560 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
1561 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
1566 <emphasis>--chroot</emphasis>
1569 Before changing to the user ID given in the <emphasis>--user</emphasis> option,
1570 chroot to that user's home directory, i.e. make the kernel pretend to the &my-app;
1571 process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit
1572 the impact of possible vulnerabilities in &my-app; to the files contained in that hierarchy.
1578 <emphasis>--pre-chroot-nslookup hostname</emphasis>
1581 Specifies a hostname to look up before doing a chroot. On some systems, initializing the
1582 resolver library involves reading config files from /etc and/or loading additional shared
1583 libraries from /lib. On these systems, doing a hostname lookup before the chroot reduces
1584 the number of files that must be copied into the chroot tree.
1587 For fastest startup speed, a good value is a hostname that is not in /etc/hosts but that
1588 your local name server (listed in /etc/resolv.conf) can resolve without recursion
1589 (that is, without having to ask any other name servers). The hostname need not exist,
1590 but if it doesn't, an error message (which can be ignored) will be output.
1596 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
1599 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
1600 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
1601 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
1602 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
1603 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
1604 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
1612 On <application>MS Windows</application> only there are two additional
1613 command-line options to allow <application>Privoxy</application> to install and
1614 run as a <emphasis>service</emphasis>. See the
1615 <link linkend="installation-pack-win">Window Installation section</link>
1623 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1626 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1627 <sect1 id="configuration"><title>Privoxy Configuration</title>
1629 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
1630 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
1631 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
1632 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
1636 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1639 <title>Controlling Privoxy with Your Web Browser</title>
1641 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
1642 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1643 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1644 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
1645 You will see the following section:
1649 <!-- Needs to be put in a table and colorized -->
1652 <bridgehead renderas="sect2"> Privoxy Menu</bridgehead>
1656 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View & change the current configuration</ulink>
1659 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">View the source code version numbers</ulink>
1662 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">View the request headers.</ulink>
1665 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">Look up which actions apply to a URL and why</ulink>
1668 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">Toggle Privoxy on or off</ulink>
1671 ▪ <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/
1672 &p-version;/user-manual/">Documentation</ulink>
1680 This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the
1681 <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, which is where the ad, banner,
1682 cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
1683 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
1684 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
1685 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
1689 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
1690 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
1691 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
1692 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
1693 to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e.
1694 <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There
1695 is even a toggle <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklet</link> offered, so
1696 that you can toggle <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from
1701 Note that several of the features described above are disabled by default
1702 in <application>Privoxy</application> 3.0.7 beta and later.
1704 <ulink url="config.html">configuration file</ulink> to learn why
1705 and in which cases it's safe to enable them again.
1710 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1715 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1717 <sect2 id="confoverview">
1718 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
1720 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
1721 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
1722 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
1723 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
1724 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
1725 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
1729 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
1730 some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
1731 principle configuration files are:
1739 The <link linkend="config">main configuration file</link> is named <filename>config</filename>
1740 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
1741 on Windows. This is a required file.
1747 <filename>default.action</filename> (the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>)
1748 is used to define which <quote>actions</quote> relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups,
1749 content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default. It also defines many
1750 exceptions (both positive and negative) from this default set of actions that enable
1751 <application>Privoxy</application> to selectively eliminate the junk, and only the junk, on
1752 as many websites as possible.
1755 Multiple actions files may be defined in <filename>config</filename>. These
1756 are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
1757 preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
1758 <filename>default.action</filename> (which you will most probably want
1759 to define sooner or later) are probably best applied in
1760 <filename>user.action</filename>, where you can preserve them across
1761 upgrades. <filename>standard.action</filename> is only for
1762 <application>Privoxy's</application> internal use.
1765 There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
1767 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1769 url="http://p.p/show-status">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>) for the
1770 various actions files.
1776 <quote>Filter files</quote> (the <link linkend="filter-file">filter
1777 file</link>) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
1778 viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
1779 lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
1780 whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
1781 <filename>default.filter</filename> includes various filters made
1782 available for use by the developers. Some are much more intrusive than
1783 others, and all should be used with caution. You may define additional
1784 filter files in <filename>config</filename> as you can with
1785 actions files. We suggest <filename>user.filter</filename> for any
1786 locally defined filters or customizations.
1794 The syntax of the configuration and filter files may change between different
1795 Privoxy versions, unfortunately some enhancements cost backwards compatibility.
1796 <!-- Add link to documentation-->
1800 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
1801 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
1802 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
1803 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
1804 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
1805 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
1806 out" that line. Blank lines are ignored.
1810 The actions files and filter files
1811 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
1812 maximum flexibility.
1816 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
1817 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
1818 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
1819 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
1820 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
1821 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
1822 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
1827 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
1828 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
1829 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
1830 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
1836 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1839 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1841 <!-- **************************************************** -->
1842 <!-- Include config.sgml here -->
1843 <!-- This is where the entire config file is detailed. -->
1845 <!-- end include -->
1848 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1852 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1854 <sect1 id="actions-file"><title>Actions Files</title>
1857 The actions files are used to define what <emphasis>actions</emphasis>
1858 <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which URLs, and thus determines
1859 how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
1860 transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof).
1861 There are a number of such actions, with a wide range of functionality.
1862 Each action does something a little different.
1863 These actions give us a veritable arsenal of tools with which to exert
1864 our control, preferences and independence. Actions can be combined so that
1865 their effects are aggregated when applied against a given set of URLs.
1869 are three action files included with <application>Privoxy</application> with
1877 <filename>default.action</filename> - is the primary action file
1878 that sets the initial values for all actions. It is intended to
1879 provide a base level of functionality for
1880 <application>Privoxy's</application> array of features. So it is
1881 a set of broad rules that should work reasonably well as-is for most users.
1882 This is the file that the developers are keeping updated, and <link
1883 linkend="installation-keepupdated">making available to users</link>.
1884 The user's preferences as set in <filename>standard.action</filename>,
1885 e.g. either <literal>Cautious</literal> (the default),
1886 <literal>Medium</literal>, or <literal>Advanced</literal> (see
1892 <filename>user.action</filename> - is intended to be for local site
1893 preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank
1894 has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
1895 thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded.
1900 <filename>standard.action</filename> - is used only by the web based editor
1901 at <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default">
1902 http://config.privoxy.org/edit-actions-list?f=default</ulink>,
1903 to set various pre-defined sets of rules for the default actions section
1904 in <filename>default.action</filename>.
1907 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Cautious</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Medium</guibutton> <guibutton>Set to Advanced</guibutton>
1910 These have increasing levels of aggressiveness <emphasis>and have no
1911 influence on your browsing unless you select them explicitly in the
1912 editor</emphasis>. A default installation should be pre-set to
1913 <literal>Cautious</literal> (versions prior to 3.0.5 were set to
1914 <literal>Medium</literal>). New users should try this for a while before
1915 adjusting the settings to more aggressive levels. The more aggressive
1916 the settings, then the more likelihood there is of problems such as sites
1917 not working as they should.
1920 The <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button allows you to turn each
1921 action on/off individually for fine-tuning. The <guibutton>Cautious</guibutton>
1922 button changes the actions list to low/safe settings which will activate
1923 ad blocking and a minimal set of &my-app;'s features, and subsequently
1924 there will be less of a chance for accidental problems. The
1925 <guibutton>Medium</guibutton> button sets the list to a medium level of
1926 other features and a low level set of privacy features. The
1927 <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton> button sets the list to a high level of
1928 ad blocking and medium level of privacy. See the chart below. The latter
1929 three buttons over-ride any changes via with the
1930 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button. More fine-tuning can be done in the
1931 lower sections of this internal page.
1934 It is not recommend to edit the <filename>standard.action</filename> file
1938 The default profiles, and their associated actions, as pre-defined in
1939 <filename>standard.action</filename> are<!-- different than this table which is out of date -->:
1942 <table frame=all><title>Default Configurations</title>
1943 <tgroup cols=4 align=left colsep=1 rowsep=1>
1944 <colspec colname=c1>
1945 <colspec colname=c2>
1946 <colspec colname=c3>
1947 <colspec colname=c4>
1950 <entry>Feature</entry>
1951 <entry>Cautious</entry>
1952 <entry>Medium</entry>
1953 <entry>Advanced</entry>
1958 <!-- <entry>f1</entry> -->
1959 <!-- <entry>f2</entry> -->
1960 <!-- <entry>f3</entry> -->
1961 <!-- <entry>f4</entry> -->
1967 <entry>Ad-blocking Aggressiveness</entry>
1968 <entry>medium</entry>
1974 <entry>Ad-filtering by size</entry>
1981 <entry>Ad-filtering by link</entry>
1987 <entry>Pop-up killing</entry>
1988 <entry>blocks only</entry>
1989 <entry>blocks only</entry>
1990 <entry>blocks only</entry>
1994 <entry>Privacy Features</entry>
1996 <entry>medium</entry>
1997 <entry>medium/high</entry>
2001 <entry>Cookie handling</entry>
2003 <entry>session-only</entry>
2008 <entry>Referer forging</entry>
2016 <entry>GIF de-animation</entry>
2024 <entry>Fast redirects</entry>
2031 <entry>HTML taming</entry>
2038 <entry>JavaScript taming</entry>
2045 <entry>Web-bug killing</entry>
2052 <entry>Image tag reordering</entry>
2068 The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
2069 file, and are processed in the order they are defined (e.g.
2070 <filename>default.action</filename> is typically processed before
2071 <filename>user.action</filename>). The content of these can all be viewed and
2073 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
2074 The over-riding principle when applying actions, is that the last action that
2075 matches a given URL wins. The broadest, most general rules go first
2076 (defined in <filename>default.action</filename>),
2077 followed by any exceptions (typically also in
2078 <filename>default.action</filename>), which are then followed lastly by any
2079 local preferences (typically in <emphasis>user</emphasis><filename>.action</filename>).
2080 Generally, <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word.
2084 An actions file typically has multiple sections. If you want to use
2085 <quote>aliases</quote> in an actions file, you have to place the (optional)
2086 <link linkend="aliases">alias section</link> at the top of that file.
2087 Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all
2088 sites and pages (be <emphasis>very careful</emphasis> with using such a
2089 universal set in <filename>user.action</filename> or any other actions file after
2090 <filename>default.action</filename>, because it will override the result
2091 from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
2092 exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
2093 <filename>user.action</filename> as an appendix to <filename>default.action</filename>,
2094 with the advantage that it is a separate file, which makes preserving your
2095 personal settings across <application>Privoxy</application> upgrades easier.
2099 Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
2100 just some obnoxious URL whose content you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
2101 or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
2102 written to disk), content can be modified, some JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking
2103 fooled, and much more. See below for a <link linkend="actions">complete list
2107 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2109 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
2111 Note that some <link linkend="actions">actions</link>, like cookie suppression
2112 or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these
2113 techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and
2114 certainly a matter of personal taste. And, things can always change, requiring
2115 refinements in the configuration. In general, it can be said that the more
2116 <quote>aggressive</quote> your default settings (in the top section of the
2117 actions file) are, the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you
2118 will have to make later. If, for example, you want to crunch all cookies per
2119 default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you
2120 regularly use and that require cookies for actually useful purposes, like maybe
2121 your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
2125 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
2126 distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
2127 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
2128 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :).
2132 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2134 <title>How to Edit</title>
2136 The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by
2137 using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from <ulink
2138 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
2139 Note: the config file option <link
2140 linkend="enable-edit-actions">enable-edit-actions</link> must be enabled for
2141 this to work. The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single
2142 feature on a per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults
2143 like <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> or
2144 <quote>Advanced</quote>. Warning: the <quote>Advanced</quote> setting is more
2145 aggressive, and will be more likely to cause problems for some sites.
2146 Experienced users only!
2150 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
2151 the actions files with your favorite text editor. Look at
2152 <filename>default.action</filename> which is richly commented with many
2158 <sect2 id="actions-apply">
2159 <title>How Actions are Applied to Requests</title>
2161 Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections,
2162 like the <quote><link linkend="aliases">alias</link></quote> sections which will
2163 be discussed later. For now let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a
2164 heading line (often split up to multiple lines for readability) which consist
2165 of a list of actions, separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces.
2166 Below that, there is a list of URL and tag patterns, each on a separate line.
2170 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
2171 compared to all URL patterns in each <quote>action file</quote>.
2172 Every time it matches, the list of applicable actions for the request is
2173 incrementally updated, using the heading of the section in which the
2174 pattern is located. The same is done again for tags and tag patterns later on.
2178 If multiple applying sections set the same action differently,
2179 the last match wins. If not, the effects are aggregated.
2180 E.g. a URL might match a regular section with a heading line of <literal>{
2181 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link> }</literal>,
2182 then later another one with just <literal>{
2183 +<link linkend="block">block</link> }</literal>, resulting
2184 in <emphasis>both</emphasis> actions to apply. And there may well be
2185 cases where you will want to combine actions together. Such a section then
2191 { +<literal>handle-as-image</literal> +<literal>block</literal> }
2192 # Block these as if they were images. Send no block page.
2194 media.example.com/.*banners
2195 .example.com/images/ads/</screen>
2199 You can trace this process for URL patterns and any given URL by visiting <ulink
2200 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
2204 Examples and more detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
2205 Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</link> section.
2209 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2210 <sect2 id="af-patterns">
2211 <title>Patterns</title>
2213 As mentioned, <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>patterns</quote>
2214 to determine what <emphasis>actions</emphasis> might apply to which sites and
2215 pages your browser attempts to access. These <quote>patterns</quote> use wild
2216 card type <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> matching to achieve a high degree of
2217 flexibility. This allows one expression to be expanded and potentially match
2218 against many similar patterns.
2222 Generally, an URL pattern has the form
2223 <literal><domain>/<path></literal>, where both the
2224 <literal><domain></literal> and <literal><path></literal> are
2225 optional. (This is why the special <literal>/</literal> pattern matches all
2226 URLs). Note that the protocol portion of the URL pattern (e.g.
2227 <literal>http://</literal>) should <emphasis>not</emphasis> be included in
2228 the pattern. This is assumed already!
2231 The pattern matching syntax is different for the domain and path parts of
2232 the URL. The domain part uses a simple globbing type matching technique,
2233 while the path part uses a more flexible
2234 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2235 Expressions (PCRE)</quote></ulink> based syntax.
2240 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
2243 is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2244 regardless of which document on that server is requested. So ALL pages in
2245 this domain would be covered by the scope of this action. Note that a
2246 simple <literal>example.com</literal> is different and would NOT match.
2251 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
2254 means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
2260 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html$</literal></term>
2263 matches all the documents on <literal>www.example.com</literal>
2264 whose name starts with <literal>/index.html</literal>.
2269 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html$</literal></term>
2272 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
2273 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
2278 <term><literal>/index.html$</literal></term>
2281 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
2282 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server anywhere.
2287 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
2290 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
2291 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>. So its
2299 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2300 <sect3><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
2303 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
2304 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
2310 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
2313 matches any domain with first-level domain <literal>com</literal>
2314 and second-level domain <literal>example</literal>.
2315 For example <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2316 <literal>example.com</literal> and <literal>foo.bar.baz.example.com</literal>.
2317 Note that it wouldn't match if the second-level domain was <literal>another-example</literal>.
2322 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
2325 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
2326 <literal>www.</literal> (It also matches the domain
2327 <literal>www</literal> but most of the time that doesn't matter.)
2332 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
2335 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>.
2336 And, by the way, also included would be any files or documents that exist
2337 within that domain since no path limitations are specified. (Correctly
2338 speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as
2339 a domain.) This might be <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
2340 <literal>news.example.de</literal>, or
2341 <literal>www.example.net/cgi/testing.pl</literal> for instance. All these
2349 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
2350 themselves. These work similarly to shell globbing type wild-cards:
2351 <quote>*</quote> represents zero or more arbitrary characters (this is
2353 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2354 Expression</quote></ulink> based syntax of <quote>.*</quote>),
2355 <quote>?</quote> represents any single character (this is equivalent to the
2356 regular expression syntax of a simple <quote>.</quote>), and you can define
2357 <quote>character classes</quote> in square brackets which is similar to
2358 the same regular expression technique. All of this can be freely mixed:
2363 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2366 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
2367 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
2372 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
2375 matches all of the above, and then some.
2380 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
2383 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
2384 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
2389 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
2392 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
2393 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
2394 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
2395 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
2402 While flexible, this is not the sophistication of full regular expression based syntax.
2407 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2410 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2411 <sect3><title>The Path Pattern</title>
2414 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl compatible (PCRE)
2415 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
2416 Expression</quote></ulink> based syntax
2417 (through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> library) for
2418 matching the path portion (after the slash), and is thus more flexible.
2422 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
2423 expressions, and full (very technical) documentation on PCRE regex syntax is available on-line
2424 at <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/man.txt">http://www.pcre.org/man.txt</ulink>.
2425 You might also find the Perl man page on regular expressions (<literal>man perlre</literal>)
2426 useful, which is available on-line at <ulink
2427 url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html</ulink>.
2431 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
2432 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote> (regular expression speak
2433 for the beginning of a line).
2437 Please also note that matching in the path is <emphasis>CASE INSENSITIVE</emphasis>
2438 by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
2439 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch: <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match
2440 only documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
2441 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
2446 <term><literal>.example.com/.*</literal></term>
2449 Is equivalent to just <quote>.example.com</quote>, since any documents
2450 within that domain are matched with or without the <quote>.*</quote>
2451 regular expression. This is redundant
2456 <term><literal>.example.com/.*/index.html$</literal></term>
2459 Will match any page in the domain of <quote>example.com</quote> that is
2460 named <quote>index.html</quote>, and that is part of some path. For
2461 example, it matches <quote>www.example.com/testing/index.html</quote> but
2462 NOT <quote>www.example.com/index.html</quote> because the regular
2463 expression called for at least two <quote>/'s</quote>, thus the path
2464 requirement. It also would match
2465 <quote>www.example.com/testing/index_html</quote>, because of the
2466 special meta-character <quote>.</quote>.
2471 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)?index\.html$</literal></term>
2474 This regular expression is conditional so it will match any page
2475 named <quote>index.html</quote> regardless of path which in this case can
2476 have one or more <quote>/'s</quote>. And this one must contain exactly
2477 <quote>.html</quote> (but does not have to end with that!).
2482 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)</literal></term>
2485 This regular expression will match any path of <quote>example.com</quote>
2486 that contains any of the words <quote>ads</quote>, <quote>banner</quote>,
2487 <quote>banners</quote> (because of the <quote>?</quote>) or <quote>junk</quote>.
2488 The path does not have to end in these words, just contain them.
2493 <term><literal>.example.com/(.*/)(ads|banners?|junk)/.*\.(jpe?g|gif|png)$</literal></term>
2496 This is very much the same as above, except now it must end in either
2497 <quote>.jpg</quote>, <quote>.jpeg</quote>, <quote>.gif</quote> or <quote>.png</quote>. So this
2498 one is limited to common image formats.
2505 There are many, many good examples to be found in <filename>default.action</filename>,
2506 and more tutorials below in <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>.
2511 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2514 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2515 <sect3 id="tag-pattern"><title>The Tag Pattern</title>
2518 Tag patterns are used to change the applying actions based on the
2519 request's tags. Tags can be created with either the
2520 <link linkend="CLIENT-HEADER-TAGGER">client-header-tagger</link>
2521 or the <link linkend="SERVER-HEADER-TAGGER">server-header-tagger</link> action.
2525 Tag patterns have to start with <quote>TAG:</quote>, so &my-app;
2526 can tell them apart from URL patterns. Everything after the colon
2527 including white space, is interpreted as a regular expression with
2528 path pattern syntax, except that tag patterns aren't left-anchored
2529 automatically (&my-app; doesn't silently add a <quote>^</quote>,
2530 you have to do it yourself if you need it).
2534 To match all requests that are tagged with <quote>foo</quote>
2535 your pattern line should be <quote>TAG:^foo$</quote>,
2536 <quote>TAG:foo</quote> would work as well, but it would also
2537 match requests whose tags contain <quote>foo</quote> somewhere.
2538 <quote>TAG: foo</quote> wouldn't work as it requires white space.
2542 Sections can contain URL and tag patterns at the same time,
2543 but tag patterns are checked after the URL patterns and thus
2544 always overrule them, even if they are located before the URL patterns.
2548 Once a new tag is added, Privoxy checks right away if it's matched by one
2549 of the tag patterns and updates the action settings accordingly. As a result
2550 tags can be used to activate other tagger actions, as long as these other
2551 taggers look for headers that haven't already be parsed.
2555 For example you could tag client requests which use the
2556 <literal>POST</literal> method,
2557 then use this tag to activate another tagger that adds a tag if cookies
2558 are sent, and then use a block action based on the cookie tag. This allows
2559 the outcome of one action, to be input into a subsequent action. However if
2560 you'd reverse the position of the described taggers, and activated the
2561 method tagger based on the cookie tagger, no method tags would be created.
2562 The method tagger would look for the request line, but at the time
2563 the cookie tag is created, the request line has already been parsed.
2567 While this is a limitation you should be aware of, this kind of
2568 indirection is seldom needed anyway and even the example doesn't
2569 make too much sense.
2576 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
2579 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2581 <sect2 id="actions">
2582 <title>Actions</title>
2584 All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
2585 somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
2586 <quote>+</quote>, and turned off if preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. So a
2587 <literal>+action</literal> means <quote>do that action</quote>, e.g.
2588 <literal>+block</literal> means <quote>please block URLs that match the
2589 following patterns</quote>, and <literal>-block</literal> means <quote>don't
2590 block URLs that match the following patterns, even if <literal>+block</literal>
2591 previously applied.</quote>
2596 Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
2597 separated by whitespace, like in
2598 <literal>{+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}}</literal>,
2599 followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
2600 Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
2601 of the actions file.
2605 Actions fall into three categories:
2612 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>enabled</quote> or
2613 <quote>disabled</quote>. Syntax:
2617 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # enable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>
2618 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable></screen>
2621 Example: <literal>+block</literal>
2628 Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
2633 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and set parameter to <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>,
2634 # overwriting parameter from previous match if necessary
2635 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action. The parameter can be omitted</screen>
2638 Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action,
2639 the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
2642 Example: <literal>+hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070602 Firefox/2.0.0.4}</literal>
2648 Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions,
2649 but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the
2650 same URL, but with different parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> the parameters
2651 from <emphasis>all</emphasis> matches are remembered. This is used for actions
2652 that can be executed for the same request repeatedly, like adding multiple
2653 headers, or filtering through multiple filters. Syntax:
2657 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and add <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> to the list of parameters
2658 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # remove the parameter <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> from the list of parameters
2659 # If it was the last one left, disable the action.
2660 <replaceable class="parameter">-name</replaceable> # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list</screen>
2663 Examples: <literal>+add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text}</literal> and
2664 <literal>+filter{html-annoyances}</literal>
2672 If nothing is specified in any actions file, no <quote>actions</quote> are
2673 taken. So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
2674 normal, non-blocking, non-filtering proxy. You must specifically enable the
2675 privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions
2676 files will give a good starting point).
2680 Later defined action sections always over-ride earlier ones of the same type.
2681 So exceptions to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
2682 in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files such
2683 as <filename>user.action</filename>). For multi-valued actions, the actions
2684 are applied in the order they are specified. Actions files are processed in
2685 the order they are defined in <filename>config</filename> (the default
2686 installation has three actions files). It also quite possible for any given
2687 URL to match more than one <quote>pattern</quote> (because of wildcards and
2688 regular expressions), and thus to trigger more than one set of actions! Last
2692 <!-- start actions listing -->
2694 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> actions are:
2698 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2699 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
2700 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
2702 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2705 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2707 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="add-header">
2708 <title>add-header</title>
2712 <term>Typical use:</term>
2714 <para>Confuse log analysis, custom applications</para>
2719 <term>Effect:</term>
2722 Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
2729 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2731 <para>Multi-value.</para>
2736 <term>Parameter:</term>
2739 Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
2740 It is recommended that you use the <quote><literal>X-</literal></quote> prefix
2750 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
2751 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
2752 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
2759 <term>Example usage:</term>
2762 <screen>+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}</screen>
2770 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2771 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="block">
2772 <title>block</title>
2776 <term>Typical use:</term>
2778 <para>Block ads or other unwanted content</para>
2783 <term>Effect:</term>
2786 Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the
2787 requests are trapped by &my-app; and the requested URL is never retrieved,
2788 but is answered locally with a substitute page or image, as determined by
2790 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
2792 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>, and
2794 linkend="handle-as-empty-document">handle-as-empty-document</link></literal> actions.
2802 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2804 <para>Boolean.</para>
2809 <term>Parameter:</term>
2819 <application>Privoxy</application> sends a special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page
2820 for requests to blocked pages. This page contains links to find out why the request
2821 was blocked, and a click-through to the blocked content (the latter only if compiled with the
2822 force feature enabled). The <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page adapts to the available
2823 screen space -- it displays full-blown if space allows, or miniaturized and text-only
2824 if loaded into a small frame or window. If you are using <application>Privoxy</application>
2825 right now, you can take a look at the
2826 <ulink url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
2830 A very important exception occurs if <emphasis>both</emphasis>
2831 <literal>block</literal> and <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
2832 apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If
2833 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
2834 (see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter,
2835 if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent.
2838 It is important to understand this process, in order
2839 to understand how <application>Privoxy</application> deals with
2840 ads and other unwanted content. Blocking is a core feature, and one
2841 upon which various other features depend.
2844 The <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
2845 action can perform a very similar task, by <quote>blocking</quote>
2846 banner images and other content through rewriting the relevant URLs in the
2847 document's HTML source, so they don't get requested in the first place.
2848 Note that this is a totally different technique, and it's easy to confuse the two.
2854 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2858 # Block and replace with "blocked" page
2859 .nasty-stuff.example.com
2861 {+block +handle-as-image}
2862 # Block and replace with image
2866 {+block +handle-as-empty-document}
2867 # Block and then ignore
2868 adserver.exampleclick.net/.*\.js$</screen>
2878 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2879 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-filter">
2880 <title>client-header-filter</title>
2884 <term>Typical use:</term>
2887 Rewrite or remove single client headers.
2893 <term>Effect:</term>
2896 All client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
2897 the specified regular expression based substitutions.
2904 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2906 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2911 <term>Parameter:</term>
2914 The name of a client-header filter, as defined in one of the
2915 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
2924 Client-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
2925 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
2926 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
2927 You can do that by using tags though.
2930 Client-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
2931 and use their output as input.
2934 If the request URL gets changed, &my-app; will detect that and use the new
2935 one. This can be used to rewrite the request destination behind the client's
2936 back, for example to specify a Tor exit relay for certain requests.
2939 Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
2940 to learn which client-header filters are available by default, and how to
2948 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2952 {+client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}}
2963 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2964 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="client-header-tagger">
2965 <title>client-header-tagger</title>
2969 <term>Typical use:</term>
2972 Block requests based on their headers.
2978 <term>Effect:</term>
2981 Client headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
2982 the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
2990 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2992 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2997 <term>Parameter:</term>
3000 The name of a client-header tagger, as defined in one of the
3001 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
3010 Client-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
3011 and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
3015 Client-header taggers are the first actions that are executed
3016 and their tags can be used to control every other action.
3022 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3026 # Tag every request with the User-Agent header
3027 {+client-header-tagger{user-agent}}
3038 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3039 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="content-type-overwrite">
3040 <title>content-type-overwrite</title>
3044 <term>Typical use:</term>
3046 <para>Stop useless download menus from popping up, or change the browser's rendering mode</para>
3051 <term>Effect:</term>
3054 Replaces the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header.
3061 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3063 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3068 <term>Parameter:</term>
3080 The <quote>Content-Type:</quote> HTTP server header is used by the
3081 browser to decide what to do with the document. The value of this
3082 header can cause the browser to open a download menu instead of
3083 displaying the document by itself, even if the document's format is
3084 supported by the browser.
3087 The declared content type can also affect which rendering mode
3088 the browser chooses. If XHTML is delivered as <quote>text/html</quote>,
3089 many browsers treat it as yet another broken HTML document.
3090 If it is send as <quote>application/xml</quote>, browsers with
3091 XHTML support will only display it, if the syntax is correct.
3094 If you see a web site that proudly uses XHTML buttons, but sets
3095 <quote>Content-Type: text/html</quote>, you can use &my-app;
3096 to overwrite it with <quote>application/xml</quote> and validate
3097 the web master's claim inside your XHTML-supporting browser.
3098 If the syntax is incorrect, the browser will complain loudly.
3101 You can also go the opposite direction: if your browser prints
3102 error messages instead of rendering a document falsely declared
3103 as XHTML, you can overwrite the content type with
3104 <quote>text/html</quote> and have it rendered as broken HTML document.
3107 By default <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal> only replaces
3108 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> headers that look like some kind of text.
3109 If you want to overwrite it unconditionally, you have to combine it with
3110 <literal><link linkend="force-text-mode">force-text-mode</link></literal>.
3111 This limitation exists for a reason, think twice before circumventing it.
3114 Most of the time it's easier to replace this action with a custom
3115 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
3116 It allows you to activate it for every document of a certain site and it will still
3117 only replace the content types you aimed at.
3120 Of course you can apply <literal>content-type-overwrite</literal>
3121 to a whole site and then make URL based exceptions, but it's a lot
3122 more work to get the same precision.
3128 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
3131 <screen># Check if www.example.net/ really uses valid XHTML
3132 { +content-type-overwrite{application/xml} }
3135 # but leave the content type unmodified if the URL looks like a style sheet
3136 {-content-type-overwrite}
3137 www.example.net/.*\.css$
3138 www.example.net/.*style
3147 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3148 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-client-header">
3152 <title>crunch-client-header</title>
3156 <term>Typical use:</term>
3158 <para>Remove a client header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
3163 <term>Effect:</term>
3166 Deletes every header sent by the client that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
3173 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3175 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3180 <term>Parameter:</term>
3192 This action allows you to block client headers for which no dedicated
3193 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists.
3194 <application>Privoxy</application> will remove every client header that
3195 contains the string you supplied as parameter.
3198 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
3199 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
3200 they contain the same string.
3203 <literal>crunch-client-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
3204 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
3205 parts of them, you should use a
3206 <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header filter</link></literal>.
3210 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
3217 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3220 <screen># Block the non-existent "Privacy-Violation:" client header
3221 { +crunch-client-header{Privacy-Violation:} }
3231 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3232 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-if-none-match">
3233 <title>crunch-if-none-match</title>
3239 <term>Typical use:</term>
3241 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
3246 <term>Effect:</term>
3249 Deletes the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header.
3256 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3258 <para>Boolean.</para>
3263 <term>Parameter:</term>
3275 Removing the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> HTTP client header
3276 is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
3277 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote> which
3278 would cause the browser to use a cached copy of the page.
3281 It is also useful to make sure the header isn't used as a cookie
3282 replacement (unlikely but possible).
3285 Blocking the <quote>If-None-Match:</quote> header shouldn't cause any
3286 caching problems, as long as the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> header
3287 isn't blocked or missing as well.
3290 It is recommended to use this action together with
3291 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hide-if-modified-since</link></literal>
3293 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>.
3299 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3302 <screen># Let the browser revalidate cached documents but don't
3303 # allow the server to use the revalidation headers for user tracking.
3304 {+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
3305 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
3306 +crunch-if-none-match}
3315 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3316 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-incoming-cookies">
3317 <title>crunch-incoming-cookies</title>
3321 <term>Typical use:</term>
3324 Prevent the web server from setting HTTP cookies on your system
3330 <term>Effect:</term>
3333 Deletes any <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from server replies.
3340 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3342 <para>Boolean.</para>
3347 <term>Parameter:</term>
3359 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
3360 <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
3361 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>.
3362 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
3365 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3366 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3367 since it would prevent the session cookies from being set. See also
3368 <literal><link linkend="filter-content-cookies">filter-content-cookies</link></literal>.
3374 <term>Example usage:</term>
3377 <screen>+crunch-incoming-cookies</screen>
3385 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3386 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-server-header">
3387 <title>crunch-server-header</title>
3393 <term>Typical use:</term>
3395 <para>Remove a server header <application>Privoxy</application> has no dedicated action for.</para>
3400 <term>Effect:</term>
3403 Deletes every header sent by the server that contains the string the user supplied as parameter.
3410 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3412 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3417 <term>Parameter:</term>
3429 This action allows you to block server headers for which no dedicated
3430 <application>Privoxy</application> action exists. <application>Privoxy</application>
3431 will remove every server header that contains the string you supplied as parameter.
3434 Regular expressions are <emphasis>not supported</emphasis> and you can't
3435 use this action to block different headers in the same request, unless
3436 they contain the same string.
3439 <literal>crunch-server-header</literal> is only meant for quick tests.
3440 If you have to block several different headers, or only want to modify
3441 parts of them, you should use a custom
3442 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header filter</link></literal>.
3446 Don't block any header without understanding the consequences.
3453 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3456 <screen># Crunch server headers that try to prevent caching
3457 { +crunch-server-header{no-cache} }
3466 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3467 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-outgoing-cookies">
3468 <title>crunch-outgoing-cookies</title>
3472 <term>Typical use:</term>
3475 Prevent the web server from reading any HTTP cookies from your system
3481 <term>Effect:</term>
3484 Deletes any <quote>Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from client requests.
3491 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3493 <para>Boolean.</para>
3498 <term>Parameter:</term>
3510 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> HTTP cookies. For
3511 <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> HTTP cookies, use
3512 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>.
3513 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable HTTP cookies completely.
3516 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
3517 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
3518 since it would prevent the session cookies from being read.
3524 <term>Example usage:</term>
3527 <screen>+crunch-outgoing-cookies</screen>
3536 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3537 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="deanimate-gifs">
3538 <title>deanimate-gifs</title>
3542 <term>Typical use:</term>
3544 <para>Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.</para>
3549 <term>Effect:</term>
3552 De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image.
3559 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3561 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3566 <term>Parameter:</term>
3569 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
3578 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
3579 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
3580 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
3581 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
3582 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
3583 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
3586 You can safely use this action with patterns that will also match non-GIF
3587 objects, because no attempt will be made at anything that doesn't look like
3594 <term>Example usage:</term>
3597 <screen>+deanimate-gifs{last}</screen>
3604 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3605 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="downgrade-http-version">
3606 <title>downgrade-http-version</title>
3610 <term>Typical use:</term>
3612 <para>Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1</para>
3617 <term>Effect:</term>
3620 Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0.
3627 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3629 <para>Boolean.</para>
3634 <term>Parameter:</term>
3646 This is a left-over from the time when <application>Privoxy</application>
3647 didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
3648 unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server
3649 out there. Not all HTTP/1.1 features and requirements are supported yet,
3650 so there is a chance you might need this action.
3656 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3659 <screen>{+downgrade-http-version}
3660 problem-host.example.com</screen>
3668 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3669 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="fast-redirects">
3670 <title>fast-redirects</title>
3674 <term>Typical use:</term>
3676 <para>Fool some click-tracking scripts and speed up indirect links.</para>
3681 <term>Effect:</term>
3684 Detects redirection URLs and redirects the browser without contacting
3685 the redirection server first.
3692 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3694 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3699 <term>Parameter:</term>
3704 <quote>simple-check</quote> to just search for the string <quote>http://</quote>
3705 to detect redirection URLs.
3710 <quote>check-decoded-url</quote> to decode URLs (if necessary) before searching
3711 for redirection URLs.
3722 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
3723 will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a
3724 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
3725 resulting from this scheme typically look like:
3726 <quote>http://www.example.org/click-tracker.cgi?target=http%3a//www.example.net/</quote>.
3729 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
3730 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
3731 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go
3732 to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your
3733 browser asks the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds
3737 This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement.
3738 If it is enabled by default, you will have to create some exceptions to
3739 this action. It can lead to failures in several ways:
3742 Not every URLs with other URLs as parameters is evil.
3743 Some sites offer a real service that requires this information to work.
3744 For example a validation service needs to know, which document to validate.
3745 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> assumes that every URL parameter that
3746 looks like another URL is a redirection target, and will always redirect to
3747 the last one. Most of the time the assumption is correct, but if it isn't,
3748 the user gets redirected anyway.
3751 Another failure occurs if the URL contains other parameters after the URL parameter.
3753 <quote>http://www.example.org/?redirect=http%3a//www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
3754 contains the redirection URL <quote>http://www.example.net/</quote>,
3755 followed by another parameter. <literal>fast-redirects</literal> doesn't know that
3756 and will cause a redirect to <quote>http://www.example.net/&foo=bar</quote>.
3757 Depending on the target server configuration, the parameter will be silently ignored
3758 or lead to a <quote>page not found</quote> error. You can prevent this problem by
3759 first using the <literal><link linkend="redirect">redirect</link></literal> action
3760 to remove the last part of the URL, but it requires a little effort.
3763 To detect a redirection URL, <literal>fast-redirects</literal> only
3764 looks for the string <quote>http://</quote>, either in plain text
3765 (invalid but often used) or encoded as <quote>http%3a//</quote>.
3766 Some sites use their own URL encoding scheme, encrypt the address
3767 of the target server or replace it with a database id. In theses cases
3768 <literal>fast-redirects</literal> is fooled and the request reaches the
3769 redirection server where it probably gets logged.
3775 <term>Example usage:</term>
3779 { +fast-redirects{simple-check} }
3782 { +fast-redirects{check-decoded-url} }
3783 another.example.com/testing</screen>
3792 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3793 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter">
3794 <title>filter</title>
3798 <term>Typical use:</term>
3800 <para>Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size),
3801 do fun text replacements, add personalized effects, etc.</para>
3806 <term>Effect:</term>
3809 All instances of text-based type, most notably HTML and JavaScript, to which
3810 this action applies, can be filtered on-the-fly through the specified regular
3811 expression based substitutions. (Note: as of version 3.0.3 plain text documents
3812 are exempted from filtering, because web servers often use the
3813 <literal>text/plain</literal> MIME type for all files whose type they don't know.)
3820 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
3822 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3827 <term>Parameter:</term>
3830 The name of a content filter, as defined in the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>.
3831 Filters can be defined in one or more files as defined by the
3832 <literal><link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal>
3833 option in the <link linkend="config">config file</link>.
3834 <filename>default.filter</filename> is the collection of filters
3835 supplied by the developers. Locally defined filters should go
3836 in their own file, such as <filename>user.filter</filename>.
3839 When used in its negative form,
3840 and without parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> filtering is completely disabled.
3849 For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available
3850 in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the examples below for
3854 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
3855 slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
3856 passed the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way
3857 since the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more
3858 noticeable on slower connections.
3861 <quote>Rolling your own</quote>
3862 filters requires a knowledge of
3863 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
3864 Expressions</quote></ulink> and
3865 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html"><quote>HTML</quote></ulink>.
3866 This is very powerful feature, and potentially very intrusive.
3867 Filters should be used with caution, and where an equivalent
3868 <quote>action</quote> is not available.
3871 The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the
3872 <literal><link linkend="buffer-limit">buffer-limit</link></literal>
3873 option in the main <link linkend="config">config file</link>. The
3874 default is 4096 KB (4 Megs). Once this limit is exceeded, the buffered
3875 data, and all pending data, is passed through unfiltered.
3878 Inappropriate MIME types, such as zipped files, are not filtered at all.
3879 (Again, only text-based types except plain text). Encrypted SSL data
3880 (from HTTPS servers) cannot be filtered either, since this would violate
3881 the integrity of the secure transaction. In some situations it might
3882 be necessary to protect certain text, like source code, from filtering
3883 by defining appropriate <literal>-filter</literal> exceptions.
3886 Compressed content can't be filtered either, unless &my-app;
3887 is compiled with zlib support (requires at least &my-app; 3.0.7),
3888 in which case &my-app; will decompress the content before filtering
3892 If you use a &my-app; version without zlib support, but want filtering to work on
3893 as much documents as possible, even those that would normally be sent compressed,
3894 you must use the <literal><link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link></literal>
3895 action in conjunction with <literal>filter</literal>.
3898 Content filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
3899 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
3900 action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism
3901 works quite differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners
3902 based on their size (see below), since many of these seem to be somewhat
3906 <link linkend="contact">Feedback</link> with suggestions for new or
3907 improved filters is particularly welcome!
3910 The below list has only the names and a one-line description of each
3911 predefined filter. There are <link linkend="predefined-filters">more
3912 verbose explanations</link> of what these filters do in the <link
3913 linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>.
3919 <term>Example usage (with filters from the distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file).
3920 See <link linkend="PREDEFINED-FILTERS">the Predefined Filters section</link> for
3921 more explanation on each:</term>
3924 <anchor id="filter-js-annoyances">
3925 <screen>+filter{js-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse</screen>
3928 <anchor id="filter-js-events">
3929 <screen>+filter{js-events} # Kill all JS event bindings (Radically destructive! Only for extra nasty sites)</screen>
3932 <anchor id="filter-html-annoyances">
3933 <screen>+filter{html-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse</screen>
3936 <anchor id="filter-content-cookies">
3937 <screen>+filter{content-cookies} # Kill cookies that come in the HTML or JS content</screen>
3940 <anchor id="filter-refresh-tags">
3941 <screen>+filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups)</screen>
3944 <anchor id="filter-unsolicited-popups">
3945 <screen>+filter{unsolicited-popups} # Disable only unsolicited pop-up windows. Useful if your browser lacks this ability.</screen>
3948 <anchor id="filter-all-popups">
3949 <screen>+filter{all-popups} # Kill all popups in JavaScript and HTML. Useful if your browser lacks this ability.</screen>
3952 <anchor id="filter-img-reorder">
3953 <screen>+filter{img-reorder} # Reorder attributes in <img> tags to make the banners-by-* filters more effective</screen>
3956 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-size">
3957 <screen>+filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners by size</screen>
3960 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-link">
3961 <screen>+filter{banners-by-link} # Kill banners by their links to known clicktrackers</screen>
3964 <anchor id="filter-webbugs">
3965 <screen>+filter{webbugs} # Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)</screen>
3968 <anchor id="filter-tiny-textforms">
3969 <screen>+filter{tiny-textforms} # Extend those tiny textareas up to 40x80 and kill the hard wrap</screen>
3972 <anchor id="filter-jumping-windows">
3973 <screen>+filter{jumping-windows} # Prevent windows from resizing and moving themselves</screen>
3976 <anchor id="filter-frameset-borders">
3977 <screen>+filter{frameset-borders} # Give frames a border and make them resizeable</screen>
3980 <anchor id="filter-demoronizer">
3981 <screen>+filter{demoronizer} # Fix MS's non-standard use of standard charsets</screen>
3984 <anchor id="filter-shockwave-flash">
3985 <screen>+filter{shockwave-flash} # Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects</screen>
3988 <anchor id="filter-quicktime-kioskmode">
3989 <screen>+filter{quicktime-kioskmode} # Make Quicktime movies savable</screen>
3992 <anchor id="filter-fun">
3993 <screen>+filter{fun} # Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!</screen>
3996 <anchor id="filter-crude-parental">
3997 <screen>+filter{crude-parental} # Crude parental filtering (demo only)</screen>
4000 <anchor id="filter-ie-exploits">
4001 <screen>+filter{ie-exploits} # Disable a known Internet Explorer bug exploits</screen>
4004 <anchor id="filter-site-specifics">
4005 <screen>+filter{site-specifics} # Custom filters for specific site related problems</screen>
4008 <anchor id="filter-google">
4009 <screen>+filter{google} # Removes text ads and other Google specific improvements</screen>
4012 <anchor id="filter-yahoo">
4013 <screen>+filter{yahoo} # Removes text ads and other Yahoo specific improvements</screen>
4016 <anchor id="filter-msn">
4017 <screen>+filter{msn} # Removes text ads and other MSN specific improvements</screen>
4020 <anchor id="filter-blogspot">
4021 <screen>+filter{blogspot} # Cleans up Blogspot blogs</screen>
4024 <anchor id="filter-no-ping">
4025 <screen>+filter{no-ping} # Removes non-standard ping attributes from anchor and area tags</screen>
4033 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4034 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="force-text-mode">
4035 <title>force-text-mode</title>
4041 <term>Typical use:</term>
4043 <para>Force <application>Privoxy</application> to treat a document as if it was in some kind of <emphasis>text</emphasis> format. </para>
4048 <term>Effect:</term>
4051 Declares a document as text, even if the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> isn't detected as such.
4058 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4060 <para>Boolean.</para>
4065 <term>Parameter:</term>
4077 As explained <literal><link linkend="filter">above</link></literal>,
4078 <application>Privoxy</application> tries to only filter files that are
4079 in some kind of text format. The same restrictions apply to
4080 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite</link></literal>.
4081 <literal>force-text-mode</literal> declares a document as text,
4082 without looking at the <quote>Content-Type:</quote> first.
4086 Think twice before activating this action. Filtering binary data
4087 with regular expressions can cause file damage.
4094 <term>Example usage:</term>
4107 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4108 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="forward-override">
4109 <title>forward-override</title>
4115 <term>Typical use:</term>
4117 <para>Change the forwarding settings based on User-Agent or request origin</para>
4122 <term>Effect:</term>
4125 Overrules the forward directives in the configuration file.
4132 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4134 <para>Multi-value.</para>
4139 <term>Parameter:</term>
4143 <para><quote>forward .</quote> to use a direct connection without any additional proxies.</para>
4147 <quote>forward 127.0.0.1:8123</quote> to use the HTTP proxy listening at 127.0.0.1 port 8123.
4152 <quote>forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 .</quote> to use the socks4a proxy listening at
4153 127.0.0.1 port 9050. Replace <quote>forward-socks4a</quote> with <quote>forward-socks4</quote>
4154 to use a socks4 connection (with local DNS resolution) instead.
4159 <quote>forward-socks4a 127.0.0.1:9050 proxy.example.org:8000</quote> to use the socks4a proxy
4160 listening at 127.0.0.1 port 9050 to reach the HTTP proxy listening at proxy.example.org port 8000.
4161 Replace <quote>forward-socks4a</quote> with <quote>forward-socks4</quote> to use a socks4 connection
4162 (with local DNS resolution) instead.
4173 This action takes parameters similar to the <!-- I hope this link actual works -->
4174 <link linkend="forwarding">forward</link> directives in the configuration
4175 file, but without the URL pattern. It can be used as replacement, but normally it's only
4176 used in cases where matching based on the request URL isn't sufficient.
4180 Please read the description for the <link linkend="forwarding">forward</link> directives before
4181 using this action. Forwarding to the wrong people will reduce your privacy and increase the
4182 chances of man-in-the-middle attacks.
4185 If the ports are missing or invalid, default values will be used. This might change
4186 in the future and you shouldn't rely on it. Otherwise incorrect syntax causes Privoxy
4190 Use the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">show-url-info CGI page</ulink>
4191 to verify that your forward settings do what you thought the do.
4198 <term>Example usage:</term>
4202 # Always use direct connections for requests previously tagged as
4203 # <quote>User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2.0</quote> and make sure
4204 # resuming downloads continues to work.
4205 # This way you can continue to use Tor for your normal browsing,
4206 # without overloading the Tor network with your FreeBSD ports updates
4207 # or downloads of bigger files like ISOs.
4208 # Note that HTTP headers are easy to fake and therefore their
4209 # values are as (un)trustworthy as your clients and users.
4210 {+forward-override{forward .} \
4211 -hide-if-modified-since \
4212 -overwrite-last-modified \
4214 TAG:^User-Agent: fetch libfetch/2\.0$
4223 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4224 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-empty-document">
4225 <title>handle-as-empty-document</title>
4231 <term>Typical use:</term>
4233 <para>Mark URLs that should be replaced by empty documents <emphasis>if they get blocked</emphasis></para>
4238 <term>Effect:</term>
4241 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs.
4242 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
4243 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote>
4244 page, or an empty document will be sent to the client as a substitute for the blocked content.
4245 The <emphasis>empty</emphasis> document isn't literally empty, but actually contains a single space.
4252 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4254 <para>Boolean.</para>
4259 <term>Parameter:</term>
4271 Some browsers complain about syntax errors if JavaScript documents
4272 are blocked with <application>Privoxy's</application>
4273 default HTML page; this option can be used to silence them.
4274 And of course this action can also be used to eliminate the &my-app;
4275 BLOCKED message in frames.
4278 The content type for the empty document can be specified with
4279 <literal><link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite{}</link></literal>,
4280 but usually this isn't necessary.
4286 <term>Example usage:</term>
4289 <screen># Block all documents on example.org that end with ".js",
4290 # but send an empty document instead of the usual HTML message.
4291 {+block +handle-as-empty-document}
4301 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4302 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-image">
4303 <title>handle-as-image</title>
4307 <term>Typical use:</term>
4309 <para>Mark URLs as belonging to images (so they'll be replaced by images <emphasis>if they do get blocked</emphasis>, rather than HTML pages)</para>
4314 <term>Effect:</term>
4317 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs as images.
4318 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
4319 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>blocked</quote>
4320 page, or a replacement image (as determined by the <literal><link
4321 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> action) will be sent to the
4322 client as a substitute for the blocked content.
4329 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4331 <para>Boolean.</para>
4336 <term>Parameter:</term>
4348 The below generic example section is actually part of <filename>default.action</filename>.
4349 It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should
4353 Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with
4354 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>, to block sources of banners, whose URLs don't
4355 reflect the file type, like in the second example section.
4358 Note that you cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, (in-line) ad
4359 frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they won't display properly.
4360 Forcing <literal>handle-as-image</literal> in this situation will not replace the
4361 ad frame with an image, but lead to error messages.
4367 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
4370 <screen># Generic image extensions:
4373 /.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)$
4375 # These don't look like images, but they're banners and should be
4376 # blocked as images:
4378 {+block +handle-as-image}
4379 some.nasty-banner-server.com/junk.cgi\?output=trash
4381 # Banner source! Who cares if they also have non-image content?
4391 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4392 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-accept-language">
4393 <title>hide-accept-language</title>
4399 <term>Typical use:</term>
4401 <para>Pretend to use different language settings.</para>
4406 <term>Effect:</term>
4409 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> HTTP header in client requests.
4416 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4418 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4423 <term>Parameter:</term>
4426 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4435 Faking the browser's language settings can be useful to make a
4436 foreign User-Agent set with
4437 <literal><link linkend="hide-user-agent">hide-user-agent</link></literal>
4441 However some sites with content in different languages check the
4442 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> to decide which one to take by default.
4443 Sometimes it isn't possible to later switch to another language without
4444 changing the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header first.
4447 Therefore it's a good idea to either only change the
4448 <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header to languages you understand,
4449 or to languages that aren't wide spread.
4452 Before setting the <quote>Accept-Language:</quote> header
4453 to a rare language, you should consider that it helps to
4454 make your requests unique and thus easier to trace.
4455 If you don't plan to change this header frequently,
4456 you should stick to a common language.
4462 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4465 <screen># Pretend to use Canadian language settings.
4466 {+hide-accept-language{en-ca} \
4467 +hide-user-agent{Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; OpenBSD i386; en-CA; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060628 Firefox/1.5.0.4} \
4477 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4478 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-content-disposition">
4479 <title>hide-content-disposition</title>
4485 <term>Typical use:</term>
4487 <para>Prevent download menus for content you prefer to view inside the browser.</para>
4492 <term>Effect:</term>
4495 Deletes or replaces the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header set by some servers.
4502 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4504 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4509 <term>Parameter:</term>
4512 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4521 Some servers set the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> HTTP header for
4522 documents they assume you want to save locally before viewing them.
4523 The <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header contains the file name
4524 the browser is supposed to use by default.
4527 In most browsers that understand this header, it makes it impossible to
4528 <emphasis>just view</emphasis> the document, without downloading it first,
4529 even if it's just a simple text file or an image.
4532 Removing the <quote>Content-Disposition:</quote> header helps
4533 to prevent this annoyance, but some browsers additionally check the
4534 <quote>Content-Type:</quote> header, before they decide if they can
4535 display a document without saving it first. In these cases, you have
4536 to change this header as well, before the browser stops displaying
4540 It is also possible to change the server's file name suggestion
4541 to another one, but in most cases it isn't worth the time to set
4545 This action will probably be removed in the future,
4546 use server-header filters instead.
4552 <term>Example usage:</term>
4555 <screen># Disarm the download link in Sourceforge's patch tracker
4557 +content-type-overwrite{text/plain}\
4558 +hide-content-disposition{block} }
4559 .sourceforge.net/tracker/download\.php</screen>
4567 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4568 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-if-modified-since">
4569 <title>hide-if-modified-since</title>
4575 <term>Typical use:</term>
4577 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
4582 <term>Effect:</term>
4585 Deletes the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> HTTP client header or modifies its value.
4592 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4594 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4599 <term>Parameter:</term>
4602 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or a user defined value that specifies a range of hours.
4611 Removing this header is useful for filter testing, where you want to force a real
4612 reload instead of getting status code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the
4613 browser to use a cached copy of the page.
4616 Instead of removing the header, <literal>hide-if-modified-since</literal> can
4617 also add or subtract a random amount of time to/from the header's value.
4618 You specify a range of minutes where the random factor should be chosen from and
4619 <application>Privoxy</application> does the rest. A negative value means
4620 subtracting, a positive value adding.
4623 Randomizing the value of the <quote>If-Modified-Since:</quote> makes
4624 it less likely that the server can use the time as a cookie replacement,
4625 but you will run into caching problems if the random range is too high.
4628 It is a good idea to only use a small negative value and let
4629 <literal><link linkend="overwrite-last-modified">overwrite-last-modified</link></literal>
4630 handle the greater changes.
4633 It is also recommended to use this action together with
4634 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>,
4635 otherwise it's more or less pointless.
4641 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
4644 <screen># Let the browser revalidate but make tracking based on the time less likely.
4645 {+hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
4646 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
4647 +crunch-if-none-match}
4656 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4657 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-forwarded-for-headers">
4658 <title>hide-forwarded-for-headers</title>
4661 <term>Typical use:</term>
4663 <para>Improve privacy by not forwarding the source of the request in the HTTP headers.</para>
4668 <term>Effect:</term>
4671 Deletes any existing <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> HTTP header from client requests.
4678 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4680 <para>Boolean.</para>
4685 <term>Parameter:</term>
4697 It is safe and recommended to leave this on.
4703 <term>Example usage:</term>
4706 <screen>+hide-forwarded-for-headers</screen>
4714 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4715 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-from-header">
4716 <title>hide-from-header</title>
4720 <term>Typical use:</term>
4722 <para>Keep your (old and ill) browser from telling web servers your email address</para>
4727 <term>Effect:</term>
4730 Deletes any existing <quote>From:</quote> HTTP header, or replaces it with the
4738 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4740 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4745 <term>Parameter:</term>
4748 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
4757 The keyword <quote>block</quote> will completely remove the header
4758 (not to be confused with the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
4762 Alternately, you can specify any value you prefer to be sent to the web
4763 server. If you do, it is a matter of fairness not to use any address that
4764 is actually used by a real person.
4767 This action is rarely needed, as modern web browsers don't send
4768 <quote>From:</quote> headers anymore.
4774 <term>Example usage:</term>
4777 <screen>+hide-from-header{block}</screen> or
4778 <screen>+hide-from-header{spam-me-senseless@sittingduck.example.com}</screen>
4786 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4787 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-referrer">
4788 <title>hide-referrer</title>
4789 <anchor id="hide-referer">
4792 <term>Typical use:</term>
4794 <para>Conceal which link you followed to get to a particular site</para>
4799 <term>Effect:</term>
4802 Deletes the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) HTTP header from the client request,
4803 or replaces it with a forged one.
4810 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4812 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4817 <term>Parameter:</term>
4821 <para><quote>conditional-block</quote> to delete the header completely if the host has changed.</para>
4824 <para><quote>conditional-forge</quote> to forge the header if the host has changed.</para>
4827 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header unconditionally.</para>
4830 <para><quote>forge</quote> to pretend to be coming from the homepage of the server we are talking to.</para>
4833 <para>Any other string to set a user defined referrer.</para>
4843 <literal>conditional-block</literal> is the only parameter,
4844 that isn't easily detected in the server's log file. If it blocks the
4845 referrer, the request will look like the visitor used a bookmark or
4846 typed in the address directly.
4849 Leaving the referrer unmodified for requests on the same host
4850 allows the server owner to see the visitor's <quote>click path</quote>,
4851 but in most cases she could also get that information by comparing
4852 other parts of the log file: for example the User-Agent if it isn't
4853 a very common one, or the user's IP address if it doesn't change between
4857 Always blocking the referrer, or using a custom one, can lead to
4858 failures on servers that check the referrer before they answer any
4859 requests, in an attempt to prevent their content from being
4860 embedded or linked to elsewhere.
4863 Both <literal>conditional-block</literal> and <literal>forge</literal>
4864 will work with referrer checks, as long as content and valid referring page
4865 are on the same host. Most of the time that's the case.
4868 <literal>hide-referer</literal> is an alternate spelling of
4869 <literal>hide-referrer</literal> and the two can be can be freely
4870 substituted with each other. (<quote>referrer</quote> is the
4871 correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
4872 requires it to be spelled as <quote>referer</quote>.)
4878 <term>Example usage:</term>
4881 <screen>+hide-referrer{forge}</screen> or
4882 <screen>+hide-referrer{http://www.yahoo.com/}</screen>
4890 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4891 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-user-agent">
4892 <title>hide-user-agent</title>
4896 <term>Typical use:</term>
4898 <para>Try to conceal your type of browser and client operating system</para>
4903 <term>Effect:</term>
4906 Replaces the value of the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> HTTP header
4907 in client requests with the specified value.
4914 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4916 <para>Parameterized.</para>
4921 <term>Parameter:</term>
4924 Any user-defined string.
4934 This can lead to problems on web sites that depend on looking at this header in
4935 order to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the
4936 way, is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> the right thing to do: good web sites
4937 work browser-independently).
4941 Using this action in multi-user setups or wherever different types of
4942 browsers will access the same <application>Privoxy</application> is
4943 <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>. In single-user, single-browser
4944 setups, you might use it to delete your OS version information from
4945 the headers, because it is an invitation to exploit known bugs for your
4946 OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
4947 sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
4948 reason in some cases). Example of this: some MSN sites will not
4949 let <application>Mozilla</application> enter, yet forging to a
4950 <application>Netscape 6.1</application> user-agent works just fine.
4951 (Must be just a silly MS goof, I'm sure :-).
4954 More information on known user-agent strings can be found at
4955 <ulink url="http://www.user-agents.org/">http://www.user-agents.org/</ulink>
4957 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent</ulink>.
4963 <term>Example usage:</term>
4966 <screen>+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}</screen>
4974 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4975 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="inspect-jpegs">
4976 <title>inspect-jpegs</title>
4979 <term>Typical use:</term>
4981 <para>Try to protect against a MS buffer over-run in JPEG processing</para>
4986 <term>Effect:</term>
4989 Protect against a known exploit
4996 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
4998 <para>Boolean.</para>
5003 <term>Parameter:</term>
5015 See Microsoft Security Bulletin MS04-028. JPEG images are one of the most
5016 common image types found across the Internet. The exploit as described can
5017 allow execution of code on the target system, giving an attacker access
5018 to the system in question by merely planting an altered JPEG image, which
5019 would have no obvious indications of what lurks inside. This action
5020 tries to prevent this exploit if delivered through unencrypted HTTP.
5023 Note that the exploit mentioned is several years old
5024 and it's unlikely that your client is still vulnerable
5025 against it. This action may be removed in one of the
5033 <term>Example usage:</term>
5035 <para><screen>+inspect-jpegs</screen></para>
5042 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5043 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="kill-popups">
5044 <title>kill-popups<anchor id="kill-popup"></title>
5048 <term>Typical use:</term>
5050 <para>Eliminate those annoying pop-up windows (deprecated)</para>
5055 <term>Effect:</term>
5058 While loading the document, replace JavaScript code that opens
5059 pop-up windows with (syntactically neutral) dummy code on the fly.
5066 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5068 <para>Boolean.</para>
5073 <term>Parameter:</term>
5085 This action is basically a built-in, hardwired special-purpose filter
5086 action, but there are important differences: For <literal>kill-popups</literal>,
5087 the document need not be buffered, so it can be incrementally rendered while
5088 downloading. But <literal>kill-popups</literal> doesn't catch as many pop-ups as
5090 linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>all-popups</replaceable>}</link></literal>
5091 does and is not as smart as <literal><link
5092 linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>unsolicited-popups</replaceable>}</link>
5096 Think of it as a fast and efficient replacement for a filter that you
5097 can use if you don't want any filtering at all. Note that it doesn't make
5098 sense to combine it with any <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> action,
5099 since as soon as one <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> applies,
5100 the whole document needs to be buffered anyway, which destroys the advantage of
5101 the <literal>kill-popups</literal> action over its filter equivalent.
5104 Killing all pop-ups unconditionally is problematic. Many shops and banks rely on
5105 pop-ups to display forms, shopping carts etc, and the <literal><link
5106 linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>unsolicited-popups</replaceable>}</link>
5107 </literal> does a better job of catching only the unwanted ones.
5110 If the only kind of pop-ups that you want to kill are exit consoles (those
5111 <emphasis>really nasty</emphasis> windows that appear when you close an other
5112 one), you might want to use
5114 linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>js-annoyances</replaceable>}</literal>
5118 This action is most appropriate for browsers that don't have any controls
5119 for unwanted pop-ups. Not recommended for general usage.
5122 This action doesn't work very reliable and may be removed in future releases.
5128 <term>Example usage:</term>
5130 <para><screen>+kill-popups</screen></para>
5137 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5138 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="limit-connect">
5139 <title>limit-connect</title>
5143 <term>Typical use:</term>
5145 <para>Prevent abuse of <application>Privoxy</application> as a TCP proxy relay or disable SSL for untrusted sites</para>
5150 <term>Effect:</term>
5153 Specifies to which ports HTTP CONNECT requests are allowable.
5160 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5162 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5167 <term>Parameter:</term>
5170 A comma-separated list of ports or port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum
5171 defaulting to 0 and the maximum to 65K).
5180 By default, i.e. if no <literal>limit-connect</literal> action applies,
5181 <application>Privoxy</application> only allows HTTP CONNECT
5182 requests to port 443 (the standard, secure HTTPS port). Use
5183 <literal>limit-connect</literal> if more fine-grained control is desired
5184 for some or all destinations.
5187 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
5188 (<quote>https://</quote> URLs) through proxies. It works very simply:
5189 the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then
5190 short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote server.
5191 This means CONNECT-enabled proxies can be used as TCP relays very easily.
5194 <application>Privoxy</application> relays HTTPS traffic without seeing
5195 the decoded content. Websites can leverage this limitation to circumvent &my-app;'s
5196 filters. By specifying an invalid port range you can disable HTTPS entirely.
5197 If you plan to disable SSL by default, consider enabling
5198 <literal><link linkend="treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks ">treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks</link></literal>
5199 as well, to be able to quickly create exceptions.
5205 <term>Example usages:</term>
5207 <!-- I had trouble getting the spacing to look right in my browser -->
5208 <!-- I probably have the wrong font setup, bollocks. -->
5209 <!-- Apparently the emphasis tag uses a proportional font no matter what -->
5211 <screen>+limit-connect{443} # This is the default and need not be specified.
5212 +limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
5213 +limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Ports less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
5214 +limit-connect{-} # All ports are OK
5215 +limit-connect{,} # No HTTPS/SSL traffic is allowed</screen>
5222 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5223 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="prevent-compression">
5224 <title>prevent-compression</title>
5228 <term>Typical use:</term>
5231 Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be
5232 passed through <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>s.
5238 <term>Effect:</term>
5241 Removes the Accept-Encoding header which can be used to ask for compressed transfer.
5248 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5250 <para>Boolean.</para>
5255 <term>Parameter:</term>
5267 More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which
5268 is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But the <literal><link
5269 linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>, <literal><link linkend="deanimate-gifs">deanimate-gifs</link></literal>
5270 and <literal><link linkend="kill-popups">kill-popups</link></literal> actions need
5271 access to the uncompressed data.
5274 When compiled with zlib support (available since &my-app; 3.0.7), content that should be
5275 filtered is decompressed on-the-fly and you don't have to worry about this action.
5276 If you are using an older &my-app; version, or one that hasn't been compiled with zlib
5277 support, this action can be used to convince the server to send the content uncompressed.
5280 Most text-based instances compress very well, the size is seldom decreased by less than 50%,
5281 for markup-heavy instances like news feeds saving more than 90% of the original size isn't
5285 Not using compression will therefore slow down the transfer, and you should only
5286 enable this action if you really need it. As of &my-app; 3.0.7 it's disabled in all
5287 predefined action settings.
5290 Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed
5291 documents correctly. Broken PHP applications tend to send an empty document body,
5292 some IIS versions only send the beginning of the content. If you enable
5293 <literal>prevent-compression</literal> per default, you might want to add
5294 exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
5300 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
5304 # Selectively turn off compression, and enable a filter
5306 { +filter{tiny-textforms} +prevent-compression }
5307 # Match only these sites
5312 # Or instead, we could set a universal default:
5314 { +prevent-compression }
5317 # Then maybe make exceptions for broken sites:
5319 { -prevent-compression }
5320 .compusa.com/</screen>
5329 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5330 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="overwrite-last-modified">
5331 <title>overwrite-last-modified</title>
5337 <term>Typical use:</term>
5339 <para>Prevent yet another way to track the user's steps between sessions.</para>
5344 <term>Effect:</term>
5347 Deletes the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> HTTP server header or modifies its value.
5354 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5356 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5361 <term>Parameter:</term>
5364 One of the keywords: <quote>block</quote>, <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote>
5365 and <quote>randomize</quote>
5374 Removing the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header is useful for filter
5375 testing, where you want to force a real reload instead of getting status
5376 code <quote>304</quote>, which would cause the browser to reuse the old
5377 version of the page.
5380 The <quote>randomize</quote> option overwrites the value of the
5381 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with a randomly chosen time
5382 between the original value and the current time. In theory the server
5383 could send each document with a different <quote>Last-Modified:</quote>
5384 header to track visits without using cookies. <quote>Randomize</quote>
5385 makes it impossible and the browser can still revalidate cached documents.
5388 <quote>reset-to-request-time</quote> overwrites the value of the
5389 <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header with the current time. You could use
5390 this option together with
5391 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hided-if-modified-since</link></literal>
5392 to further customize your random range.
5395 The preferred parameter here is <quote>randomize</quote>. It is safe
5396 to use, as long as the time settings are more or less correct.
5397 If the server sets the <quote>Last-Modified:</quote> header to the time
5398 of the request, the random range becomes zero and the value stays the same.
5399 Therefore you should later randomize it a second time with
5400 <literal><link linkend="hide-if-modified-since">hided-if-modified-since</link></literal>,
5404 It is also recommended to use this action together with
5405 <literal><link linkend="crunch-if-none-match">crunch-if-none-match</link></literal>.
5411 <term>Example usage:</term>
5414 <screen># Let the browser revalidate without being tracked across sessions
5415 { +hide-if-modified-since{-60} \
5416 +overwrite-last-modified{randomize} \
5417 +crunch-if-none-match}
5426 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5427 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="redirect">
5428 <title>redirect</title>
5434 <term>Typical use:</term>
5437 Redirect requests to other sites.
5443 <term>Effect:</term>
5446 Convinces the browser that the requested document has been moved
5447 to another location and the browser should get it from there.
5454 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5456 <para>Parameterized</para>
5461 <term>Parameter:</term>
5464 An absolute URL or a single pcrs command.
5473 Requests to which this action applies are answered with a
5474 HTTP redirect to URLs of your choosing. The new URL is
5475 either provided as parameter, or derived by applying a
5476 single pcrs command to the original URL.
5479 This action will be ignored if you use it together with
5480 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>.
5481 It can be combined with
5482 <literal><link linkend="fast-redirects">fast-redirects{check-decoded-url}</link></literal>
5483 to redirect to a decoded version of a rewritten URL.
5486 Use this action carefully, make sure not to create redirection loops
5487 and be aware that using your own redirects might make it
5488 possible to fingerprint your requests.
5494 <term>Example usages:</term>
5497 <screen># Replace example.com's style sheet with another one
5498 { +redirect{http://localhost/css-replacements/example.com.css} }
5499 example.com/stylesheet\.css
5501 # Create a short, easy to remember nickname for a favorite site
5502 # (relies on the browser accept and forward invalid URLs to &my-app;)
5503 { +redirect{http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/actions-file.html} }
5506 # Always use the expanded view for Undeadly.org articles
5507 # (Note the $ at the end of the URL pattern to make sure
5508 # the request for the rewritten URL isn't redirected as well)
5509 {+redirect{s@$@&mode=expanded@}}
5510 undeadly.org/cgi\?action=article&sid=\d*$</screen>
5519 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5520 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-vanilla-wafer">
5521 <title>send-vanilla-wafer</title>
5525 <term>Typical use:</term>
5528 Feed log analysis scripts with useless data.
5534 <term>Effect:</term>
5537 Sends a cookie with each request stating that you do not accept any copyright
5538 on cookies sent to you, and asking the site operator not to track you.
5545 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5547 <para>Boolean.</para>
5552 <term>Parameter:</term>
5564 The vanilla wafer is a (relatively) unique header and could conceivably be used to track you.
5567 This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
5573 <term>Example usage:</term>
5576 <screen>+send-vanilla-wafer</screen>
5585 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5586 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-wafer">
5587 <title>send-wafer</title>
5591 <term>Typical use:</term>
5594 Send custom cookies or feed log analysis scripts with even more useless data.
5600 <term>Effect:</term>
5603 Sends a custom, user-defined cookie with each request.
5610 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5612 <para>Multi-value.</para>
5617 <term>Parameter:</term>
5620 A string of the form <quote><replaceable class="option">name</replaceable>=<replaceable
5621 class="parameter">value</replaceable></quote>.
5630 Being multi-valued, multiple instances of this action can apply to the same request,
5631 resulting in multiple cookies being sent.
5634 This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
5639 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5642 <screen>{+send-wafer{UsingPrivoxy=true}}
5643 my-internal-testing-server.void</screen>
5651 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5652 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="server-header-filter">
5653 <title>server-header-filter</title>
5657 <term>Typical use:</term>
5660 Rewrite or remove single server headers.
5666 <term>Effect:</term>
5669 All server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly
5670 through the specified regular expression based substitutions.
5677 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
5679 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5684 <term>Parameter:</term>
5687 The name of a server-header filter, as defined in one of the
5688 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
5697 Server-header filters are applied to each header on its own, not to
5698 all at once. This makes it easier to diagnose problems, but on the downside
5699 you can't write filters that only change header x if header y's value is z.
5700 You can do that by using tags though.
5703 Server-header filters are executed after the other header actions have finished
5704 and use their output as input.
5707 Please refer to the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>
5708 to learn which server-header filters are available by default, and how to
5715 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5719 {+server-header-filter{html-to-xml}}
5720 example.org/xml-instance-that-is-delivered-as-html
5722 {+server-header-filter{xml-to-html}}
5723 example.org/instance-that-is-delivered-as-xml-but-is-not
5733 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5734 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="server-header-tagger">
5735 <title>server-header-tagger</title>
5739 <term>Typical use:</term>
5742 Enable or disable filters based on the Content-Type header.
5748 <term>Effect:</term>
5751 Server headers to which this action applies are filtered on-the-fly through
5752 the specified regular expression based substitutions, the result is used as
5760 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
5762 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5767 <term>Parameter:</term>
5770 The name of a server-header tagger, as defined in one of the
5771 <link linkend="filter-file">filter files</link>.
5780 Server-header taggers are applied to each header on its own,
5781 and as the header isn't modified, each tagger <quote>sees</quote>
5785 Server-header taggers are executed before all other header actions
5786 that modify server headers. Their tags can be used to control
5787 all of the other server-header actions, the content filters
5788 and the crunch actions (<link linkend="redirect">redirect</link>
5789 and <link linkend="block">block</link>).
5792 Obviously crunching based on tags created by server-header taggers
5793 doesn't prevent the request from showing up in the server's log file.
5800 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
5804 # Tag every request with the content type declared by the server
5805 {+server-header-tagger{content-type}}
5816 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5817 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="session-cookies-only">
5818 <title>session-cookies-only</title>
5822 <term>Typical use:</term>
5825 Allow only temporary <quote>session</quote> cookies (for the current
5826 browser session <emphasis>only</emphasis>).
5832 <term>Effect:</term>
5835 Deletes the <quote>expires</quote> field from <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote>
5836 server headers. Most browsers will not store such cookies permanently and
5837 forget them in between sessions.
5844 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5846 <para>Boolean.</para>
5851 <term>Parameter:</term>
5863 This is less strict than <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> /
5864 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal> and allows you to browse
5865 websites that insist or rely on setting cookies, without compromising your privacy too badly.
5868 Most browsers will not permanently store cookies that have been processed by
5869 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal> and will forget about them between sessions.
5870 This makes profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
5871 that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
5872 sites, and is the recommended setting.
5875 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>
5876 together with <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> or
5877 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>. If you do, cookies
5878 will be plainly killed.
5881 Note that it is up to the browser how it handles such cookies without an <quote>expires</quote>
5882 field. If you use an exotic browser, you might want to try it out to be sure.
5885 This setting also has no effect on cookies that may have been stored
5886 previously by the browser before starting <application>Privoxy</application>.
5887 These would have to be removed manually.
5890 <application>Privoxy</application> also uses
5891 the <link linkend="filter-content-cookies">content-cookies filter</link>
5892 to block some types of cookies. Content cookies are not effected by
5893 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>.
5899 <term>Example usage:</term>
5902 <screen>+session-cookies-only</screen>
5910 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5911 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="set-image-blocker">
5912 <title>set-image-blocker</title>
5916 <term>Typical use:</term>
5918 <para>Choose the replacement for blocked images</para>
5923 <term>Effect:</term>
5926 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. If <emphasis>both</emphasis>
5927 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><link
5928 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> <emphasis>also</emphasis>
5929 apply, i.e. if the request is to be blocked as an image,
5930 <emphasis>then</emphasis> the parameter of this action decides what will be
5931 sent as a replacement.
5938 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
5940 <para>Parameterized.</para>
5945 <term>Parameter:</term>
5950 <quote>pattern</quote> to send a built-in checkerboard pattern image. The image is visually
5951 decent, scales very well, and makes it obvious where banners were busted.
5956 <quote>blank</quote> to send a built-in transparent image. This makes banners disappear
5957 completely, but makes it hard to detect where <application>Privoxy</application> has blocked
5958 images on a given page and complicates troubleshooting if <application>Privoxy</application>
5959 has blocked innocent images, like navigation icons.
5964 <quote><replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable></quote> to
5965 send a redirect to <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>. You can redirect
5966 to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem via <quote>file:///</quote> URL.
5967 (But note that not all browsers support redirecting to a local file system).
5970 A good application of redirects is to use special <application>Privoxy</application>-built-in
5971 URLs, which send the built-in images, as <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>.
5972 This has the same visual effect as specifying <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote> in
5973 the first place, but enables your browser to cache the replacement image, instead of requesting
5974 it over and over again.
5985 The URLs for the built-in images are <quote>http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=<replaceable
5986 class="parameter">type</replaceable></quote>, where <replaceable class="parameter">type</replaceable> is
5987 either <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote>.
5990 There is a third (advanced) type, called <quote>auto</quote>. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> to be
5991 used in <literal>set-image-blocker</literal>, but meant for use from <link linkend="filter-file">filters</link>.
5992 Auto will select the type of image that would have applied to the referring page, had it been an image.
5998 <term>Example usage:</term>
6004 <screen>+set-image-blocker{pattern}</screen>
6007 Redirect to the BSD daemon:
6010 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://www.freebsd.org/gifs/dae_up3.gif}</screen>
6013 Redirect to the built-in pattern for better caching:
6016 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=pattern}</screen>
6024 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6025 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks">
6026 <title>treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks</title>
6032 <term>Typical use:</term>
6034 <para>Block forbidden connects with an easy to find error message.</para>
6039 <term>Effect:</term>
6042 If this action is enabled, <application>Privoxy</application> no longer
6043 makes a difference between forbidden connects and ordinary blocks.
6050 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
6052 <para>Boolean</para>
6057 <term>Parameter:</term>
6067 By default <application>Privoxy</application> answers
6068 <link linkend="limit-connect">forbidden <quote>Connect</quote> requests</link>
6069 with a short error message inside the headers. If the browser doesn't display
6070 headers (most don't), you just see an empty page.
6073 With this action enabled, <application>Privoxy</application> displays
6074 the message that is used for ordinary blocks instead. If you decide
6075 to make an exception for the page in question, you can do so by
6076 following the <quote>See why</quote> link.
6079 For <quote>Connect</quote> requests the clients tell
6080 <application>Privoxy</application> which host they are interested
6081 in, but not which document they plan to get later. As a result, the
6082 <quote>Go there anyway</quote> wouldn't work and is therefore suppressed.
6088 <term>Example usage:</term>
6091 <screen>+treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks</screen>
6099 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6101 <title>Summary</title>
6103 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
6104 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
6105 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
6106 content, and other criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard
6107 and fast rules for all sites. See the <link
6108 linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link> for a brief example on troubleshooting
6114 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6115 <sect2 id="aliases">
6116 <title>Aliases</title>
6118 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
6119 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other actions.
6120 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in actions.
6121 Currently, an alias name can contain any character except space, tab,
6123 <quote>{</quote> and <quote>}</quote>, but we <emphasis>strongly
6124 recommend</emphasis> that you only use <quote>a</quote> to <quote>z</quote>,
6125 <quote>0</quote> to <quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and <quote>-</quote>.
6126 Alias names are not case sensitive, and are not required to start with a
6127 <quote>+</quote> or <quote>-</quote> sign, since they are merely textually
6131 Aliases can be used throughout the actions file, but they <emphasis>must be
6132 defined in a special section at the top of the file!</emphasis>
6133 And there can only be one such section per actions file. Each actions file may
6134 have its own alias section, and the aliases defined in it are only visible
6138 There are two main reasons to use aliases: One is to save typing for frequently
6139 used combinations of actions, the other one is a gain in flexibility: If you
6140 decide once how you want to handle shops by defining an alias called
6141 <quote>shop</quote>, you can later change your policy on shops in
6142 <emphasis>one</emphasis> place, and your changes will take effect everywhere
6143 in the actions file where the <quote>shop</quote> alias is used. Calling aliases
6144 by their purpose also makes your actions files more readable.
6147 Currently, there is one big drawback to using aliases, though:
6148 <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in web-based action file
6149 editor honors aliases when reading the actions files, but it expands
6150 them before writing. So the effects of your aliases are of course preserved,
6151 but the aliases themselves are lost when you edit sections that use aliases
6156 Now let's define some aliases...
6161 # Useful custom aliases we can use later.
6163 # Note the (required!) section header line and that this section
6164 # must be at the top of the actions file!
6168 # These aliases just save typing later:
6169 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
6171 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6172 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6173 +block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
6174 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
6176 # These aliases define combinations of actions
6177 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
6179 fragile = -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> -<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link>
6181 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link>
6183 # Short names for other aliases, for really lazy people ;-)
6185 c0 = +crunch-all-cookies
6186 c1 = -crunch-all-cookies</screen>
6190 ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
6191 actions file and define exceptions to the default actions (as specified further
6192 up for the <quote>/</quote> pattern):
6197 # These sites are either very complex or very keen on
6198 # user data and require minimal interference to work:
6201 .office.microsoft.com
6202 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
6203 # Gmail is really mail.google.com, not gmail.com
6207 # Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data)
6211 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
6214 # These shops require pop-ups:
6216 {-kill-popups -filter{all-popups} -filter{unsolicited-popups}}
6218 .overclockers.co.uk</screen>
6222 Aliases like <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> are typically used for
6223 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require more than one action to be disabled
6224 in order to function properly.
6230 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
6231 <sect2 id="act-examples">
6232 <title>Actions Files Tutorial</title>
6234 The above chapters have shown <link linkend="actions-file">which actions files
6235 there are and how they are organized</link>, how actions are <link
6236 linkend="actions">specified</link> and <link linkend="actions-apply">applied
6237 to URLs</link>, how <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> work, and how to
6238 define and use <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link>. Now, let's look at an
6239 example <filename>default.action</filename> and <filename>user.action</filename>
6240 file and see how all these pieces come together:
6243 <sect3><title>default.action</title>
6246 Every config file should start with a short comment stating its purpose:
6250 <screen># Sample default.action file <ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net></screen>
6254 Then, since this is the <filename>default.action</filename> file, the
6255 first section is a special section for internal use that you needn't
6256 change or worry about:
6261 ##########################################################################
6262 # Settings -- Don't change! For internal Privoxy use ONLY.
6263 ##########################################################################
6266 for-privoxy-version=3.0</screen>
6270 After that comes the (optional) alias section. We'll use the example
6271 section from the above <link linkend="aliases">chapter on aliases</link>,
6272 that also explains why and how aliases are used:
6277 ##########################################################################
6279 ##########################################################################
6282 # These aliases just save typing later:
6283 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
6285 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6286 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
6287 +block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
6288 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
6290 # These aliases define combinations of actions
6291 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
6293 fragile = -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link>
6294 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link></screen>
6298 Now come the regular sections, i.e. sets of actions, accompanied
6299 by URL patterns to which they apply. Remember <emphasis>all actions
6300 are disabled when matching starts</emphasis>, so we have to explicitly
6301 enable the ones we want.
6305 The first regular section is probably the most important. It has only
6306 one pattern, <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, but this pattern
6307 <link linkend="af-patterns">matches all URLs</link>. Therefore, the
6308 set of actions used in this <quote>default</quote> section <emphasis>will
6309 be applied to all requests as a start</emphasis>. It can be partly or
6310 wholly overridden by later matches further down this file, or in user.action,
6311 but it will still be largely responsible for your overall browsing
6316 Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is
6317 no need to disable any actions here. (Remember: a <quote>+</quote>
6318 preceding the action name enables the action, a <quote>-</quote> disables!).
6319 Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into
6320 multiple lines with line continuation.
6325 ##########################################################################
6326 # "Defaults" section:
6327 ##########################################################################
6329 +<link linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</link> \
6330 +<link linkend="FILTER-HTML-ANNOYANCES">filter{html-annoyances}</link> \
6331 +<link linkend="FILTER-REFRESH-TAGS">filter{refresh-tags}</link> \
6332 +<link linkend="FILTER-WEBBUGS">filter{webbugs}</link> \
6333 +<link linkend="FILTER-IE-EXPLOITS">filter{ie-exploits}</link> \
6334 +<link linkend="HIDE-FORWARDED-FOR-HEADERS">hide-forwarded-for-headers</link> \
6335 +<link linkend="HIDE-FROM-HEADER">hide-from-header{block}</link> \
6336 +<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer{forge}</link> \
6337 +<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link> \
6338 +<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> \
6339 +<link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER">set-image-blocker{pattern}</link> \
6341 / # forward slash will match *all* potential URL patterns.</screen>
6345 The default behavior is now set.
6347 This needs rewording, but it can wait for now.
6350 Note that some actions, like not hiding
6351 the user agent, are part of a <quote>general policy</quote> that applies
6352 universally and won't get any exceptions defined later. Other choices,
6353 like not blocking (which is <emphasis>understandably</emphasis> the
6354 default!) need exceptions, i.e. we need to specify explicitly what we
6355 want to block in later sections.
6360 The first of our specialized sections is concerned with <quote>fragile</quote>
6361 sites, i.e. sites that require minimum interference, because they are either
6362 very complex or very keen on tracking you (and have mechanisms in place that
6363 make them unusable for people who avoid being tracked). We will simply use
6364 our pre-defined <literal>fragile</literal> alias instead of stating the list
6365 of actions explicitly:
6370 ##########################################################################
6371 # Exceptions for sites that'll break under the default action set:
6372 ##########################################################################
6374 # "Fragile" Use a minimum set of actions for these sites (see alias above):
6377 .office.microsoft.com # surprise, surprise!
6378 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
6379 mail.google.com</screen>
6383 Shopping sites are not as fragile, but they typically
6384 require cookies to log in, and pop-up windows for shopping
6385 carts or item details. Again, we'll use a pre-defined alias:
6394 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
6396 .scan.co.uk</screen>
6399 <!-- No longer needed BEGIN OF COMMENTED OUT BLOCK
6402 Then, there are sites which rely on pop-up windows (yuck!) to work.
6403 Since we made pop-up-killing our default above, we need to make exceptions
6404 now. <ulink url="http://www.mozilla.org/">Mozilla</ulink> users, who
6405 can turn on smart handling of unwanted pop-ups in their browsers, can
6407 -<literal><link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link></literal> (and
6408 -<literal><link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link></literal>) above
6409 and hence don't need this section. Anyway, disabling an already disabled
6410 action doesn't hurt, so we'll define our exceptions regardless of what was
6411 chosen in the defaults section:
6416 # These sites require pop-ups too :(
6418 { -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link> }
6421 .deutsche-bank-24.de</screen>
6424 END OF COMMENTED OUT BLOCK -->
6427 The <literal><link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link></literal>
6428 action, which we enabled per default above, breaks some sites. So disable
6429 it for popular sites where we know it misbehaves:
6434 { -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> }
6438 .altavista.com/.*(like|url|link):http
6439 .altavista.com/trans.*urltext=http
6440 .nytimes.com</screen>
6444 It is important that <application>Privoxy</application> knows which
6445 URLs belong to images, so that <emphasis>if</emphasis> they are to
6446 be blocked, a substitute image can be sent, rather than an HTML page.
6447 Contacting the remote site to find out is not an option, since it
6448 would destroy the loading time advantage of banner blocking, and it
6449 would feed the advertisers (in terms of money <emphasis>and</emphasis>
6450 information). We can mark any URL as an image with the <literal><link
6451 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action,
6452 and marking all URLs that end in a known image file extension is a
6458 ##########################################################################
6460 ##########################################################################
6462 # Define which file types will be treated as images, in case they get
6463 # blocked further down this file:
6465 { +<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> }
6466 /.*\.(gif|jpe?g|png|bmp|ico)$</screen>
6470 And then there are known banner sources. They often use scripts to
6471 generate the banners, so it won't be visible from the URL that the
6472 request is for an image. Hence we block them <emphasis>and</emphasis>
6473 mark them as images in one go, with the help of our
6474 <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above. (We could of
6475 course just as well use <literal>+<link linkend="block">block</link>
6476 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> here.)
6477 Remember that the type of the replacement image is chosen by the
6478 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
6479 action. Since all URLs have matched the default section with its
6480 <literal>+<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link>{pattern}</literal>
6481 action before, it still applies and needn't be repeated:
6486 # Known ad generators:
6491 .ad.*.doubleclick.net
6492 .a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
6493 .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
6499 One of the most important jobs of <application>Privoxy</application>
6500 is to block banners. Many of these can be <quote>blocked</quote>
6501 by the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{banners-by-size}</literal>
6502 action, which we enabled above, and which deletes the references to banner
6503 images from the pages while they are loaded, so the browser doesn't request
6504 them anymore, and hence they don't need to be blocked here. But this naturally
6505 doesn't catch all banners, and some people choose not to use filters, so we
6506 need a comprehensive list of patterns for banner URLs here, and apply the
6507 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action to them.
6510 First comes many generic patterns, which do most of the work, by
6511 matching typical domain and path name components of banners. Then comes
6512 a list of individual patterns for specific sites, which is omitted here
6513 to keep the example short:
6518 ##########################################################################
6519 # Block these fine banners:
6520 ##########################################################################
6521 { <link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link> }
6529 /.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?)
6530 /(?:.*/)?(publicite|werbung|rekla(ma|me|am)|annonse|maino(kset|nta|s)?)/
6532 # Site-specific patterns (abbreviated):
6534 .hitbox.com</screen>
6538 It's quite remarkable how many advertisers actually call their banner
6539 servers ads.<replaceable>company</replaceable>.com, or call the directory
6540 in which the banners are stored simply <quote>banners</quote>. So the above
6541 generic patterns are surprisingly effective.
6544 But being very generic, they necessarily also catch URLs that we don't want
6545 to block. The pattern <literal>.*ads.</literal> e.g. catches
6546 <quote>nasty-<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.nasty-corp.com</quote> as intended,
6547 but also <quote>downlo<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.sourcefroge.net</quote> or
6548 <quote><emphasis>ads</emphasis>l.some-provider.net.</quote> So here come some
6549 well-known exceptions to the <literal>+<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
6553 Note that these are exceptions to exceptions from the default! Consider the URL
6554 <quote>downloads.sourcefroge.net</quote>: Initially, all actions are deactivated,
6555 so it wouldn't get blocked. Then comes the defaults section, which matches the
6556 URL, but just deactivates the <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
6557 action once again. Then it matches <literal>.*ads.</literal>, an exception to the
6558 general non-blocking policy, and suddenly
6559 <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link></literal> applies. And now, it'll match
6560 <literal>.*loads.</literal>, where <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">-block</link></literal>
6561 applies, so (unless it matches <emphasis>again</emphasis> further down) it ends up
6562 with no <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal> action applying.
6567 ##########################################################################
6568 # Save some innocent victims of the above generic block patterns:
6569 ##########################################################################
6573 { -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
6574 adv[io]*. # (for advogato.org and advice.*)
6575 adsl. # (has nothing to do with ads)
6576 adobe. # (has nothing to do with ads either)
6577 ad[ud]*. # (adult.* and add.*)
6578 .edu # (universities don't host banners (yet!))
6579 .*loads. # (downloads, uploads etc)
6587 www.globalintersec.com/adv # (adv = advanced)
6588 www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv</screen>
6592 Filtering source code can have nasty side effects,
6593 so make an exception for our friends at sourceforge.net,
6594 and all paths with <quote>cvs</quote> in them. Note that
6595 <literal>-<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link></literal>
6596 disables <emphasis>all</emphasis> filters in one fell swoop!
6601 # Don't filter code!
6603 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
6608 .sourceforge.net</screen>
6612 The actual <filename>default.action</filename> is of course much more
6613 comprehensive, but we hope this example made clear how it works.
6618 <sect3><title>user.action</title>
6621 So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies,
6622 which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
6623 you might want to be more specific and have customized rules that
6624 are more suitable to your personal habits and preferences. These would
6625 be for narrowly defined situations like your ISP or your bank, and should
6626 be placed in <filename>user.action</filename>, which is parsed after all other
6627 actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding any previously
6628 defined actions. <filename>user.action</filename> is also a
6629 <emphasis>safe</emphasis> place for your personal settings, since
6630 <filename>default.action</filename> is actively maintained by the
6631 <application>Privoxy</application> developers and you'll probably want
6632 to install updated versions from time to time.
6636 So let's look at a few examples of things that one might typically do in
6637 <filename>user.action</filename>:
6641 <!-- brief sample user.action here -->
6645 # My user.action file. <fred@example.com></screen>
6649 As <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link> are local to the actions
6650 file that they are defined in, you can't use the ones from
6651 <filename>default.action</filename>, unless you repeat them here:
6656 # Aliases are local to the file they are defined in.
6657 # (Re-)define aliases for this file:
6661 # These aliases just save typing later, and the alias names should
6662 # be self explanatory.
6664 +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
6665 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
6666 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
6667 allow-popups = -filter{all-popups} -kill-popups
6668 +block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
6669 -block-as-image = -block
6671 # These aliases define combinations of actions that are useful for
6672 # certain types of sites:
6674 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referrer -kill-popups
6675 shop = -crunch-all-cookies allow-popups
6677 # Allow ads for selected useful free sites:
6679 allow-ads = -block -filter{banners-by-size} -filter{banners-by-link}
6681 # Alias for specific file types that are text, but might have conflicting
6682 # MIME types. We want the browser to force these to be text documents.
6683 handle-as-text = -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> +-<link linkend="content-type-overwrite">content-type-overwrite{text/plain}</link> +-<link linkend="FORCE-TEXT-MODE">force-text-mode</link> -<link linkend="HIDE-CONTENT-DISPOSITION">hide-content-disposition</link></screen>
6688 Say you have accounts on some sites that you visit regularly, and
6689 you don't want to have to log in manually each time. So you'd like
6690 to allow persistent cookies for these sites. The
6691 <literal>allow-all-cookies</literal> alias defined above does exactly
6692 that, i.e. it disables crunching of cookies in any direction, and the
6693 processing of cookies to make them only temporary.
6698 { allow-all-cookies }
6702 .redhat.com</screen>
6706 Your bank is allergic to some filter, but you don't know which, so you disable them all:
6711 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
6712 .your-home-banking-site.com</screen>
6716 Some file types you may not want to filter for various reasons:
6721 # Technical documentation is likely to contain strings that might
6722 # erroneously get altered by the JavaScript-oriented filters:
6727 # And this stupid host sends streaming video with a wrong MIME type,
6728 # so that Privoxy thinks it is getting HTML and starts filtering:
6730 stupid-server.example.com/</screen>
6734 Example of a simple <link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> action. Say you've
6735 seen an ad on your favourite page on example.com that you want to get rid of.
6736 You have right-clicked the image, selected <quote>copy image location</quote>
6737 and pasted the URL below while removing the leading http://, into a
6738 <literal>{ +block }</literal> section. Note that <literal>{ +handle-as-image
6739 }</literal> need not be specified, since all URLs ending in
6740 <literal>.gif</literal> will be tagged as images by the general rules as set
6741 in default.action anyway:
6746 { +<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
6747 www.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor\.gif
6748 another.example.net/more/junk/here/</screen>
6752 The URLs of dynamically generated banners, especially from large banner
6753 farms, often don't use the well-known image file name extensions, which
6754 makes it impossible for <application>Privoxy</application> to guess
6755 the file type just by looking at the URL.
6756 You can use the <literal>+block-as-image</literal> alias defined above for
6758 Note that objects which match this rule but then turn out NOT to be an
6759 image are typically rendered as a <quote>broken image</quote> icon by the
6760 browser. Use cautiously.
6769 ar.atwola.com/</screen>
6773 Now you noticed that the default configuration breaks Forbes Magazine,
6774 but you were too lazy to find out which action is the culprit, and you
6775 were again too lazy to give <link linkend="contact">feedback</link>, so
6776 you just used the <literal>fragile</literal> alias on the site, and
6777 -- <emphasis>whoa!</emphasis> -- it worked. The <literal>fragile</literal>
6778 aliases disables those actions that are most likely to break a site. Also,
6779 good for testing purposes to see if it is <application>Privoxy</application>
6780 that is causing the problem or not. We later find other regular sites
6781 that misbehave, and add those to our personalized list of troublemakers:
6789 .mybank.com</screen>
6793 You like the <quote>fun</quote> text replacements in <filename>default.filter</filename>,
6794 but it is disabled in the distributed actions file.
6795 So you'd like to turn it on in your private,
6796 update-safe config, once and for all:
6801 { +<link linkend="filter-fun">filter{fun}</link> }
6802 / # For ALL sites!</screen>
6806 Note that the above is not really a good idea: There are exceptions
6807 to the filters in <filename>default.action</filename> for things that
6808 really shouldn't be filtered, like code on CVS->Web interfaces. Since
6809 <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word, these exceptions
6810 won't be valid for the <quote>fun</quote> filtering specified here.
6814 You might also worry about how your favourite free websites are
6815 funded, and find that they rely on displaying banner advertisements
6816 to survive. So you might want to specifically allow banners for those
6817 sites that you feel provide value to you:
6829 Note that <literal>allow-ads</literal> has been aliased to
6830 <literal>-<link linkend="block">block</link></literal>,
6831 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-size">filter{banners-by-size}</link></literal>, and
6832 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-link">filter{banners-by-link}</link></literal> above.
6836 Invoke another alias here to force an over-ride of the MIME type <literal>
6837 application/x-sh</literal> which typically would open a download type
6838 dialog. In my case, I want to look at the shell script, and then I can save
6839 it should I choose to.
6849 <filename>user.action</filename> is generally the best place to define
6850 exceptions and additions to the default policies of
6851 <filename>default.action</filename>. Some actions are safe to have their
6852 default policies set here though. So let's set a default policy to have a
6853 <quote>blank</quote> image as opposed to the checkerboard pattern for
6854 <emphasis>ALL</emphasis> sites. <quote>/</quote> of course matches all URL
6860 { +<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker{blank}</link> }
6861 / # ALL sites</screen>
6867 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6871 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
6873 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
6875 <sect1 id="filter-file">
6876 <title>Filter Files</title>
6879 On-the-fly text substitutions need
6880 to be defined in a <quote>filter file</quote>. Once defined, they
6881 can then be invoked as an <quote>action</quote>.
6885 &my-app; supports three different filter actions:
6886 <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> to
6887 rewrite the content that is send to the client,
6888 <literal><link linkend="client-header-filter">client-header-filter</link></literal>
6889 to rewrite headers that are send by the client, and
6890 <literal><link linkend="server-header-filter">server-header-filter</link></literal>
6891 to rewrite headers that are send by the server.
6895 &my-app; also supports two tagger actions:
6896 <literal><link linkend="client-header-tagger">client-header-tagger</link></literal>
6898 <literal><link linkend="server-header-tagger">server-header-tagger</link></literal>.
6899 Taggers and filters use the same syntax in the filter files, the difference
6900 is that taggers don't modify the text they are filtering, but use a rewritten
6901 version of the filtered text as tag. The tags can then be used to change the
6902 applying actions through sections with <link linkend="tag-pattern">tag-patterns</link>.
6907 Multiple filter files can be defined through the <literal> <link
6908 linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal> config directive. The filters
6909 as supplied by the developers are located in
6910 <filename>default.filter</filename>. It is recommended that any locally
6911 defined or modified filters go in a separately defined file such as
6912 <filename>user.filter</filename>.
6916 Common tasks for content filters are to eliminate common annoyances in
6917 HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows,
6918 exit consoles, crippled windows without navigation tools, the
6919 infamous <BLINK> tag etc, to suppress images with certain
6920 width and height attributes (standard banner sizes or web-bugs),
6921 or just to have fun.
6925 Enabled content filters are applied to any content whose
6926 <quote>Content Type</quote> header is recognised as a sign
6927 of text-based content, with the exception of <literal>text/plain</literal>.
6928 Use the <link linkend="FORCE-TEXT-MODE">force-text-mode</link> action
6929 to also filter other content.
6933 Substitutions are made at the source level, so if you want to <quote>roll
6934 your own</quote> filters, you should first be familiar with HTML syntax,
6935 and, of course, regular expressions.
6939 Just like the <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, the
6940 filter file is organized in sections, which are called <emphasis>filters</emphasis>
6941 here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with one of the
6942 <emphasis>keywords</emphasis> <literal>FILTER:</literal>,
6943 <literal>CLIENT-HEADER-FILTER:</literal> or <literal>SERVER-HEADER-FILTER:</literal>
6944 followed by the filter's <emphasis>name</emphasis>, and a short (one line)
6945 <emphasis>description</emphasis> of what it does. Below that line
6946 come the <emphasis>jobs</emphasis>, i.e. lines that define the actual
6947 text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter
6948 should describe what the filter <emphasis>eliminates</emphasis>. The
6949 comment is used in the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
6950 user interface</ulink>.
6954 Once a filter called <replaceable>name</replaceable> has been defined
6955 in the filter file, it can be invoked by using an action of the form
6956 +<literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>name</replaceable>}</literal>
6957 in any <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>.
6961 Filter definitions start with a header line that contains the filter
6962 type, the filter name and the filter description.
6963 A content filter header line for a filter called <quote>foo</quote> could look
6968 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"</screen>
6972 Below that line, and up to the next header line, come the jobs that
6973 define what text replacements the filter executes. They are specified
6974 in a syntax that imitates <ulink url="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</ulink>'s
6975 <literal>s///</literal> operator. If you are familiar with Perl, you
6976 will find this to be quite intuitive, and may want to look at the
6977 PCRS documentation for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour. Most
6978 notably, the non-standard option letter <literal>U</literal> is supported,
6979 which turns the default to ungreedy matching.
6984 <ulink url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expressions"><quote>Regular
6985 Expressions</quote></ulink>, you might want to take a look at
6986 the <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>, and
6987 see the <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">Perl
6989 <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlop.html">the
6990 <literal>s///</literal> operator's syntax</ulink> and <ulink
6991 url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">Perl-style regular
6992 expressions</ulink> in general.
6993 The below examples might also help to get you started.
6997 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
6999 <sect2><title>Filter File Tutorial</title>
7001 Now, let's complete our <quote>foo</quote> content filter. We have already defined
7002 the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace
7003 <quote>foo</quote> with <quote>bar</quote>, there is only one (trivial) job
7008 <screen>s/foo/bar/</screen>
7012 But wait! Didn't the comment say that <emphasis>all</emphasis> occurrences
7013 of <quote>foo</quote> should be replaced? Our current job will only take
7014 care of the first <quote>foo</quote> on each page. For global substitution,
7015 we'll need to add the <literal>g</literal> option:
7019 <screen>s/foo/bar/g</screen>
7023 Our complete filter now looks like this:
7026 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"
7027 s/foo/bar/g</screen>
7031 Let's look at some real filters for more interesting examples. Here you see
7032 a filter that protects against some common annoyances that arise from JavaScript
7033 abuse. Let's look at its jobs one after the other:
7039 FILTER: js-annoyances Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
7041 # Get rid of JavaScript referrer tracking. Test page: http://www.randomoddness.com/untitled.htm
7043 s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|Usg</screen>
7047 Following the header line and a comment, you see the job. Note that it uses
7048 <literal>|</literal> as the delimiter instead of <literal>/</literal>, because
7049 the pattern contains a forward slash, which would otherwise have to be escaped
7050 by a backslash (<literal>\</literal>).
7054 Now, let's examine the pattern: it starts with the text <literal><script.*</literal>
7055 enclosed in parentheses. Since the dot matches any character, and <literal>*</literal>
7056 means: <quote>Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself</quote>, this
7057 matches <quote><script</quote>, followed by <emphasis>any</emphasis> text, i.e.
7058 it matches the whole page, from the start of the first <script> tag.
7062 That's more than we want, but the pattern continues: <literal>document\.referrer</literal>
7063 matches only the exact string <quote>document.referrer</quote>. The dot needed to
7064 be <emphasis>escaped</emphasis>, i.e. preceded by a backslash, to take away its
7065 special meaning as a joker, and make it just a regular dot. So far, the meaning is:
7066 Match from the start of the first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including,
7067 the text <quote>document.referrer</quote>, if <emphasis>both</emphasis> are present
7068 in the page (and appear in that order).
7072 But there's still more pattern to go. The next element, again enclosed in parentheses,
7073 is <literal>.*</script></literal>. You already know what <literal>.*</literal>
7074 means, so the whole pattern translates to: Match from the start of the first <script>
7075 tag in a page to the end of the last <script> tag, provided that the text
7076 <quote>document.referrer</quote> appears somewhere in between.
7080 This is still not the whole story, since we have ignored the options and the parentheses:
7081 The portions of the page matched by sub-patterns that are enclosed in parentheses, will be
7082 remembered and be available through the variables <literal>$1, $2, ...</literal> in
7083 the substitute. The <literal>U</literal> option switches to ungreedy matching, which means
7084 that the first <literal>.*</literal> in the pattern will only <quote>eat up</quote> all
7085 text in between <quote><script</quote> and the <emphasis>first</emphasis> occurrence
7086 of <quote>document.referrer</quote>, and that the second <literal>.*</literal> will
7087 only span the text up to the <emphasis>first</emphasis> <quote></script></quote>
7088 tag. Furthermore, the <literal>s</literal> option says that the match may span
7089 multiple lines in the page, and the <literal>g</literal> option again means that the
7090 substitution is global.
7094 So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text
7095 <quote>document.referrer</quote>. Remember the parts of the script from
7096 (and including) the start tag up to (and excluding) the string
7097 <quote>document.referrer</quote> as <literal>$1</literal>, and the part following
7098 that string, up to and including the closing tag, as <literal>$2</literal>.
7102 Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So
7103 lets look at the substitute: <literal>$1"Not Your Business!"$2</literal> is
7104 easy to read: The text remembered as <literal>$1</literal>, followed by
7105 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> (<emphasis>including</emphasis>
7106 the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as <literal>$2</literal>.
7107 This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part
7108 (the <quote>document.referrer</quote>) replaced by <literal>"Not Your
7109 Business!"</literal>.
7113 The whole job now reads: Replace <quote>document.referrer</quote> by
7114 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> wherever it appears inside a
7115 <script> tag. Note that this job won't break JavaScript syntax,
7116 since both the original and the replacement are syntactically valid
7117 string objects. The script just won't have access to the referrer
7118 information anymore.
7122 We'll show you two other jobs from the JavaScript taming department, but
7123 this time only point out the constructs of special interest:
7128 # The status bar is for displaying link targets, not pointless blahblah
7130 s/window\.status\s*=\s*(['"]).*?\1/dUmMy=1/ig</screen>
7134 <literal>\s</literal> stands for whitespace characters (space, tab, newline,
7135 carriage return, form feed), so that <literal>\s*</literal> means: <quote>zero
7136 or more whitespace</quote>. The <literal>?</literal> in <literal>.*?</literal>
7137 makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the <literal>U</literal>
7138 option is not set). The <literal>['"]</literal> construct means: <quote>a single
7139 <emphasis>or</emphasis> a double quote</quote>. Finally, <literal>\1</literal> is
7140 a back-reference to the first parenthesis just like <literal>$1</literal> above,
7141 with the difference that in the <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>, a backslash indicates
7142 a back-reference, whereas in the <emphasis>substitute</emphasis>, it's the dollar.
7146 So what does this job do? It replaces assignments of single- or double-quoted
7147 strings to the <quote>window.status</quote> object with a dummy assignment
7148 (using a variable name that is hopefully odd enough not to conflict with
7149 real variables in scripts). Thus, it catches many cases where e.g. pointless
7150 descriptions are displayed in the status bar instead of the link target when
7151 you move your mouse over links.
7156 # Kill OnUnload popups. Yummy. Test: http://www.zdnet.com/zdsubs/yahoo/tree/yfs.html
7158 s/(<body [^>]*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU</screen>
7163 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">OnUnload
7164 event binding</ulink> in the HTML DOM was a <emphasis>CRIME</emphasis>.
7165 When I close a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta.
7166 This job replaces the <quote>onunload</quote> attribute in
7167 <quote><body></quote> tags with the dummy word <literal>never</literal>.
7168 Note that the <literal>i</literal> option makes the pattern matching
7169 case-insensitive. Also note that ungreedy matching alone doesn't always guarantee
7170 a minimal match: In the first parenthesis, we had to use <literal>[^>]*</literal>
7171 instead of <literal>.*</literal> to prevent the match from exceeding the
7172 <body> tag if it doesn't contain <quote>OnUnload</quote>, but the page's
7177 The last example is from the fun department:
7182 FILTER: fun Fun text replacements
7184 # Spice the daily news:
7186 s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig</screen>
7190 Note the <literal>(?!\.com)</literal> part (a so-called negative lookahead)
7191 in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
7192 <quote>.com</quote> appears directly following <quote>microsoft</quote>
7193 in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being trashed, while
7194 still replacing the word everywhere else.
7199 # Buzzword Bingo (example for extended regex syntax)
7201 s* industry[ -]leading \
7203 | customer[ -]focused \
7204 | market[ -]driven \
7205 | award[ -]winning # Comments are OK, too! \
7206 | high[ -]performance \
7207 | solutions[ -]based \
7211 *<font color="red"><b>BINGO!</b></font> \
7216 The <literal>x</literal> option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for
7217 e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
7225 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
7227 <sect2 id="predefined-filters"><title>The Pre-defined Filters</title>
7231 Note each filter is also listed in the +filter action section above. Please
7232 keep these listings in sync.
7237 The distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file contains a selection of
7238 pre-defined filters for your convenience:
7243 <term><emphasis>js-annoyances</emphasis></term>
7246 The purpose of this filter is to get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse.
7251 replaces JavaScript references to the browser's referrer information
7252 with the string "Not Your Business!". This compliments the <literal><link
7253 linkend="hide-referrer">hide-referrer</link></literal> action on the content level.
7258 removes the bindings to the DOM's
7259 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">unload
7260 event</ulink> which we feel has no right to exist and is responsible for most <quote>exit consoles</quote>, i.e.
7261 nasty windows that pop up when you close another one.
7266 removes code that causes new windows to be opened with undesired properties, such as being
7267 full-screen, non-resizeable, without location, status or menu bar etc.
7273 Use with caution. This is an aggressive filter, and can break sites that
7274 rely heavily on JavaScript.
7280 <term><emphasis>js-events</emphasis></term>
7283 This is a very radical measure. It removes virtually all JavaScript event bindings, which
7284 means that scripts can not react to user actions such as mouse movements or clicks, window
7285 resizing etc, anymore. Use with caution!
7288 We <emphasis>strongly discourage</emphasis> using this filter as a default since it breaks
7289 many legitimate scripts. It is meant for use only on extra-nasty sites (should you really
7296 <term><emphasis>html-annoyances</emphasis></term>
7299 This filter will undo many common instances of HTML based abuse.
7302 The <literal>BLINK</literal> and <literal>MARQUEE</literal> tags
7303 are neutralized (yeah baby!), and browser windows will be created as
7304 resizeable (as of course they should be!), and will have location,
7305 scroll and menu bars -- even if specified otherwise.
7311 <term><emphasis>content-cookies</emphasis></term>
7314 Most cookies are set in the HTTP dialog, where they can be intercepted
7316 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>
7317 and <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>
7318 actions. But web sites increasingly make use of HTML meta tags and JavaScript
7319 to sneak cookies to the browser on the content level.
7322 This filter disables most HTML and JavaScript code that reads or sets
7323 cookies. It cannot detect all clever uses of these types of code, so it
7324 should not be relied on as an absolute fix. Use it wherever you would also
7325 use the cookie crunch actions.
7331 <term><emphasis>refresh tags</emphasis></term>
7334 Disable any refresh tags if the interval is greater than nine seconds (so
7335 that redirections done via refresh tags are not destroyed). This is useful
7336 for dial-on-demand setups, or for those who find this HTML feature
7343 <term><emphasis>unsolicited-popups</emphasis></term>
7346 This filter attempts to prevent only <quote>unsolicited</quote> pop-up
7347 windows from opening, yet still allow pop-up windows that the user
7348 has explicitly chosen to open. It was added in version 3.0.1,
7349 as an improvement over earlier such filters.
7352 Technical note: The filter works by redefining the window.open JavaScript
7353 function to a dummy function, <literal>PrivoxyWindowOpen()</literal>,
7354 during the loading and rendering phase of each HTML page access, and
7355 restoring the function afterward.
7358 This is recommended only for browsers that cannot perform this function
7359 reliably themselves. And be aware that some sites require such windows
7360 in order to function normally. Use with caution.
7366 <term><emphasis>all-popups</emphasis></term>
7369 Attempt to prevent <emphasis>all</emphasis> pop-up windows from opening.
7370 Note this should be used with even more discretion than the above, since
7371 it is more likely to break some sites that require pop-ups for normal
7372 usage. Use with caution.
7378 <term><emphasis>img-reorder</emphasis></term>
7381 This is a helper filter that has no value if used alone. It makes the
7382 <literal>banners-by-size</literal> and <literal>banners-by-link</literal>
7383 (see below) filters more effective and should be enabled together with them.
7389 <term><emphasis>banners-by-size</emphasis></term>
7392 This filter removes image tags purely based on what size they are. Fortunately
7393 for us, many ads and banner images tend to conform to certain standardized
7394 sizes, which makes this filter quite effective for ad stripping purposes.
7397 Occasionally this filter will cause false positives on images that are not ads,
7398 but just happen to be of one of the standard banner sizes.
7401 Recommended only for those who require extreme ad blocking. The default
7402 block rules should catch 95+% of all ads <emphasis>without</emphasis> this filter enabled.
7408 <term><emphasis>banners-by-link</emphasis></term>
7411 This is an experimental filter that attempts to kill any banners if
7412 their URLs seem to point to known or suspected click trackers. It is currently
7413 not of much value and is not recommended for use by default.
7419 <term><emphasis>webbugs</emphasis></term>
7422 Webbugs are small, invisible images (technically 1X1 GIF images), that
7423 are used to track users across websites, and collect information on them.
7424 As an HTML page is loaded by the browser, an embedded image tag causes the
7425 browser to contact a third-party site, disclosing the tracking information
7426 through the requested URL and/or cookies for that third-party domain, without
7427 the user ever becoming aware of the interaction with the third-party site.
7428 HTML-ized spam also uses a similar technique to verify email addresses.
7431 This filter removes the HTML code that loads such <quote>webbugs</quote>.
7437 <term><emphasis>tiny-textforms</emphasis></term>
7440 A rather special-purpose filter that can be used to enlarge textareas (those
7441 multi-line text boxes in web forms) and turn off hard word wrap in them.
7442 It was written for the sourceforge.net tracker system where such boxes are
7443 a nuisance, but it can be handy on other sites, too.
7446 It is not recommended to use this filter as a default.
7452 <term><emphasis>jumping-windows</emphasis></term>
7455 Many consider windows that move, or resize themselves to be abusive. This filter
7456 neutralizes the related JavaScript code. Note that some sites might not display
7457 or behave as intended when using this filter. Use with caution.
7463 <term><emphasis>frameset-borders</emphasis></term>
7466 Some web designers seem to assume that everyone in the world will view their
7467 web sites using the same browser brand and version, screen resolution etc,
7468 because only that assumption could explain why they'd use static frame sizes,
7469 yet prevent their frames from being resized by the user, should they be too
7470 small to show their whole content.
7473 This filter removes the related HTML code. It should only be applied to sites
7480 <term><emphasis>demoronizer</emphasis></term>
7483 Many Microsoft products that generate HTML use non-standard extensions (read:
7484 violations) of the ISO 8859-1 aka Latin-1 character set. This can cause those
7485 HTML documents to display with errors on standard-compliant platforms.
7488 This filter translates the MS-only characters into Latin-1 equivalents.
7489 It is not necessary when using MS products, and will cause corruption of
7490 all documents that use 8-bit character sets other than Latin-1. It's mostly
7491 worthwhile for Europeans on non-MS platforms, if weird garbage characters
7492 sometimes appear on some pages, or user agents that don't correct for this on
7495 My version of Mozilla (ancient) shows litte square boxes for quote
7496 characters, and apostrophes on moronized pages. So many pages have this, I
7497 can read them fine now. HB 08/27/06
7504 <term><emphasis>shockwave-flash</emphasis></term>
7507 A filter for shockwave haters. As the name suggests, this filter strips code
7508 out of web pages that is used to embed shockwave flash objects.
7516 <term><emphasis>quicktime-kioskmode</emphasis></term>
7519 Change HTML code that embeds Quicktime objects so that kioskmode, which
7520 prevents saving, is disabled.
7526 <term><emphasis>fun</emphasis></term>
7529 Text replacements for subversive browsing fun. Make fun of your favorite
7530 Monopolist or play buzzword bingo.
7536 <term><emphasis>crude-parental</emphasis></term>
7539 A demonstration-only filter that shows how <application>Privoxy</application>
7540 can be used to delete web content on a keyword basis.
7546 <term><emphasis>ie-exploits</emphasis></term>
7549 An experimental collection of text replacements to disable malicious HTML and JavaScript
7550 code that exploits known security holes in Internet Explorer.
7553 Presently, it only protects against Nimda and a cross-site scripting bug, and
7554 would need active maintenance to provide more substantial protection.
7560 <term><emphasis>site-specifics</emphasis></term>
7563 Some web sites have very specific problems, the cure for which doesn't apply
7564 anywhere else, or could even cause damage on other sites.
7567 This is a collection of such site-specific cures which should only be applied
7568 to the sites they were intended for, which is what the supplied
7569 <filename>default.action</filename> file does. Users shouldn't need to change
7570 anything regarding this filter.
7576 <term><emphasis>google</emphasis></term>
7579 A CSS based block for Google text ads. Also removes a width limitation
7580 and the toolbar advertisement.
7586 <term><emphasis>yahoo</emphasis></term>
7589 Another CSS based block, this time for Yahoo text ads. And removes
7590 a width limitation as well.
7596 <term><emphasis>msn</emphasis></term>
7599 Another CSS based block, this time for MSN text ads. And removes
7600 tracking URLs, as well as a width limitation.
7606 <term><emphasis>blogspot</emphasis></term>
7609 Cleans up some Blogspot blogs. Read the fine print before using this one!
7612 This filter also intentionally removes some navigation stuff and sets the
7613 page width to 100%. As a result, some rounded <quote>corners</quote> would
7614 appear to early or not at all and as fixing this would require a browser
7615 that understands background-size (CSS3), they are removed instead.
7621 <term><emphasis>xml-to-html</emphasis></term>
7624 Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from xml to html.
7630 <term><emphasis>html-to-xml</emphasis></term>
7633 Server-header filter to change the Content-Type from html to xml.
7639 <term><emphasis>no-ping</emphasis></term>
7642 Removes the non-standard <literal>ping</literal> attribute from
7643 anchor and area HTML tags.
7649 <term><emphasis>hide-tor-exit-notation</emphasis></term>
7652 Client-header filter to remove the <command>Tor</command> exit node notation
7653 found in Host and Referer headers.
7656 If &my-app; and <command>Tor</command> are chained and &my-app;
7657 is configured to use socks4a, one can use <quote>http://www.example.org.foobar.exit/</quote>
7658 to access the host <quote>www.example.org</quote> through the
7659 <command>Tor</command> exit node <quote>foobar</quote>.
7662 As the HTTP client isn't aware of this notation, it treats the
7663 whole string <quote>www.example.org.foobar.exit</quote> as host and uses it
7664 for the <quote>Host</quote> and <quote>Referer</quote> headers. From the
7665 server's point of view the resulting headers are invalid and can cause problems.
7668 An invalid <quote>Referer</quote> header can trigger <quote>hot-linking</quote>
7669 protections, an invalid <quote>Host</quote> header will make it impossible for
7670 the server to find the right vhost (several domains hosted on the same IP address).
7673 This client-header filter removes the <quote>foo.exit</quote> part in those headers
7674 to prevent the mentioned problems. Note that it only modifies
7675 the HTTP headers, it doesn't make it impossible for the server
7676 to detect your <command>Tor</command> exit node based on the IP address
7677 the request is coming from.
7684 <term><emphasis> </emphasis></term>
7698 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7702 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7704 <sect1 id="templates">
7705 <title>Privoxy's Template Files</title>
7707 All <application>Privoxy</application> built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
7708 <ulink url="http://show-the-404-error.page"><quote>404 - No Such Domain</quote>
7709 error page</ulink>, the <ulink
7710 url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
7712 and all pages of its <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
7713 user interface</ulink>, are generated from <emphasis>templates</emphasis>.
7714 (<application>Privoxy</application> must be running for the above links to work as
7719 These templates are stored in a subdirectory of the <link linkend="confdir">configuration
7720 directory</link> called <filename>templates</filename>. On Unixish platforms,
7722 <ulink url="file:///etc/privoxy/templates/"><filename>/etc/privoxy/templates/</filename></ulink>.
7726 The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols
7727 or exports), which <application>Privoxy</application> fills at run time. It
7728 is possible to edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want
7729 to customize them. (<emphasis>Not recommended for the casual
7730 user</emphasis>). Should you create your own custom templates, you should use
7731 the <filename>config</filename> setting <link linkend="templdir">templdir</link>
7732 to specify an alternate location, so your templates do not get overwritten
7736 Note that just like in configuration files, lines starting
7737 with <literal>#</literal> are ignored when the templates are filled in.
7741 The place-holders are of the form <literal>@name@</literal>, and you will
7742 find a list of available symbols, which vary from template to template,
7743 in the comments at the start of each file. Note that these comments are not
7744 always accurate, and that it's probably best to look at the existing HTML
7745 code to find out which symbols are supported and what they are filled in with.
7749 A special application of this substitution mechanism is to make whole
7750 blocks of HTML code disappear when a specific symbol is set. We use this
7751 for many purposes, one of them being to include the beta warning in all
7752 our user interface (CGI) pages when <application>Privoxy</application>
7753 is in an alpha or beta development stage:
7758 <!-- @if-unstable-start -->
7760 ... beta warning HTML code goes here ...
7762 <!-- if-unstable-end@ --></screen>
7766 If the "unstable" symbol is set, everything in between and including
7767 <literal>@if-unstable-start</literal> and <literal>if-unstable-end@</literal>
7768 will disappear, leaving nothing but an empty comment:
7772 <screen><!-- --></screen>
7776 There's also an if-then-else construct and an <literal>#include</literal>
7777 mechanism, but you'll sure find out if you are inclined to edit the
7782 All templates refer to a style located at
7783 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet"><literal>http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet</literal></ulink>.
7784 This is, of course, locally served by <application>Privoxy</application>
7785 and the source for it can be found and edited in the
7786 <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> template.
7791 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7795 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7797 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
7800 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
7802 <!-- end boilerplate -->
7806 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7809 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7810 <sect1 id="copyright"><title>Privoxy Copyright, License and History</title>
7812 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
7814 <!-- end copyright -->
7816 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7817 <sect2><title>License</title>
7818 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
7820 <!-- end copyright -->
7822 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7825 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7827 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
7828 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
7830 <!-- end history -->
7833 <sect2 id="authors"><title>Authors</title>
7834 <!-- Include p-authors.sgml: -->
7836 <!-- end authors -->
7841 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
7844 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7845 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
7846 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
7848 <!-- end seealso -->
7853 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7854 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
7857 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
7859 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
7861 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl-style <quote>regular
7862 expressions</quote> in its <link linkend="actions-file">actions
7863 files</link> and <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>,
7864 through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> and
7867 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/">PCRS</ulink> libraries.
7869 <application>PCRS</application> libraries.
7873 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
7874 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
7875 introduction only. A full explanation would require a <ulink
7876 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/">book</ulink> ;-)
7880 Regular expressions provide a language to describe patterns that can be
7881 run against strings of characters (letter, numbers, etc), to see if they
7882 match the string or not. The patterns are themselves (sometimes complex)
7883 strings of literal characters, combined with wild-cards, and other special
7884 characters, called meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have
7885 special meanings and are used to build complex patterns to be matched against.
7886 Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are an especially convenient
7887 <quote>dialect</quote> of the regular expression language.
7891 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
7892 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
7893 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
7894 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
7895 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
7896 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
7897 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
7898 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
7902 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
7903 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
7904 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
7905 and then some examples:
7910 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
7911 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
7913 </simplelist></para>
7917 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
7920 </simplelist></para>
7924 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
7927 </simplelist></para>
7931 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
7934 </simplelist></para>
7938 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
7939 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
7940 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
7941 not as a special meta-character. Example: <quote>example\.com</quote>, makes
7942 sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
7943 meta-character meaning of any single character).
7945 </simplelist></para>
7949 <emphasis>[ ]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
7950 any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, <quote>[0-9]</quote>
7951 matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
7952 this with <quote>+</quote> to match any digit one of more times: <quote>[0-9]+</quote>.
7954 </simplelist></para>
7958 <emphasis>( )</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
7959 or multiple sub-expressions.
7961 </simplelist></para>
7965 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
7966 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
7967 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches. As an example:
7968 <quote>/(this|that) example/</quote> uses grouping and the bar character
7969 and would match either <quote>this example</quote> or <quote>that
7970 example</quote>, and nothing else.
7972 </simplelist></para>
7975 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
7976 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
7977 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
7978 be more illuminating:
7982 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
7983 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
7984 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
7985 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
7986 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
7987 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
7988 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
7989 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
7990 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
7991 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
7992 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
7993 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
7994 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
7995 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
8000 And now something a little more complex:
8004 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
8005 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
8006 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
8007 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
8008 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
8009 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
8010 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
8015 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
8016 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
8017 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
8018 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
8019 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
8020 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
8021 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
8022 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
8023 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
8024 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
8025 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
8026 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
8027 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
8028 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
8029 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
8030 changing our regular expression to:
8031 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
8036 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
8037 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
8038 <quote>[ ]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
8039 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
8040 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
8041 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
8042 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
8043 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
8044 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
8045 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
8046 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
8047 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
8048 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
8049 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
8050 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
8051 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
8052 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
8053 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
8054 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
8055 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
8056 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
8057 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
8058 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
8059 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
8060 in the expression anywhere).
8064 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
8065 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
8066 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
8067 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
8068 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
8073 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
8074 <ulink url="http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html">http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html</ulink>
8078 For information on regular expression based substitutions and their applications
8079 in filters, please see the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file tutorial</link>
8084 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
8087 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8089 <title>Privoxy's Internal Pages</title>
8092 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
8093 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
8094 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
8095 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
8096 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
8097 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
8098 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
8104 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
8105 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
8106 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
8107 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
8120 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
8124 There is a shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> (But it
8125 doesn't provide a fall-back to a real page, in case the request is not
8126 sent through <application>Privoxy</application>)
8132 Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
8133 editing of actions files:
8137 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
8144 Show the source code version numbers:
8148 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
8155 Show the browser's request headers:
8159 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
8166 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
8170 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
8177 Toggle Privoxy on or off. This feature can be turned off/on in the main
8178 <filename>config</filename> file. When toggled <quote>off</quote>, <quote>Privoxy</quote>
8179 continues to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking
8184 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
8188 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
8192 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
8197 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
8206 These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
8210 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
8211 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
8213 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
8214 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
8215 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
8216 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
8217 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
8218 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
8221 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
8222 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
8223 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
8224 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
8225 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
8226 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
8235 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=enabled','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Enable</ulink>
8242 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=disabled','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Disable</ulink>
8249 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y&set=toggle','ijbstatus','width=250,height=100,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Toggle Privoxy</ulink> (Toggles between enabled and disabled)
8256 url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?mini=y','ijbstatus','width=250,height=2,resizable=yes,scrollbars=no,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy- View Status</ulink>
8262 <ulink url="javascript:w=Math.floor(screen.width/2);h=Math.floor(screen.height*0.9);void(window.open('http://www.privoxy.org/actions/index.php?url='+escape(location.href),'Feedback','screenx='+w+',width='+w+',height='+h+',scrollbars=yes,toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,copyhistory=no').focus());">Privoxy - Submit Actions File Feedback</ulink>
8268 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info?url='+escape(location.href),'Why').focus());">Privoxy - Why?</ulink>
8275 Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
8276 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com/">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
8277 have more information about bookmarklets.
8286 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8288 <title>Chain of Events</title>
8290 Let's take a quick look at how some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
8291 core features are triggered, and the ensuing sequence of events when a web
8292 page is requested by your browser:
8299 First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
8300 the request to <application>Privoxy</application>, which will in turn,
8301 relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
8307 <application>Privoxy</application> traps any request for its own internal CGI
8308 pages (e.g <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
8313 Next, <application>Privoxy</application> checks to see if the URL
8315 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link> patterns. If
8316 so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
8317 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>
8319 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-EMPTY-DOCUMENT"><quote>+handle-as-empty-document</quote></link>
8320 are then checked, and if there is no match, an
8321 HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page is sent back to the browser. Otherwise, if
8322 it does match, an image is returned for the former, and an empty text
8323 document for the latter. The type of image would depend on the setting of
8324 <link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></link>
8325 (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
8330 Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
8331 <filename>trust</filename> file, then that is done.
8336 If the URL pattern matches the <link
8337 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link> action,
8338 it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
8343 Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
8344 of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. <link
8345 linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT"><quote>+hide-user-agent</quote></link>,
8346 etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
8352 Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web
8358 First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
8359 things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
8360 filtered as determined by the
8361 <link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES"><quote>+crunch-incoming-cookies</quote></link>,
8362 <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>,
8363 and <link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION"><quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote></link>
8369 If the <link linkend="KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></link>
8370 action applies, and it is an HTML or JavaScript document, the popup-code in the
8371 response is filtered on-the-fly as it is received.
8376 If any <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
8378 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
8379 action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
8380 read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from
8381 <filename>default.filter</filename> and any other filter files) are
8382 processed against the buffered content. Filters are applied in the order
8383 they are specified in one of the filter files. Animated GIFs, if present,
8384 are reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
8385 setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
8386 <application>Privoxy</application> back to your browser.
8389 If neither a <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action
8391 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
8392 matches, then <application>Privoxy</application> passes the raw data through
8393 to the client browser as it becomes available.
8398 As the browser receives the now (possibly filtered) page content, it
8399 reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
8400 source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
8401 frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a
8402 separate request (this is easily viewable in <application>Privoxy's</application>
8403 logs). And each such request is in turn processed just as above. Note that a
8404 complex web page will have many, many such embedded URLs. If these
8405 secondary requests are to a different server, then quite possibly a very
8406 differing set of actions is triggered.
8413 NOTE: This is somewhat of a simplistic overview of what happens with each URL
8414 request. For the sake of brevity and simplicity, we have focused on
8415 <application>Privoxy's</application> core features only.
8421 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
8422 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
8423 <title>Troubleshooting: Anatomy of an Action</title>
8426 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies
8427 <link linkend="ACTIONS">actions</link> and <link linkend="FILTER">filters</link>
8428 to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
8429 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
8430 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
8431 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
8432 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
8433 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
8434 <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> whose consequences are not
8439 One quick test to see if <application>Privoxy</application> is causing a problem
8440 or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
8441 step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
8442 and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!). Looking at the
8443 logs is a good idea too. (Note that both the toggle feature and logging are
8444 enabled via <filename>config</filename> file settings, and may need to be
8445 turned <quote>on</quote>.)
8448 Another easy troubleshooting step to try is if you have done any
8449 customization of your installation, revert back to the installed
8450 defaults and see if that helps. There are times the developers get complaints
8451 about one thing or another, and the problem is more related to a customized
8452 configuration issue.
8456 <application>Privoxy</application> also provides the
8457 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
8458 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
8459 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
8463 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
8464 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
8465 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
8466 help with filtering effects (i.e. the <link
8467 linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action) from
8468 one of the filter files since this is handled very
8469 differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other
8470 URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images
8471 such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So
8472 you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area
8473 -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you
8474 will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View
8475 Page Source</quote> option for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the
8480 Let's try an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
8481 and look at it one section at a time in a sample configuration (your real
8482 configuration may vary):
8487 Matches for http://www.google.com:
8489 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8491 {+deanimate-gifs {last}
8492 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
8493 +filter {refresh-tags}
8494 +filter {img-reorder}
8495 +filter {banners-by-size}
8497 +filter {jumping-windows}
8498 +filter {ie-exploits}
8499 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
8500 +hide-from-header {block}
8501 +hide-referrer {forge}
8502 +session-cookies-only
8503 +set-image-blocker {pattern}
8506 { -session-cookies-only }
8512 In file: user.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8513 (no matches in this file)
8518 This is telling us how we have defined our
8519 <link linkend="ACTIONS"><quote>actions</quote></link>, and
8520 which ones match for our test case, <quote>google.com</quote>.
8521 Displayed is all the actions that are available to us. Remember,
8522 the <literal>+</literal> sign denotes <quote>on</quote>. <literal>-</literal>
8523 denotes <quote>off</quote>. So some are <quote>on</quote> here, but many
8524 are <quote>off</quote>. Each example we try may provide a slightly different
8525 end result, depending on our configuration directives.
8529 is for our <filename>default.action</filename> file. The large, multi-line
8530 listing, is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default
8531 settings. If you look at your <quote>actions</quote> file, this would be the
8532 section just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section near the top. This
8533 will apply to all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end
8534 of the listing -- <quote> / </quote>.
8538 But we have defined additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
8539 rules, and then we list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions
8540 would apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit
8541 matches for <quote>.google.com</quote>. The first is negating our previous
8542 cookie setting, which was for <link
8543 linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>
8544 (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google, at
8545 least that is how it is in this example. The second turns
8546 <emphasis>off</emphasis> any <link
8547 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link>
8548 action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading
8549 dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will match any hosts and
8550 sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
8551 <quote>www.google.com</quote> or <quote>mail.google.com</quote>. But it would not
8552 match <quote>www.google.de</quote>! So, apparently, we have these two actions
8553 defined as exceptions to the general rules at the top somewhere in the lower
8554 part of our <filename>default.action</filename> file, and
8555 <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced somewhere in these latter sections.
8559 Then, for our <filename>user.action</filename> file, we again have no hits.
8560 So there is nothing google-specific that we might have added to our own, local
8561 configuration. If there was, those actions would over-rule any actions from
8562 previously processed files, such as <filename>default.action</filename>.
8563 <filename>user.action</filename> typically has the last word. This is the
8564 best place to put hard and fast exceptions,
8568 And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
8569 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
8570 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
8581 -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
8582 -content-type-overwrite
8583 -crunch-client-header
8584 -crunch-if-none-match
8585 -crunch-incoming-cookies
8586 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
8587 -crunch-server-header
8588 +deanimate-gifs {last}
8589 -downgrade-http-version
8592 -filter {content-cookies}
8593 -filter {all-popups}
8594 -filter {banners-by-link}
8595 -filter {tiny-textforms}
8596 -filter {frameset-borders}
8597 -filter {demoronizer}
8598 -filter {shockwave-flash}
8599 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
8601 -filter {crude-parental}
8602 -filter {site-specifics}
8603 -filter {js-annoyances}
8604 -filter {html-annoyances}
8605 +filter {refresh-tags}
8606 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
8607 +filter {img-reorder}
8608 +filter {banners-by-size}
8610 +filter {jumping-windows}
8611 +filter {ie-exploits}
8618 -handle-as-empty-document
8620 -hide-accept-language
8621 -hide-content-disposition
8622 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
8623 +hide-from-header {block}
8624 -hide-if-modified-since
8625 +hide-referrer {forge}
8630 -overwrite-last-modified
8631 -prevent-compression
8635 -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
8636 -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
8637 -session-cookies-only
8638 +set-image-blocker {pattern}
8639 -treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks </screen>
8643 Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
8644 <quote>fast-redirects</quote> and <quote>session-cookies-only</quote>,
8645 which are activated specifically for this site in our configuration,
8646 and thus show in the <quote>Final Results</quote>.
8650 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
8662 { +block +handle-as-image }
8663 .[a-vx-z]*.doubleclick.net
8668 We'll just show the interesting part here - the explicit matches. It is
8669 matched three different times. Two <quote>+block</quote> sections,
8670 and a <quote>+block +handle-as-image</quote>,
8671 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
8672 <quote>+block-as-image</quote>. (<link
8673 linkend="ALIASES"><quote>Aliases</quote></link> are defined in
8674 the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
8679 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
8680 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
8681 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
8682 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
8683 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
8684 is done here -- as both a <link
8685 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link>
8686 <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
8687 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>.
8688 The custom alias <quote><literal>+block-as-image</literal></quote> just
8689 simplifies the process and make it more readable.
8693 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
8694 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm ...
8700 Matches for http://www.example.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
8702 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
8706 -client-header-filter{hide-tor-exit-notation}
8707 -content-type-overwrite
8708 -crunch-client-header
8709 -crunch-if-none-match
8710 -crunch-incoming-cookies
8711 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
8712 -crunch-server-header
8714 -downgrade-http-version
8715 +fast-redirects {check-decoded-url}
8717 -filter {content-cookies}
8718 -filter {all-popups}
8719 -filter {banners-by-link}
8720 -filter {tiny-textforms}
8721 -filter {frameset-borders}
8722 -filter {demoronizer}
8723 -filter {shockwave-flash}
8724 -filter {quicktime-kioskmode}
8726 -filter {crude-parental}
8727 -filter {site-specifics}
8728 -filter {js-annoyances}
8729 -filter {html-annoyances}
8730 +filter {refresh-tags}
8731 -filter {unsolicited-popups}
8732 +filter {img-reorder}
8733 +filter {banners-by-size}
8735 +filter {jumping-windows}
8736 +filter {ie-exploits}
8743 -handle-as-empty-document
8745 -hide-accept-language
8746 -hide-content-disposition
8747 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
8748 +hide-from-header{block}
8749 +hide-referer{forge}
8753 -overwrite-last-modified
8754 +prevent-compression
8758 -server-header-filter{xml-to-html}
8759 -server-header-filter{html-to-xml}
8760 +session-cookies-only
8761 +set-image-blocker{blank}
8762 -treat-forbidden-connects-like-blocks }
8765 { +block +handle-as-image }
8771 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote> in our
8772 configuration! But we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the
8773 blank page. It is actually triggering two different actions here, and
8774 the effects are aggregated so that the URL is blocked, and &my-app; is told
8775 to treat the block as if it were an image. But this is, of course, all wrong.
8776 We could now add a new action below this (or better in our own
8777 <filename>user.action</filename> file) that explicitly
8778 <emphasis>un</emphasis> blocks (
8779 <link linkend="BLOCK"><quote>{-block}</quote></link>) paths with
8780 <quote>adsl</quote> in them (remember, last match in the configuration
8781 wins). There are various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
8793 Now the page displays ;-)
8794 Remember to flush your browser's caches when making these kinds of changes to
8795 your configuration to insure that you get a freshly delivered page! Or, try
8796 using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
8800 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
8807 { +block +handle-as-image }
8813 That actually was very helpful and pointed us quickly to where the problem
8814 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
8815 rules in the first section of <filename>default.action</filename> is causing
8816 the problem. This would require some guesswork, and maybe a little trial and
8817 error to isolate the offending rule. One likely cause would be one of the
8818 <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> actions.
8819 These tend to be harder to troubleshoot.
8820 Try adding the URL for the site to one of aliases that turn off
8821 <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>:
8829 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
8837 <quote><literal>{ shop }</literal></quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
8838 <quote><literal>{ -filter -session-cookies-only }</literal></quote>.
8839 Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
8847 # Disable ALL filter actions for sites in this section
8855 This would turn off all filtering for these sites. This is best
8856 put in <filename>user.action</filename>, for local site
8857 exceptions. Note that when a simple domain pattern is used by itself (without
8858 the subsequent path portion), all sub-pages within that domain are included
8859 automatically in the scope of the action.
8863 Images that are inexplicably being blocked, may well be hitting the
8864 <link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE"><quote>+filter{banners-by-size}</quote></link>
8866 that images of certain sizes are ad banners (works well
8867 <emphasis>most of the time</emphasis> since these tend to be standardized).
8871 <quote><literal>{ fragile }</literal></quote> is an alias that disables most
8872 actions that are the most likely to cause trouble. This can be used as a
8873 last resort for problem sites.
8879 # Handle with care: easy to break
8881 mybank.example.com</screen>
8886 <emphasis>Remember to flush caches!</emphasis> Note that the
8887 <literal>mail.google</literal> reference lacks the TLD portion (e.g.
8888 <quote>.com</quote>). This will effectively match any TLD with
8889 <literal>google</literal> in it, such as <literal>mail.google.de.</literal>,
8893 If this still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining
8894 actions one by one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
8903 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
8904 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
8905 Public License as published by the Free Software
8906 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
8907 your option) any later version.
8909 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
8910 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
8911 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
8912 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
8913 License for more details.
8915 The GNU General Public License should be included with
8916 this file. If not, you can view it at
8917 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
8918 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
8919 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301,
8922 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
8923 Revision 2.54 2008/01/19 17:52:39 hal9
8924 Re-commit to fix various minor issues for new release.
8926 Revision 2.53 2008/01/19 15:03:05 hal9
8927 Doc sources tagged for 3.0.8 release.
8929 Revision 2.52 2008/01/17 01:49:51 hal9
8930 Change copyright notice for docs s/2007/2008/. All these will be rebuilt soon
8933 Revision 2.51 2007/12/23 16:48:24 fabiankeil
8934 Use more precise example descriptions for the mysterious domain patterns.
8936 Revision 2.50 2007/12/08 12:44:36 fabiankeil
8937 - Remove already commented out pre-3.0.7 changes.
8938 - Update the "new log defaults" paragraph.
8940 Revision 2.49 2007/12/06 18:21:55 fabiankeil
8941 Update hide-forwarded-for-headers description.
8943 Revision 2.48 2007/11/24 19:07:17 fabiankeil
8944 - Mention request rewriting.
8945 - Enable the conditional-forge paragraph.
8948 Revision 2.47 2007/11/18 14:59:47 fabiankeil
8949 A few "Note to Upgraders" updates.
8951 Revision 2.46 2007/11/17 17:24:44 fabiankeil
8952 - Use new action defaults.
8953 - Minor fixes and rewordings.
8955 Revision 2.45 2007/11/16 11:48:46 hal9
8956 Fix one typo, and add a couple of small refinements.
8958 Revision 2.44 2007/11/15 03:30:20 hal9
8959 Results of spell check.
8961 Revision 2.43 2007/11/14 18:45:39 fabiankeil
8962 - Mention some more contributors in the "New in this Release" list.
8965 Revision 2.42 2007/11/12 03:32:40 hal9
8966 Updates for "What's New" and "Notes to Upgraders". Various other changes in
8967 preparation for new release. User Manual is almost ready.
8969 Revision 2.41 2007/11/11 16:32:11 hal9
8970 This is primarily syncing What's New and Note to Upgraders sections with the many
8971 new features and changes (gleaned from memory but mostly from ChangeLog).
8973 Revision 2.40 2007/11/10 17:10:59 fabiankeil
8974 In the first third of the file, mention several times that
8975 the action editor is disabled by default in 3.0.7 beta and later.
8977 Revision 2.39 2007/11/05 02:34:49 hal9
8978 Various changes in preparation for the upcoming release. Much yet to be done.
8980 Revision 2.38 2007/09/22 16:01:42 fabiankeil
8981 Update embedded show-url-info output.
8983 Revision 2.37 2007/08/27 16:09:55 fabiankeil
8984 Fix pre-chroot-nslookup description which I failed to
8985 copy and paste properly. Reported by Stephen Gildea.
8987 Revision 2.36 2007/08/26 16:47:14 fabiankeil
8988 Add Stephen Gildea's pre-chroot-nslookup patch [#1276666],
8989 extensive comments moved to user manual.
8991 Revision 2.35 2007/08/26 14:59:49 fabiankeil
8992 Minor rewordings and fixes.
8994 Revision 2.34 2007/08/05 15:19:50 fabiankeil
8995 - Don't claim HTTP/1.1 compliance.
8996 - Use $ in some of the path pattern examples.
8997 - Use a hide-user-agent example argument without
8998 leading and trailing space.
8999 - Make it clear that the cookie actions work with
9001 - Rephrase the inspect-jpegs text to underline
9002 that it's only meant to protect against a single
9005 Revision 2.33 2007/07/27 10:57:35 hal9
9006 Add references for user-agent strings for hide-user-agenet
9008 Revision 2.32 2007/06/07 12:36:22 fabiankeil
9009 Apply Roland's 29_usermanual.dpatch to fix a bunch
9010 of syntax errors I collected over the last months.
9012 Revision 2.31 2007/06/02 14:01:37 fabiankeil
9013 Start to document forward-override{}.
9015 Revision 2.30 2007/04/25 15:10:36 fabiankeil
9016 - Describe installation for FreeBSD.
9017 - Start to document taggers and tag patterns.
9018 - Don't confuse devils and daemons.
9020 Revision 2.29 2007/04/05 11:47:51 fabiankeil
9021 Some updates regarding header filtering,
9022 handling of compressed content and redirect's
9023 support for pcrs commands.
9025 Revision 2.28 2006/12/10 23:42:48 hal9
9026 Fix various typos reported by Adam P. Thanks.
9028 Revision 2.27 2006/11/14 01:57:47 hal9
9029 Dump all docs prior to 3.0.6 release. Various minor changes to faq and user
9032 Revision 2.26 2006/10/24 11:16:44 hal9
9035 Revision 2.25 2006/10/18 10:50:33 hal9
9036 Add note that since filters are off in Cautious, compression is ON. Turn off
9037 compression to make filters work on all sites.
9039 Revision 2.24 2006/10/03 11:13:54 hal9
9040 More references to the new filters. Include html this time around.
9042 Revision 2.23 2006/10/02 22:43:53 hal9
9043 Contains new filter definitions from Fabian, and few other miscellaneous
9046 Revision 2.22 2006/09/22 01:27:55 hal9
9047 Final commit of probably various minor changes here and there. Unless
9048 something changes this should be ready for pending release.
9050 Revision 2.21 2006/09/20 03:21:36 david__schmidt
9051 Just the tiniest tweak. Wafer thin!
9053 Revision 2.20 2006/09/10 14:53:54 hal9
9054 Results of spell check. User manual has some updates to standard.actions file
9057 Revision 2.19 2006/09/08 12:19:02 fabiankeil
9058 Adjust hide-if-modified-since example values
9059 to reflect the recent changes.
9061 Revision 2.18 2006/09/08 02:38:57 hal9
9063 -Fix a number of broken links.
9064 -Migrate the new Windows service command line options, and reference as
9066 -Rebuild so that can be used with the new "user-manual" config capabilities.
9069 Revision 2.17 2006/09/05 13:25:12 david__schmidt
9070 Add Windows service invocation stuff (duplicated) in FAQ and in user manual under Windows startup. One probably ought to reference the other.
9072 Revision 2.16 2006/09/02 12:49:37 hal9
9073 Various small updates for new actions, filterfiles, etc.
9075 Revision 2.15 2006/08/30 11:15:22 hal9
9076 More work on the new actions, especially filter-*-headers, and What's New
9077 section. User Manual is close to final form for 3.0.4 release. Some tinkering
9078 and proof reading left to do.
9080 Revision 2.14 2006/08/29 10:59:36 hal9
9081 Add a "Whats New in this release" Section. Further work on multiple filter
9082 files, and assorted other minor changes.
9084 Revision 2.13 2006/08/22 11:04:59 hal9
9085 Silence warnings and errors. This should build now. New filters were only
9086 stubbed in. More to be done.
9088 Revision 2.12 2006/08/14 08:40:39 fabiankeil
9089 Documented new actions that were part of
9090 the "minor Privoxy improvements".
9092 Revision 2.11 2006/07/18 14:48:51 david__schmidt
9093 Reorganizing the repository: swapping out what was HEAD (the old 3.1 branch)
9094 with what was really the latest development (the v_3_0_branch branch)
9096 Revision 1.123.2.43 2005/05/23 09:59:10 hal9
9099 Revision 1.123.2.42 2004/12/04 14:39:57 hal9
9100 Fix two minor typos per bug SF report.
9102 Revision 1.123.2.41 2004/03/23 12:58:42 oes
9105 Revision 1.123.2.40 2004/02/27 12:48:49 hal9
9106 Add comment re: redirecting to local file system for set-image-blocker may
9107 is dependent on browser.
9109 Revision 1.123.2.39 2004/01/30 22:31:40 oes
9110 Added a hint re bookmarklets to Quickstart section
9112 Revision 1.123.2.38 2004/01/30 16:47:51 oes
9113 Some minor clarifications
9115 Revision 1.123.2.37 2004/01/29 22:36:11 hal9
9116 Updates for no longer filtering text/plain, and demoronizer default settings,
9117 and copyright notice dates.
9119 Revision 1.123.2.36 2003/12/10 02:26:26 hal9
9120 Changed the demoronizer filter description.
9122 Revision 1.123.2.35 2003/11/06 13:36:37 oes
9123 Updated link to nightly CVS tarball
9125 Revision 1.123.2.34 2003/06/26 23:50:16 hal9
9126 Add a small bit on filtering and problems re: source code being corrupted.
9128 Revision 1.123.2.33 2003/05/08 18:17:33 roro
9129 Use apt-get instead of dpkg to install Debian package, which is more
9130 solid, uses the correct and most recent Debian version automatically.
9132 Revision 1.123.2.32 2003/04/11 03:13:57 hal9
9133 Add small note about only one filterfile (as opposed to multiple actions
9136 Revision 1.123.2.31 2003/03/26 02:03:43 oes
9137 Updated hard-coded copyright dates
9139 Revision 1.123.2.30 2003/03/24 12:58:56 hal9
9140 Add new section on Predefined Filters.
9142 Revision 1.123.2.29 2003/03/20 02:45:29 hal9
9143 More problems with \-\-chroot causing markup problems :(
9145 Revision 1.123.2.28 2003/03/19 00:35:24 hal9
9146 Manual edit of revision log because 'chroot' (even inside a comment) was
9147 causing Docbook to hang here (due to double hyphen and the processor thinking
9150 Revision 1.123.2.27 2003/03/18 19:37:14 oes
9151 s/Advanced|Radical/Adventuresome/g to avoid complaints re fun filter
9153 Revision 1.123.2.26 2003/03/17 16:50:53 oes
9154 Added documentation for new chroot option
9156 Revision 1.123.2.25 2003/03/15 18:36:55 oes
9157 Adapted to the new filters
9159 Revision 1.123.2.24 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9
9160 Move default profiles table from FAQ to U-M, and other minor related changes.
9163 Revision 1.123.2.23 2002/10/21 02:32:01 hal9
9164 Updates to the user.action examples section. A few new ones.
9166 Revision 1.123.2.22 2002/10/12 00:51:53 hal9
9167 Add demoronizer to filter section.
9169 Revision 1.123.2.21 2002/10/10 04:09:35 hal9
9170 s/Advanced/Radical/ and added very brief note.
9172 Revision 1.123.2.20 2002/10/10 03:49:21 hal9
9173 Add notes to session-cookies-only and Quickstart about pre-existing
9174 cookies. Also, note content-cookies work differently.
9176 Revision 1.123.2.19 2002/09/26 01:25:36 hal9
9177 More explanation on Privoxy patterns, more on content-cookies and SSL.
9179 Revision 1.123.2.18 2002/08/22 23:47:58 hal9
9180 Add 'Documentation' to Privoxy Menu shot in Configuration section to match
9183 Revision 1.123.2.17 2002/08/18 01:13:05 hal9
9184 Spell checked (only one typo this time!).
9186 Revision 1.123.2.16 2002/08/09 19:20:54 david__schmidt
9187 Update to Mac OSX startup script name
9189 Revision 1.123.2.15 2002/08/07 17:32:11 oes
9190 Converted some internal links from ulink to link for PDF creation; no content changed
9192 Revision 1.123.2.14 2002/08/06 09:16:13 oes
9193 Nits re: actions file download
9195 Revision 1.123.2.13 2002/08/02 18:23:19 g_sauthoff
9196 Just 2 small corrections to the Gentoo sections
9198 Revision 1.123.2.12 2002/08/02 18:17:21 g_sauthoff
9199 Added 2 Gentoo sections
9201 Revision 1.123.2.11 2002/07/26 15:20:31 oes
9202 - Added version info to title
9203 - Added info on new filters
9204 - Revised parts of the filter file tutorial
9205 - Added info on where to get updated actions files
9207 Revision 1.123.2.10 2002/07/25 21:42:29 hal9
9208 Add brief notes on not proxying non-HTTP protocols.
9210 Revision 1.123.2.9 2002/07/11 03:40:28 david__schmidt
9212 Updated Mac OSX sections due to installation location change
9214 Revision 1.123.2.8 2002/06/09 16:36:32 hal9
9215 Clarifications on filtering and MIME. Hardcode 'latest release' in index.html.
9217 Revision 1.123.2.7 2002/06/09 00:29:34 hal9
9218 Touch ups on filtering, in actions section and Anatomy.
9220 Revision 1.123.2.6 2002/06/06 23:11:03 hal9
9221 Fix broken link. Linkchecked all docs.
9223 Revision 1.123.2.5 2002/05/29 02:01:02 hal9
9224 This is break out of the entire config section from u-m, so it can
9225 eventually be used to generate the comments, etc in the main config file
9226 so that these are in sync with each other.
9228 Revision 1.123.2.4 2002/05/27 03:28:45 hal9
9229 Ooops missed something from David.
9231 Revision 1.123.2.3 2002/05/27 03:23:17 hal9
9232 Fix FIXMEs for OS2 and OSX startup. Fix Redhat typos (should be Red Hat).
9233 That's a wrap, I think.
9235 Revision 1.123.2.2 2002/05/26 19:02:09 hal9
9236 Move Amiga stuff around to take of FIXME in start up section.
9238 Revision 1.123.2.1 2002/05/26 17:04:25 hal9
9239 -Spellcheck, very minor edits, and sync across branches
9241 Revision 1.123 2002/05/24 23:19:23 hal9
9242 Include new image (Proxy setup). More fun with guibutton.
9243 Minor corrections/clarifications here and there.
9245 Revision 1.122 2002/05/24 13:24:08 oes
9246 Added Bookmarklet for one-click pre-filled access to show-url-info
9248 Revision 1.121 2002/05/23 23:20:17 oes
9249 - Changed more (all?) references to actions to the
9250 <literal><link> style.
9251 - Small fixes in the actions chapter
9252 - Small clarifications in the quickstart to ad blocking
9253 - Removed <emphasis> from <title>s since the new doc CSS
9254 renders them red (bad in TOC).
9256 Revision 1.120 2002/05/23 19:16:43 roro
9257 Correct Debian specials (installation and startup).
9259 Revision 1.119 2002/05/22 17:17:05 oes
9262 Revision 1.118 2002/05/21 04:54:55 hal9
9263 -New Section: Quickstart to Ad Blocking
9264 -Reformat Actions Anatomy to match new CGI layout
9266 Revision 1.117 2002/05/17 13:56:16 oes
9267 - Reworked & extended Templates chapter
9268 - Small changes to Regex appendix
9269 - #included authors.sgml into (C) and hist chapter
9271 Revision 1.116 2002/05/17 03:23:46 hal9
9272 Fixing merge conflict in Quickstart section.
9274 Revision 1.115 2002/05/16 16:25:00 oes
9275 Extended the Filter File chapter & minor fixes
9277 Revision 1.114 2002/05/16 09:42:50 oes
9278 More ulink->link, added some hints to Quickstart section
9280 Revision 1.113 2002/05/15 21:07:25 oes
9281 Extended and further commented the example actions files
9283 Revision 1.112 2002/05/15 03:57:14 hal9
9284 Spell check. A few minor edits here and there for better syntax and
9287 Revision 1.111 2002/05/14 23:01:36 oes
9290 Revision 1.110 2002/05/14 19:10:45 oes
9291 Restored alphabetical order of actions
9293 Revision 1.109 2002/05/14 17:23:11 oes
9294 Renamed the prevent-*-cookies actions, extended aliases section and moved it before the example AFs
9296 Revision 1.108 2002/05/14 15:29:12 oes
9297 Completed proofreading the actions chapter
9299 Revision 1.107 2002/05/12 03:20:41 hal9
9300 Small clarifications for 127.0.0.1 vs localhost for listen-address since this
9301 apparently an important distinction for some OS's.
9303 Revision 1.106 2002/05/10 01:48:20 hal9
9304 This is mostly proposed copyright/licensing additions and changes. Docs
9305 are still GPL, but licensing and copyright are more visible. Also, copyright
9306 changed in doc header comments (eliminate references to JB except FAQ).
9308 Revision 1.105 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
9309 Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
9311 Revision 1.104 2002/05/04 08:44:45 swa
9314 Revision 1.103 2002/05/04 00:40:53 hal9
9315 -Remove the TOC first page kludge. It's fixed proper now in ldp.dsl.in.
9316 -Some minor additions to Quickstart.
9318 Revision 1.102 2002/05/03 17:46:00 oes
9319 Further proofread & reactivated short build instructions
9321 Revision 1.101 2002/05/03 03:58:30 hal9
9322 Move the user-manual config directive to top of section. Add note about
9323 Privoxy needing read permissions for configs, and write for logs.
9325 Revision 1.100 2002/04/29 03:05:55 hal9
9326 Add clarification on differences of new actions files.
9328 Revision 1.99 2002/04/28 16:59:05 swa
9329 more structure in starting section
9331 Revision 1.98 2002/04/28 05:43:59 hal9
9332 This is the break up of configuration.html into multiple files. This
9333 will probably break links elsewhere :(
9335 Revision 1.97 2002/04/27 21:04:42 hal9
9336 -Rewrite of Actions File example.
9337 -Add section for user-manual directive in config.
9339 Revision 1.96 2002/04/27 05:32:00 hal9
9340 -Add short section to Filter Files to tie in with +filter action.
9341 -Start rewrite of examples in Actions Examples (not finished).
9343 Revision 1.95 2002/04/26 17:23:29 swa
9344 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
9346 Revision 1.94 2002/04/26 05:24:36 hal9
9347 -Add most of Andreas suggestions to Chain of Events section.
9348 -A few other minor corrections and touch up.
9350 Revision 1.92 2002/04/25 18:55:13 hal9
9351 More catchups on new actions files, and new actions names.
9352 Other assorted cleanups, and minor modifications.
9354 Revision 1.91 2002/04/24 02:39:31 hal9
9355 Add 'Chain of Events' section.
9357 Revision 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 hal9
9358 Linuxconf is deprecated on RH, substitute chkconfig.
9360 Revision 1.89 2002/04/23 21:05:28 oes
9361 Added hint for startup on Red Hat
9363 Revision 1.88 2002/04/23 05:37:54 hal9
9364 Add AmigaOS install stuff.
9366 Revision 1.87 2002/04/23 02:53:15 david__schmidt
9367 Updated OSX installation section
9368 Added a few English tweaks here an there
9370 Revision 1.86 2002/04/21 01:46:32 hal9
9371 Re-write actions section.
9373 Revision 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9
9374 Fix ugly typo (mine).
9376 Revision 1.84 2002/04/18 21:17:13 hal9
9377 Spell Redhat correctly (ie Red Hat). A few minor grammar corrections.
9379 Revision 1.83 2002/04/18 18:21:12 oes
9380 Added RPM install detail
9382 Revision 1.82 2002/04/18 12:04:50 oes
9385 Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
9386 Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
9388 Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
9389 Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
9391 Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
9392 Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
9394 Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
9397 Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
9398 Proofreading, part one
9400 Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
9401 -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
9402 -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
9404 Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
9405 Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
9407 Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
9408 Add small section on submitting actions.
9410 Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
9413 Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
9414 Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
9416 Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
9417 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
9419 Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
9422 Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
9423 -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
9424 -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
9425 -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
9426 -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
9428 Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
9429 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
9431 Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
9432 more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
9434 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
9435 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
9436 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
9437 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
9438 eventually be set by Makefile.
9439 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
9441 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
9442 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
9444 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
9445 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
9447 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
9448 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
9450 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
9451 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
9452 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
9453 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
9455 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
9458 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
9459 Added more to Anatomy section.
9461 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
9462 Touch up intro for new name.
9464 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
9465 we have a new homepage!
9467 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
9468 A few minor catch ups with name change.
9470 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
9471 configure needs to be generated.
9473 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
9474 we are too lazy to make a block-built
9475 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
9477 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
9478 name change related issue.
9480 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
9481 name change. changed filenames.
9483 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
9486 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
9487 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
9488 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
9489 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
9490 comments and remarks to history untouched.
9492 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
9495 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
9496 New section in Appendix.
9498 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
9499 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
9501 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
9502 correct feedback channels
9504 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
9505 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
9507 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
9510 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
9511 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
9513 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
9514 Added imageblock{pattern}.
9516 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
9519 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
9520 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
9522 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
9523 provide correct feedback channels
9525 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
9526 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
9528 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
9529 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
9531 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
9532 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
9534 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
9535 Add new - - user option.
9537 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
9538 Added section on command line options.
9540 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
9541 Changed default port to 8118
9543 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
9544 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
9546 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
9547 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
9548 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
9551 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
9554 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
9555 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
9557 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
9558 Update OS/2 build section
9560 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
9561 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
9562 will work - no other changes are needed.
9564 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
9565 Added a very short section on Templates
9567 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
9568 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
9570 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
9571 Touch ups for *.action files.
9573 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
9576 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
9577 Updates for recent changes.
9579 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
9580 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
9582 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
9583 Correct 2 minor errors
9585 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
9586 *** empty log message ***
9588 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
9589 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
9591 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
9592 wrong url in documentation
9594 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
9595 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
9597 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
9600 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
9603 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
9606 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
9607 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
9609 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
9610 Some additions, and re-arranging.
9612 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
9615 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
9616 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
9618 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
9621 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
9622 source files for junkbuster documentation
9624 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
9625 first proposal of a structure.
9627 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
9628 docs should have an author.
9630 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
9631 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.