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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">
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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 "0.0.0">
15 <!entity p-status "UNRELEASED">
16 <!entity % p-authors-formal "INCLUDE"> <!-- include additional text, etc -->
17 <!entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE">
18 <!entity % p-stable "IGNORE">
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 -->
29 File : $Source: /cvsroot/ijbswa/current/doc/source/user-manual.sgml,v $
32 This file belongs into
33 ijbswa.sourceforge.net:/home/groups/i/ij/ijbswa/htdocs/
35 $Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.123.2.24 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9 Exp $
37 Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 Privoxy Developers <developers@privoxy.org>
40 ========================================================================
41 NOTE: Please read developer-manual/documentation.html before touching
42 anything in this, or other Privoxy documentation.
43 ========================================================================
50 <title>Privoxy &p-version; User Manual</title>
54 <!-- Completely the wrong markup, but very little is allowed -->
55 <!-- in this part of an article. FIXME -->
56 <link linkend="copyright">Copyright</link> &my-copy; 2001, 2002 by
57 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
61 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.123.2.24 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9 Exp $</pubdate>
65 Note: the following should generate a separate page, and a live link to it,
66 all nicely done. But it doesn't for some mysterious reason. Please leave
67 commented unless it can be fixed proper. For the time being, the
68 copyright/license declarations will be in their own sgml.
75 <holder>Privoxy Developers</holder>
78 <legalnotice id="legalnotice">
80 text goes here ........
92 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
93 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
94 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
100 The <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> gives users information on how to
101 install, configure and use <ulink
102 url="http://www.privoxy.org/"><application>Privoxy</application></ulink>.
105 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
107 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
110 You can find the latest version of the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> at <ulink
111 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
112 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> on how to
113 contact the developers.
117 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
123 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
124 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
126 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
127 <application>Privoxy</application>, v.&p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
128 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
129 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
130 configuration files. Development of version 3.0 is currently nearing
131 completion, and includes many significant changes and enhancements over
132 earlier versions. The target release date for
133 stable v3.0 is <quote>soon</quote> ;-)]]>.
136 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
139 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
140 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
141 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
146 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
147 <sect2 id="features"><title>Features</title>
149 In addition to <application>Internet Junkbuster's</application> traditional
150 features of ad and banner blocking and cookie management,
151 <application>Privoxy</application> provides new features<![%p-not-stable;[,
152 some of them currently under development]]>:
154 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
156 <!-- end boilerplate -->
161 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
164 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
165 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
168 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
169 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
170 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
171 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project
176 Note: If you have a previous <application>Junkbuster</application> or
177 <application>Privoxy</application> installation on your system, you
178 will need to remove it. On some platforms, this may be done for you as part
179 of their installation procedure. (See below for your platform). In any case
180 <emphasis>be sure to backup your old configuration if it is valuable to
181 you.</emphasis> See the <link linkend="upgradersnote">note to
182 upgraders</link> section below.
185 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
186 <sect2 id="installation-packages"><title>Binary Packages</title>
188 How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
191 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
192 <sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Red Hat, SuSE and Conectiva RPMs</title>
195 RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm</literal>,
196 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location
197 of configuration files.
201 Note that on Red Hat, <application>Privoxy</application> will
202 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be automatically started on system boot. You will
203 need to enable that using <command>chkconfig</command>,
204 <command>ntsysv</command>, or similar methods. Note that SuSE will
205 automatically start Privoxy in the boot process.
209 If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM:
210 <literal>rpm --rebuild privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm</literal>. This
211 will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.
215 Also note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
216 on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
217 Otherwise, RPM will try to remove <application>Junkbuster</application>
218 automatically, before installing <application>Privoxy</application>.
222 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
223 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian</title>
225 DEBs can be installed with <literal>dpkg -i
226 privoxy_&p-version;-1.deb</literal>, and will use
227 <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location of configuration
232 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
233 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
236 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
237 the installation process. You will find the configuration files
238 in the same directory as you installed Privoxy in. We do not
239 use the registry of Windows.
243 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
244 <sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX</title>
247 Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
248 untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
249 things go. <!-- FIXME, more info needed? -->
253 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
254 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
257 First, make sure that no previous installations of
258 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
259 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
260 system. Check that no <application>Junkbuster</application>
261 or <application>Privoxy</application> objects are in
267 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
268 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
269 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
270 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
274 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
275 into will contain all of the configuration files.
279 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
280 <sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Mac OSX</title>
282 Unzip the downloaded file (you can either double-click on the file
283 from the finder, or from the desktop if you downloaded it there).
284 Then, double-click on the package installer icon named
285 <literal>Privoxy.pkg</literal>
286 and follow the installation process.
287 <application>Privoxy</application> will be installed in the folder
288 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal>.
289 It will start automatically whenever you start up. To prevent it from
290 starting automatically, remove or rename the folder
291 <literal>/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal>.
294 To start Privoxy by hand, double-click on
295 <literal>StartPrivoxy.command</literal> in the
296 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal> folder.
297 Or, type this command in the Terminal:
301 /Library/Privoxy/StartPrivoxy.command
305 You will be prompted for the administrator password.
309 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
310 <sect3 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
312 Copy and then unpack the <filename>lha</filename> archive to a suitable location.
313 All necessary files will be installed into <application>Privoxy</application>
314 directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just
315 remove this directory.
319 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
320 <sect3 id="installattion-gentoo"><title>Gentoo</title>
322 Gentoo source packages (Ebuilds) for <application>Privoxy</application> are
323 contained in the Gentoo Portage Tree (they are not on the download page,
324 but there is a Gentoo section, where you can see when a new
325 <application>Privoxy</application> Version is added to the Portage Tree).
328 Before installing <application>Privoxy</application> under Gentoo just do
329 first <literal>emerge rsync</literal> to get the latest changes from the
330 Portage tree. With <literal>emerge privoxy</literal> you install the latest
334 Configuration files are in <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename>, the
335 documentation is in <filename>/usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;</filename>
336 and the Log directory is in <filename>/var/log/privoxy</filename>.
342 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
343 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
346 The most convenient way to obtain the <application>Privoxy</application> sources
347 is to download the source tarball from our <ulink url="http://sf.net/projects/ijbswa/">project
352 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
353 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
354 version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
355 CVS repository</ulink> or simply download <ulink
356 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.gz">the nightly CVS
360 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
362 <!-- end boilerplate -->
365 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
366 <sect2 id="installation-keepupdated"><title>Keeping your Installation Up-to-Date</title>
368 As user feedback comes in and development continues, we will make updated versions
369 of both the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link> (as a <ulink
370 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&release_id=103670">separate
371 package</ulink>) and the software itself (including the actions file) available for
376 If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
377 <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
378 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce/">subscribe
379 to our announce mailing list</ulink>, ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
383 In order not to loose your personal changes and adjustments when updating
384 to the latest <literal>default.action</literal> file we <emphasis>strongly
385 recommend</emphasis> that you use <literal>user.action</literal> for your
386 customization of <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
387 linkend="actions-file">Chapter on actions files</link> for details.
395 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
397 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
398 <sect1 id="upgradersnote">
399 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
401 There are very significant changes from earlier
402 <application>Junkbuster</application> versions to the current
403 <application>Privoxy</application>. The number, names, syntax, and
404 purposes of configuration files have substantially changed.
405 <application>Junkbuster 2.0.x</application> configuration
406 files will not migrate, <application>Junkbuster 2.9.x</application>
407 and <application>Privoxy</application> configurations will need to be
408 ported. The functionalities of the old <filename>blockfile</filename>,
409 <filename>cookiefile</filename> and <filename>imagelist</filename>
410 are now combined into the <link linkend="actions-file"><quote>actions
411 files</quote></link>.
412 <filename>default.action</filename>, is the main actions file. Local
413 exceptions should best be put into <filename>user.action</filename>.
416 A <link linkend="filter-file"><quote>filter file</quote></link> (typically
417 <filename>default.filter</filename>) is new as of <application>Privoxy
418 2.9.x</application>, and provides some of the new sophistication (explained
419 below). <filename>config</filename> is much the same as before.
422 If upgrading from a 2.0.x version, you will have to use the new config
423 files, and possibly adapt any personal rules from your older files.
424 When porting personal rules over from the old <filename>blockfile</filename>
425 to the new actions files, please note that even the pattern syntax has
426 changed. If upgrading from 2.9.x development versions, it is still
427 recommended to use the new configuration files.
430 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading:
438 The default listening port is now 8118 due to a conflict with another
444 Some installers may remove earlier versions completely. Save any
445 important configuration files!
450 <application>Privoxy</application> is controllable with a web browser
451 at the special URL: <ulink
452 url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
453 (Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>). Many
454 aspects of configuration can be done here, including temporarily disabling
455 <application>Privoxy</application>.
460 The primary configuration files for cookie management, ad and banner
461 blocking, and many other aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
462 configuration are the <link linkend="actions-file">actions
463 files</link>. It is strongly recommended to become familiar with the new
464 actions concept below, before modifying these files. Locally defined rules
465 should go into <filename>user.action</filename>.
470 <!-- I think it is best to keep this somewhat vague, in case -->
471 <!-- the situation changes under our feet. -->
472 Some installers may not automatically start
473 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
481 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
482 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using <application>Privoxy</application></title>
488 If upgrading, from versions before 2.9.16, please back up any configuration
489 files. See the <link linkend="upgradersnote">Note to Upgraders</link> Section.
495 Install <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
496 linkend="installation">Installation Section</link> below for platform specific
503 Advanced users and those who want to offer <application>Privoxy</application>
504 service to more than just their local machine should check the <link
505 linkend="config">main config file</link>, especially the <link
506 linkend="access-control">security-relevant</link> options. These are
513 Start <application>Privoxy</application>, if the installation program has
514 not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
515 <link linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link>.
521 Set your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application> as HTTP and
522 HTTPS (SSL) proxy by setting the proxy configuration for address of
523 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> and port <literal>8118</literal>.
524 (<application>Junkbuster</application> and earlier versions of
525 <application>Privoxy</application> used port 8000.) See the section <link
526 linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link> below
527 for more details on this.
533 Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
534 If using <application>Privoxy</application> to manage cookies, you should
535 remove any currently stored cookies too.
541 A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
542 most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
543 configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
544 to no initial configuration is required in most cases.
547 See the <link linkend="configuration">Configuration section</link> for more
548 configuration options, and how to customize your installation.
549 <![%draft;[ You might also want to look at the <link
550 linkend="quickstart-ad-blocking">next section</link> for a quick
551 introduction to how <application>Privoxy</application> blocks ads and
558 If you experience ads that slipped through, innocent images that are
559 blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
560 <application>Privoxy's</application> behaviour, take a look at the <link
561 linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>. As a quick start, you might
562 find the <link linkend="act-examples">richly commented examples</link>
563 helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the <ulink
564 url="http://config.privoxy.org">web-based user interface</ulink>. The
565 Appendix <quote><link linkend="actionsanat">Anatomy of an
566 Action</link></quote> has hints how to debug actions that
567 <quote>misbehave</quote>.
573 Please see the section <link linkend="contact">Contacting the
574 Developers</link> on how to report bugs or problems with websites or to get
581 Now enjoy surfing with enhanced comfort and privacy!
589 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
591 <sect2 id="quickstart-ad-blocking">
592 <title>Quickstart to Ad Blocking</title>
594 NOTE: This section is deliberately redundant for those that don't
595 want to read the whole thing (which is getting lengthy).
598 Ad blocking is but one of <application>Privoxy's</application>
599 array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
600 user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody.
603 This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
604 you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive
605 information provided below, though this is highly recommended.
608 First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
609 more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
610 things that were not intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
611 extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
612 <quote>problem</quote> sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
613 configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
614 not an easy way to eliminate <emphasis>all</emphasis> ads. Either take
615 the easy way and settle for <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads blocked with the
616 default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing
617 habits and preferences.
620 Secondly, a brief explanation of <application>Privoxy's </application>
621 <quote>actions</quote>. <quote>Actions</quote> in this context, are
622 the directives we use to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to perform
623 some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell
624 <application>Privoxy</application> to take some <quote>action</quote>. Each
625 action has a unique name and function. While there are many potential
626 <application>actions</application> in <application>Privoxy's</application>
627 arsenal, only a few are used for ad blocking. <link
628 linkend="actions">Actions</link>, and <link linkend="actions-file">action
629 configuration files</link>, are explained in depth below.
632 Actions are specified in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
633 followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
634 can actually be URL type <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> that use
635 wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs. The
636 actions, together with the URL patterns are called a section.
639 When you connect to a website, the full URL will either match one or more
640 of the sections as defined in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
641 or not. If so, then <application>Privoxy</application> will perform the
642 respective actions. If not, then nothing special happens. Furthermore, web
643 pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your web browser will
644 use to load additional components of the page, as it parses the
645 original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just an URL
646 embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server,
647 or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many
652 The actions we need to know about for ad blocking are: <literal><link
653 linkend="block">block</link></literal>, <literal><link
654 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>, and
655 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>:
663 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> - this action stops
664 any contact between your browser and any URL patterns that match this
665 action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads, but also anything
666 that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply stops any
667 communication with the remote server and sends <application>Privoxy</application>'s
668 own built-in BLOCKED page instead to let you now what has happened.
674 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> -
675 tells <application>Privoxy</application> to treat this URL as an image.
676 <application>Privoxy</application>'s default configuration already does this
677 for all common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this
678 is not so easy to determine. So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly
679 important for ad blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of
680 some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the
681 <application>Privoxy</application> BLOCKED page (which would only result in
682 a <quote>broken image</quote> icon). There are some limitations to this
683 though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an image substitution for
684 an entire HTML page in most situations.
691 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> - tells
692 <application>Privoxy</application> what to display in place of an ad image that
693 has hit a block rule. For this to come into play, the URL must match a
694 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action somewhere in the
695 configuration, <emphasis>and</emphasis>, it must also match an
696 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action.
699 The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are:
703 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad
704 replacement is obvious. This is the default.
709 <emphasis>blank</emphasis> - A very small empty GIF image is displayed.
710 This is the so-called <quote>invisible</quote> configuration option.
715 <emphasis>http://<URL></emphasis> - A redirect to any image anywhere
716 of the user's choosing (advanced usage).
725 The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
726 the special <application>Privoxy</application> editor at <ulink
727 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
728 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>). This
729 is an internal page, and does not require Internet access. Select the
730 appropriate <quote>actions</quote> file, and click
731 <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>. It is best to put personal or
732 local preferences in <filename>user.action</filename> since this is not
733 meant to be overwritten during upgrades, and will over-ride the settings in
734 other files. Here you can insert new <quote>actions</quote>, and URLs for ad
735 blocking or other purposes, and make other adjustments to the configuration.
736 <application>Privoxy</application> will detect these changes automatically.
740 A quick and simple step by step example:
748 Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
749 <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote> from the
757 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
762 Find <filename>user.action</filename> in the top section, and click
763 on <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>:
766 <!-- image of editor and actions files selections -->
768 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Actions Files in Use</title>
771 <imagedata fileref="../images/files-in-use.jpg" format="jpg">
774 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ]</phrase>
783 You should have a section with only
784 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> listed under
785 <quote>Actions:</quote>.
786 If not, click a <quote><guibutton>Insert new section below</guibutton></quote>
787 button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the
788 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button right under the word <quote>Actions:</quote>.
789 This will bring up a list of all actions. Find
790 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> near the top, and click
791 in the <quote>Enabled</quote> column, then <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote>
797 Now, in the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> actions section,
798 click the <quote><guibutton>Add</guibutton></quote> button, and paste the URL the
799 browser got from <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote>.
800 Remove the <literal>http://</literal> at the beginning of the URL. Then, click
801 <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote> (or
802 <quote><guibutton>OK</guibutton></quote> if in a pop-up window).
807 Now go back to the original page, and press <keycap>SHIFT-Reload</keycap>
808 (or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now.
816 This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
817 wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same
818 site. For a more extensive explanation of <quote>patterns</quote>, and
819 the entire actions concept, see <link linkend="actions-file">the Actions
824 For advanced users who want to hand edit their config files, you might want
825 to now go to the <link linkend="act-examples">Actions Files Tutorial</link>.
826 The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor.
833 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
836 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
838 <title>Starting <application>Privoxy</application></title>
840 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
841 will want to configure your browser(s) to use
842 <application>Privoxy</application> as a HTTP and HTTPS proxy. The default is
843 127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions
844 used port 8000). This is the one configuration step that must be done!
847 Please note that <application>Privoxy</application> can only proxy HTTP and
848 HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols.
851 <!-- image of Mozilla Proxy configuration -->
853 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration (Mozilla)</title>
856 <imagedata fileref="../images/proxy_setup.jpg" format="jpg">
859 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
866 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
867 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under:
871 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
872 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
873 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton>
875 <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton>
877 <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton>
879 <guibutton>Proxies</guibutton>
881 <guibutton>HTTP Proxy</guibutton>
885 For <application>Internet Explorer</application>:
889 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
890 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
891 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton>
893 <guibutton>Internet Properties</guibutton>
895 <guibutton>Connections</guibutton>
897 <guibutton>LAN Settings</guibutton>
901 Then, check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info
902 (Address: 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include HTTPS (SSL), if you want HTTPS
907 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
908 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. You
909 are now ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
910 <application>Privoxy</application>!
914 <application>Privoxy</application> is typically started by specifying the
915 main configuration file to be used on the command line. If no configuration
916 file is specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application>
917 will look for a file named <filename>config</filename> in the current
918 directory. Except on Win32 where it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>.
921 <sect2 id="start-redhat">
922 <title>Red Hat and Conectiva</title>
924 We use a script. Note that Red Hat does not start Privoxy upon booting per
925 default. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as
926 its main configuration file.
930 # /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
935 <sect2 id="start-debian">
936 <title>Debian</title>
938 We use a script. Note that Debian starts Privoxy upon booting per
939 default. It will use the file
940 <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
945 # /etc/init.d/privoxy start
950 <sect2 id="start-suse">
953 We use a script. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename>
954 as its main configuration file. Note that SuSE starts Privoxy upon booting
964 <sect2 id="start-windows">
965 <title>Windows</title>
967 Click on the Privoxy Icon to start Privoxy. If no configuration file is
968 specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application> will look
969 for a file named <filename>config.txt</filename>. Note that Windows will
970 automatically start Privoxy upon booting you PC.
974 <sect2 id="start-unices">
975 <title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others</title>
977 Example Unix startup command:
981 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
986 <sect2 id="start-os2">
989 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
990 start automatically when the system restarts. You can start it manually by
991 double-clicking on the <application>Privoxy</application> icon in the
992 <application>Privoxy</application> folder.
996 <sect2 id="start-macosx">
997 <title>Mac OSX</title>
999 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
1000 start automatically when the system restarts. To start Privoxy by hand,
1001 double-click on the <literal>StartPrivoxy.command</literal> icon in the
1002 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal> folder. Or, type this command
1007 /Library/Privoxy/StartPrivoxy.command
1011 You will be prompted for the administrator password.
1016 <sect2 id="start-amigaos">
1017 <title>AmigaOS</title>
1019 Start <application>Privoxy</application> (with RUN <>NIL:) in your
1020 <filename>startnet</filename> script (AmiTCP), in
1021 <filename>s:user-startup</filename> (RoadShow), as startup program in your
1022 startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
1023 <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically quit when you quit your
1024 TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that
1025 <application>Privoxy</application> is still running).
1029 <sect2 id="start-gentoo">
1030 <title>Gentoo</title>
1032 A script is again used. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config
1033 </filename> as its main configuration file.
1037 /etc/init.d/privoxy start
1041 Note that <application>Privoxy</application> is not automatically started at
1042 boot time by default. You can change this with the <literal>rc-update</literal>
1047 rc-update add privoxy default
1055 See the section <link linkend="cmdoptions">Command line options</link> for
1059 must find a better place for this paragraph
1062 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
1063 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
1064 <ulink url="actions-file.html"><quote>actions</quote></ulink> files. These are
1065 where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking, and other
1066 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several
1067 such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
1071 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites for which you may prefer
1072 persistent cookies, and add these to your actions configuration as needed. By
1073 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
1074 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), unless you add them to the
1075 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
1076 to edit <filename>user.action</filename> (or through the web based interface)
1077 and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser, it would make
1078 more sense to let <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which
1079 case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
1083 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
1084 sites is the popup-killing (through the <ulink
1085 url="actions-file.html#KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></ulink> and
1087 url="actions-file.html#FILTER-POPUPS"><quote>+filter{popups}</quote></ulink>
1088 actions), because your favorite shopping, banking, or leisure site may need
1089 popups (explained below).
1093 <application>Privoxy</application> is HTTP/1.1 compliant, but not all of
1094 the optional 1.1 features are as yet supported. In the unlikely event that
1095 you experience inexplicable problems with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
1096 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
1097 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
1098 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
1099 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote> config option in
1100 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
1101 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
1105 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
1106 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
1107 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
1108 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote>
1109 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
1110 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1111 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1112 and then follow the link to <quote>View & Change the Current Configuration</quote>.
1113 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
1117 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
1118 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
1119 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
1120 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
1121 to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
1122 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
1123 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
1127 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
1128 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
1129 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
1130 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
1131 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
1132 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
1137 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <link
1138 linkend="actions-file">read more about the actions concept</link>
1139 or even dive deep into the <link linkend="actionsanat">Appendix
1144 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
1145 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
1146 section <link linkend="contact"><quote>Contacting the
1147 Developers</quote></link> below.
1152 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1153 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
1154 <title>Command Line Options</title>
1156 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
1157 command-line options:
1165 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
1168 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
1173 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
1176 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
1181 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
1184 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
1185 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
1190 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
1194 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
1195 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
1196 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
1197 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
1202 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
1206 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
1207 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
1208 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
1213 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
1216 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
1217 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
1218 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
1219 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
1220 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
1221 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
1232 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1235 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1236 <sect1 id="configuration"><title><application>Privoxy</application> Configuration</title>
1238 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
1239 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
1240 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
1241 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
1245 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1248 <title>Controlling <application>Privoxy</application> with Your Web Browser</title>
1250 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
1251 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1252 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1253 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
1254 You will see the following section:
1258 <!-- Needs to be put in a table and colorized -->
1261 <bridgehead renderas="sect2"> Privoxy Menu</bridgehead>
1265 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View & change the current configuration</ulink>
1268 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">View the source code version numbers</ulink>
1271 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">View the request headers.</ulink>
1274 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">Look up which actions apply to a URL and why</ulink>
1277 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">Toggle Privoxy on or off</ulink>
1280 ▪ <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/&p-version;/user-manual/">Documentation</ulink>
1288 This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the
1289 <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, which is where the ad, banner,
1290 cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
1291 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
1292 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
1293 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
1297 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
1298 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
1299 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
1300 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
1301 to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e.
1302 <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There
1303 is even a toggle <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklet</link> offered, so
1304 that you can toggle <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from
1310 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1315 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1317 <sect2 id="confoverview">
1318 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
1320 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
1321 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
1322 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
1323 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
1324 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
1325 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
1329 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
1330 some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
1331 principle configuration files are:
1339 The <link linkend="config">main configuration file</link> is named <filename>config</filename>
1340 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
1341 on Windows. This is a required file.
1347 <filename>default.action</filename> (the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>)
1348 is used to define which <quote>actions</quote> relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups,
1349 content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default. It also defines many
1350 exceptions (both positive and negative) from this default set of actions that enable
1351 <application>Privoxy</application> to selectively eliminate the junk, and only the junk, on
1352 as many websites as possible.
1355 Multiple actions files may be defined in <filename>config</filename>. These
1356 are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
1357 preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
1358 <filename>default.action</filename> (which you will most probably want
1359 to define sooner or later) are probably best applied in
1360 <filename>user.action</filename>, where you can preserve them across
1361 upgrades. <filename>standard.action</filename> is for
1362 <application>Privoxy's</application> internal use.
1365 There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
1367 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1369 url="http://p.p/show-status">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>) for the
1370 various actions files.
1376 <filename>default.filter</filename> (the <link linkend="filter-file">filter
1377 file</link>) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
1378 viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
1379 lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
1380 whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files.
1388 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
1389 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
1390 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
1391 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
1392 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
1393 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
1398 The actions files and <filename>default.filter</filename>
1399 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
1400 maximum flexibility.
1404 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
1405 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
1406 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
1407 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
1408 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
1409 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
1410 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
1415 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
1416 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
1417 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
1418 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
1424 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1427 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1429 <!-- **************************************************** -->
1430 <!-- Include config.sgml here -->
1431 <!-- This is where the entire config file is detailed. -->
1433 <!-- end include -->
1436 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1440 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1442 <sect1 id="actions-file"><title>Actions Files</title>
1445 The actions files are used to define what actions
1446 <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which URLs, and thus determine
1447 how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
1448 transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof). There
1449 are three such files included with <application>Privoxy</application>
1450 with differing purposes:
1457 <filename>default.action</filename> - is the primary action file
1458 that sets the initial values for all actions. It is intended to
1459 provide a base level of functionality for
1460 <application>Privoxy's</application> array of features. So it is
1461 a set of broad rules that should work reasonably well for users everywhere.
1462 This is the file that the developers are keeping updated, and <link
1463 linkend="installation-keepupdated">making available to users</link>.
1468 <filename>user.action</filename> - is intended to be for local site
1469 preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank
1470 has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
1471 thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded.
1476 <filename>standard.action</filename> - is used by the web based editor,
1477 to set various pre-defined sets of rules for the default actions section
1478 in <filename>default.action</filename>. These have increasing levels of
1479 aggressiveness <emphasis>and have no influence on your browsing unless
1480 you select them explicitly in the editor</emphasis>. It is not recommend
1484 The default profiles, and their associated actions, as pre-defined in
1485 <filename>standard.action</filename> are:
1488 <table frame=all><title>Default Configurations</title>
1489 <tgroup cols=4 align=left colsep=1 rowsep=1>
1490 <colspec colname=c1>
1491 <colspec colname=c2>
1492 <colspec colname=c3>
1493 <colspec colname=c4>
1496 <entry>Feature</entry>
1497 <entry>Cautious</entry>
1498 <entry>Medium</entry>
1499 <entry>Radical</entry>
1504 <!-- <entry>f1</entry> -->
1505 <!-- <entry>f2</entry> -->
1506 <!-- <entry>f3</entry> -->
1507 <!-- <entry>f4</entry> -->
1513 <entry>Ad-blocking by URL</entry>
1520 <entry>Ad-filtering by size</entry>
1527 <entry>GIF de-animation</entry>
1534 <entry>Referer forging</entry>
1541 <entry>Cookie handling</entry>
1543 <entry>session-only</entry>
1548 <entry>Pop-up killing</entry>
1549 <entry>unsolicited</entry>
1550 <entry>unsolicited</entry>
1555 <entry>Fast redirects</entry>
1562 <entry>HTML taming</entry>
1569 <entry>JavaScript taming</entry>
1576 <entry>Web-bug killing</entry>
1583 <entry>Fun text replacements</entry>
1590 <entry>Image tag reordering</entry>
1597 <entry>Ad-filtering by link</entry>
1604 <entry>Demoronizer</entry>
1621 The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
1622 file, and are processed in the order they are defined (e.g.
1623 <filename>default.action</filename> is typically process before
1624 <filename>user.action</filename>). The content of these can all be viewed and
1626 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
1630 An actions file typically has multiple sections. If you want to use
1631 <quote>aliases</quote> in an actions file, you have to place the (optional)
1632 <link linkend="aliases">alias section</link> at the top of that file.
1633 Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all
1634 sites and pages (be <emphasis>very careful</emphasis> with using such a
1635 universal set in <filename>user.action</filename> or any other actions file after
1636 <filename>default.action</filename>, because it will override the result
1637 from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
1638 exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
1639 <filename>user.action</filename> as an appendix to <filename>default.action</filename>,
1640 with the advantage that is a separate file, which makes preserving your
1641 personal settings across <application>Privoxy</application> upgrades easier.
1645 Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
1646 just some obnoxious URL that you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
1647 or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
1648 written to disk), content can be modified, JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking
1649 fooled, and much more. See below for a <link linkend="actions">complete list
1653 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1655 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
1657 Note that some <link linkend="actions">actions</link>, like cookie suppression
1658 or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these
1659 techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and
1660 certainly a matter of personal taste. In general, it can be said that the more
1661 <quote>aggressive</quote> your default settings (in the top section of the
1662 actions file) are, the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you
1663 will have to make later. If, for example, you want to crunch all cookies per
1664 default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you
1665 regularly use and that require cookies for actually useful puposes, like maybe
1666 your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
1670 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
1671 distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
1672 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
1673 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :).
1677 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1679 <title>How to Edit</title>
1681 The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by
1682 using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from <ulink
1683 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
1684 The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single feature on a
1685 per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults like
1686 <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> or <quote>Radical</quote>.
1687 Warning: the <quote>Radical</quote> setting is not only more aggressive,
1688 but includes settings that are fun and subversive, and which some may find of
1693 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
1694 the actions files. Look at <filename>default.action</filename> which is richly
1700 <sect2 id="actions-apply">
1701 <title>How Actions are Applied to URLs</title>
1703 Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections,
1704 like the <quote><link linkend="aliases">alias</link></quote> sections which will
1705 be discussed later. For now let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a
1706 heading line (often split up to multiple lines for readability) which consist
1707 of a list of actions, separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces.
1708 Below that, there is a list of URL patterns, each on a separate line.
1712 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
1713 compared to all patterns in each action file file. Every time it matches, the list of
1714 applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated, using the heading
1715 of the section in which the pattern is located. If multiple matches for
1716 the same URL set the same action differently, the last match wins. If not,
1717 the effects are aggregated. E.g. a URL might match a regular section with
1718 a heading line of <literal>{
1719 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link> }</literal>,
1720 then later another one with just <literal>{
1721 +<link linkend="block">block</link> }</literal>, resulting
1722 in <emphasis>both</emphasis> actions to apply.
1726 You can trace this process for any given URL by visiting <ulink
1727 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
1731 More detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
1732 Anatomy of an Action</link>.
1736 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1737 <sect2 id="af-patterns">
1738 <title>Patterns</title>
1740 As mentioned, <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>patterns</quote>
1741 to determine what actions might apply to which sites and pages your browser
1742 attempts to access. These <quote>patterns</quote> use wild card type
1743 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> matching to achieve a high degree of
1744 flexibility. This allows one expression to be expanded and potentially match
1745 against many similar patterns.
1749 Generally, a <application>Privoxy</application> pattern has the form
1750 <literal><domain>/<path></literal>, where both the
1751 <literal><domain></literal> and <literal><path></literal> are
1752 optional. (This is why the special <literal>/</literal> pattern matches all
1753 URLs). Note that the protocol portion of the URL pattern (e.g.
1754 <literal>http://</literal>) should <emphasis>not</emphasis> be included in
1755 the pattern. This is assumed already!
1760 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
1763 is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
1764 regardless of which document on that server is requested.
1769 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
1772 means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
1778 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
1781 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
1782 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
1787 <term><literal>/index.html</literal></term>
1790 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
1791 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server.
1796 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
1799 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
1800 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>.
1807 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1808 <sect3><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
1811 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
1812 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
1818 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
1821 matches any domain that <emphasis>ENDS</emphasis> in
1822 <literal>.example.com</literal>
1827 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
1830 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
1831 <literal>www.</literal>
1836 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
1839 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>
1840 (Correctly speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as a domain.)
1847 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
1848 themselves. They work pretty similar to shell wild-cards: <quote>*</quote>
1849 stands for zero or more arbitrary characters, <quote>?</quote> stands for
1850 any single character, you can define character classes in square
1851 brackets and all of that can be freely mixed:
1856 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
1859 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
1860 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
1865 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
1868 matches all of the above, and then some.
1873 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
1876 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
1877 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
1882 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
1885 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
1886 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
1887 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
1888 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
1896 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1899 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1900 <sect3><title>The Path Pattern</title>
1903 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl compatible regular expressions
1904 (through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> library) for
1909 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
1910 expressions, and full (very technical) documentation on PCRE regex syntax is available on-line
1911 at <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/man.txt">http://www.pcre.org/man.txt</ulink>.
1912 You might also find the Perl man page on regular expressions (<literal>man perlre</literal>)
1913 useful, which is available on-line at <ulink
1914 url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>.
1918 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
1919 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote> (regular expression speak
1920 for the beginning of a line).
1924 Please also note that matching in the path is <emphasis>CASE INSENSITIVE</emphasis>
1925 by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
1926 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch: <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match
1927 only documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
1928 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
1934 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1937 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1939 <sect2 id="actions">
1940 <title>Actions</title>
1942 All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
1943 somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
1944 <quote>+</quote>, and turned off if preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. So a
1945 <literal>+action</literal> means <quote>do that action</quote>, e.g.
1946 <literal>+block</literal> means <quote>please block URLs that match the
1947 following patterns</quote>, and <literal>-block</literal> means <quote>don't
1948 block URLs that match the following patterns, even if <literal>+block</literal>
1949 previously applied.</quote>
1954 Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
1955 separated by whitespace, like in
1956 <literal>{+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}}</literal>,
1957 followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
1958 Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
1959 of the actions file.
1963 There are three classes of actions:
1970 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>enabled</quote> or
1971 <quote>disabled</quote>. Syntax:
1975 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # enable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>
1976 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable></screen>
1979 Example: <literal>+block</literal>
1986 Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
1991 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and set parameter to <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>,
1992 # overwriting parameter from previous match if necessary
1993 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action. The parameter can be omitted</screen>
1996 Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action,
1997 the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
2000 Example: <literal>+hide-user-agent{ Mozilla 1.0 }</literal>
2006 Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions,
2007 but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the
2008 same URL, but with different parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> the parameters
2009 from <emphasis>all</emphasis> matches are remembered. This is used for actions
2010 that can be executed for the same request repeatedly, like adding multiple
2011 headers, or filtering through multiple filters. Syntax:
2015 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and add <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> to the list of parameters
2016 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # remove the parameter <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> from the list of parameters
2017 # If it was the last one left, disable the action.
2018 <replaceable class="parameter">-name</replaceable> # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list</screen>
2021 Examples: <literal>+add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text}</literal> and
2022 <literal>+filter{html-annoyances}</literal>
2030 If nothing is specified in any actions file, no <quote>actions</quote> are
2031 taken. So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
2032 normal, non-blocking, non-anonymizing proxy. You must specifically enable the
2033 privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions
2034 files will give a good starting point).
2038 Later defined actions always over-ride earlier ones. So exceptions
2039 to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
2040 in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files). For
2041 multi-valued actions, the actions are applied in the order they are specified.
2042 Actions files are processed in the order they are defined in
2043 <filename>config</filename> (the default installation has three actions
2044 files). It also quite possible for any given URL pattern to match more than
2045 one pattern and thus more than one set of actions!
2048 <!-- start actions listing -->
2050 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> actions are:
2054 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2055 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
2056 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
2058 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2061 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2063 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="add-header">
2064 <title>add-header</title>
2068 <term>Typical use:</term>
2070 <para>Confuse log analysis, custom applications</para>
2075 <term>Effect:</term>
2078 Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
2085 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2087 <para>Multi-value.</para>
2092 <term>Parameter:</term>
2095 Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
2096 It is recommended that you use the <quote><literal>X-</literal></quote> prefix
2106 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
2107 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
2108 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
2115 <term>Example usage:</term>
2118 <screen>+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}</screen>
2126 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2127 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="block">
2128 <title>block</title>
2132 <term>Typical use:</term>
2134 <para>Block ads or other obnoxious content</para>
2139 <term>Effect:</term>
2142 Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the requests are not
2143 forwarded to the remote server, but answered locally with a substitute page or image,
2144 as determined by the <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>
2145 and <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> actions.
2152 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2154 <para>Boolean.</para>
2159 <term>Parameter:</term>
2169 <application>Privoxy</application> sends a special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page
2170 for requests to blocked pages. This page contains links to find out why the request
2171 was blocked, and a click-through to the blocked content (the latter only if compiled with the
2172 force feature enabled). The <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page adapts to the available
2173 screen space -- it displays full-blown if space allows, or miniaturized and text-only
2174 if loaded into a small frame or window. If you are using <application>Privoxy</application>
2175 right now, you can take a look at the
2176 <ulink url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
2180 A very important exception occurs if <emphasis>both</emphasis>
2181 <literal>block</literal> and <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
2182 apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If
2183 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
2184 (see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter,
2185 if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent.
2188 It is important to understand this process, in order
2189 to understand how <application>Privoxy</application> deals with
2190 ads and other unwanted content.
2193 The <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
2194 action can perform a very similar task, by <quote>blocking</quote>
2195 banner images and other content through rewriting the relevant URLs in the
2196 document's HTML source, so they don't get requested in the first place.
2197 Note that this is a totally different technique, and it's easy to confuse the two.
2203 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2206 <screen>{+block} # Block and replace with "blocked" page
2207 .nasty-stuff.example.com
2209 {+block +handle-as-image} # Block and replace with image
2220 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2221 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-incoming-cookies">
2222 <title>crunch-incoming-cookies</title>
2226 <term>Typical use:</term>
2229 Prevent the web server from setting any cookies on your system
2235 <term>Effect:</term>
2238 Deletes any <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from server replies.
2245 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2247 <para>Boolean.</para>
2252 <term>Parameter:</term>
2264 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> cookies. For
2265 <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> cookies, use
2266 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>.
2267 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable cookies completely.
2270 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
2271 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
2272 since it would prevent the session cookies from being set. See also
2273 <literal><link linkend="filter-content-cookies">filter-content-cookies</link></literal>.
2279 <term>Example usage:</term>
2282 <screen>+crunch-incoming-cookies</screen>
2290 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2291 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-outgoing-cookies">
2292 <title>crunch-outgoing-cookies</title>
2296 <term>Typical use:</term>
2299 Prevent the web server from reading any cookies from your system
2305 <term>Effect:</term>
2308 Deletes any <quote>Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from client requests.
2315 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2317 <para>Boolean.</para>
2322 <term>Parameter:</term>
2334 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> cookies. For
2335 <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> cookies, use
2336 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>.
2337 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable cookies completely.
2340 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
2341 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
2342 since it would prevent the session cookies from being read.
2348 <term>Example usage:</term>
2351 <screen>+crunch-outgoing-cookies</screen>
2360 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2361 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="deanimate-gifs">
2362 <title>deanimate-gifs</title>
2366 <term>Typical use:</term>
2368 <para>Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.</para>
2373 <term>Effect:</term>
2376 De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image.
2383 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2385 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2390 <term>Parameter:</term>
2393 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
2402 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
2403 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
2404 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
2405 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
2406 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
2407 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
2410 You can safely use this action with patterns that will also match non-GIF
2411 objects, because no attempt will be made at anything that doesn't look like
2418 <term>Example usage:</term>
2421 <screen>+deanimate-gifs{last}</screen>
2428 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2429 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="downgrade-http-version">
2430 <title>downgrade-http-version</title>
2434 <term>Typical use:</term>
2436 <para>Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1</para>
2441 <term>Effect:</term>
2444 Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0.
2451 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2453 <para>Boolean.</para>
2458 <term>Parameter:</term>
2470 This is a left-over from the time when <application>Privoxy</application>
2471 didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
2472 unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server
2473 out there. Not all (optional) HTTP/1.1 features are supported yet, so there
2474 is a chance you might need this action.
2480 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2483 <screen>{+downgrade-http-version}
2484 problem-host.example.com</screen>
2492 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2493 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="fast-redirects">
2494 <title>fast-redirects</title>
2498 <term>Typical use:</term>
2500 <para>Fool some click-tracking scripts and speed up indirect links</para>
2505 <term>Effect:</term>
2508 Cut off all but the last valid URL from requests.
2515 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2517 <para>Boolean.</para>
2522 <term>Parameter:</term>
2534 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
2535 will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a
2536 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
2537 resulting from this scheme typically look like:
2538 <emphasis>http://some.place/click-tracker.cgi?target=http://some.where.else</emphasis>.
2541 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
2542 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
2543 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go
2544 to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your
2545 browser ask the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds
2549 This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement.
2550 It is likely to break some sites. You should expect to need possibly
2551 many exceptions to this action, if it is enabled by default in
2552 <filename>default.action</filename>. Some sites just don't work without
2559 <term>Example usage:</term>
2562 <screen>{+fast-redirects}</screen>
2571 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2572 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter">
2573 <title>filter</title>
2577 <term>Typical use:</term>
2579 <para>Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size), do fun text replacements, etc.</para>
2584 <term>Effect:</term>
2587 Text documents, including HTML and JavaScript, to which this action
2588 applies, are filtered on-the-fly through the specified regular expression
2589 based substitutions.
2596 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2598 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2603 <term>Parameter:</term>
2606 The name of a filter, as defined in the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>
2607 (typically <filename>default.filter</filename>, set by the
2608 <literal><link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal>
2609 option in the <link linkend="config">config file</link>). Filtering
2610 can be completely disabled without the use of parameters.
2619 For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available
2620 in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the examples below for
2624 This is potentially a very powerful feature! But <quote>rolling your own</quote>
2625 filters requires a knowledge of regular expressions and HTML.
2628 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
2629 slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
2630 passed the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way
2631 since the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more
2632 noticeable on slower connections.
2635 The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the
2636 <literal><link linkend="buffer-limit">buffer-limit</link></literal>
2637 option in the main <link linkend="config">config file</link>. The
2638 default is 4096 KB (4 Megs). Once this limit is exceeded, the buffered
2639 data, and all pending data, is passed through unfiltered.
2642 Inappropriate MIME types, such as zipped files, are not filtered at all.
2643 Encrypted SSL data (from HTTPS servers) cannot be filtered either since
2644 this would violate the integrity of the secure transaction.
2647 At this time, <application>Privoxy</application> cannot (yet!) uncompress compressed
2648 documents. If you want filtering to work on all documents, even those that
2649 would normally be sent compressed, use the
2650 <literal><link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link></literal>
2651 action in conjunction with <literal>filter</literal>.
2654 Filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
2655 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
2656 action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism
2657 works quite differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners
2658 based on their size (see below), since many of these seem to be somewhat
2662 <link linkend="contact">Feedback</link> with suggestions for new or
2663 improved filters is particularly welcome!
2669 <term>Example usage (with filters from the distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file):</term>
2672 <anchor id="filter-js-annoyances">
2673 <screen>+filter{js-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse</screen>
2676 <anchor id="filter-js-events">
2677 <screen>+filter{js-events} # Kill all JS event bindings (Radically destructive! Only for extra nasty sites)</screen>
2680 <anchor id="filter-html-annoyances">
2681 <screen>+filter{html-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse</screen>
2684 <anchor id="filter-content-cookies">
2685 <screen>+filter{content-cookies} # Kill cookies that come in the HTML or JS content</screen>
2688 <anchor id="filter-refresh-tags">
2689 <screen>+filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups)</screen>
2692 <anchor id="filter-unsolicited-popups">
2693 <screen>+filter{unsolicited-popups} # Disable only unsolicited pop-up windows</screen>
2696 <anchor id="filter-all-popups">
2697 <screen>+filter{all-popups} # Kill all popups in JavaScript and HTML</screen>
2700 <anchor id="filter-img-reorder">
2701 <screen>+filter{img-reorder} # Reorder attributes in <img> tags to make the banners-by-* filters more effective</screen>
2704 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-size">
2705 <screen>+filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners by size</screen>
2708 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-link">
2709 <screen>+filter{banners-by-link} # Kill banners by their links to known clicktrackers</screen>
2712 <anchor id="filter-webbugs">
2713 <screen>+filter{webbugs} # Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)</screen>
2716 <anchor id="filter-tiny-textforms">
2717 <screen>+filter{tiny-textforms} # Extend those tiny textareas up to 40x80 and kill the hard wrap</screen>
2720 <anchor id="filter-jumping-windows">
2721 <screen>+filter{jumping-windows} # Prevent windows from resizing and moving themselves</screen>
2724 <anchor id="filter-frameset-borders">
2725 <screen>+filter{frameset-borders} # Give frames a border and make them resizable</screen>
2728 <anchor id="filter-demoronizer">
2729 <screen>+filter{demoronizer} # Fix MS's non-standard use of standard charsets</screen>
2732 <anchor id="filter-shockwave-flash">
2733 <screen>+filter{shockwave-flash} # Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects</screen>
2736 <anchor id="filter-quicktime-kioskmode">
2737 <screen>+filter{quicktime-kioskmode} # Make Quicktime movies saveable</screen>
2740 <anchor id="filter-fun">
2741 <screen>+filter{fun} # Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!</screen>
2744 <anchor id="filter-crude-parental">
2745 <screen>+filter{crude-parental} # Crude parental filtering (demo only)</screen>
2748 <anchor id="filter-ie-exploits">
2749 <screen>+filter{ie-exploits} # Disable some known Internet Explorer bug exploits</screen>
2757 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2758 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-image">
2759 <title>handle-as-image</title>
2763 <term>Typical use:</term>
2765 <para>Mark URLs as belonging to images (so they'll be replaced by images <emphasis>if they get blocked</emphasis>)</para>
2770 <term>Effect:</term>
2773 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs as images.
2774 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
2775 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>blocked</quote>
2776 page, or a replacement image (as determined by the <literal><link
2777 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> action) will be sent to the
2778 client as a substitute for the blocked content.
2785 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2787 <para>Boolean.</para>
2792 <term>Parameter:</term>
2804 The below generic example section is actually part of <filename>default.action</filename>.
2805 It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should
2809 Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with
2810 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>, to block sources of banners, whose URLs don't
2811 reflect the file type, like in the second example section.
2814 Note that you cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, (in-line) ad
2815 frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they won't display properly.
2816 Forcing <literal>handle-as-image</literal> in this situation will not replace the
2817 ad frame with an image, but lead to error messages.
2823 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
2826 <screen># Generic image extensions:
2829 /.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)$
2831 # These don't look like images, but they're banners and should be
2832 # blocked as images:
2834 {+block +handle-as-image}
2835 some.nasty-banner-server.com/junk.cgi?output=trash
2837 # Banner source! Who cares if they also have non-image content?
2847 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2848 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-forwarded-for-headers">
2849 <title>hide-forwarded-for-headers</title>
2853 <term>Typical use:</term>
2855 <para>Improve privacy by hiding the true source of the request</para>
2860 <term>Effect:</term>
2863 Deletes any existing <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> HTTP header from client requests,
2864 and prevents adding a new one.
2871 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2873 <para>Boolean.</para>
2878 <term>Parameter:</term>
2890 It is fairly safe to leave this on.
2893 This action is scheduled for improvement: It should be able to generate forged
2894 <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> headers using random IP addresses from a specified network,
2895 to make successive requests from the same client look like requests from a pool of different
2896 users sharing the same proxy.
2902 <term>Example usage:</term>
2905 <screen>+hide-forwarded-for-headers</screen>
2913 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2914 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-from-header">
2915 <title>hide-from-header</title>
2919 <term>Typical use:</term>
2921 <para>Keep your (old and ill) browser from telling web servers your email address</para>
2926 <term>Effect:</term>
2929 Deletes any existing <quote>From:</quote> HTTP header, or replaces it with the
2937 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2939 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2944 <term>Parameter:</term>
2947 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
2956 The keyword <quote>block</quote> will completely remove the header
2957 (not to be confused with the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
2961 Alternately, you can specify any value you prefer to be sent to the web
2962 server. If you do, it is a matter of fairness not to use any address that
2963 is actually used by a real person.
2966 This action is rarely needed, as modern web browsers don't send
2967 <quote>From:</quote> headers anymore.
2973 <term>Example usage:</term>
2976 <screen>+hide-from-header{block}</screen> or
2977 <screen>+hide-from-header{spam-me-senseless@sittingduck.example.com}</screen>
2985 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2986 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-referrer">
2987 <title>hide-referrer</title>
2988 <anchor id="hide-referer">
2991 <term>Typical use:</term>
2993 <para>Conceal which link you followed to get to a particular site</para>
2998 <term>Effect:</term>
3001 Deletes the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) HTTP header from the client request,
3002 or replaces it with a forged one.
3009 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3011 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3016 <term>Parameter:</term>
3020 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header completely.</para>
3023 <para><quote>forge</quote> to pretend to be coming from the homepage of the server we are talking to.</para>
3026 <para>Any other string to set a user defined referrer.</para>
3036 <quote>forge</quote> is the preferred option here, since some servers will
3037 not send images back otherwise, in an attempt to prevent their valuable
3038 content from being embedded elsewhere (and hence, without being surrounded
3039 by <emphasis>their</emphasis> banners).
3042 <literal>hide-referer</literal> is an alternate spelling of
3043 <literal>hide-referrer</literal> and the two can be can be freely
3044 substituted with each other. (<quote>referrer</quote> is the
3045 correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
3046 requires it to be spelled as <quote>referer</quote>.)
3052 <term>Example usage:</term>
3055 <screen>+hide-referrer{forge}</screen> or
3056 <screen>+hide-referrer{http://www.yahoo.com/}</screen>
3064 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3065 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-user-agent">
3066 <title>hide-user-agent</title>
3070 <term>Typical use:</term>
3072 <para>Conceal your type of browser and client operating system</para>
3077 <term>Effect:</term>
3080 Replaces the value of the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> HTTP header
3081 in client requests with the specified value.
3088 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3090 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3095 <term>Parameter:</term>
3098 Any user-defined string.
3108 This breaks many web sites that depend on looking at this header in order
3109 to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the
3110 way, is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> a <ulink
3111 url="http://www.javascriptkit.com/javaindex.shtml">smart way to do
3116 Using this action in multi-user setups or wherever different types of
3117 browsers will access the same <application>Privoxy</application> is
3118 <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>. In single-user, single-browser
3119 setups, you might use it to delete your OS version information from
3120 the headers, because it is an invitation to exploit known bugs for your
3121 OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
3122 sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
3123 reason in some cases). Example of this: some MSN sites will not
3124 let <application>Mozilla</application> enter, yet forging to a
3125 <application>Netscape 6.1</application> user-agent works just fine.
3126 (Must be just a silly MS goof, I'm sure :-).
3129 This action is scheduled for improvement.
3135 <term>Example usage:</term>
3138 <screen>+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}</screen>
3146 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3147 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="kill-popups">
3148 <title>kill-popups<anchor id="kill-popup"></title>
3152 <term>Typical use:</term>
3154 <para>Eliminate those annoying pop-up windows (deprecated)</para>
3159 <term>Effect:</term>
3162 While loading the document, replace JavaScript code that opens
3163 pop-up windows with (syntactically neutral) dummy code on the fly.
3170 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3172 <para>Boolean.</para>
3177 <term>Parameter:</term>
3189 This action is basically a built-in, hardwired special-purpose filter
3190 action, but there are important differences: For <literal>kill-popups</literal>,
3191 the document need not be buffered, so it can be incrementally rendered while
3192 downloading. But <literal>kill-popups</literal> doesn't catch as many pop-ups as
3194 linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>all-popups</replaceable>}</link></literal>
3195 does and is not as smart as <literal><link
3196 linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>unsolicited-popups</replaceable>}</link>
3200 Think of it as a fast and efficient replacement for a filter that you
3201 can use if you don't want any filtering at all. Note that it doesn't make
3202 sense to combine it with any <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> action,
3203 since as soon as one <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> applies,
3204 the whole document needs to be buffered anyway, which destroys the advantage of
3205 the <literal>kill-popups</literal> action over its filter equivalent.
3208 Killing all pop-ups unconditionally is problematic. Many shops and banks rely on
3209 pop-ups to display forms, shopping carts etc, and the <literal><link
3210 linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>unsolicited-popups</replaceable>}</link>
3211 </literal> does a fairly good job of catching only the unwanted ones.
3214 If the only kind of pop-ups that you want to kill are exit consoles (those
3215 <emphasis>really nasty</emphasis> windows that appear when you close an other
3216 one), you might want to use
3218 linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>js-annoyances</replaceable>}</literal>
3224 An alternate spelling is <literal>+kill-popup</literal>, which is
3232 <term>Example usage:</term>
3234 <para><screen>+kill-popups</screen></para>
3241 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3242 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="limit-connect">
3243 <title>limit-connect</title>
3247 <term>Typical use:</term>
3249 <para>Prevent abuse of <application>Privoxy</application> as a TCP proxy relay</para>
3254 <term>Effect:</term>
3257 Specifies to which ports HTTP CONNECT requests are allowable.
3264 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3266 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3271 <term>Parameter:</term>
3274 A comma-separated list of ports or port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum
3275 defaulting to 0 and the maximum to 65K).
3284 By default, i.e. if no <literal>limit-connect</literal> action applies,
3285 <application>Privoxy</application> only allows HTTP CONNECT
3286 requests to port 443 (the standard, secure HTTPS port). Use
3287 <literal>limit-connect</literal> if more fine-grained control is desired
3288 for some or all destinations.
3291 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
3292 (<quote>https://</quote> URLs) through proxies. It works very simply:
3293 the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then
3294 short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote server.
3295 This can be a big security hole, since CONNECT-enabled proxies can be
3296 abused as TCP relays very easily.
3299 If you don't know what any of this means, there probably is no reason to
3300 change this one, since the default is already very restrictive.
3306 <term>Example usages:</term>
3308 <!-- I had trouble getting the spacing to look right in my browser -->
3309 <!-- I probably have the wrong font setup, bollocks. -->
3310 <!-- Apparently the emphasis tag uses a proportional font no matter what -->
3312 <screen>+limit-connect{443} # This is the default and need not be specified.
3313 +limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
3314 +limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Ports less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
3315 +limit-connect{-} # All ports are OK (gaping security hole!)</screen>
3322 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3323 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="prevent-compression">
3324 <title>prevent-compression</title>
3328 <term>Typical use:</term>
3331 Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be
3332 passed through <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>s
3338 <term>Effect:</term>
3341 Adds a header to the request that asks for uncompressed transfer.
3348 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3350 <para>Boolean.</para>
3355 <term>Parameter:</term>
3367 More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which
3368 is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But for the <literal><link
3369 linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>, <literal><link linkend="deanimate-gifs">deanimate-gifs</link></literal>
3370 and <literal><link linkend="kill-popups">kill-popups</link></literal> actions to work,
3371 <application>Privoxy</application> needs access to the uncompressed data.
3372 Unfortunately, <application>Privoxy</application> can't yet(!) uncompress, filter, and
3373 re-compress the content on the fly. So if you want to ensure that all websites, including
3374 those that normally compress, can be filtered, you need to use this action.
3377 This will slow down transfers from those websites, though. If you use any of the above-mentioned
3378 actions, you will typically want to use <literal>prevent-compression</literal> in conjunction
3382 Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed
3383 documents correctly (they send an empty document body). If you use <literal>prevent-compression</literal>
3384 per default, you'll have to add exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
3390 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
3393 <screen># Set default:
3395 {+prevent-compression}
3398 # Make exceptions for ill sites:
3400 {-prevent-compression}
3402 www.pclinuxonline.com</screen>
3411 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3412 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-vanilla-wafer">
3413 <title>send-vanilla-wafer</title>
3417 <term>Typical use:</term>
3420 Feed log analysis scripts with useless data.
3426 <term>Effect:</term>
3429 Sends a cookie with each request stating that you do not accept any copyright
3430 on cookies sent to you, and asking the site operator not to track you.
3437 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3439 <para>Boolean.</para>
3444 <term>Parameter:</term>
3456 The vanilla wafer is a (relatively) unique header and could conceivably be used to track you.
3459 This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
3465 <term>Example usage:</term>
3468 <screen>+send-vanilla-wafer</screen>
3477 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3478 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-wafer">
3479 <title>send-wafer</title>
3483 <term>Typical use:</term>
3486 Send custom cookies or feed log analysis scripts with even more useless data.
3492 <term>Effect:</term>
3495 Sends a custom, user-defined cookie with each request.
3502 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3504 <para>Multi-value.</para>
3509 <term>Parameter:</term>
3512 A string of the form <quote><replaceable class="option">name</replaceable>=<replaceable
3513 class="parameter">value</replaceable></quote>.
3522 Being multi-valued, multiple instances of this action can apply to the same request,
3523 resulting in multiple cookies being sent.
3526 This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
3531 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3534 <screen>{+send-wafer{UsingPrivoxy=true}}
3535 my-internal-testing-server.void</screen>
3543 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3544 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="session-cookies-only">
3545 <title>session-cookies-only</title>
3549 <term>Typical use:</term>
3552 Allow only temporary <quote>session</quote> cookies (for the current
3553 browser session <emphasis>only</emphasis>).
3559 <term>Effect:</term>
3562 Deletes the <quote>expires</quote> field from <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote>
3563 server headers. Most browsers will not store such cookies permanently and
3564 forget them in between sessions.
3571 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3573 <para>Boolean.</para>
3578 <term>Parameter:</term>
3590 This is less strict than <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> /
3591 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal> and allows you to browse
3592 websites that insist or rely on setting cookies, without compromising your privacy too badly.
3595 Most browsers will not permanently store cookies that have been processed by
3596 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal> and will forget about them between sessions.
3597 This makes profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
3598 that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
3599 sites, and is the recommended setting.
3602 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>
3603 together with <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> or
3604 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>. If you do, cookies
3605 will be plainly killed.
3608 Note that it is up to the browser how it handles such cookies without an <quote>expires</quote>
3609 field. If you use an exotic browser, you might want to try it out to be sure.
3612 This setting also has no effect on cookies that may have been stored
3613 previously by the browser before starting <application>Privoxy</application>.
3614 These would have to be removed manually.
3617 <application>Privoxy</application> also uses
3618 the <link linkend="filter-content-cookies">content-cookies filter</link>
3619 to block some types of cookies. Content cookies are not effected by
3620 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>.
3626 <term>Example usage:</term>
3629 <screen>+session-cookies-only</screen>
3637 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3638 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="set-image-blocker">
3639 <title>set-image-blocker</title>
3643 <term>Typical use:</term>
3645 <para>Choose the replacement for blocked images</para>
3650 <term>Effect:</term>
3653 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. If <emphasis>both</emphasis>
3654 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><link
3655 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> <emphasis>also</emphasis>
3656 apply, i.e. if the request is to be blocked as an image,
3657 <emphasis>then</emphasis> the parameter of this action decides what will be
3658 sent as a replacement.
3665 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3667 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3672 <term>Parameter:</term>
3677 <quote>pattern</quote> to send a built-in checkerboard pattern image. The image is visually
3678 decent, scales very well, and makes it obvious where banners were busted.
3683 <quote>blank</quote> to send a built-in transparent image. This makes banners disappear
3684 completely, but makes it hard to detect where <application>Privoxy</application> has blocked
3685 images on a given page and complicates troubleshooting if <application>Privoxy</application>
3686 has blocked innocent images, like navigation icons.
3691 <quote><replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable></quote> to
3692 send a redirect to <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>. You can redirect
3693 to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem (via <quote>file:///</quote> URL).
3696 A good application of redirects is to use special <application>Privoxy</application>-built-in
3697 URLs, which send the built-in images, as <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>.
3698 This has the same visual effect as specifying <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote> in
3699 the first place, but enables your browser to cache the replacement image, instead of requesting
3700 it over and over again.
3711 The URLs for the built-in images are <quote>http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=<replaceable
3712 class="parameter">type</replaceable></quote>, where <replaceable class="parameter">type</replaceable> is
3713 either <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote>.
3716 There is a third (advanced) type, called <quote>auto</quote>. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> to be
3717 used in <literal>set-image-blocker</literal>, but meant for use from <link linkend="filter-file">filters</link>.
3718 Auto will select the type of image that would have applied to the referring page, had it been an image.
3724 <term>Example usage:</term>
3730 <screen>+set-image-blocker{pattern}</screen>
3733 Redirect to the BSD devil:
3736 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://www.freebsd.org/gifs/dae_up3.gif}</screen>
3739 Redirect to the built-in pattern for better caching:
3742 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=pattern}</screen>
3750 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3752 <title>Summary</title>
3754 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
3755 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
3756 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
3757 content, and other criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard
3758 and fast rules for all sites. See the <link
3759 linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link> for a brief example on troubleshooting
3765 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3766 <sect2 id="aliases">
3767 <title>Aliases</title>
3769 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
3770 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other actions.
3771 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in actions.
3772 Currently, an alias name can contain any character except space, tab,
3774 <quote>{</quote> and <quote>}</quote>, but we <emphasis>strongly
3775 recommend</emphasis> that you only use <quote>a</quote> to <quote>z</quote>,
3776 <quote>0</quote> to <quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and <quote>-</quote>.
3777 Alias names are not case sensitive, and are not required to start with a
3778 <quote>+</quote> or <quote>-</quote> sign, since they are merely textually
3782 Aliases can be used throughout the actions file, but they <emphasis>must be
3783 defined in a special section at the top of the file!</emphasis>
3784 And there can only be one such section per actions file. Each actions file may
3785 have its own alias section, and the aliases defined in it are only visible
3789 There are two main reasons to use aliases: One is to save typing for frequently
3790 used combinations of actions, the other one is a gain in flexibility: If you
3791 decide once how you want to handle shops by defining an alias called
3792 <quote>shop</quote>, you can later change your policy on shops in
3793 <emphasis>one</emphasis> place, and your changes will take effect everywhere
3794 in the actions file where the <quote>shop</quote> alias is used. Calling aliases
3795 by their purpose also makes your actions files more readable.
3798 Currently, there is one big drawback to using aliases, though:
3799 <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in web-based action file
3800 editor honors aliases when reading the actions files, but it expands
3801 them before writing. So the effects of your aliases are of course preserved,
3802 but the aliases themselves are lost when you edit sections that use aliases
3804 This is likely to change in future versions of <application>Privoxy</application>.
3808 Now let's define some aliases...
3813 # Useful custom aliases we can use later.
3815 # Note the (required!) section header line and that this section
3816 # must be at the top of the actions file!
3820 # These aliases just save typing later:
3821 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
3823 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
3824 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
3825 block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
3826 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
3828 # These aliases define combinations of actions
3829 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
3831 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>
3832 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link>
3834 # Short names for other aliases, for really lazy people ;-)
3836 c0 = +crunch-all-cookies
3837 c1 = -crunch-all-cookies</screen>
3841 ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
3842 actions file and define exceptions to the default actions (as specified further
3843 up for the <quote>/</quote> pattern):
3848 # These sites are either very complex or very keen on
3849 # user data and require minimal interference to work:
3852 .office.microsoft.com
3853 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
3857 # Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data)
3861 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
3864 # These shops require pop-ups:
3866 {shop -kill-popups -filter{all-popups}}
3868 .overclockers.co.uk</screen>
3872 Aliases like <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> are often used for
3873 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require some actions to be disabled
3874 in order to function properly.
3878 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3879 <sect2 id="act-examples">
3880 <title>Actions Files Tutorial</title>
3882 The above chapters have shown <link linkend="actions-file">which actions files
3883 there are and how they are organized</link>, how actions are <link
3884 linkend="actions">specified</link> and <link linkend="actions-apply">applied
3885 to URLs</link>, how <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> work, and how to
3886 define and use <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link>. Now, let's look at an
3887 example <filename>default.action</filename> and <filename>user.action</filename>
3888 file and see how all these pieces come together:
3891 <sect3><title>default.action</title>
3894 Every config file should start with a short comment stating its purpose:
3898 <screen># Sample default.action file <developers@privoxy.org></screen>
3902 Then, since this is the <filename>default.action</filename> file, the
3903 first section is a special section for internal use that you needn't
3904 change or worry about:
3909 ##########################################################################
3910 # Settings -- Don't change! For internal Privoxy use ONLY.
3911 ##########################################################################
3914 for-privoxy-version=3.0</screen>
3918 After that comes the (optional) alias section. We'll use the example
3919 section from the above <link linkend="aliases">chapter on aliases</link>,
3920 that also explains why and how aliases are used:
3925 ##########################################################################
3927 ##########################################################################
3930 # These aliases just save typing later:
3931 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
3933 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
3934 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
3935 block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
3936 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
3938 # These aliases define combinations of actions
3939 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
3941 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>
3942 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link></screen>
3946 Now come the regular sections, i.e. sets of actions, accompanied
3947 by URL patterns to which they apply. Remember <emphasis>all actions
3948 are disabled when matching starts</emphasis>, so we have to explicitly
3949 enable the ones we want.
3953 The first regular section is probably the most important. It has only
3954 one pattern, <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, but this pattern
3955 <link linkend="af-patterns">matches all URLs</link>. Therefore, the
3956 set of actions used in this <quote>default</quote> section <emphasis>will
3957 be applied to all requests as a start</emphasis>. It can be partly or
3958 wholly overridden by later matches further down this file, or in user.action,
3959 but it will still be largely responsible for your overall browsing
3964 Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is
3965 no real need to disable any actions here, but we will do that nonetheless,
3966 to have a complete listing for your reference. (Remember: a <quote>+</quote>
3967 preceding the action name enables the action, a <quote>-</quote> disables!).
3968 Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into
3969 multiple lines with line continuation.
3974 ##########################################################################
3975 # "Defaults" section:
3976 ##########################################################################
3978 -<link linkend="ADD-HEADER">add-header</link> \
3979 -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> \
3980 -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> \
3981 -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link> \
3982 +<link linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</link> \
3983 -<link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION">downgrade-http-version</link> \
3984 +<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> \
3985 +<link linkend="FILTER-JS-ANNOYANCES">filter{js-annoyances}</link> \
3986 -<link linkend="FILTER-JS-EVENTS">filter{js-events}</link> \
3987 +<link linkend="FILTER-HTML-ANNOYANCES">filter{html-annoyances}</link> \
3988 -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link> \
3989 +<link linkend="FILTER-REFRESH-TAGS">filter{refresh-tags}</link> \
3990 +<link linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{unsolicited-popups}</link> \
3991 -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> \
3992 +<link linkend="FILTER-IMG-REORDER">filter{img-reorder}</link> \
3993 +<link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE">filter{banners-by-size}</link> \
3994 -<link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-LINK">filter{banners-by-link}</link> \
3995 +<link linkend="FILTER-WEBBUGS">filter{webbugs}</link> \
3996 -<link linkend="FILTER-TINY-TEXTFORMS">filter{tiny-textforms}</link> \
3997 +<link linkend="FILTER-JUMPING-WINDOWS">filter{jumping-windows}</link> \
3998 -<link linkend="FILTER-FRAMESET-BORDERS">filter{frameset-borders}</link> \
3999 +<link linkend="FILTER-DEMORONIZER">filter{demoronizer}</link> \
4000 -<link linkend="FILTER-SHOCKWAVE-FLASH">filter{shockwave-flash}</link> \
4001 -<link linkend="FILTER-QUICKTIME-KIOSKMODE">filter{quicktime-kioskmode}</link> \
4002 -<link linkend="FILTER-FUN">filter{fun}</link> \
4003 -<link linkend="FILTER-CRUDE-PARENTAL">filter{crude-parental}</link> \
4004 +<link linkend="FILTER-IE-EXPLOITS">filter{ie-exploits}</link> \
4005 -<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> \
4006 +<link linkend="HIDE-FORWARDED-FOR-HEADERS">hide-forwarded-for-headers</link> \
4007 +<link linkend="HIDE-FROM-HEADER">hide-from-header{block}</link> \
4008 +<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer{forge}</link> \
4009 -<link linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT">hide-user-agent</link> \
4010 -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> \
4011 -<link linkend="LIMIT-CONNECT">limit-connect</link> \
4012 +<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link> \
4013 -<link linkend="SEND-VANILLA-WAFER">send-vanilla-wafer</link> \
4014 -<link linkend="SEND-WAFER">send-wafer</link> \
4015 +<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> \
4016 +<link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER">set-image-blocker{pattern}</link> \
4018 / # forward slash will match *all* potential URL patterns.</screen>
4022 The default behavior is now set. Note that some actions, like not hiding
4023 the user agent, are part of a <quote>general policy</quote> that applies
4024 universally and won't get any exceptions defined later. Other choices,
4025 like not blocking (which is <emphasis>understandably</emphasis> the
4026 default!) need exceptions, i.e. we need to specify explicitly what we
4027 want to block in later sections.
4031 The first of our specialized sections is concerned with <quote>fragile</quote>
4032 sites, i.e. sites that require minimum interference, because they are either
4033 very complex or very keen on tracking you (and have mechanisms in place that
4034 make them unusable for people who avoid being tracked). We will simply use
4035 our pre-defined <literal>fragile</literal> alias instead of stating the list
4036 of actions explicitly:
4041 ##########################################################################
4042 # Exceptions for sites that'll break under the default action set:
4043 ##########################################################################
4045 # "Fragile" Use a minimum set of actions for these sites (see alias above):
4048 .office.microsoft.com # surprise, surprise!
4049 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com</screen>
4053 Shopping sites are not as fragile, but they typically
4054 require cookies to log in, and pop-up windows for shopping
4055 carts or item details. Again, we'll use a pre-defined alias:
4064 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
4066 .scan.co.uk</screen>
4069 <!-- No longer needed BEGIN OF COMMENTED OUT BLOCK
4072 Then, there are sites which rely on pop-up windows (yuck!) to work.
4073 Since we made pop-up-killing our default above, we need to make exceptions
4074 now. <ulink url="http://www.mozilla.org/">Mozilla</ulink> users, who
4075 can turn on smart handling of unwanted pop-ups in their browsers, can
4077 -<literal><link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link></literal> (and
4078 -<literal><link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link></literal>) above
4079 and hence don't need this section. Anyway, disabling an already disabled
4080 action doesn't hurt, so we'll define our exceptions regardless of what was
4081 chosen in the defaults section:
4086 # These sites require pop-ups too :(
4088 { -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link> }
4091 .deutsche-bank-24.de</screen>
4094 END OF COMMENTED OUT BLOCK -->
4097 The <literal><link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link></literal>
4098 action, which we enabled per default above, breaks some sites. So disable
4099 it for popular sites where we know it misbehaves:
4104 { -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> }
4108 .altavista.com/.*(like|url|link):http
4109 .altavista.com/trans.*urltext=http
4110 .nytimes.com</screen>
4114 It is important that <application>Privoxy</application> knows which
4115 URLs belong to images, so that <emphasis>if</emphasis> they are to
4116 be blocked, a substitute image can be sent, rather than an HTML page.
4117 Contacting the remote site to find out is not an option, since it
4118 would destroy the loading time advantage of banner blocking, and it
4119 would feed the advertisers (in terms of money <emphasis>and</emphasis>
4120 information). We can mark any URL as an image with the <literal><link
4121 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action,
4122 and marking all URLs that end in a known image file extension is a
4128 ##########################################################################
4130 ##########################################################################
4132 # Define which file types will be treated as images, in case they get
4133 # blocked further down this file:
4135 { +<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> }
4136 /.*\.(gif|jpe?g|png|bmp|ico)$</screen>
4140 And then there are known banner sources. They often use scripts to
4141 generate the banners, so it won't be visible from the URL that the
4142 request is for an image. Hence we block them <emphasis>and</emphasis>
4143 mark them as images in one go, with the help of our
4144 <literal>block-as-image</literal> alias defined above. (We could of
4145 course just as well use <literal>+<link linkend="block">block</link>
4146 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> here.)
4147 Remember that the type of the replacement image is chosen by the
4148 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
4149 action. Since all URLs have matched the default section with its
4150 <literal>+<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link>{pattern}</literal>
4151 action before, it still applies and needn't be repeated:
4156 # Known ad generators:
4161 .ad.*.doubleclick.net
4162 .a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
4163 .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
4170 One of the most important jobs of <application>Privoxy</application>
4171 is to block banners. A huge bunch of them are already <quote>blocked</quote>
4172 by the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{banners-by-size}</literal>
4173 action, which we enabled above, and which deletes the references to banner
4174 images from the pages while they are loaded, so the browser doesn't request
4175 them anymore, and hence they don't need to be blocked here. But this naturally
4176 doesn't catch all banners, and some people choose not to use filters, so we
4177 need a comprehensive list of patterns for banner URLs here, and apply the
4178 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action to them.
4181 First comes a bunch of generic patterns, which do most of the work, by
4182 matching typical domain and path name components of banners. Then comes
4183 a list of individual patterns for specific sites, which is omitted here
4184 to keep the example short:
4189 ##########################################################################
4190 # Block these fine banners:
4191 ##########################################################################
4192 { <link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link> }
4200 /.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?)
4201 /(?:.*/)?(publicite|werbung|rekla(ma|me|am)|annonse|maino(kset|nta|s)?)/
4203 # Site-specific patterns (abbreviated):
4205 .hitbox.com</screen>
4209 You wouldn't believe how many advertisers actually call their banner
4210 servers ads.<replaceable>company</replaceable>.com, or call the directory
4211 in which the banners are stored simply <quote>banners</quote>. So the above
4212 generic patterns are surprisingly effective.
4215 But being very generic, they necessarily also catch URLs that we don't want
4216 to block. The pattern <literal>.*ads.</literal> e.g. catches
4217 <quote>nasty-<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.nasty-corp.com</quote> as intended,
4218 but also <quote>downlo<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.sourcefroge.net</quote> or
4219 <quote><emphasis>ads</emphasis>l.some-provider.net.</quote> So here come some
4220 well-known exceptions to the <literal>+<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
4224 Note that these are exceptions to exceptions from the default! Consider the URL
4225 <quote>downloads.sourcefroge.net</quote>: Initially, all actions are deactivated,
4226 so it wouldn't get blocked. Then comes the defaults section, which matches the
4227 URL, but just deactivates the <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
4228 action once again. Then it matches <literal>.*ads.</literal>, an exception to the
4229 general non-blocking policy, and suddenly
4230 <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link></literal> applies. And now, it'll match
4231 <literal>.*loads.</literal>, where <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">-block</link></literal>
4232 applies, so (unless it matches <emphasis>again</emphasis> further down) it ends up
4233 with no <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal> action applying.
4238 ##########################################################################
4239 # Save some innocent victims of the above generic block patterns:
4240 ##########################################################################
4244 { -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
4245 adv[io]*. # (for advogato.org and advice.*)
4246 adsl. # (has nothing to do with ads)
4247 ad[ud]*. # (adult.* and add.*)
4248 .edu # (universities don't host banners (yet!))
4249 .*loads. # (downloads, uploads etc)
4257 www.globalintersec.com/adv # (adv = advanced)
4258 www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv</screen>
4262 Filtering source code can have nasty side effects,
4263 so make an exception for our friends at sourceforge.net,
4264 and all paths with <quote>cvs</quote> in them. Note that
4265 <literal>-<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link></literal>
4266 disables <emphasis>all</emphasis> filters in one fell swoop!
4271 # Don't filter code!
4273 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
4275 .sourceforge.net</screen>
4279 The actual <filename>default.action</filename> is of course more
4280 comprehensive, but we hope this example made clear how it works.
4285 <sect3><title>user.action</title>
4288 So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies,
4289 which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
4290 you might want to be more specific and have customized rules that
4291 are more suitable to your personal habits and preferences. These would
4292 be for narrowly defined situations like your ISP or your bank, and should
4293 be placed in <filename>user.action</filename>, which is parsed after all other
4294 actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding any previously
4295 defined actions. <filename>user.action</filename> is also a
4296 <emphasis>safe</emphasis> place for your personal settings, since
4297 <filename>default.action</filename> is actively maintained by the
4298 <application>Privoxy</application> developers and you'll probably want
4299 to install updated versions from time to time.
4303 So let's look at a few examples of things that one might typically do in
4304 <filename>user.action</filename>:
4308 <!-- brief sample user.action here -->
4312 # My user.action file. <fred@foobar.com></screen>
4316 As <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link> are local to the actions
4317 file that they are defined in, you can't use the ones from
4318 <filename>default.action</filename>, unless you repeat them here:
4323 # Aliases are local to the file they are defined in.
4324 # (Re-)define aliases for this file:
4328 # These aliases just save typing later, and the alias names should
4329 # be self explanatory.
4331 +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
4332 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
4333 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
4334 allow-popups = -filter{all-popups} -kill-popups
4335 +block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
4336 -block-as-image = -block
4338 # These aliases define combinations of actions that are useful for
4339 # certain types of sites:
4341 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -kill-popups
4342 shop = -crunch-all-cookies allow-popups
4344 # Allow ads for selected useful free sites:
4346 allow-ads = -block -filter{banners-by-size} -filter{banners-by-link}</screen>
4352 Say you have accounts on some sites that you visit regularly, and
4353 you don't want to have to log in manually each time. So you'd like
4354 to allow persistent cookies for these sites. The
4355 <literal>allow-all-cookies</literal> alias defined above does exactly
4356 that, i.e. it disables crunching of cookies in any direction, and the
4357 processing of cookies to make them only temporary.
4362 { allow-all-cookies }
4367 .redhat.com</screen>
4371 Your bank is allergic to some filter, but you don't know which, so you disable them all:
4376 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
4377 .your-home-banking-site.com</screen>
4381 Some file types you may not want to filter.
4382 <application>Privoxy</application> makes no distinctions between regular web
4383 pages and downloads done via your web browser if it is an html or text type
4389 # A list of common file extensions that are likely to indicate raw text, and best
4391 /(.*/)?.*\.(pl|(s|p)?h|c(c|xx|pp)?|tcl|am|init?|cfg?|conf(ig)?|txt|rc|bat)$
4393 # Documentation should not need filtering (at least on some sites).
4398 Example of a simple <link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> action. Say you've
4399 seen an ad on your favourite page on example.com that you want to get rid of.
4400 You have right-clicked the image, selected <quote>copy image location</quote>
4401 and pasted the URL below while removing the leading http://, into a
4402 <literal>{ +block }</literal> section. Note that <literal>{ +handle-as-image
4403 }</literal> need not be specified, since all URLs ending in
4404 <literal>.gif</literal> will be tagged as images by the general rules as set
4405 in default.action anyway:
4410 { +<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
4411 www.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.gif
4412 another.popular.site.net/more/junk/here/
4414 # Here we found one that is not in <application>Privoxy's</application> default blocked list:
4415 .adfactory.net</screen>
4419 To force URLs that tend to have ad images, but it is difficult for
4420 <application>Privoxy</application> to know this since the ultimate returned
4421 object is obscured for one reason or another, we can try to force these to be
4422 treated as images (and thus avoid <application>Privoxy's</application>
4423 <quote>BLOCKED</quote> banner page). Note that if what is returned by the
4424 server turns out NOT to be an image, then your browser typically will display
4425 a broken icon image. Use cautiously.
4431 # A shockwave ad, very annoying.
4439 Now you noticed that the default configuration breaks Forbes Magazine,
4440 but you were too lazy to find out which action is the culprit, and you
4441 were again too lazy to give <link linkend="contact">feedback</link>, so
4442 you just used the <literal>fragile</literal> alias on the site, and
4443 -- <emphasis>whoa!</emphasis> -- it worked. The <literal>fragile</literal>
4444 aliases disables those actions that are most likely to break a site. Also,
4445 good for testing purposes to see if it is <application>Privoxy</application>
4446 that is causing the problem or not.
4452 .forbes.com</screen>
4456 You like the <quote>fun</quote> text replacements in <filename>default.filter</filename>,
4457 but it is disabled in the distributed actions file. (My colleagues on the team just
4458 don't have a sense of humour, that's why! ;-). So you'd like to turn it on in your private,
4459 update-safe config, once and for all:
4464 { +<link linkend="filter-fun">filter{fun}</link> }
4465 / # For ALL sites!</screen>
4469 Note that the above is not really a good idea: There are exceptions
4470 to the filters in <filename>default.action</filename> for things that
4471 really shouldn't be filtered, like code on CVS->Web interfaces. Since
4472 <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word, these exceptions
4473 won't be valid for the <quote>fun</quote> filtering specified here.
4477 You might also worry about how your favourite free websites are
4478 funded, and find that they rely on displaying banner advertisements
4479 to survive. So you might want to specifically allow banners for those
4480 sites that you feel provide value to you:
4492 Note that <literal>allow-ads</literal> has been aliased to
4493 <literal>-<link linkend="block">block</link></literal>,
4494 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-size">filter{banners-by-size}</link></literal>, and
4495 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-link">filter{banners-by-link}</link></literal> above.
4499 <filename>user.action</filename> is generally the best place to define
4500 exceptions and additions to the default policies of
4501 <filename>default.action</filename>. Some actions are safe to have their
4502 default policies set here though. So let's set a default policy to have a
4503 <quote>blank</quote> image as opposed to the checkerboard pattern for
4504 <emphasis>ALL</emphasis> sites. <quote>/</quote> of course matches all URL
4510 { +<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker{blank}</link> }
4511 / # ALL sites</screen>
4517 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4521 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4523 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
4525 <sect1 id="filter-file">
4526 <title>The Filter File</title>
4529 All text substitutions that can be invoked through the
4530 <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> action
4531 must first be defined in the filter file, which is typically
4532 called <filename>default.filter</filename> and which can be
4533 selected through the <literal>
4534 <link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal> config
4539 Typical reasons for doing such substitutions are to eliminate
4540 common annoyances in HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows,
4541 exit consoles, crippled windows without navigation tools, the
4542 infamous <BLINK> tag etc, to suppress images with certain
4543 width and height attributes (standard banner sizes or web-bugs),
4544 or just to have fun. The possibilities are endless.
4548 Filtering works on any text-based document type, including plain
4549 text, HTML, JavaScript, CSS etc. (all <literal>text/*</literal>
4550 MIME types). Substitutions are made at the source level, so if
4551 you want to <quote>roll your own</quote> filters, you should be
4552 familiar with HTML syntax.
4556 Just like the <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, the
4557 filter file is organized in sections, which are called <emphasis>filters</emphasis>
4558 here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with the
4559 <emphasis>keyword</emphasis> <literal>FILTER:</literal>, followed by
4560 the filter's <emphasis>name</emphasis>, and a short (one line)
4561 <emphasis>description</emphasis> of what it does. Below that line
4562 come the <emphasis>jobs</emphasis>, i.e. lines that define the actual
4563 text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter
4564 should describe what the filter <emphasis>eliminates</emphasis>. The
4565 comment is used in the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
4566 user interface</ulink>.
4570 Once a filter called <replaceable>name</replaceable> has been defined
4571 in the filter file, it can be invoked by using an action of the form
4572 +<literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>name</replaceable>}</literal>
4573 in any <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>.
4577 A filter header line for a filter called <quote>foo</quote> could look
4582 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"</screen>
4586 Below that line, and up to the next header line, come the jobs that
4587 define what text replacements the filter executes. They are specified
4588 in a syntax that imitates <ulink url="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</ulink>'s
4589 <literal>s///</literal> operator. If you are familiar with Perl, you
4590 will find this to be quite intuitive, and may want to look at the
4591 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/pcrs.3.html">PCRS man page</ulink>
4592 for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour. Most notably, the non-standard
4593 option letter <literal>U</literal> is supported, which turns the default
4594 to ungreedy matching.
4598 If you are new to regular expressions, you might want to take a look at
4599 the <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>, and
4600 see the <ulink url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perl.html">Perl
4602 <ulink url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perlop.html#s-PATTERN-REPLACEMENT-egimosx">the
4603 <literal>s///</literal> operator's syntax</ulink> and <ulink
4604 url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perlre.html">Perl-style regular
4605 expressions</ulink> in general.
4606 The below examples might also help to get you started.
4609 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
4611 <sect2><title>Filter File Tutorial</title>
4613 Now, let's complete our <quote>foo</quote> filter. We have already defined
4614 the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace
4615 <quote>foo</quote> with <quote>bar</quote>, there is only one (trivial) job
4620 <screen>s/foo/bar/</screen>
4624 But wait! Didn't the comment say that <emphasis>all</emphasis> occurrences
4625 of <quote>foo</quote> should be replaced? Our current job will only take
4626 care of the first <quote>foo</quote> on each page. For global substitution,
4627 we'll need to add the <literal>g</literal> option:
4631 <screen>s/foo/bar/g</screen>
4635 Our complete filter now looks like this:
4638 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"
4639 s/foo/bar/g</screen>
4643 Let's look at some real filters for more interesting examples. Here you see
4644 a filter that protects against some common annoyances that arise from JavaScript
4645 abuse. Let's look at its jobs one after the other:
4651 FILTER: js-annoyances Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
4653 # Get rid of JavaScript referrer tracking. Test page: http://www.randomoddness.com/untitled.htm
4655 s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|Usg</screen>
4659 Following the header line and a comment, you see the job. Note that it uses
4660 <literal>|</literal> as the delimiter instead of <literal>/</literal>, because
4661 the pattern contains a forward slash, which would otherwise have to be escaped
4662 by a backslash (<literal>\</literal>).
4666 Now, let's examine the pattern: it starts with the text <literal><script.*</literal>
4667 enclosed in parentheses. Since the dot matches any character, and <literal>*</literal>
4668 means: <quote>Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself</quote>, this
4669 matches <quote><script</quote>, followed by <emphasis>any</emphasis> text, i.e.
4670 it matches the whole page, from the start of the first <script> tag.
4674 That's more than we want, but the pattern continues: <literal>document\.referrer</literal>
4675 matches only the exact string <quote>document.referrer</quote>. The dot needed to
4676 be <emphasis>escaped</emphasis>, i.e. preceded by a backslash, to take away its
4677 special meaning as a joker, and make it just a regular dot. So far, the meaning is:
4678 Match from the start of the first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including,
4679 the text <quote>document.referrer</quote>, if <emphasis>both</emphasis> are present
4680 in the page (and appear in that order).
4684 But there's still more pattern to go. The next element, again enclosed in parentheses,
4685 is <literal>.*</script></literal>. You already know what <literal>.*</literal>
4686 means, so the whole pattern translates to: Match from the start of the first <script>
4687 tag in a page to the end of the last <script> tag, provided that the text
4688 <quote>document.referrer</quote> appears somewhere in between.
4692 This is still not the whole story, since we have ignored the options and the parentheses:
4693 The portions of the page matched by sub-patterns that are enclosed in parentheses, will be
4694 remembered and be available through the variables <literal>$1, $2, ...</literal> in
4695 the substitute. The <literal>U</literal> option switches to ungreedy matching, which means
4696 that the first <literal>.*</literal> in the pattern will only <quote>eat up</quote> all
4697 text in between <quote><script</quote> and the <emphasis>first</emphasis> occurrence
4698 of <quote>document.referrer</quote>, and that the second <literal>.*</literal> will
4699 only span the text up to the <emphasis>first</emphasis> <quote></script></quote>
4700 tag. Furthermore, the <literal>s</literal> option says that the match may span
4701 multiple lines in the page, and the <literal>g</literal> option again means that the
4702 substitution is global.
4706 So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text
4707 <quote>document.referrer</quote>. Remember the parts of the script from
4708 (and including) the start tag up to (and excluding) the string
4709 <quote>document.referrer</quote> as <literal>$1</literal>, and the part following
4710 that string, up to and including the closing tag, as <literal>$2</literal>.
4714 Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So
4715 lets look at the substitute: <literal>$1"Not Your Business!"$2</literal> is
4716 easy to read: The text remembered as <literal>$1</literal>, followed by
4717 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> (<emphasis>including</emphasis>
4718 the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as <literal>$2</literal>.
4719 This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part
4720 (the <quote>document.referrer</quote>) replaced by <literal>"Not Your
4721 Business!"</literal>.
4725 The whole job now reads: Replace <quote>document.referrer</quote> by
4726 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> wherever it appears inside a
4727 <script> tag. Note that this job won't break JavaScript syntax,
4728 since both the original and the replacement are syntactically valid
4729 string objects. The script just won't have access to the referrer
4730 information anymore.
4734 We'll show you two other jobs from the JavaScript taming department, but
4735 this time only point out the constructs of special interest:
4740 # The status bar is for displaying link targets, not pointless blahblah
4742 s/window\.status\s*=\s*(['"]).*?\1/dUmMy=1/ig</screen>
4746 <literal>\s</literal> stands for whitespace characters (space, tab, newline,
4747 carriage return, form feed), so that <literal>\s*</literal> means: <quote>zero
4748 or more whitespace</quote>. The <literal>?</literal> in <literal>.*?</literal>
4749 makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the <literal>U</literal>
4750 option is not set). The <literal>['"]</literal> construct means: <quote>a single
4751 <emphasis>or</emphasis> a double quote</quote>. Finally, <literal>\1</literal> is
4752 a backreference to the first parenthesis just like <literal>$1</literal> above,
4753 with the difference that in the <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>, a backslash indicates
4754 a backreference, whereas in the <emphasis>substitute</emphasis>, it's the dollar.
4758 So what does this job do? It replaces assignments of single- or double-quoted
4759 strings to the <quote>window.status</quote> object with a dummy assignment
4760 (using a variable name that is hopefully odd enough not to conflict with
4761 real variables in scripts). Thus, it catches many cases where e.g. pointless
4762 descriptions are displayed in the status bar instead of the link target when
4763 you move your mouse over links.
4768 # Kill OnUnload popups. Yummy. Test: http://www.zdnet.com/zdsubs/yahoo/tree/yfs.html
4770 s/(<body [^>]*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU</screen>
4775 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">OnUnload
4776 event binding</ulink> in the HTML DOM was a <emphasis>CRIME</emphasis>.
4777 When I close a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta.
4778 This job replaces the <quote>onunload</quote> attribute in
4779 <quote><body></quote> tags with the dummy word <literal>never</literal>.
4780 Note that the <literal>i</literal> option makes the pattern matching
4781 case-insensitive. Also note that ungreedy matching alone doesn't always guarantee
4782 a minimal match: In the first parenthesis, we had to use <literal>[^>]*</literal>
4783 instead of <literal>.*</literal> to prevent the match from exceeding the
4784 <body> tag if it doesn't contain <quote>OnUnload</quote>, but the page's
4789 The last example is from the fun department:
4794 FILTER: fun Fun text replacements
4796 # Spice the daily news:
4798 s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig</screen>
4802 Note the <literal>(?!\.com)</literal> part (a so-called negative lookahead)
4803 in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
4804 <quote>.com</quote> appears directly following <quote>microsoft</quote>
4805 in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being trashed, while
4806 still replacing the word everywhere else.
4811 # Buzzword Bingo (example for extended regex syntax)
4813 s* industry[ -]leading \
4815 | customer[ -]focused \
4816 | market[ -]driven \
4817 | award[ -]winning # Comments are OK, too! \
4818 | high[ -]performance \
4819 | solutions[ -]based \
4823 *<font color="red"><b>BINGO!</b></font> \
4828 The <literal>x</literal> option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for
4829 e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
4838 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4842 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4844 <sect1 id="templates">
4845 <title>Templates</title>
4847 All <application>Privoxy</application> built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
4848 <ulink url="http://show-the-404-error.page"><quote>404 - No Such Domain</quote>
4849 error page</ulink>, the <ulink
4850 url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
4852 and all pages of its <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
4853 user interface</ulink>, are generated from <emphasis>templates</emphasis>.
4854 (<application>Privoxy</application> must be running for the above links to work as
4859 These templates are stored in a subdirectory of the <link linkend="confdir">configuration
4860 directory</link> called <filename>templates</filename>. On Unixish platforms,
4862 <ulink url="file:///etc/privoxy/templates/"><filename>/etc/privoxy/templates/</filename></ulink>.
4866 The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols
4867 or exports), which <application>Privoxy</application> fills at run time. You can
4868 edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want to customize them.
4869 (<emphasis>Not recommended for the casual user</emphasis>). Note that
4870 just like in configuration files, lines starting with <literal>#</literal> are
4871 ignored when the templates are filled in.
4875 The place-holders are of the form <literal>@name@</literal>, and you will
4876 find a list of available symbols, which vary from template to template,
4877 in the comments at the start of each file. Note that these comments are not
4878 always accurate, and that it's probably best to look at the existing HTML
4879 code to find out which symbols are supported and what they are filled in with.
4883 A special application of this substitution mechanism is to make whole
4884 blocks of HTML code disappear when a specific symbol is set. We use this
4885 for many purposes, one of them being to include the beta warning in all
4886 our user interface (CGI) pages when <application>Privoxy</application>
4887 in in an alpha or beta development stage:
4892 <!-- @if-unstable-start -->
4894 ... beta warning HTML code goes here ...
4896 <!-- if-unstable-end@ --></screen>
4900 If the "unstable" symbol is set, everything in between and including
4901 <literal>@if-unstable-start</literal> and <literal>if-unstable-end@</literal>
4902 will disappear, leaving nothing but an empty comment:
4906 <screen><!-- --></screen>
4910 There's also an if-then-else construct and an <literal>#include</literal>
4911 mechanism, but you'll sure find out if you are inclined to edit the
4916 All templates refer to a style located at
4917 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet"><literal>http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet</literal></ulink>.
4918 This is, of course, locally served by <application>Privoxy</application>
4919 and the source for it can be found and edited in the
4920 <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> template.
4925 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4929 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4931 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
4934 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
4936 <!-- end boilerplate -->
4940 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4943 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4944 <sect1 id="copyright"><title><application>Privoxy</application> Copyright, License and History</title>
4946 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
4948 <!-- end copyright -->
4950 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4951 <sect2><title>License</title>
4952 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
4954 <!-- end copyright -->
4956 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4959 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4961 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
4962 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
4964 <!-- end history -->
4967 <sect2 id="authors"><title>Authors</title>
4968 <!-- Include p-authors.sgml: -->
4970 <!-- end authors -->
4975 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4978 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4979 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
4980 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
4982 <!-- end seealso -->
4987 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4988 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
4991 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
4993 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
4995 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl-style <quote>regular
4996 expressions</quote> in its <link linkend="actions-file">actions
4997 files</link> and <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>,
4998 through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> and
4999 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/">PCRS</ulink> libraries.
5003 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
5004 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
5005 introduction only. A full explanation would require a <ulink
5006 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/">book</ulink> ;-)
5010 Regular expressions provide a language to describe patterns that can be
5011 run against strings of characters (letter, numbers, etc), to see if they
5012 match the string or not. The patterns are themselves (sometimes complex)
5013 strings of literal characters, combined with wild-cards, and other special
5014 characters, called meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have
5015 special meanings and are used to build complex patterns to be matched against.
5016 Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are an especially convenient
5017 <quote>dialect</quote> of the regular expression language.
5021 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
5022 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
5023 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
5024 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
5025 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
5026 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
5027 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
5028 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
5032 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
5033 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
5034 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
5035 and then some examples:
5040 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
5041 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
5043 </simplelist></para>
5047 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
5050 </simplelist></para>
5054 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
5057 </simplelist></para>
5061 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
5064 </simplelist></para>
5068 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
5069 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
5070 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
5071 not as a special meta-character. Example: <quote>example\.com</quote>, makes
5072 sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
5073 meta-character meaning of any single character).
5075 </simplelist></para>
5079 <emphasis>[]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
5080 any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, <quote>[0-9]</quote>
5081 matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
5082 this with <quote>+</quote> to match any digit one of more times: <quote>[0-9]+</quote>.
5084 </simplelist></para>
5088 <emphasis>()</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
5089 or multiple sub-expressions.
5091 </simplelist></para>
5095 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
5096 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
5097 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches. As an example:
5098 <quote>/(this|that) example/</quote> uses grouping and the bar character
5099 and would match either <quote>this example</quote> or <quote>that
5100 example</quote>, and nothing else.
5102 </simplelist></para>
5105 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
5106 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
5107 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
5108 be more illuminating:
5112 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
5113 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
5114 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
5115 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
5116 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
5117 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
5118 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
5119 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
5120 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
5121 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
5122 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
5123 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
5124 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
5125 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
5130 A now something a little more complex:
5134 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
5135 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
5136 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
5137 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
5138 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
5139 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
5140 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
5145 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
5146 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
5147 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
5148 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
5149 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
5150 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
5151 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
5152 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
5153 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
5154 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
5155 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
5156 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
5157 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
5158 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
5159 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
5160 changing our regular expression to:
5161 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
5166 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
5167 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
5168 <quote>[]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
5169 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
5170 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
5171 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
5172 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
5173 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
5174 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
5175 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
5176 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
5177 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
5178 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
5179 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
5180 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
5181 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
5182 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
5183 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
5184 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
5185 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
5186 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
5187 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
5188 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
5189 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
5190 in the expression anywhere).
5194 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
5195 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
5196 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
5197 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
5198 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
5203 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
5204 <ulink url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>
5208 For information on regular expression based substitutions and their applications
5209 in filters, please see the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file tutorial</link>
5214 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5217 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5219 <title><application>Privoxy</application>'s Internal Pages</title>
5222 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
5223 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
5224 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
5225 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
5226 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
5227 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
5228 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
5234 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
5235 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
5236 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
5237 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
5250 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
5254 There is a shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> (But it
5255 doesn't provide a fall-back to a real page, in case the request is not
5256 sent through <application>Privoxy</application>)
5262 Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
5263 editing of actions files:
5267 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
5274 Show the source code version numbers:
5278 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
5285 Show the browser's request headers:
5289 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
5296 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
5300 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
5307 Toggle Privoxy on or off. In this case, <quote>Privoxy</quote> continues
5308 to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking place:
5312 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
5316 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
5320 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
5325 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
5334 These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
5338 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
5339 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
5341 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
5342 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
5343 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
5344 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
5345 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
5346 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
5349 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
5350 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
5351 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
5352 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
5353 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
5354 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
5363 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>
5370 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>
5377 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)
5384 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>
5390 <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>
5395 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info?url='+escape(location.href),'Why').focus());">Privoxy - Why?</ulink>
5402 Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
5403 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com/">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
5404 have more information about bookmarklets.
5413 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5415 <title>Chain of Events</title>
5417 Let's take a quick look at the basic sequence of events when a web page is
5418 requested by your browser and <application>Privoxy</application> is on duty:
5425 First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
5426 the request to <application>Privoxy</application>, which will in turn,
5427 relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
5433 <application>Privoxy</application> traps any request for its own internal CGI
5434 pages (e.g http://p.p/) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
5439 Next, <application>Privoxy</application> checks to see if the URL
5441 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link> patterns. If
5442 so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
5443 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>
5444 is then checked and if it does not match, an
5445 HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page is sent back. Otherwise, if it does match,
5446 an image is returned. The type of image depends on the setting of <link
5447 linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></link>
5448 (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
5453 Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
5454 <filename>trust</filename> file, then that is done.
5459 If the URL pattern matches the <link
5460 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link> action,
5461 it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
5466 Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
5467 of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. <link
5468 linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT"><quote>+hide-user-agent</quote></link>,
5469 etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
5475 Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web page and related
5481 First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
5482 things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
5483 filtered as determined by the
5484 <link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES"><quote>+crunch-incoming-cookies</quote></link>,
5485 <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>,
5486 and <link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION"><quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote></link>
5492 If the <link linkend="KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></link>
5493 action applies, and it is an HTML or JavaScript document, the popup-code in the
5494 response is filtered on-the-fly as it is received.
5499 If a <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>
5501 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
5502 action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
5503 read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from
5504 <filename>default.filter</filename>) are processed against the buffered
5505 content. Filters are applied in the order they are specified in the
5506 <filename>default.filter</filename> file. Animated GIFs, if present, are
5507 reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
5508 setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
5509 <application>Privoxy</application> back to your browser.
5512 If neither <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>
5514 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
5515 matches, then <application>Privoxy</application> passes the raw data through
5516 to the client browser as it becomes available.
5521 As the browser receives the now (probably filtered) page content, it
5522 reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
5523 source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
5524 frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a new
5525 request. And each such request is in turn processed as above. Note that a
5526 complex web page may have many such embedded URLs.
5536 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5537 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
5538 <title>Anatomy of an Action</title>
5541 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies
5542 <link linkend="ACTIONS">actions</link> and <link linkend="FILTER">filters</link>
5543 to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
5544 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
5545 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
5546 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
5547 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
5548 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
5549 <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> whose consequences are not
5554 One quick test to see if <application>Privoxy</application> is causing a problem
5555 or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
5556 step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
5557 and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!). Looking at the
5558 logs is a good idea too.
5562 <application>Privoxy</application> also provides the
5563 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
5564 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
5565 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
5569 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
5570 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
5571 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
5572 help with filtering effects (i.e. the <link
5573 linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action) from
5574 the <filename>default.filter</filename> file since this is handled very
5575 differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other
5576 URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images
5577 such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So
5578 you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area
5579 -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you
5580 will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View
5581 Page Source</quote> option for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the
5586 Let's try an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
5587 and look at it one section at a time:
5592 Matches for http://google.com:
5594 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
5598 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
5599 -crunch-incoming-cookies
5600 +deanimate-gifs{last}
5601 -downgrade-http-version
5605 -filter{shockwave-flash}
5606 -filter{crude-parental}
5607 +filter{html-annoyances}
5608 +filter{js-annoyances}
5609 +filter{content-cookies}
5611 +filter{refresh-tags}
5613 +filter{banners-by-size}
5614 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
5615 +hide-from-header{block}
5616 +hide-referer{forge}
5621 +prevent-compression
5624 +session-cookies-only
5625 +set-image-blocker{pattern} }
5628 { -session-cookies-only }
5634 In file: user.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
5635 (no matches in this file)
5640 This tells us how we have defined our
5641 <link linkend="ACTIONS"><quote>actions</quote></link>, and
5642 which ones match for our example, <quote>google.com</quote>. The first listing
5643 is any matches for the <filename>standard.action</filename> file. No hits at
5644 all here on <quote>standard</quote>. Then next is <quote>default</quote>, or
5645 our <filename>default.action</filename> file. The large, multi-line listing,
5646 is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default settings.
5647 If you look at your <quote>actions</quote> file, this would be the section
5648 just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section near the top. This will apply to
5649 all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end of the listing
5650 -- <quote>/</quote>.
5654 But we can define additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
5655 rules, and then list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions would
5656 apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit matches for
5657 <quote>.google.com</quote>. The first is negating our previous cookie setting,
5659 linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>
5660 (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google. The
5661 second turns <emphasis>off</emphasis> any
5663 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link>
5664 action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading
5665 dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will match any hosts and
5666 sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
5667 <quote>www.google.com</quote>. So, apparently, we have these two actions
5668 defined somewhere in the lower part of our <filename>default.action</filename>
5669 file, and <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced somewhere in these latter
5674 Then, for our <filename>user.action</filename> file, we again have no hits.
5678 And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
5679 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
5680 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
5691 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
5692 -crunch-incoming-cookies
5693 +deanimate-gifs{last}
5694 -downgrade-http-version
5698 -filter{shockwave-flash}
5699 -filter{crude-parental}
5700 +filter{html-annoyances}
5701 +filter{js-annoyances}
5702 +filter{content-cookies}
5704 +filter{refresh-tags}
5706 +filter{banners-by-size}
5707 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
5708 +hide-from-header{block}
5709 +hide-referer{forge}
5714 +prevent-compression
5717 -session-cookies-only
5718 +set-image-blocker{pattern}
5723 Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
5724 <quote>fast-redirects</quote> and <quote>session-cookies-only</quote>.
5728 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
5734 { +block +handle-as-image }
5737 { +block +handle-as-image }
5740 { +block +handle-as-image }
5746 We'll just show the interesting part here, the explicit matches. It is
5747 matched three different times. Each as an <quote>+block +handle-as-image</quote>,
5748 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
5749 <quote>+imageblock</quote>. (<link
5750 linkend="ALIASES"><quote>Aliases</quote></link> are defined in
5751 the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
5756 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
5757 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
5758 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
5759 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
5760 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
5761 is done here -- as both a <link
5762 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link>
5763 <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
5765 linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>.
5766 The custom alias <quote>+imageblock</quote> just simplifies the process and make
5771 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
5772 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm ...
5778 Matches for http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
5780 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
5784 -crunch-incoming-cookies
5785 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
5787 -downgrade-http-version
5789 +filter{html-annoyances}
5790 +filter{js-annoyances}
5791 +filter{kill-popups}
5794 +filter{banners-by-size}
5797 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
5798 +hide-from-header{block}
5799 +hide-referer{forge}
5803 +prevent-compression
5806 +session-cookies-only
5807 +set-image-blocker{blank} }
5810 { +block +handle-as-image }
5816 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote>! But
5817 we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the blank page. We could
5818 now add a new action below this that explicitly does <emphasis>not</emphasis>
5819 block (<quote>{-block}</quote>) paths with <quote>adsl</quote>. There are
5820 various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
5832 Now the page displays ;-) Be sure to flush your browser's caches when
5833 making such changes. Or, try using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
5837 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
5844 { +block +handle-as-image }
5850 That actually was very telling and pointed us quickly to where the problem
5851 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
5852 rules in the first section is causing the problem. This would require some
5853 guesswork, and maybe a little trial and error to isolate the offending rule.
5854 One likely cause would be one of the <quote>{+filter}</quote> actions. These
5855 tend to be harder to troubleshoot. Try adding the URL for the site to one of
5856 aliases that turn off <quote>+filter</quote>:
5864 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
5872 <quote>{shop}</quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
5873 <quote>{ -filter -session-cookies-only }</quote>.
5874 Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
5887 This would turn off all filtering for that site. This would probably be most
5888 appropriately put in <filename>user.action</filename>, for local site
5893 Images that are inexplicably being blocked, may well be hitting the
5894 <quote>+filter{banners-by-size}</quote> rule, which assumes
5895 that images of certain sizes are ad banners (works well most of the time
5896 since these tend to be standardized).
5900 <quote>{fragile}</quote> is an alias that disables most actions. This can be
5901 used as a last resort for problem sites. Remember to flush caches! If this
5902 still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining actions one by
5903 one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
5912 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
5913 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
5914 Public License as published by the Free Software
5915 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
5916 your option) any later version.
5918 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
5919 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
5920 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
5921 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
5922 License for more details.
5924 The GNU General Public License should be included with
5925 this file. If not, you can view it at
5926 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
5927 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
5928 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
5930 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
5931 Revision 1.123.2.24 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9
5932 Move default profiles table from FAQ to U-M, and other minor related changes.
5935 Revision 1.123.2.23 2002/10/21 02:32:01 hal9
5936 Updates to the user.action examples section. A few new ones.
5938 Revision 1.123.2.22 2002/10/12 00:51:53 hal9
5939 Add demoronizer to filter section.
5941 Revision 1.123.2.21 2002/10/10 04:09:35 hal9
5942 s/Advanced/Radical/ and added very brief note.
5944 Revision 1.123.2.20 2002/10/10 03:49:21 hal9
5945 Add notes to session-cookies-only and Quickstart about pre-existing
5946 cookies. Also, note content-cookies work differently.
5948 Revision 1.123.2.19 2002/09/26 01:25:36 hal9
5949 More explanation on Privoxy patterns, more on content-cookies and SSL.
5951 Revision 1.123.2.18 2002/08/22 23:47:58 hal9
5952 Add 'Documentation' to Privoxy Menu shot in Configuration section to match
5955 Revision 1.123.2.17 2002/08/18 01:13:05 hal9
5956 Spell checked (only one typo this time!).
5958 Revision 1.123.2.16 2002/08/09 19:20:54 david__schmidt
5959 Update to Mac OSX startup script name
5961 Revision 1.123.2.15 2002/08/07 17:32:11 oes
5962 Converted some internal links from ulink to link for PDF creation; no content changed
5964 Revision 1.123.2.14 2002/08/06 09:16:13 oes
5965 Nits re: actions file download
5967 Revision 1.123.2.13 2002/08/02 18:23:19 g_sauthoff
5968 Just 2 small corrections to the Gentoo sections
5970 Revision 1.123.2.12 2002/08/02 18:17:21 g_sauthoff
5971 Added 2 Gentoo sections
5973 Revision 1.123.2.11 2002/07/26 15:20:31 oes
5974 - Added version info to title
5975 - Added info on new filters
5976 - Revised parts of the filter file tutorial
5977 - Added info on where to get updated actions files
5979 Revision 1.123.2.10 2002/07/25 21:42:29 hal9
5980 Add brief notes on not proxying non-HTTP protocols.
5982 Revision 1.123.2.9 2002/07/11 03:40:28 david__schmidt
5984 Updated Mac OSX sections due to installation location change
5986 Revision 1.123.2.8 2002/06/09 16:36:32 hal9
5987 Clarifications on filtering and MIME. Hardcode 'latest release' in index.html.
5989 Revision 1.123.2.7 2002/06/09 00:29:34 hal9
5990 Touch ups on filtering, in actions section and Anatomy.
5992 Revision 1.123.2.6 2002/06/06 23:11:03 hal9
5993 Fix broken link. Linkchecked all docs.
5995 Revision 1.123.2.5 2002/05/29 02:01:02 hal9
5996 This is break out of the entire config section from u-m, so it can
5997 eventually be used to generate the comments, etc in the main config file
5998 so that these are in sync with each other.
6000 Revision 1.123.2.4 2002/05/27 03:28:45 hal9
6001 Ooops missed something from David.
6003 Revision 1.123.2.3 2002/05/27 03:23:17 hal9
6004 Fix FIXMEs for OS2 and OSX startup. Fix Redhat typos (should be Red Hat).
6005 That's a wrap, I think.
6007 Revision 1.123.2.2 2002/05/26 19:02:09 hal9
6008 Move Amiga stuff around to take of FIXME in start up section.
6010 Revision 1.123.2.1 2002/05/26 17:04:25 hal9
6011 -Spellcheck, very minor edits, and sync across branches
6013 Revision 1.123 2002/05/24 23:19:23 hal9
6014 Include new image (Proxy setup). More fun with guibutton.
6015 Minor corrections/clarifications here and there.
6017 Revision 1.122 2002/05/24 13:24:08 oes
6018 Added Bookmarklet for one-click pre-filled access to show-url-info
6020 Revision 1.121 2002/05/23 23:20:17 oes
6021 - Changed more (all?) references to actions to the
6022 <literal><link> style.
6023 - Small fixes in the actions chapter
6024 - Small clarifications in the quickstart to ad blocking
6025 - Removed <emphasis> from <title>s since the new doc CSS
6026 renders them red (bad in TOC).
6028 Revision 1.120 2002/05/23 19:16:43 roro
6029 Correct Debian specials (installation and startup).
6031 Revision 1.119 2002/05/22 17:17:05 oes
6034 Revision 1.118 2002/05/21 04:54:55 hal9
6035 -New Section: Quickstart to Ad Blocking
6036 -Reformat Actions Anatomy to match new CGI layout
6038 Revision 1.117 2002/05/17 13:56:16 oes
6039 - Reworked & extended Templates chapter
6040 - Small changes to Regex appendix
6041 - #included authors.sgml into (C) and hist chapter
6043 Revision 1.116 2002/05/17 03:23:46 hal9
6044 Fixing merge conflict in Quickstart section.
6046 Revision 1.115 2002/05/16 16:25:00 oes
6047 Extended the Filter File chapter & minor fixes
6049 Revision 1.114 2002/05/16 09:42:50 oes
6050 More ulink->link, added some hints to Quickstart section
6052 Revision 1.113 2002/05/15 21:07:25 oes
6053 Extended and further commented the example actions files
6055 Revision 1.112 2002/05/15 03:57:14 hal9
6056 Spell check. A few minor edits here and there for better syntax and
6059 Revision 1.111 2002/05/14 23:01:36 oes
6062 Revision 1.110 2002/05/14 19:10:45 oes
6063 Restored alphabetical order of actions
6065 Revision 1.109 2002/05/14 17:23:11 oes
6066 Renamed the prevent-*-cookies actions, extended aliases section and moved it before the example AFs
6068 Revision 1.108 2002/05/14 15:29:12 oes
6069 Completed proofreading the actions chapter
6071 Revision 1.107 2002/05/12 03:20:41 hal9
6072 Small clarifications for 127.0.0.1 vs localhost for listen-address since this
6073 apparently an important distinction for some OS's.
6075 Revision 1.106 2002/05/10 01:48:20 hal9
6076 This is mostly proposed copyright/licensing additions and changes. Docs
6077 are still GPL, but licensing and copyright are more visible. Also, copyright
6078 changed in doc header comments (eliminate references to JB except FAQ).
6080 Revision 1.105 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
6081 Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
6083 Revision 1.104 2002/05/04 08:44:45 swa
6086 Revision 1.103 2002/05/04 00:40:53 hal9
6087 -Remove the TOC first page kludge. It's fixed proper now in ldp.dsl.in.
6088 -Some minor additions to Quickstart.
6090 Revision 1.102 2002/05/03 17:46:00 oes
6091 Further proofread & reactivated short build instructions
6093 Revision 1.101 2002/05/03 03:58:30 hal9
6094 Move the user-manual config directive to top of section. Add note about
6095 Privoxy needing read permissions for configs, and write for logs.
6097 Revision 1.100 2002/04/29 03:05:55 hal9
6098 Add clarification on differences of new actions files.
6100 Revision 1.99 2002/04/28 16:59:05 swa
6101 more structure in starting section
6103 Revision 1.98 2002/04/28 05:43:59 hal9
6104 This is the break up of configuration.html into multiple files. This
6105 will probably break links elsewhere :(
6107 Revision 1.97 2002/04/27 21:04:42 hal9
6108 -Rewrite of Actions File example.
6109 -Add section for user-manual directive in config.
6111 Revision 1.96 2002/04/27 05:32:00 hal9
6112 -Add short section to Filter Files to tie in with +filter action.
6113 -Start rewrite of examples in Actions Examples (not finished).
6115 Revision 1.95 2002/04/26 17:23:29 swa
6116 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
6118 Revision 1.94 2002/04/26 05:24:36 hal9
6119 -Add most of Andreas suggestions to Chain of Events section.
6120 -A few other minor corrections and touch up.
6122 Revision 1.92 2002/04/25 18:55:13 hal9
6123 More catchups on new actions files, and new actions names.
6124 Other assorted cleanups, and minor modifications.
6126 Revision 1.91 2002/04/24 02:39:31 hal9
6127 Add 'Chain of Events' section.
6129 Revision 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 hal9
6130 Linuxconf is deprecated on RH, substitute chkconfig.
6132 Revision 1.89 2002/04/23 21:05:28 oes
6133 Added hint for startup on Red Hat
6135 Revision 1.88 2002/04/23 05:37:54 hal9
6136 Add AmigaOS install stuff.
6138 Revision 1.87 2002/04/23 02:53:15 david__schmidt
6139 Updated OSX installation section
6140 Added a few English tweaks here an there
6142 Revision 1.86 2002/04/21 01:46:32 hal9
6143 Re-write actions section.
6145 Revision 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9
6146 Fix ugly typo (mine).
6148 Revision 1.84 2002/04/18 21:17:13 hal9
6149 Spell Redhat correctly (ie Red Hat). A few minor grammar corrections.
6151 Revision 1.83 2002/04/18 18:21:12 oes
6152 Added RPM install detail
6154 Revision 1.82 2002/04/18 12:04:50 oes
6157 Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
6158 Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
6160 Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
6161 Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
6163 Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
6164 Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
6166 Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
6169 Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
6170 Proofreading, part one
6172 Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
6173 -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
6174 -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
6176 Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
6177 Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
6179 Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
6180 Add small section on submitting actions.
6182 Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
6185 Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
6186 Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
6188 Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
6189 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
6191 Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
6194 Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
6195 -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
6196 -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
6197 -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
6198 -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
6200 Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
6201 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
6203 Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
6204 more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
6206 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
6207 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
6208 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
6209 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
6210 eventually be set by Makefile.
6211 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
6213 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
6214 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
6216 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
6217 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
6219 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
6220 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
6222 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
6223 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
6224 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
6225 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
6227 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
6230 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
6231 Added more to Anatomy section.
6233 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
6234 Touch up intro for new name.
6236 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
6237 we have a new homepage!
6239 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
6240 A few minor catch ups with name change.
6242 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
6243 configure needs to be generated.
6245 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
6246 we are too lazy to make a block-built
6247 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
6249 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
6250 name change related issue.
6252 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
6253 name change. changed filenames.
6255 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
6258 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
6259 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
6260 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
6261 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
6262 comments and remarks to history untouched.
6264 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
6267 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
6268 New section in Appendix.
6270 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
6271 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
6273 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
6274 correct feedback channels
6276 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
6277 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
6279 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
6282 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
6283 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
6285 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
6286 Added imageblock{pattern}.
6288 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
6291 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
6292 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
6294 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
6295 provide correct feedback channels
6297 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
6298 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
6300 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
6301 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
6303 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
6304 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
6306 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
6307 Add new - - user option.
6309 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
6310 Added section on command line options.
6312 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
6313 Changed default port to 8118
6315 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
6316 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
6318 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
6319 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
6320 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
6323 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
6326 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
6327 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
6329 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
6330 Update OS/2 build section
6332 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
6333 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
6334 will work - no other changes are needed.
6336 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
6337 Added a very short section on Templates
6339 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
6340 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
6342 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
6343 Touch ups for *.action files.
6345 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
6348 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
6349 Updates for recent changes.
6351 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
6352 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
6354 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
6355 Correct 2 minor errors
6357 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
6358 *** empty log message ***
6360 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
6361 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
6363 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
6364 wrong url in documentation
6366 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
6367 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
6369 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
6372 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
6375 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
6378 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
6379 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
6381 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
6382 Some additions, and re-arranging.
6384 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
6387 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
6388 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
6390 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
6393 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
6394 source files for junkbuster documentation
6396 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
6397 first proposal of a structure.
6399 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
6400 docs should have an author.
6402 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
6403 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.
projects / privoxy.git / blob