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4 <!entity newfeatures SYSTEM "newfeatures.sgml">
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10 <!entity copyright SYSTEM "copyright.sgml">
11 <!entity license SYSTEM "license.sgml">
12 <!entity p-authors SYSTEM "p-authors.sgml">
13 <!entity config SYSTEM "p-config.sgml">
14 <!entity p-version "3.0.2">
15 <!entity p-status "STABLE">
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 -->
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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 1.123.2.36 2003/12/10 02:26:26 hal9 Exp $
37 Copyright (C) 2001- 2003 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 - 2004 by
57 <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/">Privoxy Developers</ulink>
61 <pubdate>$Id: user-manual.sgml,v 1.123.2.36 2003/12/10 02:26:26 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.
81 This is here to keep vim syntax file from breaking :/
82 If I knew enough to fix it, I would.
83 PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE! HB: hal@foobox.net
89 The <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> gives users information on how to
90 install, configure and use <ulink
91 url="http://www.privoxy.org/"><application>Privoxy</application></ulink>.
94 <!-- Include privoxy.sgml boilerplate: -->
96 <!-- end privoxy.sgml -->
99 You can find the latest version of the <citetitle>User Manual</citetitle> at <ulink
100 url="http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/">http://www.privoxy.org/user-manual/</ulink>.
101 Please see the <link linkend="contact">Contact section</link> on how to
102 contact the developers.
106 <!-- Feel free to send a note to the developers at <email>ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net</email>. -->
112 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
113 <sect1 label="1" id="introduction"><title>Introduction</title>
115 This documentation is included with the current &p-status; version of
116 <application>Privoxy</application>, v.&p-version;<![%p-not-stable;[,
117 and is mostly complete at this point. The most up to date reference for the
118 time being is still the comments in the source files and in the individual
119 configuration files. Development of version 3.0 is currently nearing
120 completion, and includes many significant changes and enhancements over
121 earlier versions. The target release date for
122 stable v3.0 is <quote>soon</quote> ;-)]]>.
125 <!-- include only in non-stable versions -->
128 Since this is a &p-status; version, not all new features are well tested. This
129 documentation may be slightly out of sync as a result (especially with
130 CVS sources). And there <emphasis>may be</emphasis> bugs, though hopefully
135 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
136 <sect2 id="features"><title>Features</title>
138 In addition to <application>Internet Junkbuster's</application> traditional
139 features of ad and banner blocking and cookie management,
140 <application>Privoxy</application> provides new features<![%p-not-stable;[,
141 some of them currently under development]]>:
143 <!-- Include newfeatures.sgml boilerplate here: -->
145 <!-- end boilerplate -->
150 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
153 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
154 <sect1 id="installation"><title>Installation</title>
157 <application>Privoxy</application> is available both in convenient pre-compiled
158 packages for a wide range of operating systems, and as raw source code.
159 For most users, we recommend using the packages, which can be downloaded from our
160 <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/">Privoxy Project
165 Note: If you have a previous <application>Junkbuster</application> or
166 <application>Privoxy</application> installation on your system, you
167 will need to remove it. On some platforms, this may be done for you as part
168 of their installation procedure. (See below for your platform). In any case
169 <emphasis>be sure to backup your old configuration if it is valuable to
170 you.</emphasis> See the <link linkend="upgradersnote">note to
171 upgraders</link> section below.
174 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
175 <sect2 id="installation-packages"><title>Binary Packages</title>
177 How to install the binary packages depends on your operating system:
180 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
181 <sect3 id="installation-pack-rpm"><title>Red Hat, SuSE and Conectiva RPMs</title>
184 RPMs can be installed with <literal>rpm -Uvh privoxy-&p-version;-1.rpm</literal>,
185 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location
186 of configuration files.
190 Note that on Red Hat, <application>Privoxy</application> will
191 <emphasis>not</emphasis> be automatically started on system boot. You will
192 need to enable that using <command>chkconfig</command>,
193 <command>ntsysv</command>, or similar methods. Note that SuSE will
194 automatically start Privoxy in the boot process.
198 If you have problems with failed dependencies, try rebuilding the SRC RPM:
199 <literal>rpm --rebuild privoxy-&p-version;-1.src.rpm</literal>. This
200 will use your locally installed libraries and RPM version.
204 Also note that if you have a <application>Junkbuster</application> RPM installed
205 on your system, you need to remove it first, because the packages conflict.
206 Otherwise, RPM will try to remove <application>Junkbuster</application>
207 automatically, before installing <application>Privoxy</application>.
211 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
212 <sect3 id="installation-deb"><title>Debian</title>
214 DEBs can be installed with <literal>apt-get install privoxy</literal>,
215 and will use <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename> for the location of
220 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
221 <sect3 id="installation-pack-win"><title>Windows</title>
224 Just double-click the installer, which will guide you through
225 the installation process. You will find the configuration files
226 in the same directory as you installed Privoxy in. We do not
227 use the registry of Windows.
231 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
232 <sect3 id="installation-pack-bintgz"><title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX</title>
235 Create a new directory, <literal>cd</literal> to it, then unzip and
236 untar the archive. For the most part, you'll have to figure out where
237 things go. <!-- FIXME, more info needed? -->
241 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
242 <sect3 id="installation-os2"><title>OS/2</title>
245 First, make sure that no previous installations of
246 <application>Junkbuster</application> and / or
247 <application>Privoxy</application> are left on your
248 system. Check that no <application>Junkbuster</application>
249 or <application>Privoxy</application> objects are in
255 Then, just double-click the WarpIN self-installing archive, which will
256 guide you through the installation process. A shadow of the
257 <application>Privoxy</application> executable will be placed in your
258 startup folder so it will start automatically whenever OS/2 starts.
262 The directory you choose to install <application>Privoxy</application>
263 into will contain all of the configuration files.
267 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
268 <sect3 id="installation-mac"><title>Mac OSX</title>
270 Unzip the downloaded file (you can either double-click on the file
271 from the finder, or from the desktop if you downloaded it there).
272 Then, double-click on the package installer icon named
273 <literal>Privoxy.pkg</literal>
274 and follow the installation process.
275 <application>Privoxy</application> will be installed in the folder
276 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal>.
277 It will start automatically whenever you start up. To prevent it from
278 starting automatically, remove or rename the folder
279 <literal>/Library/StartupItems/Privoxy</literal>.
282 To start Privoxy by hand, double-click on
283 <literal>StartPrivoxy.command</literal> in the
284 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal> folder.
285 Or, type this command in the Terminal:
289 /Library/Privoxy/StartPrivoxy.command
293 You will be prompted for the administrator password.
297 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
298 <sect3 id="installation-amiga"><title>AmigaOS</title>
300 Copy and then unpack the <filename>lha</filename> archive to a suitable location.
301 All necessary files will be installed into <application>Privoxy</application>
302 directory, including all configuration and log files. To uninstall, just
303 remove this directory.
307 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
308 <sect3 id="installattion-gentoo"><title>Gentoo</title>
310 Gentoo source packages (Ebuilds) for <application>Privoxy</application> are
311 contained in the Gentoo Portage Tree (they are not on the download page,
312 but there is a Gentoo section, where you can see when a new
313 <application>Privoxy</application> Version is added to the Portage Tree).
316 Before installing <application>Privoxy</application> under Gentoo just do
317 first <literal>emerge rsync</literal> to get the latest changes from the
318 Portage tree. With <literal>emerge privoxy</literal> you install the latest
322 Configuration files are in <filename>/etc/privoxy</filename>, the
323 documentation is in <filename>/usr/share/doc/privoxy-&p-version;</filename>
324 and the Log directory is in <filename>/var/log/privoxy</filename>.
330 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
331 <sect2 id="installation-source"><title>Building from Source</title>
334 The most convenient way to obtain the <application>Privoxy</application> sources
335 is to download the source tarball from our <ulink url="http://sf.net/projects/ijbswa/">project
340 If you like to live on the bleeding edge and are not afraid of using
341 possibly unstable development versions, you can check out the up-to-the-minute
342 version directly from <ulink url="http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=11118">the
343 CVS repository</ulink> or simply download <ulink
344 url="http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/ijbswa-cvsroot.tar.bz2">the nightly CVS
348 <!-- include buildsource.sgml boilerplate: -->
350 <!-- end boilerplate -->
353 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
354 <sect2 id="installation-keepupdated"><title>Keeping your Installation Up-to-Date</title>
356 As user feedback comes in and development continues, we will make updated versions
357 of both the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link> (as a <ulink
358 url="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11118&release_id=103670">separate
359 package</ulink>) and the software itself (including the actions file) available for
364 If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
365 <application>Privoxy</application> or the actions file, <ulink
366 url="http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ijbswa-announce/">subscribe
367 to our announce mailing list</ulink>, ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
371 In order not to loose your personal changes and adjustments when updating
372 to the latest <literal>default.action</literal> file we <emphasis>strongly
373 recommend</emphasis> that you use <literal>user.action</literal> for your
374 customization of <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
375 linkend="actions-file">Chapter on actions files</link> for details.
383 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
385 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
386 <sect1 id="upgradersnote">
387 <title>Note to Upgraders</title>
389 There are very significant changes from earlier
390 <application>Junkbuster</application> versions to the current
391 <application>Privoxy</application>. The number, names, syntax, and
392 purposes of configuration files have substantially changed.
393 <application>Junkbuster 2.0.x</application> configuration
394 files will not migrate, <application>Junkbuster 2.9.x</application>
395 and <application>Privoxy</application> configurations will need to be
396 ported. The functionalities of the old <filename>blockfile</filename>,
397 <filename>cookiefile</filename> and <filename>imagelist</filename>
398 are now combined into the <link linkend="actions-file"><quote>actions
399 files</quote></link>.
400 <filename>default.action</filename>, is the main actions file. Local
401 exceptions should best be put into <filename>user.action</filename>.
404 A <link linkend="filter-file"><quote>filter file</quote></link> (typically
405 <filename>default.filter</filename>) is new as of <application>Privoxy
406 2.9.x</application>, and provides some of the new sophistication (explained
407 below). <filename>config</filename> is much the same as before.
410 If upgrading from a 2.0.x version, you will have to use the new config
411 files, and possibly adapt any personal rules from your older files.
412 When porting personal rules over from the old <filename>blockfile</filename>
413 to the new actions files, please note that even the pattern syntax has
414 changed. If upgrading from 2.9.x development versions, it is still
415 recommended to use the new configuration files.
418 A quick list of things to be aware of before upgrading:
426 The default listening port is now 8118 due to a conflict with another
432 Some installers may remove earlier versions completely. Save any
433 important configuration files!
438 <application>Privoxy</application> is controllable with a web browser
439 at the special URL: <ulink
440 url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
441 (Shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>). Many
442 aspects of configuration can be done here, including temporarily disabling
443 <application>Privoxy</application>.
448 The primary configuration files for cookie management, ad and banner
449 blocking, and many other aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
450 configuration are the <link linkend="actions-file">actions
451 files</link>. It is strongly recommended to become familiar with the new
452 actions concept below, before modifying these files. Locally defined rules
453 should go into <filename>user.action</filename>.
458 <!-- I think it is best to keep this somewhat vague, in case -->
459 <!-- the situation changes under our feet. -->
460 Some installers may not automatically start
461 <application>Privoxy</application> after installation.
469 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
470 <sect1 id="quickstart"><title>Quickstart to Using <application>Privoxy</application></title>
476 If upgrading, from versions before 2.9.16, please back up any configuration
477 files. See the <link linkend="upgradersnote">Note to Upgraders</link> Section.
483 Install <application>Privoxy</application>. See the <link
484 linkend="installation">Installation Section</link> below for platform specific
491 Advanced users and those who want to offer <application>Privoxy</application>
492 service to more than just their local machine should check the <link
493 linkend="config">main config file</link>, especially the <link
494 linkend="access-control">security-relevant</link> options. These are
501 Start <application>Privoxy</application>, if the installation program has
502 not done this already (may vary according to platform). See the section
503 <link linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link>.
509 Set your browser to use <application>Privoxy</application> as HTTP and
510 HTTPS (SSL) proxy by setting the proxy configuration for address of
511 <literal>127.0.0.1</literal> and port <literal>8118</literal>.
512 (<application>Junkbuster</application> and earlier versions of
513 <application>Privoxy</application> used port 8000.) See the section <link
514 linkend="startup">Starting <application>Privoxy</application></link> below
515 for more details on this.
521 Flush your browser's disk and memory caches, to remove any cached ad images.
522 If using <application>Privoxy</application> to manage cookies, you should
523 remove any currently stored cookies too.
529 A default installation should provide a reasonable starting point for
530 most. There will undoubtedly be occasions where you will want to adjust the
531 configuration, but that can be dealt with as the need arises. Little
532 to no initial configuration is required in most cases.
535 See the <link linkend="configuration">Configuration section</link> for more
536 configuration options, and how to customize your installation.
537 <![%draft;[ You might also want to look at the <link
538 linkend="quickstart-ad-blocking">next section</link> for a quick
539 introduction to how <application>Privoxy</application> blocks ads and
546 If you experience ads that slipped through, innocent images that are
547 blocked, or otherwise feel the need to fine-tune
548 <application>Privoxy's</application> behaviour, take a look at the <link
549 linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>. As a quick start, you might
550 find the <link linkend="act-examples">richly commented examples</link>
551 helpful. You can also view and edit the actions files through the <ulink
552 url="http://config.privoxy.org">web-based user interface</ulink>. The
553 Appendix <quote><link linkend="actionsanat">Anatomy of an
554 Action</link></quote> has hints how to debug actions that
555 <quote>misbehave</quote>.
561 Please see the section <link linkend="contact">Contacting the
562 Developers</link> on how to report bugs or problems with websites or to get
569 Now enjoy surfing with enhanced comfort and privacy!
577 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
579 <sect2 id="quickstart-ad-blocking">
580 <title>Quickstart to Ad Blocking</title>
582 NOTE: This section is deliberately redundant for those that don't
583 want to read the whole thing (which is getting lengthy).
586 Ad blocking is but one of <application>Privoxy's</application>
587 array of features. Many of these features are for the technically minded advanced
588 user. But, ad and banner blocking is surely common ground for everybody.
591 This section will provide a quick summary of ad blocking so
592 you can get up to speed quickly without having to read the more extensive
593 information provided below, though this is highly recommended.
596 First a bit of a warning ... blocking ads is much like blocking SPAM: the
597 more aggressive you are about it, the more likely you are to block
598 things that were not intended. So there is a trade off here. If you want
599 extreme ad free browsing, be prepared to deal with more
600 <quote>problem</quote> sites, and to spend more time adjusting the
601 configuration to solve these unintended consequences. In short, there is
602 not an easy way to eliminate <emphasis>all</emphasis> ads. Either take
603 the easy way and settle for <emphasis>most</emphasis> ads blocked with the
604 default configuration, or jump in and tweak it for your personal surfing
605 habits and preferences.
608 Secondly, a brief explanation of <application>Privoxy's </application>
609 <quote>actions</quote>. <quote>Actions</quote> in this context, are
610 the directives we use to tell <application>Privoxy</application> to perform
611 some task relating to HTTP transactions (i.e. web browsing). We tell
612 <application>Privoxy</application> to take some <quote>action</quote>. Each
613 action has a unique name and function. While there are many potential
614 <application>actions</application> in <application>Privoxy's</application>
615 arsenal, only a few are used for ad blocking. <link
616 linkend="actions">Actions</link>, and <link linkend="actions-file">action
617 configuration files</link>, are explained in depth below.
620 Actions are specified in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
621 followed by one or more URLs to which the action should apply. URLs
622 can actually be URL type <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> that use
623 wildcards so they can apply potentially to a range of similar URLs. The
624 actions, together with the URL patterns are called a section.
627 When you connect to a website, the full URL will either match one or more
628 of the sections as defined in <application>Privoxy's</application> configuration,
629 or not. If so, then <application>Privoxy</application> will perform the
630 respective actions. If not, then nothing special happens. Furthermore, web
631 pages may contain embedded, secondary URLs that your web browser will
632 use to load additional components of the page, as it parses the
633 original page's HTML content. An ad image for instance, is just an URL
634 embedded in the page somewhere. The image itself may be on the same server,
635 or a server somewhere else on the Internet. Complex web pages will have many
640 The actions we need to know about for ad blocking are: <literal><link
641 linkend="block">block</link></literal>, <literal><link
642 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>, and
643 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>:
651 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> - this action stops
652 any contact between your browser and any URL patterns that match this
653 action's configuration. It can be used for blocking ads, but also anything
654 that is determined to be unwanted. By itself, it simply stops any
655 communication with the remote server and sends <application>Privoxy</application>'s
656 own built-in BLOCKED page instead to let you now what has happened.
662 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> -
663 tells <application>Privoxy</application> to treat this URL as an image.
664 <application>Privoxy</application>'s default configuration already does this
665 for all common image types (e.g. GIF), but there are many situations where this
666 is not so easy to determine. So we'll force it in these cases. This is particularly
667 important for ad blocking, since only if we know that it's an image of
668 some kind, can we replace it with an image of our choosing, instead of the
669 <application>Privoxy</application> BLOCKED page (which would only result in
670 a <quote>broken image</quote> icon). There are some limitations to this
671 though. For instance, you can't just brute-force an image substitution for
672 an entire HTML page in most situations.
679 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> - tells
680 <application>Privoxy</application> what to display in place of an ad image that
681 has hit a block rule. For this to come into play, the URL must match a
682 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action somewhere in the
683 configuration, <emphasis>and</emphasis>, it must also match an
684 <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action.
687 The configuration options on what to display instead of the ad are:
691 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> - a checkerboard pattern, so that an ad
692 replacement is obvious. This is the default.
697 <emphasis>blank</emphasis> - A very small empty GIF image is displayed.
698 This is the so-called <quote>invisible</quote> configuration option.
703 <emphasis>http://<URL></emphasis> - A redirect to any image anywhere
704 of the user's choosing (advanced usage).
713 The quickest way to adjust any of these settings is with your browser through
714 the special <application>Privoxy</application> editor at <ulink
715 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
716 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>). This
717 is an internal page, and does not require Internet access. Select the
718 appropriate <quote>actions</quote> file, and click
719 <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>. It is best to put personal or
720 local preferences in <filename>user.action</filename> since this is not
721 meant to be overwritten during upgrades, and will over-ride the settings in
722 other files. Here you can insert new <quote>actions</quote>, and URLs for ad
723 blocking or other purposes, and make other adjustments to the configuration.
724 <application>Privoxy</application> will detect these changes automatically.
728 A quick and simple step by step example:
736 Right click on the ad image to be blocked, then select
737 <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote> from the
745 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
750 Find <filename>user.action</filename> in the top section, and click
751 on <quote><guibutton>Edit</guibutton></quote>:
754 <!-- image of editor and actions files selections -->
756 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Actions Files in Use</title>
759 <imagedata fileref="../images/files-in-use.jpg" format="jpg">
762 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Actions Files in Use ]</phrase>
771 You should have a section with only
772 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> listed under
773 <quote>Actions:</quote>.
774 If not, click a <quote><guibutton>Insert new section below</guibutton></quote>
775 button, and in the new section that just appeared, click the
776 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> button right under the word <quote>Actions:</quote>.
777 This will bring up a list of all actions. Find
778 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> near the top, and click
779 in the <quote>Enabled</quote> column, then <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote>
785 Now, in the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> actions section,
786 click the <quote><guibutton>Add</guibutton></quote> button, and paste the URL the
787 browser got from <quote><guimenuitem>Copy Link Location</guimenuitem></quote>.
788 Remove the <literal>http://</literal> at the beginning of the URL. Then, click
789 <quote><guibutton>Submit</guibutton></quote> (or
790 <quote><guibutton>OK</guibutton></quote> if in a pop-up window).
795 Now go back to the original page, and press <keycap>SHIFT-Reload</keycap>
796 (or flush all browser caches). The image should be gone now.
804 This is a very crude and simple example. There might be good reasons to use a
805 wildcard pattern match to include potentially similar images from the same
806 site. For a more extensive explanation of <quote>patterns</quote>, and
807 the entire actions concept, see <link linkend="actions-file">the Actions
812 For advanced users who want to hand edit their config files, you might want
813 to now go to the <link linkend="act-examples">Actions Files Tutorial</link>.
814 The ideas explained therein also apply to the web-based editor.
821 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
824 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
826 <title>Starting <application>Privoxy</application></title>
828 Before launching <application>Privoxy</application> for the first time, you
829 will want to configure your browser(s) to use
830 <application>Privoxy</application> as a HTTP and HTTPS proxy. The default is
831 127.0.0.1 (or localhost) for the proxy address, and port 8118 (earlier versions
832 used port 8000). This is the one configuration step that must be done!
835 Please note that <application>Privoxy</application> can only proxy HTTP and
836 HTTPS traffic. It will not work with FTP or other protocols.
839 <!-- image of Mozilla Proxy configuration -->
841 <figure pgwide="0" float="0"><title>Proxy Configuration (Mozilla)</title>
844 <imagedata fileref="../images/proxy_setup.jpg" format="jpg">
847 <phrase>[ Screenshot of Mozilla Proxy Configuration ]</phrase>
854 With <application>Netscape</application> (and
855 <application>Mozilla</application>), this can be set under:
859 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
860 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
861 <guibutton>Edit</guibutton>
863 <guibutton>Preferences</guibutton>
865 <guibutton>Advanced</guibutton>
867 <guibutton>Proxies</guibutton>
869 <guibutton>HTTP Proxy</guibutton>
873 For <application>Internet Explorer</application>:
877 <!-- Mix ascii and gui art, something for everybody -->
878 <!-- spacing on this is tricky -->
879 <guibutton>Tools</guibutton>
881 <guibutton>Internet Properties</guibutton>
883 <guibutton>Connections</guibutton>
885 <guibutton>LAN Settings</guibutton>
889 Then, check <quote>Use Proxy</quote> and fill in the appropriate info
890 (Address: 127.0.0.1, Port: 8118). Include HTTPS (SSL), if you want HTTPS
895 After doing this, flush your browser's disk and memory caches to force a
896 re-reading of all pages and to get rid of any ads that may be cached. You
897 are now ready to start enjoying the benefits of using
898 <application>Privoxy</application>!
902 <application>Privoxy</application> is typically started by specifying the
903 main configuration file to be used on the command line. If no configuration
904 file is specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application>
905 will look for a file named <filename>config</filename> in the current
906 directory. Except on Win32 where it will try <filename>config.txt</filename>.
909 <sect2 id="start-redhat">
910 <title>Red Hat and Conectiva</title>
912 We use a script. Note that Red Hat does not start Privoxy upon booting per
913 default. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as
914 its main configuration file.
918 # /etc/rc.d/init.d/privoxy start
923 <sect2 id="start-debian">
924 <title>Debian</title>
926 We use a script. Note that Debian starts Privoxy upon booting per
927 default. It will use the file
928 <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename> as its main configuration
933 # /etc/init.d/privoxy start
938 <sect2 id="start-suse">
941 We use a script. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config</filename>
942 as its main configuration file. Note that SuSE starts Privoxy upon booting
952 <sect2 id="start-windows">
953 <title>Windows</title>
955 Click on the Privoxy Icon to start Privoxy. If no configuration file is
956 specified on the command line, <application>Privoxy</application> will look
957 for a file named <filename>config.txt</filename>. Note that Windows will
958 automatically start Privoxy upon booting you PC.
962 <sect2 id="start-unices">
963 <title>Solaris, NetBSD, FreeBSD, HP-UX and others</title>
965 Example Unix startup command:
969 # /usr/sbin/privoxy /etc/privoxy/config
974 <sect2 id="start-os2">
977 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
978 start automatically when the system restarts. You can start it manually by
979 double-clicking on the <application>Privoxy</application> icon in the
980 <application>Privoxy</application> folder.
984 <sect2 id="start-macosx">
985 <title>Mac OSX</title>
987 During installation, <application>Privoxy</application> is configured to
988 start automatically when the system restarts. To start Privoxy by hand,
989 double-click on the <literal>StartPrivoxy.command</literal> icon in the
990 <literal>/Library/Privoxy</literal> folder. Or, type this command
995 /Library/Privoxy/StartPrivoxy.command
999 You will be prompted for the administrator password.
1004 <sect2 id="start-amigaos">
1005 <title>AmigaOS</title>
1007 Start <application>Privoxy</application> (with RUN <>NIL:) in your
1008 <filename>startnet</filename> script (AmiTCP), in
1009 <filename>s:user-startup</filename> (RoadShow), as startup program in your
1010 startup script (Genesis), or as startup action (Miami and MiamiDx).
1011 <application>Privoxy</application> will automatically quit when you quit your
1012 TCP/IP stack (just ignore the harmless warning your TCP/IP stack may display that
1013 <application>Privoxy</application> is still running).
1017 <sect2 id="start-gentoo">
1018 <title>Gentoo</title>
1020 A script is again used. It will use the file <filename>/etc/privoxy/config
1021 </filename> as its main configuration file.
1025 /etc/init.d/privoxy start
1029 Note that <application>Privoxy</application> is not automatically started at
1030 boot time by default. You can change this with the <literal>rc-update</literal>
1035 rc-update add privoxy default
1043 See the section <link linkend="cmdoptions">Command line options</link> for
1047 must find a better place for this paragraph
1050 The included default configuration files should give a reasonable starting
1051 point. Most of the per site configuration is done in the
1052 <ulink url="actions-file.html"><quote>actions</quote></ulink> files. These are
1053 where various cookie actions are defined, ad and banner blocking, and other
1054 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. There are several
1055 such files included, with varying levels of aggressiveness.
1059 You will probably want to keep an eye out for sites for which you may prefer
1060 persistent cookies, and add these to your actions configuration as needed. By
1061 default, most of these will be accepted only during the current browser
1062 session (aka <quote>session cookies</quote>), unless you add them to the
1063 configuration. If you want the browser to handle this instead, you will need
1064 to edit <filename>user.action</filename> (or through the web based interface)
1065 and disable this feature. If you use more than one browser, it would make
1066 more sense to let <application>Privoxy</application> handle this. In which
1067 case, the browser(s) should be set to accept all cookies.
1071 Another feature where you will probably want to define exceptions for trusted
1072 sites is the popup-killing (through the <ulink
1073 url="actions-file.html#KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></ulink> and
1075 url="actions-file.html#FILTER-POPUPS"><quote>+filter{popups}</quote></ulink>
1076 actions), because your favorite shopping, banking, or leisure site may need
1077 popups (explained below).
1081 <application>Privoxy</application> is HTTP/1.1 compliant, but not all of
1082 the optional 1.1 features are as yet supported. In the unlikely event that
1083 you experience inexplicable problems with browsers that use HTTP/1.1 per default
1084 (like <application>Mozilla</application> or recent versions of I.E.), you might
1085 try to force HTTP/1.0 compatibility. For Mozilla, look under <literal>Edit ->
1086 Preferences -> Debug -> Networking</literal>.
1087 Alternatively, set the <quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote> config option in
1088 <filename>default.action</filename> which will downgrade your browser's HTTP
1089 requests from HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/1.0 before processing them.
1093 After running <application>Privoxy</application> for a while, you can
1094 start to fine tune the configuration to suit your personal, or site,
1095 preferences and requirements. There are many, many aspects that can
1096 be customized. <quote>Actions</quote>
1097 can be adjusted by pointing your browser to
1098 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1099 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1100 and then follow the link to <quote>View & Change the Current Configuration</quote>.
1101 (This is an internal page and does not require Internet access.)
1105 In fact, various aspects of <application>Privoxy</application>
1106 configuration can be viewed from this page, including
1107 current configuration parameters, source code version numbers,
1108 the browser's request headers, and <quote>actions</quote> that apply
1109 to a given URL. In addition to the actions file
1110 editor mentioned above, <application>Privoxy</application> can also
1111 be turned <quote>on</quote> and <quote>off</quote> (toggled) from this page.
1115 If you encounter problems, try loading the page without
1116 <application>Privoxy</application>. If that helps, enter the URL where
1117 you have the problems into <ulink url="http://p.p/show-url-info">the browser
1118 based rule tracing utility</ulink>. See which rules apply and why, and
1119 then try turning them off for that site one after the other, until the problem
1120 is gone. When you have found the culprit, you might want to turn the rest on
1125 If the above paragraph sounds gibberish to you, you might want to <link
1126 linkend="actions-file">read more about the actions concept</link>
1127 or even dive deep into the <link linkend="actionsanat">Appendix
1132 If you can't get rid of the problem at all, think you've found a bug in
1133 Privoxy, want to propose a new feature or smarter rules, please see the
1134 section <link linkend="contact"><quote>Contacting the
1135 Developers</quote></link> below.
1140 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1141 <sect2 id="cmdoptions">
1142 <title>Command Line Options</title>
1144 <application>Privoxy</application> may be invoked with the following
1145 command-line options:
1153 <emphasis>--version</emphasis>
1156 Print version info and exit. Unix only.
1161 <emphasis>--help</emphasis>
1164 Print short usage info and exit. Unix only.
1169 <emphasis>--no-daemon</emphasis>
1172 Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become process group
1173 leader, and don't detach from controlling tty. Unix only.
1178 <emphasis>--pidfile FILE</emphasis>
1182 On startup, write the process ID to <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>. Delete the
1183 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> on exit. Failure to create or delete the
1184 <emphasis>FILE</emphasis> is non-fatal. If no <emphasis>FILE</emphasis>
1185 option is given, no PID file will be used. Unix only.
1190 <emphasis>--user USER[.GROUP]</emphasis>
1194 After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the user ID of
1195 <emphasis>USER</emphasis>, and if included the GID of GROUP. Exit if the
1196 privileges are not sufficient to do so. Unix only.
1201 <emphasis>--chroot</emphasis>
1205 Before changing to the user ID given in the <emphasis>--user</emphasis> option,
1206 chroot to that user's home directory, i.e. make the kernel pretend to the Privoxy
1207 process that the directory tree starts there. If set up carefully, this can limit
1208 the impact of possible vulnerabilities in Privoxy to the files contained in that hierarchy.
1214 <emphasis>configfile</emphasis>
1217 If no <emphasis>configfile</emphasis> is included on the command line,
1218 <application>Privoxy</application> will look for a file named
1219 <quote>config</quote> in the current directory (except on Win32
1220 where it will look for <quote>config.txt</quote> instead). Specify
1221 full path to avoid confusion. If no config file is found,
1222 <application>Privoxy</application> will fail to start.
1233 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1236 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1237 <sect1 id="configuration"><title><application>Privoxy</application> Configuration</title>
1239 All <application>Privoxy</application> configuration is stored
1240 in text files. These files can be edited with a text editor.
1241 Many important aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> can
1242 also be controlled easily with a web browser.
1246 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1249 <title>Controlling <application>Privoxy</application> with Your Web Browser</title>
1251 <application>Privoxy</application>'s user interface can be reached through the special
1252 URL <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
1253 (shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink>),
1254 which is a built-in page and works without Internet access.
1255 You will see the following section:
1259 <!-- Needs to be put in a table and colorized -->
1262 <bridgehead renderas="sect2"> Privoxy Menu</bridgehead>
1266 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">View & change the current configuration</ulink>
1269 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">View the source code version numbers</ulink>
1272 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">View the request headers.</ulink>
1275 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">Look up which actions apply to a URL and why</ulink>
1278 ▪ <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">Toggle Privoxy on or off</ulink>
1281 ▪ <ulink url="http://www.privoxy.org/&p-version;/user-manual/">Documentation</ulink>
1289 This should be self-explanatory. Note the first item leads to an editor for the
1290 <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, which is where the ad, banner,
1291 cookie, and URL blocking magic is configured as well as other advanced features of
1292 <application>Privoxy</application>. This is an easy way to adjust various
1293 aspects of <application>Privoxy</application> configuration. The actions
1294 file, and other configuration files, are explained in detail below.
1298 <quote>Toggle Privoxy On or Off</quote> is handy for sites that might
1299 have problems with your current actions and filters. You can in fact use
1300 it as a test to see whether it is <application>Privoxy</application>
1301 causing the problem or not. <application>Privoxy</application> continues
1302 to run as a proxy in this case, but all manipulation is disabled, i.e.
1303 <application>Privoxy</application> acts like a normal forwarding proxy. There
1304 is even a toggle <link linkend="bookmarklets">Bookmarklet</link> offered, so
1305 that you can toggle <application>Privoxy</application> with one click from
1311 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1316 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1318 <sect2 id="confoverview">
1319 <title>Configuration Files Overview</title>
1321 For Unix, *BSD and Linux, all configuration files are located in
1322 <filename>/etc/privoxy/</filename> by default. For MS Windows, OS/2, and
1323 AmigaOS these are all in the same directory as the
1324 <application>Privoxy</application> executable. <![%p-not-stable;[ The name
1325 and number of configuration files has changed from previous versions, and is
1326 subject to change as development progresses.]]>
1330 The installed defaults provide a reasonable starting point, though
1331 some settings may be aggressive by some standards. For the time being, the
1332 principle configuration files are:
1340 The <link linkend="config">main configuration file</link> is named <filename>config</filename>
1341 on Linux, Unix, BSD, OS/2, and AmigaOS and <filename>config.txt</filename>
1342 on Windows. This is a required file.
1348 <filename>default.action</filename> (the main <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>)
1349 is used to define which <quote>actions</quote> relating to banner-blocking, images, pop-ups,
1350 content modification, cookie handling etc should be applied by default. It also defines many
1351 exceptions (both positive and negative) from this default set of actions that enable
1352 <application>Privoxy</application> to selectively eliminate the junk, and only the junk, on
1353 as many websites as possible.
1356 Multiple actions files may be defined in <filename>config</filename>. These
1357 are processed in the order they are defined. Local customizations and locally
1358 preferred exceptions to the default policies as defined in
1359 <filename>default.action</filename> (which you will most probably want
1360 to define sooner or later) are probably best applied in
1361 <filename>user.action</filename>, where you can preserve them across
1362 upgrades. <filename>standard.action</filename> is for
1363 <application>Privoxy's</application> internal use.
1366 There is also a web based editor that can be accessed from
1368 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
1370 url="http://p.p/show-status">http://p.p/show-status</ulink>) for the
1371 various actions files.
1377 <filename>default.filter</filename> (the <link linkend="filter-file">filter
1378 file</link>) can be used to re-write the raw page content, including
1379 viewable text as well as embedded HTML and JavaScript, and whatever else
1380 lurks on any given web page. The filtering jobs are only pre-defined here;
1381 whether to apply them or not is up to the actions files. Only one filter
1382 file may be defined.
1390 All files use the <quote><literal>#</literal></quote> character to denote a
1391 comment (the rest of the line will be ignored) and understand line continuation
1392 through placing a backslash ("<literal>\</literal>") as the very last character
1393 in a line. If the <literal>#</literal> is preceded by a backslash, it looses
1394 its special function. Placing a <literal>#</literal> in front of an otherwise
1395 valid configuration line to prevent it from being interpreted is called "commenting
1400 The actions files and <filename>default.filter</filename>
1401 can use Perl style <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> for
1402 maximum flexibility.
1406 After making any changes, there is no need to restart
1407 <application>Privoxy</application> in order for the changes to take
1408 effect. <application>Privoxy</application> detects such changes
1409 automatically. Note, however, that it may take one or two additional
1410 requests for the change to take effect. When changing the listening address
1411 of <application>Privoxy</application>, these <quote>wake up</quote> requests
1412 must obviously be sent to the <emphasis>old</emphasis> listening address.
1417 While under development, the configuration content is subject to change.
1418 The below documentation may not be accurate by the time you read this.
1419 Also, what constitutes a <quote>default</quote> setting, may change, so
1420 please check all your configuration files on important issues.
1426 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1429 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1431 <!-- **************************************************** -->
1432 <!-- Include config.sgml here -->
1433 <!-- This is where the entire config file is detailed. -->
1435 <!-- end include -->
1438 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1442 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
1444 <sect1 id="actions-file"><title>Actions Files</title>
1447 The actions files are used to define what actions
1448 <application>Privoxy</application> takes for which URLs, and thus determine
1449 how ad images, cookies and various other aspects of HTTP content and
1450 transactions are handled, and on which sites (or even parts thereof). There
1451 are three such files included with <application>Privoxy</application>
1452 with differing purposes:
1459 <filename>default.action</filename> - is the primary action file
1460 that sets the initial values for all actions. It is intended to
1461 provide a base level of functionality for
1462 <application>Privoxy's</application> array of features. So it is
1463 a set of broad rules that should work reasonably well for users everywhere.
1464 This is the file that the developers are keeping updated, and <link
1465 linkend="installation-keepupdated">making available to users</link>.
1470 <filename>user.action</filename> - is intended to be for local site
1471 preferences and exceptions. As an example, if your ISP or your bank
1472 has specific requirements, and need special handling, this kind of
1473 thing should go here. This file will not be upgraded.
1478 <filename>standard.action</filename> - is used by the web based editor,
1479 to set various pre-defined sets of rules for the default actions section
1480 in <filename>default.action</filename>. These have increasing levels of
1481 aggressiveness <emphasis>and have no influence on your browsing unless
1482 you select them explicitly in the editor</emphasis>. It is not recommend
1486 The default profiles, and their associated actions, as pre-defined in
1487 <filename>standard.action</filename> are:
1490 <table frame=all><title>Default Configurations</title>
1491 <tgroup cols=4 align=left colsep=1 rowsep=1>
1492 <colspec colname=c1>
1493 <colspec colname=c2>
1494 <colspec colname=c3>
1495 <colspec colname=c4>
1498 <entry>Feature</entry>
1499 <entry>Cautious</entry>
1500 <entry>Medium</entry>
1501 <entry>Adventuresome</entry>
1506 <!-- <entry>f1</entry> -->
1507 <!-- <entry>f2</entry> -->
1508 <!-- <entry>f3</entry> -->
1509 <!-- <entry>f4</entry> -->
1515 <entry>Ad-blocking by URL</entry>
1522 <entry>Ad-filtering by size</entry>
1529 <entry>GIF de-animation</entry>
1536 <entry>Referer forging</entry>
1543 <entry>Cookie handling</entry>
1545 <entry>session-only</entry>
1550 <entry>Pop-up killing</entry>
1551 <entry>unsolicited</entry>
1552 <entry>unsolicited</entry>
1557 <entry>Fast redirects</entry>
1564 <entry>HTML taming</entry>
1571 <entry>JavaScript taming</entry>
1578 <entry>Web-bug killing</entry>
1585 <entry>Fun text replacements</entry>
1592 <entry>Image tag reordering</entry>
1599 <entry>Ad-filtering by link</entry>
1606 <entry>Demoronizer</entry>
1623 The list of actions files to be used are defined in the main configuration
1624 file, and are processed in the order they are defined (e.g.
1625 <filename>default.action</filename> is typically process before
1626 <filename>user.action</filename>). The content of these can all be viewed and
1628 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
1632 An actions file typically has multiple sections. If you want to use
1633 <quote>aliases</quote> in an actions file, you have to place the (optional)
1634 <link linkend="aliases">alias section</link> at the top of that file.
1635 Then comes the default set of rules which will apply universally to all
1636 sites and pages (be <emphasis>very careful</emphasis> with using such a
1637 universal set in <filename>user.action</filename> or any other actions file after
1638 <filename>default.action</filename>, because it will override the result
1639 from consulting any previous file). And then below that,
1640 exceptions to the defined universal policies. You can regard
1641 <filename>user.action</filename> as an appendix to <filename>default.action</filename>,
1642 with the advantage that is a separate file, which makes preserving your
1643 personal settings across <application>Privoxy</application> upgrades easier.
1647 Actions can be used to block anything you want, including ads, banners, or
1648 just some obnoxious URL that you would rather not see. Cookies can be accepted
1649 or rejected, or accepted only during the current browser session (i.e. not
1650 written to disk), content can be modified, JavaScripts tamed, user-tracking
1651 fooled, and much more. See below for a <link linkend="actions">complete list
1655 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1657 <title>Finding the Right Mix</title>
1659 Note that some <link linkend="actions">actions</link>, like cookie suppression
1660 or script disabling, may render some sites unusable that rely on these
1661 techniques to work properly. Finding the right mix of actions is not always easy and
1662 certainly a matter of personal taste. In general, it can be said that the more
1663 <quote>aggressive</quote> your default settings (in the top section of the
1664 actions file) are, the more exceptions for <quote>trusted</quote> sites you
1665 will have to make later. If, for example, you want to crunch all cookies per
1666 default, you'll have to make exceptions from that rule for sites that you
1667 regularly use and that require cookies for actually useful puposes, like maybe
1668 your bank, favorite shop, or newspaper.
1672 We have tried to provide you with reasonable rules to start from in the
1673 distribution actions files. But there is no general rule of thumb on these
1674 things. There just are too many variables, and sites are constantly changing.
1675 Sooner or later you will want to change the rules (and read this chapter again :).
1679 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1681 <title>How to Edit</title>
1683 The easiest way to edit the actions files is with a browser by
1684 using our browser-based editor, which can be reached from <ulink
1685 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>.
1686 The editor allows both fine-grained control over every single feature on a
1687 per-URL basis, and easy choosing from wholesale sets of defaults like
1688 <quote>Cautious</quote>, <quote>Medium</quote> or <quote>Adventuresome</quote>.
1689 Warning: the <quote>Adventuresome</quote> setting is not only more aggressive,
1690 but includes settings that are fun and subversive, and which some may find of
1695 If you prefer plain text editing to GUIs, you can of course also directly edit the
1696 the actions files. Look at <filename>default.action</filename> which is richly
1702 <sect2 id="actions-apply">
1703 <title>How Actions are Applied to URLs</title>
1705 Actions files are divided into sections. There are special sections,
1706 like the <quote><link linkend="aliases">alias</link></quote> sections which will
1707 be discussed later. For now let's concentrate on regular sections: They have a
1708 heading line (often split up to multiple lines for readability) which consist
1709 of a list of actions, separated by whitespace and enclosed in curly braces.
1710 Below that, there is a list of URL patterns, each on a separate line.
1714 To determine which actions apply to a request, the URL of the request is
1715 compared to all patterns in each action file file. Every time it matches, the list of
1716 applicable actions for the URL is incrementally updated, using the heading
1717 of the section in which the pattern is located. If multiple matches for
1718 the same URL set the same action differently, the last match wins. If not,
1719 the effects are aggregated. E.g. a URL might match a regular section with
1720 a heading line of <literal>{
1721 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link> }</literal>,
1722 then later another one with just <literal>{
1723 +<link linkend="block">block</link> }</literal>, resulting
1724 in <emphasis>both</emphasis> actions to apply.
1728 You can trace this process for any given URL by visiting <ulink
1729 url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>.
1733 More detail on this is provided in the Appendix, <link linkend="ACTIONSANAT">
1734 Anatomy of an Action</link>.
1738 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1739 <sect2 id="af-patterns">
1740 <title>Patterns</title>
1742 As mentioned, <application>Privoxy</application> uses <quote>patterns</quote>
1743 to determine what actions might apply to which sites and pages your browser
1744 attempts to access. These <quote>patterns</quote> use wild card type
1745 <emphasis>pattern</emphasis> matching to achieve a high degree of
1746 flexibility. This allows one expression to be expanded and potentially match
1747 against many similar patterns.
1751 Generally, a <application>Privoxy</application> pattern has the form
1752 <literal><domain>/<path></literal>, where both the
1753 <literal><domain></literal> and <literal><path></literal> are
1754 optional. (This is why the special <literal>/</literal> pattern matches all
1755 URLs). Note that the protocol portion of the URL pattern (e.g.
1756 <literal>http://</literal>) should <emphasis>not</emphasis> be included in
1757 the pattern. This is assumed already!
1762 <term><literal>www.example.com/</literal></term>
1765 is a domain-only pattern and will match any request to <literal>www.example.com</literal>,
1766 regardless of which document on that server is requested.
1771 <term><literal>www.example.com</literal></term>
1774 means exactly the same. For domain-only patterns, the trailing <literal>/</literal> may
1780 <term><literal>www.example.com/index.html</literal></term>
1783 matches only the single document <literal>/index.html</literal>
1784 on <literal>www.example.com</literal>.
1789 <term><literal>/index.html</literal></term>
1792 matches the document <literal>/index.html</literal>, regardless of the domain,
1793 i.e. on <emphasis>any</emphasis> web server.
1798 <term><literal>index.html</literal></term>
1801 matches nothing, since it would be interpreted as a domain name and
1802 there is no top-level domain called <literal>.html</literal>.
1809 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1810 <sect3><title>The Domain Pattern</title>
1813 The matching of the domain part offers some flexible options: if the
1814 domain starts or ends with a dot, it becomes unanchored at that end.
1820 <term><literal>.example.com</literal></term>
1823 matches any domain that <emphasis>ENDS</emphasis> in
1824 <literal>.example.com</literal>
1829 <term><literal>www.</literal></term>
1832 matches any domain that <emphasis>STARTS</emphasis> with
1833 <literal>www.</literal>
1838 <term><literal>.example.</literal></term>
1841 matches any domain that <emphasis>CONTAINS</emphasis> <literal>.example.</literal>
1842 (Correctly speaking: It matches any FQDN that contains <literal>example</literal> as a domain.)
1849 Additionally, there are wild-cards that you can use in the domain names
1850 themselves. They work pretty similar to shell wild-cards: <quote>*</quote>
1851 stands for zero or more arbitrary characters, <quote>?</quote> stands for
1852 any single character, you can define character classes in square
1853 brackets and all of that can be freely mixed:
1858 <term><literal>ad*.example.com</literal></term>
1861 matches <quote>adserver.example.com</quote>,
1862 <quote>ads.example.com</quote>, etc but not <quote>sfads.example.com</quote>
1867 <term><literal>*ad*.example.com</literal></term>
1870 matches all of the above, and then some.
1875 <term><literal>.?pix.com</literal></term>
1878 matches <literal>www.ipix.com</literal>,
1879 <literal>pictures.epix.com</literal>, <literal>a.b.c.d.e.upix.com</literal> etc.
1884 <term><literal>www[1-9a-ez].example.c*</literal></term>
1887 matches <literal>www1.example.com</literal>,
1888 <literal>www4.example.cc</literal>, <literal>wwwd.example.cy</literal>,
1889 <literal>wwwz.example.com</literal> etc., but <emphasis>not</emphasis>
1890 <literal>wwww.example.com</literal>.
1898 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1901 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1902 <sect3><title>The Path Pattern</title>
1905 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl compatible regular expressions
1906 (through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> library) for
1911 There is an <link linkend="regex">Appendix</link> with a brief quick-start into regular
1912 expressions, and full (very technical) documentation on PCRE regex syntax is available on-line
1913 at <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/man.txt">http://www.pcre.org/man.txt</ulink>.
1914 You might also find the Perl man page on regular expressions (<literal>man perlre</literal>)
1915 useful, which is available on-line at <ulink
1916 url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>.
1920 Note that the path pattern is automatically left-anchored at the <quote>/</quote>,
1921 i.e. it matches as if it would start with a <quote>^</quote> (regular expression speak
1922 for the beginning of a line).
1926 Please also note that matching in the path is <emphasis>CASE INSENSITIVE</emphasis>
1927 by default, but you can switch to case sensitive at any point in the pattern by using the
1928 <quote>(?-i)</quote> switch: <literal>www.example.com/(?-i)PaTtErN.*</literal> will match
1929 only documents whose path starts with <literal>PaTtErN</literal> in
1930 <emphasis>exactly</emphasis> this capitalization.
1936 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
1939 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
1941 <sect2 id="actions">
1942 <title>Actions</title>
1944 All actions are disabled by default, until they are explicitly enabled
1945 somewhere in an actions file. Actions are turned on if preceded with a
1946 <quote>+</quote>, and turned off if preceded with a <quote>-</quote>. So a
1947 <literal>+action</literal> means <quote>do that action</quote>, e.g.
1948 <literal>+block</literal> means <quote>please block URLs that match the
1949 following patterns</quote>, and <literal>-block</literal> means <quote>don't
1950 block URLs that match the following patterns, even if <literal>+block</literal>
1951 previously applied.</quote>
1956 Again, actions are invoked by placing them on a line, enclosed in curly braces and
1957 separated by whitespace, like in
1958 <literal>{+some-action -some-other-action{some-parameter}}</literal>,
1959 followed by a list of URL patterns, one per line, to which they apply.
1960 Together, the actions line and the following pattern lines make up a section
1961 of the actions file.
1965 There are three classes of actions:
1972 Boolean, i.e the action can only be <quote>enabled</quote> or
1973 <quote>disabled</quote>. Syntax:
1977 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # enable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable>
1978 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action <replaceable class="parameter">name</replaceable></screen>
1981 Example: <literal>+block</literal>
1988 Parameterized, where some value is required in order to enable this type of action.
1993 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and set parameter to <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>,
1994 # overwriting parameter from previous match if necessary
1995 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable> # disable action. The parameter can be omitted</screen>
1998 Note that if the URL matches multiple positive forms of a parameterized action,
1999 the last match wins, i.e. the params from earlier matches are simply ignored.
2002 Example: <literal>+hide-user-agent{ Mozilla 1.0 }</literal>
2008 Multi-value. These look exactly like parameterized actions,
2009 but they behave differently: If the action applies multiple times to the
2010 same URL, but with different parameters, <emphasis>all</emphasis> the parameters
2011 from <emphasis>all</emphasis> matches are remembered. This is used for actions
2012 that can be executed for the same request repeatedly, like adding multiple
2013 headers, or filtering through multiple filters. Syntax:
2017 +<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # enable action and add <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> to the list of parameters
2018 -<replaceable class="function">name</replaceable>{<replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable>} # remove the parameter <replaceable class="parameter">param</replaceable> from the list of parameters
2019 # If it was the last one left, disable the action.
2020 <replaceable class="parameter">-name</replaceable> # disable this action completely and remove all parameters from the list</screen>
2023 Examples: <literal>+add-header{X-Fun-Header: Some text}</literal> and
2024 <literal>+filter{html-annoyances}</literal>
2032 If nothing is specified in any actions file, no <quote>actions</quote> are
2033 taken. So in this case <application>Privoxy</application> would just be a
2034 normal, non-blocking, non-anonymizing proxy. You must specifically enable the
2035 privacy and blocking features you need (although the provided default actions
2036 files will give a good starting point).
2040 Later defined actions always over-ride earlier ones. So exceptions
2041 to any rules you make, should come in the latter part of the file (or
2042 in a file that is processed later when using multiple actions files). For
2043 multi-valued actions, the actions are applied in the order they are specified.
2044 Actions files are processed in the order they are defined in
2045 <filename>config</filename> (the default installation has three actions
2046 files). It also quite possible for any given URL pattern to match more than
2047 one pattern and thus more than one set of actions!
2050 <!-- start actions listing -->
2052 The list of valid <application>Privoxy</application> actions are:
2056 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2057 <!-- Please note the below defined actions use id's that are -->
2058 <!-- probably linked from other places, so please don't change. -->
2060 <!-- ********************************************************** -->
2063 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2065 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="add-header">
2066 <title>add-header</title>
2070 <term>Typical use:</term>
2072 <para>Confuse log analysis, custom applications</para>
2077 <term>Effect:</term>
2080 Sends a user defined HTTP header to the web server.
2087 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2089 <para>Multi-value.</para>
2094 <term>Parameter:</term>
2097 Any string value is possible. Validity of the defined HTTP headers is not checked.
2098 It is recommended that you use the <quote><literal>X-</literal></quote> prefix
2108 This action may be specified multiple times, in order to define multiple
2109 headers. This is rarely needed for the typical user. If you don't know what
2110 <quote>HTTP headers</quote> are, you definitely don't need to worry about this
2117 <term>Example usage:</term>
2120 <screen>+add-header{X-User-Tracking: sucks}</screen>
2128 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2129 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="block">
2130 <title>block</title>
2134 <term>Typical use:</term>
2136 <para>Block ads or other obnoxious content</para>
2141 <term>Effect:</term>
2144 Requests for URLs to which this action applies are blocked, i.e. the requests are not
2145 forwarded to the remote server, but answered locally with a substitute page or image,
2146 as determined by the <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>
2147 and <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> actions.
2154 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2156 <para>Boolean.</para>
2161 <term>Parameter:</term>
2171 <application>Privoxy</application> sends a special <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page
2172 for requests to blocked pages. This page contains links to find out why the request
2173 was blocked, and a click-through to the blocked content (the latter only if compiled with the
2174 force feature enabled). The <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page adapts to the available
2175 screen space -- it displays full-blown if space allows, or miniaturized and text-only
2176 if loaded into a small frame or window. If you are using <application>Privoxy</application>
2177 right now, you can take a look at the
2178 <ulink url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
2182 A very important exception occurs if <emphasis>both</emphasis>
2183 <literal>block</literal> and <literal><link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal>,
2184 apply to the same request: it will then be replaced by an image. If
2185 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
2186 (see below) also applies, the type of image will be determined by its parameter,
2187 if not, the standard checkerboard pattern is sent.
2190 It is important to understand this process, in order
2191 to understand how <application>Privoxy</application> deals with
2192 ads and other unwanted content.
2195 The <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>
2196 action can perform a very similar task, by <quote>blocking</quote>
2197 banner images and other content through rewriting the relevant URLs in the
2198 document's HTML source, so they don't get requested in the first place.
2199 Note that this is a totally different technique, and it's easy to confuse the two.
2205 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2208 <screen>{+block} # Block and replace with "blocked" page
2209 .nasty-stuff.example.com
2211 {+block +handle-as-image} # Block and replace with image
2222 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2223 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-incoming-cookies">
2224 <title>crunch-incoming-cookies</title>
2228 <term>Typical use:</term>
2231 Prevent the web server from setting any cookies on your system
2237 <term>Effect:</term>
2240 Deletes any <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from server replies.
2247 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2249 <para>Boolean.</para>
2254 <term>Parameter:</term>
2266 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> cookies. For
2267 <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> cookies, use
2268 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>.
2269 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable cookies completely.
2272 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
2273 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
2274 since it would prevent the session cookies from being set. See also
2275 <literal><link linkend="filter-content-cookies">filter-content-cookies</link></literal>.
2281 <term>Example usage:</term>
2284 <screen>+crunch-incoming-cookies</screen>
2292 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2293 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="crunch-outgoing-cookies">
2294 <title>crunch-outgoing-cookies</title>
2298 <term>Typical use:</term>
2301 Prevent the web server from reading any cookies from your system
2307 <term>Effect:</term>
2310 Deletes any <quote>Cookie:</quote> HTTP headers from client requests.
2317 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2319 <para>Boolean.</para>
2324 <term>Parameter:</term>
2336 This action is only concerned with <emphasis>outgoing</emphasis> cookies. For
2337 <emphasis>incoming</emphasis> cookies, use
2338 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>.
2339 Use <emphasis>both</emphasis> to disable cookies completely.
2342 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use this action in conjunction
2343 with the <literal><link linkend="session-cookies-only">session-cookies-only</link></literal> action,
2344 since it would prevent the session cookies from being read.
2350 <term>Example usage:</term>
2353 <screen>+crunch-outgoing-cookies</screen>
2362 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2363 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="deanimate-gifs">
2364 <title>deanimate-gifs</title>
2368 <term>Typical use:</term>
2370 <para>Stop those annoying, distracting animated GIF images.</para>
2375 <term>Effect:</term>
2378 De-animate GIF animations, i.e. reduce them to their first or last image.
2385 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2387 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2392 <term>Parameter:</term>
2395 <quote>last</quote> or <quote>first</quote>
2404 This will also shrink the images considerably (in bytes, not pixels!). If
2405 the option <quote>first</quote> is given, the first frame of the animation
2406 is used as the replacement. If <quote>last</quote> is given, the last
2407 frame of the animation is used instead, which probably makes more sense for
2408 most banner animations, but also has the risk of not showing the entire
2409 last frame (if it is only a delta to an earlier frame).
2412 You can safely use this action with patterns that will also match non-GIF
2413 objects, because no attempt will be made at anything that doesn't look like
2420 <term>Example usage:</term>
2423 <screen>+deanimate-gifs{last}</screen>
2430 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2431 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="downgrade-http-version">
2432 <title>downgrade-http-version</title>
2436 <term>Typical use:</term>
2438 <para>Work around (very rare) problems with HTTP/1.1</para>
2443 <term>Effect:</term>
2446 Downgrades HTTP/1.1 client requests and server replies to HTTP/1.0.
2453 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2455 <para>Boolean.</para>
2460 <term>Parameter:</term>
2472 This is a left-over from the time when <application>Privoxy</application>
2473 didn't support important HTTP/1.1 features well. It is left here for the
2474 unlikely case that you experience HTTP/1.1 related problems with some server
2475 out there. Not all (optional) HTTP/1.1 features are supported yet, so there
2476 is a chance you might need this action.
2482 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
2485 <screen>{+downgrade-http-version}
2486 problem-host.example.com</screen>
2494 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2495 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="fast-redirects">
2496 <title>fast-redirects</title>
2500 <term>Typical use:</term>
2502 <para>Fool some click-tracking scripts and speed up indirect links</para>
2507 <term>Effect:</term>
2510 Cut off all but the last valid URL from requests.
2517 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2519 <para>Boolean.</para>
2524 <term>Parameter:</term>
2536 Many sites, like yahoo.com, don't just link to other sites. Instead, they
2537 will link to some script on their own servers, giving the destination as a
2538 parameter, which will then redirect you to the final target. URLs
2539 resulting from this scheme typically look like:
2540 <emphasis>http://some.place/click-tracker.cgi?target=http://some.where.else</emphasis>.
2543 Sometimes, there are even multiple consecutive redirects encoded in the
2544 URL. These redirections via scripts make your web browsing more traceable,
2545 since the server from which you follow such a link can see where you go
2546 to. Apart from that, valuable bandwidth and time is wasted, while your
2547 browser ask the server for one redirect after the other. Plus, it feeds
2551 This feature is currently not very smart and is scheduled for improvement.
2552 It is likely to break some sites. You should expect to need possibly
2553 many exceptions to this action, if it is enabled by default in
2554 <filename>default.action</filename>. Some sites just don't work without
2561 <term>Example usage:</term>
2564 <screen>{+fast-redirects}</screen>
2573 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2574 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="filter">
2575 <title>filter</title>
2579 <term>Typical use:</term>
2581 <para>Get rid of HTML and JavaScript annoyances, banner advertisements (by size), do fun text replacements, etc.</para>
2586 <term>Effect:</term>
2589 HTML and JavaScript pages, to which this action
2590 applies, are filtered on-the-fly through the specified regular expression
2591 based substitutions. (Note: as of version 3.0.3 plain text documents
2592 are exempted from filtering.)
2599 <!-- boolean, parameterized, Multi-value -->
2601 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2606 <term>Parameter:</term>
2609 The name of a filter, as defined in the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>
2610 (typically <filename>default.filter</filename>, set by the
2611 <literal><link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal>
2612 option in the <link linkend="config">config file</link>). When used in its negative form,
2613 and without parameters, filtering is completely disabled.
2622 For your convenience, there are a number of pre-defined filters available
2623 in the distribution filter file that you can use. See the examples below for
2627 Filtering requires buffering the page content, which may appear to
2628 slow down page rendering since nothing is displayed until all content has
2629 passed the filters. (It does not really take longer, but seems that way
2630 since the page is not incrementally displayed.) This effect will be more
2631 noticeable on slower connections.
2634 This is very powerful feature, but <quote>rolling your own</quote>
2635 filters requires a knowledge of regular expressions and HTML.
2638 The amount of data that can be filtered is limited to the
2639 <literal><link linkend="buffer-limit">buffer-limit</link></literal>
2640 option in the main <link linkend="config">config file</link>. The
2641 default is 4096 KB (4 Megs). Once this limit is exceeded, the buffered
2642 data, and all pending data, is passed through unfiltered.
2645 Inappropriate MIME types, such as zipped files, are not filtered at all.
2646 Encrypted SSL data (from HTTPS servers) cannot be filtered either since
2647 this would violate the integrity of the secure transaction. Otherwise,
2648 <emphasis>any</emphasis> content is subject to filtering, and limited
2649 only by configuration. So, for instance, source code might be filtered
2650 in some situations - if the configuration <emphasis>does not disallow
2654 At this time, <application>Privoxy</application> cannot (yet!) uncompress compressed
2655 documents. If you want filtering to work on all documents, even those that
2656 would normally be sent compressed, use the
2657 <literal><link linkend="prevent-compression">prevent-compression</link></literal>
2658 action in conjunction with <literal>filter</literal>.
2661 Filtering can achieve some of the same effects as the
2662 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
2663 action, i.e. it can be used to block ads and banners. But the mechanism
2664 works quite differently. One effective use, is to block ad banners
2665 based on their size (see below), since many of these seem to be somewhat
2669 <link linkend="contact">Feedback</link> with suggestions for new or
2670 improved filters is particularly welcome!
2673 The below list has only the names and a one-line description of each
2674 predefined filter. There are <link linkend="predefined-filters">more
2675 verbose explanations</link> of what these filters do in the <link
2676 linkend="filter-file">filter file chapter</link>.
2682 <term>Example usage (with filters from the distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file).
2683 See <link linkend="PREDEFINED-FILTERS">the Predefined Filters section</link> for
2684 more explanation on each:</term>
2687 <anchor id="filter-js-annoyances">
2688 <screen>+filter{js-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse</screen>
2691 <anchor id="filter-js-events">
2692 <screen>+filter{js-events} # Kill all JS event bindings (Radically destructive! Only for extra nasty sites)</screen>
2695 <anchor id="filter-html-annoyances">
2696 <screen>+filter{html-annoyances} # Get rid of particularly annoying HTML abuse</screen>
2699 <anchor id="filter-content-cookies">
2700 <screen>+filter{content-cookies} # Kill cookies that come in the HTML or JS content</screen>
2703 <anchor id="filter-refresh-tags">
2704 <screen>+filter{refresh-tags} # Kill automatic refresh tags (for dial-on-demand setups)</screen>
2707 <anchor id="filter-unsolicited-popups">
2708 <screen>+filter{unsolicited-popups} # Disable only unsolicited pop-up windows</screen>
2711 <anchor id="filter-all-popups">
2712 <screen>+filter{all-popups} # Kill all popups in JavaScript and HTML</screen>
2715 <anchor id="filter-img-reorder">
2716 <screen>+filter{img-reorder} # Reorder attributes in <img> tags to make the banners-by-* filters more effective</screen>
2719 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-size">
2720 <screen>+filter{banners-by-size} # Kill banners by size</screen>
2723 <anchor id="filter-banners-by-link">
2724 <screen>+filter{banners-by-link} # Kill banners by their links to known clicktrackers</screen>
2727 <anchor id="filter-webbugs">
2728 <screen>+filter{webbugs} # Squish WebBugs (1x1 invisible GIFs used for user tracking)</screen>
2731 <anchor id="filter-tiny-textforms">
2732 <screen>+filter{tiny-textforms} # Extend those tiny textareas up to 40x80 and kill the hard wrap</screen>
2735 <anchor id="filter-jumping-windows">
2736 <screen>+filter{jumping-windows} # Prevent windows from resizing and moving themselves</screen>
2739 <anchor id="filter-frameset-borders">
2740 <screen>+filter{frameset-borders} # Give frames a border and make them resizable</screen>
2743 <anchor id="filter-demoronizer">
2744 <screen>+filter{demoronizer} # Fix MS's non-standard use of standard charsets</screen>
2747 <anchor id="filter-shockwave-flash">
2748 <screen>+filter{shockwave-flash} # Kill embedded Shockwave Flash objects</screen>
2751 <anchor id="filter-quicktime-kioskmode">
2752 <screen>+filter{quicktime-kioskmode} # Make Quicktime movies saveable</screen>
2755 <anchor id="filter-fun">
2756 <screen>+filter{fun} # Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!</screen>
2759 <anchor id="filter-crude-parental">
2760 <screen>+filter{crude-parental} # Crude parental filtering (demo only)</screen>
2763 <anchor id="filter-ie-exploits">
2764 <screen>+filter{ie-exploits} # Disable some known Internet Explorer bug exploits</screen>
2772 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2773 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="handle-as-image">
2774 <title>handle-as-image</title>
2778 <term>Typical use:</term>
2780 <para>Mark URLs as belonging to images (so they'll be replaced by images <emphasis>if they get blocked</emphasis>)</para>
2785 <term>Effect:</term>
2788 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. It just marks URLs as images.
2789 If the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action <emphasis>also applies</emphasis>,
2790 the presence or absence of this mark decides whether an HTML <quote>blocked</quote>
2791 page, or a replacement image (as determined by the <literal><link
2792 linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal> action) will be sent to the
2793 client as a substitute for the blocked content.
2800 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2802 <para>Boolean.</para>
2807 <term>Parameter:</term>
2819 The below generic example section is actually part of <filename>default.action</filename>.
2820 It marks all URLs with well-known image file name extensions as images and should
2824 Users will probably only want to use the handle-as-image action in conjunction with
2825 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>, to block sources of banners, whose URLs don't
2826 reflect the file type, like in the second example section.
2829 Note that you cannot treat HTML pages as images in most cases. For instance, (in-line) ad
2830 frames require an HTML page to be sent, or they won't display properly.
2831 Forcing <literal>handle-as-image</literal> in this situation will not replace the
2832 ad frame with an image, but lead to error messages.
2838 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
2841 <screen># Generic image extensions:
2844 /.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png|bmp|ico)$
2846 # These don't look like images, but they're banners and should be
2847 # blocked as images:
2849 {+block +handle-as-image}
2850 some.nasty-banner-server.com/junk.cgi?output=trash
2852 # Banner source! Who cares if they also have non-image content?
2862 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2863 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-forwarded-for-headers">
2864 <title>hide-forwarded-for-headers</title>
2868 <term>Typical use:</term>
2870 <para>Improve privacy by hiding the true source of the request</para>
2875 <term>Effect:</term>
2878 Deletes any existing <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> HTTP header from client requests,
2879 and prevents adding a new one.
2886 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2888 <para>Boolean.</para>
2893 <term>Parameter:</term>
2905 It is fairly safe to leave this on.
2908 This action is scheduled for improvement: It should be able to generate forged
2909 <quote>X-Forwarded-for:</quote> headers using random IP addresses from a specified network,
2910 to make successive requests from the same client look like requests from a pool of different
2911 users sharing the same proxy.
2917 <term>Example usage:</term>
2920 <screen>+hide-forwarded-for-headers</screen>
2928 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
2929 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-from-header">
2930 <title>hide-from-header</title>
2934 <term>Typical use:</term>
2936 <para>Keep your (old and ill) browser from telling web servers your email address</para>
2941 <term>Effect:</term>
2944 Deletes any existing <quote>From:</quote> HTTP header, or replaces it with the
2952 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
2954 <para>Parameterized.</para>
2959 <term>Parameter:</term>
2962 Keyword: <quote>block</quote>, or any user defined value.
2971 The keyword <quote>block</quote> will completely remove the header
2972 (not to be confused with the <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal>
2976 Alternately, you can specify any value you prefer to be sent to the web
2977 server. If you do, it is a matter of fairness not to use any address that
2978 is actually used by a real person.
2981 This action is rarely needed, as modern web browsers don't send
2982 <quote>From:</quote> headers anymore.
2988 <term>Example usage:</term>
2991 <screen>+hide-from-header{block}</screen> or
2992 <screen>+hide-from-header{spam-me-senseless@sittingduck.example.com}</screen>
3000 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3001 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-referrer">
3002 <title>hide-referrer</title>
3003 <anchor id="hide-referer">
3006 <term>Typical use:</term>
3008 <para>Conceal which link you followed to get to a particular site</para>
3013 <term>Effect:</term>
3016 Deletes the <quote>Referer:</quote> (sic) HTTP header from the client request,
3017 or replaces it with a forged one.
3024 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3026 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3031 <term>Parameter:</term>
3035 <para><quote>block</quote> to delete the header completely.</para>
3038 <para><quote>forge</quote> to pretend to be coming from the homepage of the server we are talking to.</para>
3041 <para>Any other string to set a user defined referrer.</para>
3051 <quote>forge</quote> is the preferred option here, since some servers will
3052 not send images back otherwise, in an attempt to prevent their valuable
3053 content from being embedded elsewhere (and hence, without being surrounded
3054 by <emphasis>their</emphasis> banners).
3057 <literal>hide-referer</literal> is an alternate spelling of
3058 <literal>hide-referrer</literal> and the two can be can be freely
3059 substituted with each other. (<quote>referrer</quote> is the
3060 correct English spelling, however the HTTP specification has a bug - it
3061 requires it to be spelled as <quote>referer</quote>.)
3067 <term>Example usage:</term>
3070 <screen>+hide-referrer{forge}</screen> or
3071 <screen>+hide-referrer{http://www.yahoo.com/}</screen>
3079 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3080 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="hide-user-agent">
3081 <title>hide-user-agent</title>
3085 <term>Typical use:</term>
3087 <para>Conceal your type of browser and client operating system</para>
3092 <term>Effect:</term>
3095 Replaces the value of the <quote>User-Agent:</quote> HTTP header
3096 in client requests with the specified value.
3103 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3105 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3110 <term>Parameter:</term>
3113 Any user-defined string.
3123 This breaks many web sites that depend on looking at this header in order
3124 to customize their content for different browsers (which, by the
3125 way, is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> a <ulink
3126 url="http://www.javascriptkit.com/javaindex.shtml">smart way to do
3131 Using this action in multi-user setups or wherever different types of
3132 browsers will access the same <application>Privoxy</application> is
3133 <emphasis>not recommended</emphasis>. In single-user, single-browser
3134 setups, you might use it to delete your OS version information from
3135 the headers, because it is an invitation to exploit known bugs for your
3136 OS. It is also occasionally useful to forge this in order to access
3137 sites that won't let you in otherwise (though there may be a good
3138 reason in some cases). Example of this: some MSN sites will not
3139 let <application>Mozilla</application> enter, yet forging to a
3140 <application>Netscape 6.1</application> user-agent works just fine.
3141 (Must be just a silly MS goof, I'm sure :-).
3144 This action is scheduled for improvement.
3150 <term>Example usage:</term>
3153 <screen>+hide-user-agent{Netscape 6.1 (X11; I; Linux 2.4.18 i686)}</screen>
3161 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3162 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="kill-popups">
3163 <title>kill-popups<anchor id="kill-popup"></title>
3167 <term>Typical use:</term>
3169 <para>Eliminate those annoying pop-up windows (deprecated)</para>
3174 <term>Effect:</term>
3177 While loading the document, replace JavaScript code that opens
3178 pop-up windows with (syntactically neutral) dummy code on the fly.
3185 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3187 <para>Boolean.</para>
3192 <term>Parameter:</term>
3204 This action is basically a built-in, hardwired special-purpose filter
3205 action, but there are important differences: For <literal>kill-popups</literal>,
3206 the document need not be buffered, so it can be incrementally rendered while
3207 downloading. But <literal>kill-popups</literal> doesn't catch as many pop-ups as
3209 linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>all-popups</replaceable>}</link></literal>
3210 does and is not as smart as <literal><link
3211 linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>unsolicited-popups</replaceable>}</link>
3215 Think of it as a fast and efficient replacement for a filter that you
3216 can use if you don't want any filtering at all. Note that it doesn't make
3217 sense to combine it with any <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> action,
3218 since as soon as one <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> applies,
3219 the whole document needs to be buffered anyway, which destroys the advantage of
3220 the <literal>kill-popups</literal> action over its filter equivalent.
3223 Killing all pop-ups unconditionally is problematic. Many shops and banks rely on
3224 pop-ups to display forms, shopping carts etc, and the <literal><link
3225 linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{<replaceable>unsolicited-popups</replaceable>}</link>
3226 </literal> does a fairly good job of catching only the unwanted ones.
3229 If the only kind of pop-ups that you want to kill are exit consoles (those
3230 <emphasis>really nasty</emphasis> windows that appear when you close an other
3231 one), you might want to use
3233 linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>js-annoyances</replaceable>}</literal>
3239 An alternate spelling is <literal>+kill-popup</literal>, which is
3247 <term>Example usage:</term>
3249 <para><screen>+kill-popups</screen></para>
3256 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3257 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="limit-connect">
3258 <title>limit-connect</title>
3262 <term>Typical use:</term>
3264 <para>Prevent abuse of <application>Privoxy</application> as a TCP proxy relay</para>
3269 <term>Effect:</term>
3272 Specifies to which ports HTTP CONNECT requests are allowable.
3279 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3281 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3286 <term>Parameter:</term>
3289 A comma-separated list of ports or port ranges (the latter using dashes, with the minimum
3290 defaulting to 0 and the maximum to 65K).
3299 By default, i.e. if no <literal>limit-connect</literal> action applies,
3300 <application>Privoxy</application> only allows HTTP CONNECT
3301 requests to port 443 (the standard, secure HTTPS port). Use
3302 <literal>limit-connect</literal> if more fine-grained control is desired
3303 for some or all destinations.
3306 The CONNECT methods exists in HTTP to allow access to secure websites
3307 (<quote>https://</quote> URLs) through proxies. It works very simply:
3308 the proxy connects to the server on the specified port, and then
3309 short-circuits its connections to the client and to the remote server.
3310 This can be a big security hole, since CONNECT-enabled proxies can be
3311 abused as TCP relays very easily.
3314 If you don't know what any of this means, there probably is no reason to
3315 change this one, since the default is already very restrictive.
3321 <term>Example usages:</term>
3323 <!-- I had trouble getting the spacing to look right in my browser -->
3324 <!-- I probably have the wrong font setup, bollocks. -->
3325 <!-- Apparently the emphasis tag uses a proportional font no matter what -->
3327 <screen>+limit-connect{443} # This is the default and need not be specified.
3328 +limit-connect{80,443} # Ports 80 and 443 are OK.
3329 +limit-connect{-3, 7, 20-100, 500-} # Ports less than 3, 7, 20 to 100 and above 500 are OK.
3330 +limit-connect{-} # All ports are OK (gaping security hole!)</screen>
3337 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3338 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="prevent-compression">
3339 <title>prevent-compression</title>
3343 <term>Typical use:</term>
3346 Ensure that servers send the content uncompressed, so it can be
3347 passed through <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>s
3353 <term>Effect:</term>
3356 Adds a header to the request that asks for uncompressed transfer.
3363 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3365 <para>Boolean.</para>
3370 <term>Parameter:</term>
3382 More and more websites send their content compressed by default, which
3383 is generally a good idea and saves bandwidth. But for the <literal><link
3384 linkend="filter">filter</link></literal>, <literal><link linkend="deanimate-gifs">deanimate-gifs</link></literal>
3385 and <literal><link linkend="kill-popups">kill-popups</link></literal> actions to work,
3386 <application>Privoxy</application> needs access to the uncompressed data.
3387 Unfortunately, <application>Privoxy</application> can't yet(!) uncompress, filter, and
3388 re-compress the content on the fly. So if you want to ensure that all websites, including
3389 those that normally compress, can be filtered, you need to use this action.
3392 This will slow down transfers from those websites, though. If you use any of the above-mentioned
3393 actions, you will typically want to use <literal>prevent-compression</literal> in conjunction
3397 Note that some (rare) ill-configured sites don't handle requests for uncompressed
3398 documents correctly (they send an empty document body). If you use <literal>prevent-compression</literal>
3399 per default, you'll have to add exceptions for those sites. See the example for how to do that.
3405 <term>Example usage (sections):</term>
3408 <screen># Set default:
3410 {+prevent-compression}
3413 # Make exceptions for ill sites:
3415 {-prevent-compression}
3417 www.pclinuxonline.com</screen>
3426 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3427 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-vanilla-wafer">
3428 <title>send-vanilla-wafer</title>
3432 <term>Typical use:</term>
3435 Feed log analysis scripts with useless data.
3441 <term>Effect:</term>
3444 Sends a cookie with each request stating that you do not accept any copyright
3445 on cookies sent to you, and asking the site operator not to track you.
3452 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3454 <para>Boolean.</para>
3459 <term>Parameter:</term>
3471 The vanilla wafer is a (relatively) unique header and could conceivably be used to track you.
3474 This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
3480 <term>Example usage:</term>
3483 <screen>+send-vanilla-wafer</screen>
3492 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3493 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="send-wafer">
3494 <title>send-wafer</title>
3498 <term>Typical use:</term>
3501 Send custom cookies or feed log analysis scripts with even more useless data.
3507 <term>Effect:</term>
3510 Sends a custom, user-defined cookie with each request.
3517 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3519 <para>Multi-value.</para>
3524 <term>Parameter:</term>
3527 A string of the form <quote><replaceable class="option">name</replaceable>=<replaceable
3528 class="parameter">value</replaceable></quote>.
3537 Being multi-valued, multiple instances of this action can apply to the same request,
3538 resulting in multiple cookies being sent.
3541 This action is rarely used and not enabled in the default configuration.
3546 <term>Example usage (section):</term>
3549 <screen>{+send-wafer{UsingPrivoxy=true}}
3550 my-internal-testing-server.void</screen>
3558 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3559 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="session-cookies-only">
3560 <title>session-cookies-only</title>
3564 <term>Typical use:</term>
3567 Allow only temporary <quote>session</quote> cookies (for the current
3568 browser session <emphasis>only</emphasis>).
3574 <term>Effect:</term>
3577 Deletes the <quote>expires</quote> field from <quote>Set-Cookie:</quote>
3578 server headers. Most browsers will not store such cookies permanently and
3579 forget them in between sessions.
3586 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3588 <para>Boolean.</para>
3593 <term>Parameter:</term>
3605 This is less strict than <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> /
3606 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal> and allows you to browse
3607 websites that insist or rely on setting cookies, without compromising your privacy too badly.
3610 Most browsers will not permanently store cookies that have been processed by
3611 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal> and will forget about them between sessions.
3612 This makes profiling cookies useless, but won't break sites which require cookies so
3613 that you can log in for transactions. This is generally turned on for all
3614 sites, and is the recommended setting.
3617 It makes <emphasis>no sense at all</emphasis> to use <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>
3618 together with <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal> or
3619 <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>. If you do, cookies
3620 will be plainly killed.
3623 Note that it is up to the browser how it handles such cookies without an <quote>expires</quote>
3624 field. If you use an exotic browser, you might want to try it out to be sure.
3627 This setting also has no effect on cookies that may have been stored
3628 previously by the browser before starting <application>Privoxy</application>.
3629 These would have to be removed manually.
3632 <application>Privoxy</application> also uses
3633 the <link linkend="filter-content-cookies">content-cookies filter</link>
3634 to block some types of cookies. Content cookies are not effected by
3635 <literal>session-cookies-only</literal>.
3641 <term>Example usage:</term>
3644 <screen>+session-cookies-only</screen>
3652 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3653 <sect3 renderas="sect4" id="set-image-blocker">
3654 <title>set-image-blocker</title>
3658 <term>Typical use:</term>
3660 <para>Choose the replacement for blocked images</para>
3665 <term>Effect:</term>
3668 This action alone doesn't do anything noticeable. If <emphasis>both</emphasis>
3669 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> <emphasis>and</emphasis> <literal><link
3670 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> <emphasis>also</emphasis>
3671 apply, i.e. if the request is to be blocked as an image,
3672 <emphasis>then</emphasis> the parameter of this action decides what will be
3673 sent as a replacement.
3680 <!-- Boolean, Parameterized, Multi-value -->
3682 <para>Parameterized.</para>
3687 <term>Parameter:</term>
3692 <quote>pattern</quote> to send a built-in checkerboard pattern image. The image is visually
3693 decent, scales very well, and makes it obvious where banners were busted.
3698 <quote>blank</quote> to send a built-in transparent image. This makes banners disappear
3699 completely, but makes it hard to detect where <application>Privoxy</application> has blocked
3700 images on a given page and complicates troubleshooting if <application>Privoxy</application>
3701 has blocked innocent images, like navigation icons.
3706 <quote><replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable></quote> to
3707 send a redirect to <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>. You can redirect
3708 to any image anywhere, even in your local filesystem (via <quote>file:///</quote> URL).
3711 A good application of redirects is to use special <application>Privoxy</application>-built-in
3712 URLs, which send the built-in images, as <replaceable class="parameter">target-url</replaceable>.
3713 This has the same visual effect as specifying <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote> in
3714 the first place, but enables your browser to cache the replacement image, instead of requesting
3715 it over and over again.
3726 The URLs for the built-in images are <quote>http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=<replaceable
3727 class="parameter">type</replaceable></quote>, where <replaceable class="parameter">type</replaceable> is
3728 either <quote>blank</quote> or <quote>pattern</quote>.
3731 There is a third (advanced) type, called <quote>auto</quote>. It is <emphasis>NOT</emphasis> to be
3732 used in <literal>set-image-blocker</literal>, but meant for use from <link linkend="filter-file">filters</link>.
3733 Auto will select the type of image that would have applied to the referring page, had it been an image.
3739 <term>Example usage:</term>
3745 <screen>+set-image-blocker{pattern}</screen>
3748 Redirect to the BSD devil:
3751 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://www.freebsd.org/gifs/dae_up3.gif}</screen>
3754 Redirect to the built-in pattern for better caching:
3757 <screen>+set-image-blocker{http://config.privoxy.org/send-banner?type=pattern}</screen>
3765 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3767 <title>Summary</title>
3769 Note that many of these actions have the potential to cause a page to
3770 misbehave, possibly even not to display at all. There are many ways
3771 a site designer may choose to design his site, and what HTTP header
3772 content, and other criteria, he may depend on. There is no way to have hard
3773 and fast rules for all sites. See the <link
3774 linkend="ACTIONSANAT">Appendix</link> for a brief example on troubleshooting
3780 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3781 <sect2 id="aliases">
3782 <title>Aliases</title>
3784 Custom <quote>actions</quote>, known to <application>Privoxy</application>
3785 as <quote>aliases</quote>, can be defined by combining other actions.
3786 These can in turn be invoked just like the built-in actions.
3787 Currently, an alias name can contain any character except space, tab,
3789 <quote>{</quote> and <quote>}</quote>, but we <emphasis>strongly
3790 recommend</emphasis> that you only use <quote>a</quote> to <quote>z</quote>,
3791 <quote>0</quote> to <quote>9</quote>, <quote>+</quote>, and <quote>-</quote>.
3792 Alias names are not case sensitive, and are not required to start with a
3793 <quote>+</quote> or <quote>-</quote> sign, since they are merely textually
3797 Aliases can be used throughout the actions file, but they <emphasis>must be
3798 defined in a special section at the top of the file!</emphasis>
3799 And there can only be one such section per actions file. Each actions file may
3800 have its own alias section, and the aliases defined in it are only visible
3804 There are two main reasons to use aliases: One is to save typing for frequently
3805 used combinations of actions, the other one is a gain in flexibility: If you
3806 decide once how you want to handle shops by defining an alias called
3807 <quote>shop</quote>, you can later change your policy on shops in
3808 <emphasis>one</emphasis> place, and your changes will take effect everywhere
3809 in the actions file where the <quote>shop</quote> alias is used. Calling aliases
3810 by their purpose also makes your actions files more readable.
3813 Currently, there is one big drawback to using aliases, though:
3814 <application>Privoxy</application>'s built-in web-based action file
3815 editor honors aliases when reading the actions files, but it expands
3816 them before writing. So the effects of your aliases are of course preserved,
3817 but the aliases themselves are lost when you edit sections that use aliases
3819 This is likely to change in future versions of <application>Privoxy</application>.
3823 Now let's define some aliases...
3828 # Useful custom aliases we can use later.
3830 # Note the (required!) section header line and that this section
3831 # must be at the top of the actions file!
3835 # These aliases just save typing later:
3836 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
3838 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
3839 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
3840 block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
3841 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
3843 # These aliases define combinations of actions
3844 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
3846 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>
3847 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link>
3849 # Short names for other aliases, for really lazy people ;-)
3851 c0 = +crunch-all-cookies
3852 c1 = -crunch-all-cookies</screen>
3856 ...and put them to use. These sections would appear in the lower part of an
3857 actions file and define exceptions to the default actions (as specified further
3858 up for the <quote>/</quote> pattern):
3863 # These sites are either very complex or very keen on
3864 # user data and require minimal interference to work:
3867 .office.microsoft.com
3868 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com
3872 # Allow cookies (for setting and retrieving your customer data)
3876 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
3879 # These shops require pop-ups:
3881 {shop -kill-popups -filter{all-popups}}
3883 .overclockers.co.uk</screen>
3887 Aliases like <quote>shop</quote> and <quote>fragile</quote> are often used for
3888 <quote>problem</quote> sites that require some actions to be disabled
3889 in order to function properly.
3893 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
3894 <sect2 id="act-examples">
3895 <title>Actions Files Tutorial</title>
3897 The above chapters have shown <link linkend="actions-file">which actions files
3898 there are and how they are organized</link>, how actions are <link
3899 linkend="actions">specified</link> and <link linkend="actions-apply">applied
3900 to URLs</link>, how <link linkend="af-patterns">patterns</link> work, and how to
3901 define and use <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link>. Now, let's look at an
3902 example <filename>default.action</filename> and <filename>user.action</filename>
3903 file and see how all these pieces come together:
3906 <sect3><title>default.action</title>
3909 Every config file should start with a short comment stating its purpose:
3913 <screen># Sample default.action file <developers@privoxy.org></screen>
3917 Then, since this is the <filename>default.action</filename> file, the
3918 first section is a special section for internal use that you needn't
3919 change or worry about:
3924 ##########################################################################
3925 # Settings -- Don't change! For internal Privoxy use ONLY.
3926 ##########################################################################
3929 for-privoxy-version=3.0</screen>
3933 After that comes the (optional) alias section. We'll use the example
3934 section from the above <link linkend="aliases">chapter on aliases</link>,
3935 that also explains why and how aliases are used:
3940 ##########################################################################
3942 ##########################################################################
3945 # These aliases just save typing later:
3946 # (Note that some already use other aliases!)
3948 +crunch-all-cookies = +<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> +<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
3949 -crunch-all-cookies = -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link>
3950 block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
3951 mercy-for-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link>
3953 # These aliases define combinations of actions
3954 # that are useful for certain types of sites:
3956 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>
3957 shop = -crunch-all-cookies -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link></screen>
3961 Now come the regular sections, i.e. sets of actions, accompanied
3962 by URL patterns to which they apply. Remember <emphasis>all actions
3963 are disabled when matching starts</emphasis>, so we have to explicitly
3964 enable the ones we want.
3968 The first regular section is probably the most important. It has only
3969 one pattern, <quote><literal>/</literal></quote>, but this pattern
3970 <link linkend="af-patterns">matches all URLs</link>. Therefore, the
3971 set of actions used in this <quote>default</quote> section <emphasis>will
3972 be applied to all requests as a start</emphasis>. It can be partly or
3973 wholly overridden by later matches further down this file, or in user.action,
3974 but it will still be largely responsible for your overall browsing
3979 Again, at the start of matching, all actions are disabled, so there is
3980 no real need to disable any actions here, but we will do that nonetheless,
3981 to have a complete listing for your reference. (Remember: a <quote>+</quote>
3982 preceding the action name enables the action, a <quote>-</quote> disables!).
3983 Also note how this long line has been made more readable by splitting it into
3984 multiple lines with line continuation.
3989 ##########################################################################
3990 # "Defaults" section:
3991 ##########################################################################
3993 -<link linkend="ADD-HEADER">add-header</link> \
3994 -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> \
3995 -<link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES">crunch-incoming-cookies</link> \
3996 -<link linkend="CRUNCH-OUTGOING-COOKIES">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link> \
3997 +<link linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS">deanimate-gifs</link> \
3998 -<link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION">downgrade-http-version</link> \
3999 +<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> \
4000 +<link linkend="FILTER-JS-ANNOYANCES">filter{js-annoyances}</link> \
4001 -<link linkend="FILTER-JS-EVENTS">filter{js-events}</link> \
4002 +<link linkend="FILTER-HTML-ANNOYANCES">filter{html-annoyances}</link> \
4003 -<link linkend="FILTER-CONTENT-COOKIES">filter{content-cookies}</link> \
4004 +<link linkend="FILTER-REFRESH-TAGS">filter{refresh-tags}</link> \
4005 +<link linkend="FILTER-UNSOLICITED-POPUPS">filter{unsolicited-popups}</link> \
4006 -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{all-popups}</link> \
4007 +<link linkend="FILTER-IMG-REORDER">filter{img-reorder}</link> \
4008 +<link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-SIZE">filter{banners-by-size}</link> \
4009 -<link linkend="FILTER-BANNERS-BY-LINK">filter{banners-by-link}</link> \
4010 +<link linkend="FILTER-WEBBUGS">filter{webbugs}</link> \
4011 -<link linkend="FILTER-TINY-TEXTFORMS">filter{tiny-textforms}</link> \
4012 +<link linkend="FILTER-JUMPING-WINDOWS">filter{jumping-windows}</link> \
4013 -<link linkend="FILTER-FRAMESET-BORDERS">filter{frameset-borders}</link> \
4014 -<link linkend="FILTER-DEMORONIZER">filter{demoronizer}</link> \
4015 -<link linkend="FILTER-SHOCKWAVE-FLASH">filter{shockwave-flash}</link> \
4016 -<link linkend="FILTER-QUICKTIME-KIOSKMODE">filter{quicktime-kioskmode}</link> \
4017 -<link linkend="FILTER-FUN">filter{fun}</link> \
4018 -<link linkend="FILTER-CRUDE-PARENTAL">filter{crude-parental}</link> \
4019 +<link linkend="FILTER-IE-EXPLOITS">filter{ie-exploits}</link> \
4020 -<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> \
4021 +<link linkend="HIDE-FORWARDED-FOR-HEADERS">hide-forwarded-for-headers</link> \
4022 +<link linkend="HIDE-FROM-HEADER">hide-from-header{block}</link> \
4023 +<link linkend="HIDE-REFERER">hide-referrer{forge}</link> \
4024 -<link linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT">hide-user-agent</link> \
4025 -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> \
4026 -<link linkend="LIMIT-CONNECT">limit-connect</link> \
4027 +<link linkend="PREVENT-COMPRESSION">prevent-compression</link> \
4028 -<link linkend="SEND-VANILLA-WAFER">send-vanilla-wafer</link> \
4029 -<link linkend="SEND-WAFER">send-wafer</link> \
4030 +<link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY">session-cookies-only</link> \
4031 +<link linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER">set-image-blocker{pattern}</link> \
4033 / # forward slash will match *all* potential URL patterns.</screen>
4037 The default behavior is now set. Note that some actions, like not hiding
4038 the user agent, are part of a <quote>general policy</quote> that applies
4039 universally and won't get any exceptions defined later. Other choices,
4040 like not blocking (which is <emphasis>understandably</emphasis> the
4041 default!) need exceptions, i.e. we need to specify explicitly what we
4042 want to block in later sections.
4046 The first of our specialized sections is concerned with <quote>fragile</quote>
4047 sites, i.e. sites that require minimum interference, because they are either
4048 very complex or very keen on tracking you (and have mechanisms in place that
4049 make them unusable for people who avoid being tracked). We will simply use
4050 our pre-defined <literal>fragile</literal> alias instead of stating the list
4051 of actions explicitly:
4056 ##########################################################################
4057 # Exceptions for sites that'll break under the default action set:
4058 ##########################################################################
4060 # "Fragile" Use a minimum set of actions for these sites (see alias above):
4063 .office.microsoft.com # surprise, surprise!
4064 .windowsupdate.microsoft.com</screen>
4068 Shopping sites are not as fragile, but they typically
4069 require cookies to log in, and pop-up windows for shopping
4070 carts or item details. Again, we'll use a pre-defined alias:
4079 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
4081 .scan.co.uk</screen>
4084 <!-- No longer needed BEGIN OF COMMENTED OUT BLOCK
4087 Then, there are sites which rely on pop-up windows (yuck!) to work.
4088 Since we made pop-up-killing our default above, we need to make exceptions
4089 now. <ulink url="http://www.mozilla.org/">Mozilla</ulink> users, who
4090 can turn on smart handling of unwanted pop-ups in their browsers, can
4092 -<literal><link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link></literal> (and
4093 -<literal><link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link></literal>) above
4094 and hence don't need this section. Anyway, disabling an already disabled
4095 action doesn't hurt, so we'll define our exceptions regardless of what was
4096 chosen in the defaults section:
4101 # These sites require pop-ups too :(
4103 { -<link linkend="KILL-POPUPS">kill-popups</link> -<link linkend="FILTER-ALL-POPUPS">filter{popups}</link> }
4106 .deutsche-bank-24.de</screen>
4109 END OF COMMENTED OUT BLOCK -->
4112 The <literal><link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link></literal>
4113 action, which we enabled per default above, breaks some sites. So disable
4114 it for popular sites where we know it misbehaves:
4119 { -<link linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS">fast-redirects</link> }
4123 .altavista.com/.*(like|url|link):http
4124 .altavista.com/trans.*urltext=http
4125 .nytimes.com</screen>
4129 It is important that <application>Privoxy</application> knows which
4130 URLs belong to images, so that <emphasis>if</emphasis> they are to
4131 be blocked, a substitute image can be sent, rather than an HTML page.
4132 Contacting the remote site to find out is not an option, since it
4133 would destroy the loading time advantage of banner blocking, and it
4134 would feed the advertisers (in terms of money <emphasis>and</emphasis>
4135 information). We can mark any URL as an image with the <literal><link
4136 linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> action,
4137 and marking all URLs that end in a known image file extension is a
4143 ##########################################################################
4145 ##########################################################################
4147 # Define which file types will be treated as images, in case they get
4148 # blocked further down this file:
4150 { +<link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE">handle-as-image</link> }
4151 /.*\.(gif|jpe?g|png|bmp|ico)$</screen>
4155 And then there are known banner sources. They often use scripts to
4156 generate the banners, so it won't be visible from the URL that the
4157 request is for an image. Hence we block them <emphasis>and</emphasis>
4158 mark them as images in one go, with the help of our
4159 <literal>block-as-image</literal> alias defined above. (We could of
4160 course just as well use <literal>+<link linkend="block">block</link>
4161 +<link linkend="handle-as-image">handle-as-image</link></literal> here.)
4162 Remember that the type of the replacement image is chosen by the
4163 <literal><link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link></literal>
4164 action. Since all URLs have matched the default section with its
4165 <literal>+<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker</link>{pattern}</literal>
4166 action before, it still applies and needn't be repeated:
4171 # Known ad generators:
4176 .ad.*.doubleclick.net
4177 .a.yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
4178 .a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
4185 One of the most important jobs of <application>Privoxy</application>
4186 is to block banners. A huge bunch of them are already <quote>blocked</quote>
4187 by the <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{banners-by-size}</literal>
4188 action, which we enabled above, and which deletes the references to banner
4189 images from the pages while they are loaded, so the browser doesn't request
4190 them anymore, and hence they don't need to be blocked here. But this naturally
4191 doesn't catch all banners, and some people choose not to use filters, so we
4192 need a comprehensive list of patterns for banner URLs here, and apply the
4193 <literal><link linkend="block">block</link></literal> action to them.
4196 First comes a bunch of generic patterns, which do most of the work, by
4197 matching typical domain and path name components of banners. Then comes
4198 a list of individual patterns for specific sites, which is omitted here
4199 to keep the example short:
4204 ##########################################################################
4205 # Block these fine banners:
4206 ##########################################################################
4207 { <link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link> }
4215 /.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?)
4216 /(?:.*/)?(publicite|werbung|rekla(ma|me|am)|annonse|maino(kset|nta|s)?)/
4218 # Site-specific patterns (abbreviated):
4220 .hitbox.com</screen>
4224 You wouldn't believe how many advertisers actually call their banner
4225 servers ads.<replaceable>company</replaceable>.com, or call the directory
4226 in which the banners are stored simply <quote>banners</quote>. So the above
4227 generic patterns are surprisingly effective.
4230 But being very generic, they necessarily also catch URLs that we don't want
4231 to block. The pattern <literal>.*ads.</literal> e.g. catches
4232 <quote>nasty-<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.nasty-corp.com</quote> as intended,
4233 but also <quote>downlo<emphasis>ads</emphasis>.sourcefroge.net</quote> or
4234 <quote><emphasis>ads</emphasis>l.some-provider.net.</quote> So here come some
4235 well-known exceptions to the <literal>+<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
4239 Note that these are exceptions to exceptions from the default! Consider the URL
4240 <quote>downloads.sourcefroge.net</quote>: Initially, all actions are deactivated,
4241 so it wouldn't get blocked. Then comes the defaults section, which matches the
4242 URL, but just deactivates the <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal>
4243 action once again. Then it matches <literal>.*ads.</literal>, an exception to the
4244 general non-blocking policy, and suddenly
4245 <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">+block</link></literal> applies. And now, it'll match
4246 <literal>.*loads.</literal>, where <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">-block</link></literal>
4247 applies, so (unless it matches <emphasis>again</emphasis> further down) it ends up
4248 with no <literal><link linkend="BLOCK">block</link></literal> action applying.
4253 ##########################################################################
4254 # Save some innocent victims of the above generic block patterns:
4255 ##########################################################################
4259 { -<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
4260 adv[io]*. # (for advogato.org and advice.*)
4261 adsl. # (has nothing to do with ads)
4262 ad[ud]*. # (adult.* and add.*)
4263 .edu # (universities don't host banners (yet!))
4264 .*loads. # (downloads, uploads etc)
4272 www.globalintersec.com/adv # (adv = advanced)
4273 www.ugu.com/sui/ugu/adv</screen>
4277 Filtering source code can have nasty side effects,
4278 so make an exception for our friends at sourceforge.net,
4279 and all paths with <quote>cvs</quote> in them. Note that
4280 <literal>-<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link></literal>
4281 disables <emphasis>all</emphasis> filters in one fell swoop!
4286 # Don't filter code!
4288 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
4290 .sourceforge.net</screen>
4294 The actual <filename>default.action</filename> is of course more
4295 comprehensive, but we hope this example made clear how it works.
4300 <sect3><title>user.action</title>
4303 So far we are painting with a broad brush by setting general policies,
4304 which would be a reasonable starting point for many people. Now,
4305 you might want to be more specific and have customized rules that
4306 are more suitable to your personal habits and preferences. These would
4307 be for narrowly defined situations like your ISP or your bank, and should
4308 be placed in <filename>user.action</filename>, which is parsed after all other
4309 actions files and hence has the last word, over-riding any previously
4310 defined actions. <filename>user.action</filename> is also a
4311 <emphasis>safe</emphasis> place for your personal settings, since
4312 <filename>default.action</filename> is actively maintained by the
4313 <application>Privoxy</application> developers and you'll probably want
4314 to install updated versions from time to time.
4318 So let's look at a few examples of things that one might typically do in
4319 <filename>user.action</filename>:
4323 <!-- brief sample user.action here -->
4327 # My user.action file. <fred@foobar.com></screen>
4331 As <link linkend="aliases">aliases</link> are local to the actions
4332 file that they are defined in, you can't use the ones from
4333 <filename>default.action</filename>, unless you repeat them here:
4338 # Aliases are local to the file they are defined in.
4339 # (Re-)define aliases for this file:
4343 # These aliases just save typing later, and the alias names should
4344 # be self explanatory.
4346 +crunch-all-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
4347 -crunch-all-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
4348 allow-all-cookies = -crunch-all-cookies -session-cookies-only
4349 allow-popups = -filter{all-popups} -kill-popups
4350 +block-as-image = +block +handle-as-image
4351 -block-as-image = -block
4353 # These aliases define combinations of actions that are useful for
4354 # certain types of sites:
4356 fragile = -block -crunch-all-cookies -filter -fast-redirects -hide-referer -kill-popups
4357 shop = -crunch-all-cookies allow-popups
4359 # Allow ads for selected useful free sites:
4361 allow-ads = -block -filter{banners-by-size} -filter{banners-by-link}</screen>
4367 Say you have accounts on some sites that you visit regularly, and
4368 you don't want to have to log in manually each time. So you'd like
4369 to allow persistent cookies for these sites. The
4370 <literal>allow-all-cookies</literal> alias defined above does exactly
4371 that, i.e. it disables crunching of cookies in any direction, and the
4372 processing of cookies to make them only temporary.
4377 { allow-all-cookies }
4382 .redhat.com</screen>
4386 Your bank is allergic to some filter, but you don't know which, so you disable them all:
4391 { -<link linkend="FILTER">filter</link> }
4392 .your-home-banking-site.com</screen>
4396 Some file types you may not want to filter.
4397 <application>Privoxy</application> makes no distinctions between regular web
4398 pages and downloads done via your web browser if it is an html type
4404 # Documentation should not need filtering (at least on some sites).
4409 Example of a simple <link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> action. Say you've
4410 seen an ad on your favourite page on example.com that you want to get rid of.
4411 You have right-clicked the image, selected <quote>copy image location</quote>
4412 and pasted the URL below while removing the leading http://, into a
4413 <literal>{ +block }</literal> section. Note that <literal>{ +handle-as-image
4414 }</literal> need not be specified, since all URLs ending in
4415 <literal>.gif</literal> will be tagged as images by the general rules as set
4416 in default.action anyway:
4421 { +<link linkend="BLOCK">block</link> }
4422 www.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.gif
4423 another.popular.site.net/more/junk/here/
4425 # Here we found one that is not in <application>Privoxy's</application> default blocked list:
4426 .adfactory.net</screen>
4430 To force URLs that tend to have ad images, but it is difficult for
4431 <application>Privoxy</application> to know this since the ultimate returned
4432 object is obscured for one reason or another, we can try to force these to be
4433 treated as images (and thus avoid <application>Privoxy's</application>
4434 <quote>BLOCKED</quote> banner page). Note that if what is returned by the
4435 server turns out NOT to be an image, then your browser typically will display
4436 a broken icon image. Use cautiously.
4442 # A shockwave ad, very annoying.
4450 Now you noticed that the default configuration breaks Forbes Magazine,
4451 but you were too lazy to find out which action is the culprit, and you
4452 were again too lazy to give <link linkend="contact">feedback</link>, so
4453 you just used the <literal>fragile</literal> alias on the site, and
4454 -- <emphasis>whoa!</emphasis> -- it worked. The <literal>fragile</literal>
4455 aliases disables those actions that are most likely to break a site. Also,
4456 good for testing purposes to see if it is <application>Privoxy</application>
4457 that is causing the problem or not.
4463 .forbes.com</screen>
4467 You like the <quote>fun</quote> text replacements in <filename>default.filter</filename>,
4468 but it is disabled in the distributed actions file. (My colleagues on the team just
4469 don't have a sense of humour, that's why! ;-). So you'd like to turn it on in your private,
4470 update-safe config, once and for all:
4475 { +<link linkend="filter-fun">filter{fun}</link> }
4476 / # For ALL sites!</screen>
4480 Note that the above is not really a good idea: There are exceptions
4481 to the filters in <filename>default.action</filename> for things that
4482 really shouldn't be filtered, like code on CVS->Web interfaces. Since
4483 <filename>user.action</filename> has the last word, these exceptions
4484 won't be valid for the <quote>fun</quote> filtering specified here.
4488 You might also worry about how your favourite free websites are
4489 funded, and find that they rely on displaying banner advertisements
4490 to survive. So you might want to specifically allow banners for those
4491 sites that you feel provide value to you:
4503 Note that <literal>allow-ads</literal> has been aliased to
4504 <literal>-<link linkend="block">block</link></literal>,
4505 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-size">filter{banners-by-size}</link></literal>, and
4506 <literal>-<link linkend="filter-banners-by-link">filter{banners-by-link}</link></literal> above.
4510 <filename>user.action</filename> is generally the best place to define
4511 exceptions and additions to the default policies of
4512 <filename>default.action</filename>. Some actions are safe to have their
4513 default policies set here though. So let's set a default policy to have a
4514 <quote>blank</quote> image as opposed to the checkerboard pattern for
4515 <emphasis>ALL</emphasis> sites. <quote>/</quote> of course matches all URL
4521 { +<link linkend="set-image-blocker">set-image-blocker{blank}</link> }
4522 / # ALL sites</screen>
4528 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4532 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
4534 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
4536 <sect1 id="filter-file">
4537 <title>The Filter File</title>
4540 All text substitutions that can be invoked through the
4541 <literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link></literal> action
4542 must first be defined in the filter file, which is typically
4543 called <filename>default.filter</filename> and which can be
4544 selected through the <literal>
4545 <link linkend="filterfile">filterfile</link></literal> config
4550 Typical reasons for doing such substitutions are to eliminate
4551 common annoyances in HTML and JavaScript, such as pop-up windows,
4552 exit consoles, crippled windows without navigation tools, the
4553 infamous <BLINK> tag etc, to suppress images with certain
4554 width and height attributes (standard banner sizes or web-bugs),
4555 or just to have fun. The possibilities are endless.
4559 Filtering works on any text-based document type, including
4560 HTML, JavaScript, CSS etc. (all <literal>text/*</literal>
4561 MIME types, <emphasis>except</emphasis> <literal>text/plain</literal>).
4562 Substitutions are made at the source level, so if you want to <quote>roll
4563 your own</quote> filters, you should be familiar with HTML syntax.
4567 Just like the <link linkend="actions-file">actions files</link>, the
4568 filter file is organized in sections, which are called <emphasis>filters</emphasis>
4569 here. Each filter consists of a heading line, that starts with the
4570 <emphasis>keyword</emphasis> <literal>FILTER:</literal>, followed by
4571 the filter's <emphasis>name</emphasis>, and a short (one line)
4572 <emphasis>description</emphasis> of what it does. Below that line
4573 come the <emphasis>jobs</emphasis>, i.e. lines that define the actual
4574 text substitutions. By convention, the name of a filter
4575 should describe what the filter <emphasis>eliminates</emphasis>. The
4576 comment is used in the <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
4577 user interface</ulink>.
4581 Once a filter called <replaceable>name</replaceable> has been defined
4582 in the filter file, it can be invoked by using an action of the form
4583 +<literal><link linkend="filter">filter</link>{<replaceable>name</replaceable>}</literal>
4584 in any <link linkend="actions-file">actions file</link>.
4588 A filter header line for a filter called <quote>foo</quote> could look
4593 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"</screen>
4597 Below that line, and up to the next header line, come the jobs that
4598 define what text replacements the filter executes. They are specified
4599 in a syntax that imitates <ulink url="http://www.perl.org/">Perl</ulink>'s
4600 <literal>s///</literal> operator. If you are familiar with Perl, you
4601 will find this to be quite intuitive, and may want to look at the
4602 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/pcrs.3.html">PCRS man page</ulink>
4603 for the subtle differences to Perl behaviour. Most notably, the non-standard
4604 option letter <literal>U</literal> is supported, which turns the default
4605 to ungreedy matching.
4609 If you are new to regular expressions, you might want to take a look at
4610 the <link linkend="regex">Appendix on regular expressions</link>, and
4611 see the <ulink url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perl.html">Perl
4613 <ulink url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perlop.html#s-PATTERN-REPLACEMENT-egimosx">the
4614 <literal>s///</literal> operator's syntax</ulink> and <ulink
4615 url="http://perldoc.com/perl5.6.1/pod/perlre.html">Perl-style regular
4616 expressions</ulink> in general.
4617 The below examples might also help to get you started.
4621 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
4623 <sect2><title>Filter File Tutorial</title>
4625 Now, let's complete our <quote>foo</quote> filter. We have already defined
4626 the heading, but the jobs are still missing. Since all it does is to replace
4627 <quote>foo</quote> with <quote>bar</quote>, there is only one (trivial) job
4632 <screen>s/foo/bar/</screen>
4636 But wait! Didn't the comment say that <emphasis>all</emphasis> occurrences
4637 of <quote>foo</quote> should be replaced? Our current job will only take
4638 care of the first <quote>foo</quote> on each page. For global substitution,
4639 we'll need to add the <literal>g</literal> option:
4643 <screen>s/foo/bar/g</screen>
4647 Our complete filter now looks like this:
4650 <screen>FILTER: foo Replace all "foo" with "bar"
4651 s/foo/bar/g</screen>
4655 Let's look at some real filters for more interesting examples. Here you see
4656 a filter that protects against some common annoyances that arise from JavaScript
4657 abuse. Let's look at its jobs one after the other:
4663 FILTER: js-annoyances Get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse
4665 # Get rid of JavaScript referrer tracking. Test page: http://www.randomoddness.com/untitled.htm
4667 s|(<script.*)document\.referrer(.*</script>)|$1"Not Your Business!"$2|Usg</screen>
4671 Following the header line and a comment, you see the job. Note that it uses
4672 <literal>|</literal> as the delimiter instead of <literal>/</literal>, because
4673 the pattern contains a forward slash, which would otherwise have to be escaped
4674 by a backslash (<literal>\</literal>).
4678 Now, let's examine the pattern: it starts with the text <literal><script.*</literal>
4679 enclosed in parentheses. Since the dot matches any character, and <literal>*</literal>
4680 means: <quote>Match an arbitrary number of the element left of myself</quote>, this
4681 matches <quote><script</quote>, followed by <emphasis>any</emphasis> text, i.e.
4682 it matches the whole page, from the start of the first <script> tag.
4686 That's more than we want, but the pattern continues: <literal>document\.referrer</literal>
4687 matches only the exact string <quote>document.referrer</quote>. The dot needed to
4688 be <emphasis>escaped</emphasis>, i.e. preceded by a backslash, to take away its
4689 special meaning as a joker, and make it just a regular dot. So far, the meaning is:
4690 Match from the start of the first <script> tag in a the page, up to, and including,
4691 the text <quote>document.referrer</quote>, if <emphasis>both</emphasis> are present
4692 in the page (and appear in that order).
4696 But there's still more pattern to go. The next element, again enclosed in parentheses,
4697 is <literal>.*</script></literal>. You already know what <literal>.*</literal>
4698 means, so the whole pattern translates to: Match from the start of the first <script>
4699 tag in a page to the end of the last <script> tag, provided that the text
4700 <quote>document.referrer</quote> appears somewhere in between.
4704 This is still not the whole story, since we have ignored the options and the parentheses:
4705 The portions of the page matched by sub-patterns that are enclosed in parentheses, will be
4706 remembered and be available through the variables <literal>$1, $2, ...</literal> in
4707 the substitute. The <literal>U</literal> option switches to ungreedy matching, which means
4708 that the first <literal>.*</literal> in the pattern will only <quote>eat up</quote> all
4709 text in between <quote><script</quote> and the <emphasis>first</emphasis> occurrence
4710 of <quote>document.referrer</quote>, and that the second <literal>.*</literal> will
4711 only span the text up to the <emphasis>first</emphasis> <quote></script></quote>
4712 tag. Furthermore, the <literal>s</literal> option says that the match may span
4713 multiple lines in the page, and the <literal>g</literal> option again means that the
4714 substitution is global.
4718 So, to summarize, the pattern means: Match all scripts that contain the text
4719 <quote>document.referrer</quote>. Remember the parts of the script from
4720 (and including) the start tag up to (and excluding) the string
4721 <quote>document.referrer</quote> as <literal>$1</literal>, and the part following
4722 that string, up to and including the closing tag, as <literal>$2</literal>.
4726 Now the pattern is deciphered, but wasn't this about substituting things? So
4727 lets look at the substitute: <literal>$1"Not Your Business!"$2</literal> is
4728 easy to read: The text remembered as <literal>$1</literal>, followed by
4729 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> (<emphasis>including</emphasis>
4730 the quotation marks!), followed by the text remembered as <literal>$2</literal>.
4731 This produces an exact copy of the original string, with the middle part
4732 (the <quote>document.referrer</quote>) replaced by <literal>"Not Your
4733 Business!"</literal>.
4737 The whole job now reads: Replace <quote>document.referrer</quote> by
4738 <literal>"Not Your Business!"</literal> wherever it appears inside a
4739 <script> tag. Note that this job won't break JavaScript syntax,
4740 since both the original and the replacement are syntactically valid
4741 string objects. The script just won't have access to the referrer
4742 information anymore.
4746 We'll show you two other jobs from the JavaScript taming department, but
4747 this time only point out the constructs of special interest:
4752 # The status bar is for displaying link targets, not pointless blahblah
4754 s/window\.status\s*=\s*(['"]).*?\1/dUmMy=1/ig</screen>
4758 <literal>\s</literal> stands for whitespace characters (space, tab, newline,
4759 carriage return, form feed), so that <literal>\s*</literal> means: <quote>zero
4760 or more whitespace</quote>. The <literal>?</literal> in <literal>.*?</literal>
4761 makes this matching of arbitrary text ungreedy. (Note that the <literal>U</literal>
4762 option is not set). The <literal>['"]</literal> construct means: <quote>a single
4763 <emphasis>or</emphasis> a double quote</quote>. Finally, <literal>\1</literal> is
4764 a backreference to the first parenthesis just like <literal>$1</literal> above,
4765 with the difference that in the <emphasis>pattern</emphasis>, a backslash indicates
4766 a backreference, whereas in the <emphasis>substitute</emphasis>, it's the dollar.
4770 So what does this job do? It replaces assignments of single- or double-quoted
4771 strings to the <quote>window.status</quote> object with a dummy assignment
4772 (using a variable name that is hopefully odd enough not to conflict with
4773 real variables in scripts). Thus, it catches many cases where e.g. pointless
4774 descriptions are displayed in the status bar instead of the link target when
4775 you move your mouse over links.
4780 # Kill OnUnload popups. Yummy. Test: http://www.zdnet.com/zdsubs/yahoo/tree/yfs.html
4782 s/(<body [^>]*)onunload(.*>)/$1never$2/iU</screen>
4787 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">OnUnload
4788 event binding</ulink> in the HTML DOM was a <emphasis>CRIME</emphasis>.
4789 When I close a browser window, I want it to close and die. Basta.
4790 This job replaces the <quote>onunload</quote> attribute in
4791 <quote><body></quote> tags with the dummy word <literal>never</literal>.
4792 Note that the <literal>i</literal> option makes the pattern matching
4793 case-insensitive. Also note that ungreedy matching alone doesn't always guarantee
4794 a minimal match: In the first parenthesis, we had to use <literal>[^>]*</literal>
4795 instead of <literal>.*</literal> to prevent the match from exceeding the
4796 <body> tag if it doesn't contain <quote>OnUnload</quote>, but the page's
4801 The last example is from the fun department:
4806 FILTER: fun Fun text replacements
4808 # Spice the daily news:
4810 s/microsoft(?!\.com)/MicroSuck/ig</screen>
4814 Note the <literal>(?!\.com)</literal> part (a so-called negative lookahead)
4815 in the job's pattern, which means: Don't match, if the string
4816 <quote>.com</quote> appears directly following <quote>microsoft</quote>
4817 in the page. This prevents links to microsoft.com from being trashed, while
4818 still replacing the word everywhere else.
4823 # Buzzword Bingo (example for extended regex syntax)
4825 s* industry[ -]leading \
4827 | customer[ -]focused \
4828 | market[ -]driven \
4829 | award[ -]winning # Comments are OK, too! \
4830 | high[ -]performance \
4831 | solutions[ -]based \
4835 *<font color="red"><b>BINGO!</b></font> \
4840 The <literal>x</literal> option in this job turns on extended syntax, and allows for
4841 e.g. the liberal use of (non-interpreted!) whitespace for nicer formatting.
4849 <!-- ~~~~~~~~ New section Header ~~~~~~~~~ -->
4851 <sect2 id="predefined-filters"><title>The Pre-defined Filters</title>
4855 Note each filter is also listed in the +filter action section above. Please
4856 keep these listings in sync.
4861 The distribution <filename>default.filter</filename> file contains a selection of
4862 pre-defined filters for your convenience:
4867 <term><emphasis>js-annoyances</emphasis></term>
4870 The purpose of this filter is to get rid of particularly annoying JavaScript abuse.
4875 replaces JavaScript references to the browser's referrer information
4876 with the string "Not Your Business!". This compliments the <literal><link
4877 linkend="hide-referrer">hide-referrer</link></literal> action on the content level.
4882 removes the bindings to the DOM's
4883 <ulink url="http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/REC-DOM-Level-2-Events-20001113/events.html#Events-eventgroupings-htmlevents">unload
4884 event</ulink> which we feel has no right to exist and is responsible for most <quote>exit consoles</quote>, i.e.
4885 nasty windows that pop up when you close another one.
4890 removes code that causes new windows to be opened with undesired properties, such as being
4891 full-screen, non-resizable, without location, status or menu bar etc.
4900 <term><emphasis>js-events</emphasis></term>
4903 This is a very radical measure. It removes virtually all JavaScript event bindings, which
4904 means that scripts can not react to user actions such as mouse movements or clicks, window
4905 resizing etc, anymore.
4908 We <emphasis>strongly discourage</emphasis> using this filter as a default since it breaks
4909 many legitimate scripts. It is meant for use only on extra-nasty sites (should you really
4916 <term><emphasis>html-annoyances</emphasis></term>
4919 This filter will undo many common instances of HTML based abuse.
4922 The <literal>BLINK</literal> and <literal>MARQUEE</literal> tags
4923 are neutralized (yeah baby!), and browser windows will be created as
4924 resizable (as of course they should be!), and will have location,
4925 scroll and menu bars -- even if specified otherwise.
4931 <term><emphasis>content-cookies</emphasis></term>
4934 Most cookies are set in the HTTP dialogue, where they can be intercepted
4936 <literal><link linkend="crunch-incoming-cookies">crunch-incoming-cookies</link></literal>
4937 and <literal><link linkend="crunch-outgoing-cookies">crunch-outgoing-cookies</link></literal>
4938 actions. But web sites increasingly make use of HTML meta tags and JavaScript
4939 to sneak cookies to the browser on the content level.
4942 This filter disables HTML and JavaScript code that reads or sets cookies. Use
4943 it wherever you would also use the cookie crunch actions.
4949 <term><emphasis>refresh tags</emphasis></term>
4952 Disable any refresh tags if the interval is greater than nine seconds (so
4953 that redirections done via refresh tags are not destroyed). This is useful
4954 for dial-on-demand setups, or for those who find this HTML feature
4961 <term><emphasis>unsolicited-popups</emphasis></term>
4964 This filter attempts to prevent only <quote>unsolicited</quote> pop-up
4965 windows from opening, yet still allow pop-up windows that the user
4966 has explicitly chosen to open. It was added in version 3.0.1,
4967 as an improvement over earlier such filters.
4970 Technical note: The filter works by redefining the window.open JavaScript
4971 function to a dummy function during the loading and rendering phase of each
4972 HTML page access, and restoring the function afterwards.
4978 <term><emphasis>all-popups</emphasis></term>
4981 Attempt to prevent <emphasis>all</emphasis> pop-up windows from opening.
4982 Note this should be used with more discretion than the above, since it is
4983 more likely to break some sites that require pop-ups for normal usage. Use
4990 <term><emphasis>img-reorder</emphasis></term>
4993 This is a helper filter that has no value if used alone. It makes the
4994 <literal>banners-by-size</literal> and <literal>banners-by-link</literal>
4995 (see below) filters more effective and should be enabled together with them.
5001 <term><emphasis>banners-by-size</emphasis></term>
5004 This filter removes image tags purely based on what size they are. Fortunately
5005 for us, many ads and banner images tend to conform to certain standardized
5006 sizes, which makes this filter quite effective for ad stripping purposes.
5009 Occasionally this filter will cause false positives on images that are not ads,
5010 but just happen to be of one of the standard banner sizes.
5016 <term><emphasis>banners-by-link</emphasis></term>
5019 This is an experimental filter that attempts to kill any banners if
5020 their URLs seem to point to known or suspected click trackers. It is currently
5021 not of much value and is not recommended for use by default.
5027 <term><emphasis>webbugs</emphasis></term>
5030 Webbugs are small, invisible images (technically 1X1 GIF images), that
5031 are used to track users across websites, and collect information on them.
5032 As an HTML page is loaded by the browser, an embedded image tag causes the
5033 browser to contact a third-party site, disclosing the tracking information
5034 through the requested URL and/or cookies for that third-party domain, without
5035 the use ever becoming aware of the interaction with the third-party site.
5036 HTML-ized spam also uses a similar technique to verify email addresses.
5039 This filter removes the HTML code that loads such <quote>webbugs</quote>.
5045 <term><emphasis>tiny-textforms</emphasis></term>
5048 A rather special-purpose filter that can be used to enlarge textareas (those
5049 multi-line text boxes in web forms) and turn off hard word wrap in them.
5050 It was written for the sourceforge.net tracker system where such boxes are
5051 a nuisance, but it can be handy on other sites, too.
5054 It is not recommended to use this filter as a default.
5060 <term><emphasis>jumping-windows</emphasis></term>
5063 Many consider windows that move, or resize themselves to be abusive. This filter
5064 neutralizes the related JavaScript code. Note that some sites might not display
5065 or behave as intended when using this filter.
5071 <term><emphasis>frameset-borders</emphasis></term>
5074 Some web designers seem to assume that everyone in the world will view their
5075 web sites using the same browser brand and version, screen resolution etc,
5076 because only that assumption could explain why they'd use static frame sizes,
5077 yet prevent their frames from being resized by the user, should they be too
5078 small to show their whole content.
5081 This filter removes the related HTML code. It should only be applied to sites
5088 <term><emphasis>demoronizer</emphasis></term>
5091 Many Microsoft products that generate HTML use non-standard extensions (read:
5092 violations) of the ISO 8859-1 aka Latin-1 character set. This causes those
5093 HTML documents to display with errors on standard-compliant platforms.
5096 This filter translates the MS-only characters into Latin-1 equivalents.
5097 It is not necessary when using MS products, and will cause corruption of
5098 UTF-8 (non-Latin-1) pages. It might be worthwhile for non-MS platforms,
5099 if wierd fonts sometimes appear on some pages.
5105 <term><emphasis>shockwave-flash</emphasis></term>
5108 A filter for shockwave haters. As the name suggests, this filter strips code
5109 out of web pages that is used to embed shockwave flash objects.
5117 <term><emphasis>quicktime-kioskmode</emphasis></term>
5120 Change HTML code that embeds Quicktime objects so that kioskmode, which
5121 prevents saving, is disabled.
5127 <term><emphasis>fun</emphasis></term>
5130 Text replacements for subversive browsing fun. Make fun of your favorite
5131 Monopolist or play buzzword bingo.
5137 <term><emphasis>crude-parental</emphasis></term>
5140 A demonstration-only filter that shows how <application>Privoxy</application>
5141 can be used to delete web content on a keyword basis.
5147 <term><emphasis>ie-exploits</emphasis></term>
5150 A collection of text replacements to disable malicious HTML and JavaScript
5151 code that exploits known security holes in Internet Explorer.
5154 Presently, it only protects against Nimda and a cross-site scripting bug, and
5155 would need active maintenance to provide more substantial protection.
5161 <term><emphasis>site-specifics</emphasis></term>
5164 Some web sites have very specific problems, the cure for which doesn't apply
5165 anywhere else, or could even cause damage on other sites.
5168 This is a collection of such site-specific cures which should only be applied
5169 to the sites they were intended for, which is what the supplied
5170 <filename>default.action</filename> file does. Users shouldn't need to change
5171 anything regarding this filter.
5178 <term><emphasis> </emphasis></term>
5192 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5196 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5198 <sect1 id="templates">
5199 <title>Templates</title>
5201 All <application>Privoxy</application> built-in pages, i.e. error pages such as the
5202 <ulink url="http://show-the-404-error.page"><quote>404 - No Such Domain</quote>
5203 error page</ulink>, the <ulink
5204 url="http://ads.bannerserver.example.com/nasty-ads/sponsor.html"><quote>BLOCKED</quote>
5206 and all pages of its <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">web-based
5207 user interface</ulink>, are generated from <emphasis>templates</emphasis>.
5208 (<application>Privoxy</application> must be running for the above links to work as
5213 These templates are stored in a subdirectory of the <link linkend="confdir">configuration
5214 directory</link> called <filename>templates</filename>. On Unixish platforms,
5216 <ulink url="file:///etc/privoxy/templates/"><filename>/etc/privoxy/templates/</filename></ulink>.
5220 The templates are basically normal HTML files, but with place-holders (called symbols
5221 or exports), which <application>Privoxy</application> fills at run time. You can
5222 edit the templates with a normal text editor, should you want to customize them.
5223 (<emphasis>Not recommended for the casual user</emphasis>). Note that
5224 just like in configuration files, lines starting with <literal>#</literal> are
5225 ignored when the templates are filled in.
5229 The place-holders are of the form <literal>@name@</literal>, and you will
5230 find a list of available symbols, which vary from template to template,
5231 in the comments at the start of each file. Note that these comments are not
5232 always accurate, and that it's probably best to look at the existing HTML
5233 code to find out which symbols are supported and what they are filled in with.
5237 A special application of this substitution mechanism is to make whole
5238 blocks of HTML code disappear when a specific symbol is set. We use this
5239 for many purposes, one of them being to include the beta warning in all
5240 our user interface (CGI) pages when <application>Privoxy</application>
5241 in in an alpha or beta development stage:
5246 <!-- @if-unstable-start -->
5248 ... beta warning HTML code goes here ...
5250 <!-- if-unstable-end@ --></screen>
5254 If the "unstable" symbol is set, everything in between and including
5255 <literal>@if-unstable-start</literal> and <literal>if-unstable-end@</literal>
5256 will disappear, leaving nothing but an empty comment:
5260 <screen><!-- --></screen>
5264 There's also an if-then-else construct and an <literal>#include</literal>
5265 mechanism, but you'll sure find out if you are inclined to edit the
5270 All templates refer to a style located at
5271 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet"><literal>http://config.privoxy.org/send-stylesheet</literal></ulink>.
5272 This is, of course, locally served by <application>Privoxy</application>
5273 and the source for it can be found and edited in the
5274 <filename>cgi-style.css</filename> template.
5279 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5283 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5285 <sect1 id="contact"><title>Contacting the Developers, Bug Reporting and Feature
5288 <!-- Include contacting.sgml boilerplate: -->
5290 <!-- end boilerplate -->
5294 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5297 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5298 <sect1 id="copyright"><title><application>Privoxy</application> Copyright, License and History</title>
5300 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
5302 <!-- end copyright -->
5304 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5305 <sect2><title>License</title>
5306 <!-- Include copyright.sgml: -->
5308 <!-- end copyright -->
5310 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5313 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5315 <sect2 id="history"><title>History</title>
5316 <!-- Include history.sgml: -->
5318 <!-- end history -->
5321 <sect2 id="authors"><title>Authors</title>
5322 <!-- Include p-authors.sgml: -->
5324 <!-- end authors -->
5329 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5332 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5333 <sect1 id="seealso"><title>See Also</title>
5334 <!-- Include seealso.sgml: -->
5336 <!-- end seealso -->
5341 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5342 <sect1 id="appendix"><title>Appendix</title>
5345 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5347 <title>Regular Expressions</title>
5349 <application>Privoxy</application> uses Perl-style <quote>regular
5350 expressions</quote> in its <link linkend="actions-file">actions
5351 files</link> and <link linkend="filter-file">filter file</link>,
5352 through the <ulink url="http://www.pcre.org/">PCRE</ulink> and
5353 <ulink url="http://www.oesterhelt.org/pcrs/">PCRS</ulink> libraries.
5357 If you are reading this, you probably don't understand what <quote>regular
5358 expressions</quote> are, or what they can do. So this will be a very brief
5359 introduction only. A full explanation would require a <ulink
5360 url="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex/">book</ulink> ;-)
5364 Regular expressions provide a language to describe patterns that can be
5365 run against strings of characters (letter, numbers, etc), to see if they
5366 match the string or not. The patterns are themselves (sometimes complex)
5367 strings of literal characters, combined with wild-cards, and other special
5368 characters, called meta-characters. The <quote>meta-characters</quote> have
5369 special meanings and are used to build complex patterns to be matched against.
5370 Perl Compatible Regular Expressions are an especially convenient
5371 <quote>dialect</quote> of the regular expression language.
5375 To make a simple analogy, we do something similar when we use wild-card
5376 characters when listing files with the <command>dir</command> command in DOS.
5377 <literal>*.*</literal> matches all filenames. The <quote>special</quote>
5378 character here is the asterisk which matches any and all characters. We can be
5379 more specific and use <literal>?</literal> to match just individual
5380 characters. So <quote>dir file?.text</quote> would match
5381 <quote>file1.txt</quote>, <quote>file2.txt</quote>, etc. We are pattern
5382 matching, using a similar technique to <quote>regular expressions</quote>!
5386 Regular expressions do essentially the same thing, but are much, much more
5387 powerful. There are many more <quote>special characters</quote> and ways of
5388 building complex patterns however. Let's look at a few of the common ones,
5389 and then some examples:
5394 <emphasis>.</emphasis> - Matches any single character, e.g. <quote>a</quote>,
5395 <quote>A</quote>, <quote>4</quote>, <quote>:</quote>, or <quote>@</quote>.
5397 </simplelist></para>
5401 <emphasis>?</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or ONE
5404 </simplelist></para>
5408 <emphasis>+</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ONE or MORE
5411 </simplelist></para>
5415 <emphasis>*</emphasis> - The preceding character or expression is matched ZERO or MORE
5418 </simplelist></para>
5422 <emphasis>\</emphasis> - The <quote>escape</quote> character denotes that
5423 the following character should be taken literally. This is used where one of the
5424 special characters (e.g. <quote>.</quote>) needs to be taken literally and
5425 not as a special meta-character. Example: <quote>example\.com</quote>, makes
5426 sure the period is recognized only as a period (and not expanded to its
5427 meta-character meaning of any single character).
5429 </simplelist></para>
5433 <emphasis>[]</emphasis> - Characters enclosed in brackets will be matched if
5434 any of the enclosed characters are encountered. For instance, <quote>[0-9]</quote>
5435 matches any numeric digit (zero through nine). As an example, we can combine
5436 this with <quote>+</quote> to match any digit one of more times: <quote>[0-9]+</quote>.
5438 </simplelist></para>
5442 <emphasis>()</emphasis> - parentheses are used to group a sub-expression,
5443 or multiple sub-expressions.
5445 </simplelist></para>
5449 <emphasis>|</emphasis> - The <quote>bar</quote> character works like an
5450 <quote>or</quote> conditional statement. A match is successful if the
5451 sub-expression on either side of <quote>|</quote> matches. As an example:
5452 <quote>/(this|that) example/</quote> uses grouping and the bar character
5453 and would match either <quote>this example</quote> or <quote>that
5454 example</quote>, and nothing else.
5456 </simplelist></para>
5459 These are just some of the ones you are likely to use when matching URLs with
5460 <application>Privoxy</application>, and is a long way from a definitive
5461 list. This is enough to get us started with a few simple examples which may
5462 be more illuminating:
5466 <emphasis><literal>/.*/banners/.*</literal></emphasis> - A simple example
5467 that uses the common combination of <quote>.</quote> and <quote>*</quote> to
5468 denote any character, zero or more times. In other words, any string at all.
5469 So we start with a literal forward slash, then our regular expression pattern
5470 (<quote>.*</quote>) another literal forward slash, the string
5471 <quote>banners</quote>, another forward slash, and lastly another
5472 <quote>.*</quote>. We are building
5473 a directory path here. This will match any file with the path that has a
5474 directory named <quote>banners</quote> in it. The <quote>.*</quote> matches
5475 any characters, and this could conceivably be more forward slashes, so it
5476 might expand into a much longer looking path. For example, this could match:
5477 <quote>/eye/hate/spammers/banners/annoy_me_please.gif</quote>, or just
5478 <quote>/banners/annoying.html</quote>, or almost an infinite number of other
5479 possible combinations, just so it has <quote>banners</quote> in the path
5484 A now something a little more complex:
5488 <emphasis><literal>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))?/</literal></emphasis> -
5489 We have several literal forward slashes again (<quote>/</quote>), so we are
5490 building another expression that is a file path statement. We have another
5491 <quote>.*</quote>, so we are matching against any conceivable sub-path, just so
5492 it matches our expression. The only true literal that <emphasis>must
5493 match</emphasis> our pattern is <application>adv</application>, together with
5494 the forward slashes. What comes after the <quote>adv</quote> string is the
5499 Remember the <quote>?</quote> means the preceding expression (either a
5500 literal character or anything grouped with <quote>(...)</quote> in this case)
5501 can exist or not, since this means either zero or one match. So
5502 <quote>((er)?ts?|ertis(ing|ements?))</quote> is optional, as are the
5503 individual sub-expressions: <quote>(er)</quote>,
5504 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, and the <quote>s</quote>. The <quote>|</quote>
5505 means <quote>or</quote>. We have two of those. For instance,
5506 <quote>(ing|ements?)</quote>, can expand to match either <quote>ing</quote>
5507 <emphasis>OR</emphasis> <quote>ements?</quote>. What is being done here, is an
5508 attempt at matching as many variations of <quote>advertisement</quote>, and
5509 similar, as possible. So this would expand to match just <quote>adv</quote>,
5510 or <quote>advert</quote>, or <quote>adverts</quote>, or
5511 <quote>advertising</quote>, or <quote>advertisement</quote>, or
5512 <quote>advertisements</quote>. You get the idea. But it would not match
5513 <quote>advertizements</quote> (with a <quote>z</quote>). We could fix that by
5514 changing our regular expression to:
5515 <quote>/.*/adv((er)?ts?|erti(s|z)(ing|ements?))?/</quote>, which would then match
5520 <emphasis><literal>/.*/advert[0-9]+\.(gif|jpe?g)</literal></emphasis> - Again
5521 another path statement with forward slashes. Anything in the square brackets
5522 <quote>[]</quote> can be matched. This is using <quote>0-9</quote> as a
5523 shorthand expression to mean any digit one through nine. It is the same as
5524 saying <quote>0123456789</quote>. So any digit matches. The <quote>+</quote>
5525 means one or more of the preceding expression must be included. The preceding
5526 expression here is what is in the square brackets -- in this case, any digit
5527 one through nine. Then, at the end, we have a grouping: <quote>(gif|jpe?g)</quote>.
5528 This includes a <quote>|</quote>, so this needs to match the expression on
5529 either side of that bar character also. A simple <quote>gif</quote> on one side, and the other
5530 side will in turn match either <quote>jpeg</quote> or <quote>jpg</quote>,
5531 since the <quote>?</quote> means the letter <quote>e</quote> is optional and
5532 can be matched once or not at all. So we are building an expression here to
5533 match image GIF or JPEG type image file. It must include the literal
5534 string <quote>advert</quote>, then one or more digits, and a <quote>.</quote>
5535 (which is now a literal, and not a special character, since it is escaped
5536 with <quote>\</quote>), and lastly either <quote>gif</quote>, or
5537 <quote>jpeg</quote>, or <quote>jpg</quote>. Some possible matches would
5538 include: <quote>//advert1.jpg</quote>,
5539 <quote>/nasty/ads/advert1234.gif</quote>,
5540 <quote>/banners/from/hell/advert99.jpg</quote>. It would not match
5541 <quote>advert1.gif</quote> (no leading slash), or
5542 <quote>/adverts232.jpg</quote> (the expression does not include an
5543 <quote>s</quote>), or <quote>/advert1.jsp</quote> (<quote>jsp</quote> is not
5544 in the expression anywhere).
5548 We are barely scratching the surface of regular expressions here so that you
5549 can understand the default <application>Privoxy</application>
5550 configuration files, and maybe use this knowledge to customize your own
5551 installation. There is much, much more that can be done with regular
5552 expressions. Now that you know enough to get started, you can learn more on
5557 More reading on Perl Compatible Regular expressions:
5558 <ulink url="http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html">http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.6/pod/perlre.html</ulink>
5562 For information on regular expression based substitutions and their applications
5563 in filters, please see the <link linkend="filter-file">filter file tutorial</link>
5568 <!-- ~ End section ~ -->
5571 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5573 <title><application>Privoxy</application>'s Internal Pages</title>
5576 Since <application>Privoxy</application> proxies each requested
5577 web page, it is easy for <application>Privoxy</application> to
5578 trap certain special URLs. In this way, we can talk directly to
5579 <application>Privoxy</application>, and see how it is
5580 configured, see how our rules are being applied, change these
5581 rules and other configuration options, and even turn
5582 <application>Privoxy's</application> filtering off, all with
5588 The URLs listed below are the special ones that allow direct access
5589 to <application>Privoxy</application>. Of course,
5590 <application>Privoxy</application> must be running to access these. If
5591 not, you will get a friendly error message. Internet access is not
5604 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/">http://config.privoxy.org/</ulink>
5608 There is a shortcut: <ulink url="http://p.p/">http://p.p/</ulink> (But it
5609 doesn't provide a fall-back to a real page, in case the request is not
5610 sent through <application>Privoxy</application>)
5616 Show information about the current configuration, including viewing and
5617 editing of actions files:
5621 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-status">http://config.privoxy.org/show-status</ulink>
5628 Show the source code version numbers:
5632 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-version">http://config.privoxy.org/show-version</ulink>
5639 Show the browser's request headers:
5643 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-request">http://config.privoxy.org/show-request</ulink>
5650 Show which actions apply to a URL and why:
5654 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
5661 Toggle Privoxy on or off. In this case, <quote>Privoxy</quote> continues
5662 to run, but only as a pass-through proxy, with no actions taking place:
5666 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle</ulink>
5670 Short cuts. Turn off, then on:
5674 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=disable</ulink>
5679 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable">http://config.privoxy.org/toggle?set=enable</ulink>
5688 These may be bookmarked for quick reference. See next.
5692 <sect3 id="bookmarklets">
5693 <title>Bookmarklets</title>
5695 Below are some <quote>bookmarklets</quote> to allow you to easily access a
5696 <quote>mini</quote> version of some of <application>Privoxy's</application>
5697 special pages. They are designed for MS Internet Explorer, but should work
5698 equally well in Netscape, Mozilla, and other browsers which support
5699 JavaScript. They are designed to run directly from your bookmarks - not by
5700 clicking the links below (although that should work for testing).
5703 To save them, right-click the link and choose <quote>Add to Favorites</quote>
5704 (IE) or <quote>Add Bookmark</quote> (Netscape). You will get a warning that
5705 the bookmark <quote>may not be safe</quote> - just click OK. Then you can run the
5706 Bookmarklet directly from your favorites/bookmarks. For even faster access,
5707 you can put them on the <quote>Links</quote> bar (IE) or the <quote>Personal
5708 Toolbar</quote> (Netscape), and run them with a single click.
5717 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>
5724 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>
5731 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)
5738 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>
5744 <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>
5749 <ulink url="javascript:void(window.open('http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info?url='+escape(location.href),'Why').focus());">Privoxy - Why?</ulink>
5756 Credit: The site which gave us the general idea for these bookmarklets is
5757 <ulink url="http://www.bookmarklets.com/">www.bookmarklets.com</ulink>. They
5758 have more information about bookmarklets.
5767 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5769 <title>Chain of Events</title>
5771 Let's take a quick look at the basic sequence of events when a web page is
5772 requested by your browser and <application>Privoxy</application> is on duty:
5779 First, your web browser requests a web page. The browser knows to send
5780 the request to <application>Privoxy</application>, which will in turn,
5781 relay the request to the remote web server after passing the following
5787 <application>Privoxy</application> traps any request for its own internal CGI
5788 pages (e.g http://p.p/) and sends the CGI page back to the browser.
5793 Next, <application>Privoxy</application> checks to see if the URL
5795 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link> patterns. If
5796 so, the URL is then blocked, and the remote web server will not be contacted.
5797 <link linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>
5798 is then checked and if it does not match, an
5799 HTML <quote>BLOCKED</quote> page is sent back. Otherwise, if it does match,
5800 an image is returned. The type of image depends on the setting of <link
5801 linkend="SET-IMAGE-BLOCKER"><quote>+set-image-blocker</quote></link>
5802 (blank, checkerboard pattern, or an HTTP redirect to an image elsewhere).
5807 Untrusted URLs are blocked. If URLs are being added to the
5808 <filename>trust</filename> file, then that is done.
5813 If the URL pattern matches the <link
5814 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link> action,
5815 it is then processed. Unwanted parts of the requested URL are stripped.
5820 Now the rest of the client browser's request headers are processed. If any
5821 of these match any of the relevant actions (e.g. <link
5822 linkend="HIDE-USER-AGENT"><quote>+hide-user-agent</quote></link>,
5823 etc.), headers are suppressed or forged as determined by these actions and
5829 Now the web server starts sending its response back (i.e. typically a web page and related
5835 First, the server headers are read and processed to determine, among other
5836 things, the MIME type (document type) and encoding. The headers are then
5837 filtered as determined by the
5838 <link linkend="CRUNCH-INCOMING-COOKIES"><quote>+crunch-incoming-cookies</quote></link>,
5839 <link linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>,
5840 and <link linkend="DOWNGRADE-HTTP-VERSION"><quote>+downgrade-http-version</quote></link>
5846 If the <link linkend="KILL-POPUPS"><quote>+kill-popups</quote></link>
5847 action applies, and it is an HTML or JavaScript document, the popup-code in the
5848 response is filtered on-the-fly as it is received.
5853 If a <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>
5855 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
5856 action applies (and the document type fits the action), the rest of the page is
5857 read into memory (up to a configurable limit). Then the filter rules (from
5858 <filename>default.filter</filename>) are processed against the buffered
5859 content. Filters are applied in the order they are specified in the
5860 <filename>default.filter</filename> file. Animated GIFs, if present, are
5861 reduced to either the first or last frame, depending on the action
5862 setting.The entire page, which is now filtered, is then sent by
5863 <application>Privoxy</application> back to your browser.
5866 If neither <link linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link>
5868 linkend="DEANIMATE-GIFS"><quote>+deanimate-gifs</quote></link>
5869 matches, then <application>Privoxy</application> passes the raw data through
5870 to the client browser as it becomes available.
5875 As the browser receives the now (probably filtered) page content, it
5876 reads and then requests any URLs that may be embedded within the page
5877 source, e.g. ad images, stylesheets, JavaScript, other HTML documents (e.g.
5878 frames), sounds, etc. For each of these objects, the browser issues a new
5879 request. And each such request is in turn processed as above. Note that a
5880 complex web page may have many such embedded URLs.
5890 <!-- ~~~~~ New section ~~~~~ -->
5891 <sect2 id="actionsanat">
5892 <title>Anatomy of an Action</title>
5895 The way <application>Privoxy</application> applies
5896 <link linkend="ACTIONS">actions</link> and <link linkend="FILTER">filters</link>
5897 to any given URL can be complex, and not always so
5898 easy to understand what is happening. And sometimes we need to be able to
5899 <emphasis>see</emphasis> just what <application>Privoxy</application> is
5900 doing. Especially, if something <application>Privoxy</application> is doing
5901 is causing us a problem inadvertently. It can be a little daunting to look at
5902 the actions and filters files themselves, since they tend to be filled with
5903 <link linkend="regex">regular expressions</link> whose consequences are not
5908 One quick test to see if <application>Privoxy</application> is causing a problem
5909 or not, is to disable it temporarily. This should be the first troubleshooting
5910 step. See <link linkend="bookmarklets">the Bookmarklets</link> section on a quick
5911 and easy way to do this (be sure to flush caches afterward!). Looking at the
5912 logs is a good idea too.
5916 <application>Privoxy</application> also provides the
5917 <ulink url="http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info">http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info</ulink>
5918 page that can show us very specifically how <application>actions</application>
5919 are being applied to any given URL. This is a big help for troubleshooting.
5923 First, enter one URL (or partial URL) at the prompt, and then
5924 <application>Privoxy</application> will tell us
5925 how the current configuration will handle it. This will not
5926 help with filtering effects (i.e. the <link
5927 linkend="FILTER"><quote>+filter</quote></link> action) from
5928 the <filename>default.filter</filename> file since this is handled very
5929 differently and not so easy to trap! It also will not tell you about any other
5930 URLs that may be embedded within the URL you are testing. For instance, images
5931 such as ads are expressed as URLs within the raw page source of HTML pages. So
5932 you will only get info for the actual URL that is pasted into the prompt area
5933 -- not any sub-URLs. If you want to know about embedded URLs like ads, you
5934 will have to dig those out of the HTML source. Use your browser's <quote>View
5935 Page Source</quote> option for this. Or right click on the ad, and grab the
5940 Let's try an example, <ulink url="http://google.com">google.com</ulink>,
5941 and look at it one section at a time:
5946 Matches for http://google.com:
5948 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
5952 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
5953 -crunch-incoming-cookies
5954 +deanimate-gifs{last}
5955 -downgrade-http-version
5959 -filter{shockwave-flash}
5960 -filter{crude-parental}
5961 +filter{html-annoyances}
5962 +filter{js-annoyances}
5963 +filter{content-cookies}
5965 +filter{refresh-tags}
5967 +filter{banners-by-size}
5968 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
5969 +hide-from-header{block}
5970 +hide-referer{forge}
5975 +prevent-compression
5978 +session-cookies-only
5979 +set-image-blocker{pattern} }
5982 { -session-cookies-only }
5988 In file: user.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
5989 (no matches in this file)
5994 This tells us how we have defined our
5995 <link linkend="ACTIONS"><quote>actions</quote></link>, and
5996 which ones match for our example, <quote>google.com</quote>. The first listing
5997 is any matches for the <filename>standard.action</filename> file. No hits at
5998 all here on <quote>standard</quote>. Then next is <quote>default</quote>, or
5999 our <filename>default.action</filename> file. The large, multi-line listing,
6000 is how the actions are set to match for all URLs, i.e. our default settings.
6001 If you look at your <quote>actions</quote> file, this would be the section
6002 just below the <quote>aliases</quote> section near the top. This will apply to
6003 all URLs as signified by the single forward slash at the end of the listing
6004 -- <quote>/</quote>.
6008 But we can define additional actions that would be exceptions to these general
6009 rules, and then list specific URLs (or patterns) that these exceptions would
6010 apply to. Last match wins. Just below this then are two explicit matches for
6011 <quote>.google.com</quote>. The first is negating our previous cookie setting,
6013 linkend="SESSION-COOKIES-ONLY"><quote>+session-cookies-only</quote></link>
6014 (i.e. not persistent). So we will allow persistent cookies for google. The
6015 second turns <emphasis>off</emphasis> any
6017 linkend="FAST-REDIRECTS"><quote>+fast-redirects</quote></link>
6018 action, allowing this to take place unmolested. Note that there is a leading
6019 dot here -- <quote>.google.com</quote>. This will match any hosts and
6020 sub-domains, in the google.com domain also, such as
6021 <quote>www.google.com</quote>. So, apparently, we have these two actions
6022 defined somewhere in the lower part of our <filename>default.action</filename>
6023 file, and <quote>google.com</quote> is referenced somewhere in these latter
6028 Then, for our <filename>user.action</filename> file, we again have no hits.
6032 And finally we pull it all together in the bottom section and summarize how
6033 <application>Privoxy</application> is applying all its <quote>actions</quote>
6034 to <quote>google.com</quote>:
6045 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
6046 -crunch-incoming-cookies
6047 +deanimate-gifs{last}
6048 -downgrade-http-version
6052 -filter{shockwave-flash}
6053 -filter{crude-parental}
6054 +filter{html-annoyances}
6055 +filter{js-annoyances}
6056 +filter{content-cookies}
6058 +filter{refresh-tags}
6060 +filter{banners-by-size}
6061 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
6062 +hide-from-header{block}
6063 +hide-referer{forge}
6068 +prevent-compression
6071 -session-cookies-only
6072 +set-image-blocker{pattern}
6077 Notice the only difference here to the previous listing, is to
6078 <quote>fast-redirects</quote> and <quote>session-cookies-only</quote>.
6082 Now another example, <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>:
6088 { +block +handle-as-image }
6091 { +block +handle-as-image }
6094 { +block +handle-as-image }
6100 We'll just show the interesting part here, the explicit matches. It is
6101 matched three different times. Each as an <quote>+block +handle-as-image</quote>,
6102 which is the expanded form of one of our aliases that had been defined as:
6103 <quote>+imageblock</quote>. (<link
6104 linkend="ALIASES"><quote>Aliases</quote></link> are defined in
6105 the first section of the actions file and typically used to combine more
6110 Any one of these would have done the trick and blocked this as an unwanted
6111 image. This is unnecessarily redundant since the last case effectively
6112 would also cover the first. No point in taking chances with these guys
6113 though ;-) Note that if you want an ad or obnoxious
6114 URL to be invisible, it should be defined as <quote>ad.doubleclick.net</quote>
6115 is done here -- as both a <link
6116 linkend="BLOCK"><quote>+block</quote></link>
6117 <emphasis>and</emphasis> an
6119 linkend="HANDLE-AS-IMAGE"><quote>+handle-as-image</quote></link>.
6120 The custom alias <quote>+imageblock</quote> just simplifies the process and make
6125 One last example. Let's try <quote>http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/</quote>.
6126 This one is giving us problems. We are getting a blank page. Hmmm ...
6132 Matches for http://www.rhapsodyk.net/adsl/HOWTO/:
6134 In file: default.action <guibutton>[ View ]</guibutton> <guibutton>[ Edit ]</guibutton>
6138 -crunch-incoming-cookies
6139 -crunch-outgoing-cookies
6141 -downgrade-http-version
6143 +filter{html-annoyances}
6144 +filter{js-annoyances}
6145 +filter{kill-popups}
6148 +filter{banners-by-size}
6151 +hide-forwarded-for-headers
6152 +hide-from-header{block}
6153 +hide-referer{forge}
6157 +prevent-compression
6160 +session-cookies-only
6161 +set-image-blocker{blank} }
6164 { +block +handle-as-image }
6170 Ooops, the <quote>/adsl/</quote> is matching <quote>/ads</quote>! But
6171 we did not want this at all! Now we see why we get the blank page. We could
6172 now add a new action below this that explicitly does <emphasis>not</emphasis>
6173 block (<quote>{-block}</quote>) paths with <quote>adsl</quote>. There are
6174 various ways to handle such exceptions. Example:
6186 Now the page displays ;-) Be sure to flush your browser's caches when
6187 making such changes. Or, try using <literal>Shift+Reload</literal>.
6191 But now what about a situation where we get no explicit matches like
6198 { +block +handle-as-image }
6204 That actually was very telling and pointed us quickly to where the problem
6205 was. If you don't get this kind of match, then it means one of the default
6206 rules in the first section is causing the problem. This would require some
6207 guesswork, and maybe a little trial and error to isolate the offending rule.
6208 One likely cause would be one of the <quote>{+filter}</quote> actions. These
6209 tend to be harder to troubleshoot. Try adding the URL for the site to one of
6210 aliases that turn off <quote>+filter</quote>:
6218 .worldpay.com # for quietpc.com
6226 <quote>{shop}</quote> is an <quote>alias</quote> that expands to
6227 <quote>{ -filter -session-cookies-only }</quote>.
6228 Or you could do your own exception to negate filtering:
6241 This would turn off all filtering for that site. This would probably be most
6242 appropriately put in <filename>user.action</filename>, for local site
6247 Images that are inexplicably being blocked, may well be hitting the
6248 <quote>+filter{banners-by-size}</quote> rule, which assumes
6249 that images of certain sizes are ad banners (works well most of the time
6250 since these tend to be standardized).
6254 <quote>{fragile}</quote> is an alias that disables most actions. This can be
6255 used as a last resort for problem sites. Remember to flush caches! If this
6256 still does not work, you will have to go through the remaining actions one by
6257 one to find which one(s) is causing the problem.
6266 This program is free software; you can redistribute it
6267 and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
6268 Public License as published by the Free Software
6269 Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at
6270 your option) any later version.
6272 This program is distributed in the hope that it will
6273 be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
6274 implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
6275 PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public
6276 License for more details.
6278 The GNU General Public License should be included with
6279 this file. If not, you can view it at
6280 http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
6281 or write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59
6282 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
6284 $Log: user-manual.sgml,v $
6285 Revision 1.123.2.36 2003/12/10 02:26:26 hal9
6286 Changed the demoronizer filter description.
6288 Revision 1.123.2.35 2003/11/06 13:36:37 oes
6289 Updated link to nightly CVS tarball
6291 Revision 1.123.2.34 2003/06/26 23:50:16 hal9
6292 Add a small bit on filtering and problems re: source code being corrupted.
6294 Revision 1.123.2.33 2003/05/08 18:17:33 roro
6295 Use apt-get instead of dpkg to install Debian package, which is more
6296 solid, uses the correct and most recent Debian version automatically.
6298 Revision 1.123.2.32 2003/04/11 03:13:57 hal9
6299 Add small note about only one filterfile (as opposed to multiple actions
6302 Revision 1.123.2.31 2003/03/26 02:03:43 oes
6303 Updated hard-coded copyright dates
6305 Revision 1.123.2.30 2003/03/24 12:58:56 hal9
6306 Add new section on Predefined Filters.
6308 Revision 1.123.2.29 2003/03/20 02:45:29 hal9
6309 More problems with \-\-chroot causing markup problems :(
6311 Revision 1.123.2.28 2003/03/19 00:35:24 hal9
6312 Manual edit of revision log because 'chroot' (even inside a comment) was
6313 causing Docbook to hang here (due to double hyphen and the processor thinking
6316 Revision 1.123.2.27 2003/03/18 19:37:14 oes
6317 s/Advanced|Radical/Adventuresome/g to avoid complaints re fun filter
6319 Revision 1.123.2.26 2003/03/17 16:50:53 oes
6320 Added documentation for new chroot option
6322 Revision 1.123.2.25 2003/03/15 18:36:55 oes
6323 Adapted to the new filters
6325 Revision 1.123.2.24 2002/11/17 06:41:06 hal9
6326 Move default profiles table from FAQ to U-M, and other minor related changes.
6329 Revision 1.123.2.23 2002/10/21 02:32:01 hal9
6330 Updates to the user.action examples section. A few new ones.
6332 Revision 1.123.2.22 2002/10/12 00:51:53 hal9
6333 Add demoronizer to filter section.
6335 Revision 1.123.2.21 2002/10/10 04:09:35 hal9
6336 s/Advanced/Radical/ and added very brief note.
6338 Revision 1.123.2.20 2002/10/10 03:49:21 hal9
6339 Add notes to session-cookies-only and Quickstart about pre-existing
6340 cookies. Also, note content-cookies work differently.
6342 Revision 1.123.2.19 2002/09/26 01:25:36 hal9
6343 More explanation on Privoxy patterns, more on content-cookies and SSL.
6345 Revision 1.123.2.18 2002/08/22 23:47:58 hal9
6346 Add 'Documentation' to Privoxy Menu shot in Configuration section to match
6349 Revision 1.123.2.17 2002/08/18 01:13:05 hal9
6350 Spell checked (only one typo this time!).
6352 Revision 1.123.2.16 2002/08/09 19:20:54 david__schmidt
6353 Update to Mac OSX startup script name
6355 Revision 1.123.2.15 2002/08/07 17:32:11 oes
6356 Converted some internal links from ulink to link for PDF creation; no content changed
6358 Revision 1.123.2.14 2002/08/06 09:16:13 oes
6359 Nits re: actions file download
6361 Revision 1.123.2.13 2002/08/02 18:23:19 g_sauthoff
6362 Just 2 small corrections to the Gentoo sections
6364 Revision 1.123.2.12 2002/08/02 18:17:21 g_sauthoff
6365 Added 2 Gentoo sections
6367 Revision 1.123.2.11 2002/07/26 15:20:31 oes
6368 - Added version info to title
6369 - Added info on new filters
6370 - Revised parts of the filter file tutorial
6371 - Added info on where to get updated actions files
6373 Revision 1.123.2.10 2002/07/25 21:42:29 hal9
6374 Add brief notes on not proxying non-HTTP protocols.
6376 Revision 1.123.2.9 2002/07/11 03:40:28 david__schmidt
6378 Updated Mac OSX sections due to installation location change
6380 Revision 1.123.2.8 2002/06/09 16:36:32 hal9
6381 Clarifications on filtering and MIME. Hardcode 'latest release' in index.html.
6383 Revision 1.123.2.7 2002/06/09 00:29:34 hal9
6384 Touch ups on filtering, in actions section and Anatomy.
6386 Revision 1.123.2.6 2002/06/06 23:11:03 hal9
6387 Fix broken link. Linkchecked all docs.
6389 Revision 1.123.2.5 2002/05/29 02:01:02 hal9
6390 This is break out of the entire config section from u-m, so it can
6391 eventually be used to generate the comments, etc in the main config file
6392 so that these are in sync with each other.
6394 Revision 1.123.2.4 2002/05/27 03:28:45 hal9
6395 Ooops missed something from David.
6397 Revision 1.123.2.3 2002/05/27 03:23:17 hal9
6398 Fix FIXMEs for OS2 and OSX startup. Fix Redhat typos (should be Red Hat).
6399 That's a wrap, I think.
6401 Revision 1.123.2.2 2002/05/26 19:02:09 hal9
6402 Move Amiga stuff around to take of FIXME in start up section.
6404 Revision 1.123.2.1 2002/05/26 17:04:25 hal9
6405 -Spellcheck, very minor edits, and sync across branches
6407 Revision 1.123 2002/05/24 23:19:23 hal9
6408 Include new image (Proxy setup). More fun with guibutton.
6409 Minor corrections/clarifications here and there.
6411 Revision 1.122 2002/05/24 13:24:08 oes
6412 Added Bookmarklet for one-click pre-filled access to show-url-info
6414 Revision 1.121 2002/05/23 23:20:17 oes
6415 - Changed more (all?) references to actions to the
6416 <literal><link> style.
6417 - Small fixes in the actions chapter
6418 - Small clarifications in the quickstart to ad blocking
6419 - Removed <emphasis> from <title>s since the new doc CSS
6420 renders them red (bad in TOC).
6422 Revision 1.120 2002/05/23 19:16:43 roro
6423 Correct Debian specials (installation and startup).
6425 Revision 1.119 2002/05/22 17:17:05 oes
6428 Revision 1.118 2002/05/21 04:54:55 hal9
6429 -New Section: Quickstart to Ad Blocking
6430 -Reformat Actions Anatomy to match new CGI layout
6432 Revision 1.117 2002/05/17 13:56:16 oes
6433 - Reworked & extended Templates chapter
6434 - Small changes to Regex appendix
6435 - #included authors.sgml into (C) and hist chapter
6437 Revision 1.116 2002/05/17 03:23:46 hal9
6438 Fixing merge conflict in Quickstart section.
6440 Revision 1.115 2002/05/16 16:25:00 oes
6441 Extended the Filter File chapter & minor fixes
6443 Revision 1.114 2002/05/16 09:42:50 oes
6444 More ulink->link, added some hints to Quickstart section
6446 Revision 1.113 2002/05/15 21:07:25 oes
6447 Extended and further commented the example actions files
6449 Revision 1.112 2002/05/15 03:57:14 hal9
6450 Spell check. A few minor edits here and there for better syntax and
6453 Revision 1.111 2002/05/14 23:01:36 oes
6456 Revision 1.110 2002/05/14 19:10:45 oes
6457 Restored alphabetical order of actions
6459 Revision 1.109 2002/05/14 17:23:11 oes
6460 Renamed the prevent-*-cookies actions, extended aliases section and moved it before the example AFs
6462 Revision 1.108 2002/05/14 15:29:12 oes
6463 Completed proofreading the actions chapter
6465 Revision 1.107 2002/05/12 03:20:41 hal9
6466 Small clarifications for 127.0.0.1 vs localhost for listen-address since this
6467 apparently an important distinction for some OS's.
6469 Revision 1.106 2002/05/10 01:48:20 hal9
6470 This is mostly proposed copyright/licensing additions and changes. Docs
6471 are still GPL, but licensing and copyright are more visible. Also, copyright
6472 changed in doc header comments (eliminate references to JB except FAQ).
6474 Revision 1.105 2002/05/05 20:26:02 hal9
6475 Sorting out license vs copyright in these docs.
6477 Revision 1.104 2002/05/04 08:44:45 swa
6480 Revision 1.103 2002/05/04 00:40:53 hal9
6481 -Remove the TOC first page kludge. It's fixed proper now in ldp.dsl.in.
6482 -Some minor additions to Quickstart.
6484 Revision 1.102 2002/05/03 17:46:00 oes
6485 Further proofread & reactivated short build instructions
6487 Revision 1.101 2002/05/03 03:58:30 hal9
6488 Move the user-manual config directive to top of section. Add note about
6489 Privoxy needing read permissions for configs, and write for logs.
6491 Revision 1.100 2002/04/29 03:05:55 hal9
6492 Add clarification on differences of new actions files.
6494 Revision 1.99 2002/04/28 16:59:05 swa
6495 more structure in starting section
6497 Revision 1.98 2002/04/28 05:43:59 hal9
6498 This is the break up of configuration.html into multiple files. This
6499 will probably break links elsewhere :(
6501 Revision 1.97 2002/04/27 21:04:42 hal9
6502 -Rewrite of Actions File example.
6503 -Add section for user-manual directive in config.
6505 Revision 1.96 2002/04/27 05:32:00 hal9
6506 -Add short section to Filter Files to tie in with +filter action.
6507 -Start rewrite of examples in Actions Examples (not finished).
6509 Revision 1.95 2002/04/26 17:23:29 swa
6510 bookmarks cleaned, changed structure of user manual, screen and programlisting cleanups, and numerous other changes that I forgot
6512 Revision 1.94 2002/04/26 05:24:36 hal9
6513 -Add most of Andreas suggestions to Chain of Events section.
6514 -A few other minor corrections and touch up.
6516 Revision 1.92 2002/04/25 18:55:13 hal9
6517 More catchups on new actions files, and new actions names.
6518 Other assorted cleanups, and minor modifications.
6520 Revision 1.91 2002/04/24 02:39:31 hal9
6521 Add 'Chain of Events' section.
6523 Revision 1.90 2002/04/23 21:41:25 hal9
6524 Linuxconf is deprecated on RH, substitute chkconfig.
6526 Revision 1.89 2002/04/23 21:05:28 oes
6527 Added hint for startup on Red Hat
6529 Revision 1.88 2002/04/23 05:37:54 hal9
6530 Add AmigaOS install stuff.
6532 Revision 1.87 2002/04/23 02:53:15 david__schmidt
6533 Updated OSX installation section
6534 Added a few English tweaks here an there
6536 Revision 1.86 2002/04/21 01:46:32 hal9
6537 Re-write actions section.
6539 Revision 1.85 2002/04/18 21:23:23 hal9
6540 Fix ugly typo (mine).
6542 Revision 1.84 2002/04/18 21:17:13 hal9
6543 Spell Redhat correctly (ie Red Hat). A few minor grammar corrections.
6545 Revision 1.83 2002/04/18 18:21:12 oes
6546 Added RPM install detail
6548 Revision 1.82 2002/04/18 12:04:50 oes
6551 Revision 1.81 2002/04/18 11:50:24 oes
6552 Extended Install section - needs fixing by packagers
6554 Revision 1.80 2002/04/18 10:45:19 oes
6555 Moved text to buildsource.sgml, renamed some filters, details
6557 Revision 1.79 2002/04/18 03:18:06 hal9
6558 Spellcheck, and minor touchups.
6560 Revision 1.78 2002/04/17 18:04:16 oes
6563 Revision 1.77 2002/04/17 13:51:23 oes
6564 Proofreading, part one
6566 Revision 1.76 2002/04/16 04:25:51 hal9
6567 -Added 'Note to Upgraders' and re-ordered the 'Quickstart' section.
6568 -Note about proxy may need requests to re-read config files.
6570 Revision 1.75 2002/04/12 02:08:48 david__schmidt
6571 Remove OS/2 building info... it is already in the developer-manual
6573 Revision 1.74 2002/04/11 00:54:38 hal9
6574 Add small section on submitting actions.
6576 Revision 1.73 2002/04/10 18:45:15 swa
6579 Revision 1.72 2002/04/10 04:06:19 hal9
6580 Added actions feedback to Bookmarklets section
6582 Revision 1.71 2002/04/08 22:59:26 hal9
6583 Version update. Spell chkconfig correctly :)
6585 Revision 1.70 2002/04/08 20:53:56 swa
6588 Revision 1.69 2002/04/06 05:07:29 hal9
6589 -Add privoxy-man-page.sgml, for man page.
6590 -Add authors.sgml for AUTHORS (and p-authors.sgml)
6591 -Reworked various aspects of various docs.
6592 -Added additional comments to sub-docs.
6594 Revision 1.68 2002/04/04 18:46:47 swa
6595 consistent look. reuse of copyright, history et. al.
6597 Revision 1.67 2002/04/04 17:27:57 swa
6598 more single file to be included at multiple points. make maintaining easier
6600 Revision 1.66 2002/04/04 06:48:37 hal9
6601 Structural changes to allow for conditional inclusion/exclusion of content
6602 based on entity toggles, e.g. 'entity % p-not-stable "INCLUDE"'. And
6603 definition of internal entities, e.g. 'entity p-version "2.9.13"' that will
6604 eventually be set by Makefile.
6605 More boilerplate text for use across multiple docs.
6607 Revision 1.65 2002/04/03 19:52:07 swa
6608 enhance squid section due to user suggestion
6610 Revision 1.64 2002/04/03 03:53:43 hal9
6611 A few minor bug fixes, and touch ups. Ready for review.
6613 Revision 1.63 2002/04/01 16:24:49 hal9
6614 Define entities to include boilerplate text. See doc/source/*.
6616 Revision 1.62 2002/03/30 04:15:53 hal9
6617 - Fix privoxy.org/config links.
6618 - Paste in Bookmarklets from Toggle page.
6619 - Move Quickstart nearer top, and minor rework.
6621 Revision 1.61 2002/03/29 01:31:08 hal9
6624 Revision 1.60 2002/03/27 01:57:34 hal9
6625 Added more to Anatomy section.
6627 Revision 1.59 2002/03/27 00:54:33 hal9
6628 Touch up intro for new name.
6630 Revision 1.58 2002/03/26 22:29:55 swa
6631 we have a new homepage!
6633 Revision 1.57 2002/03/24 20:33:30 hal9
6634 A few minor catch ups with name change.
6636 Revision 1.56 2002/03/24 16:17:06 swa
6637 configure needs to be generated.
6639 Revision 1.55 2002/03/24 16:08:08 swa
6640 we are too lazy to make a block-built
6641 privoxy logo. hence removed the option.
6643 Revision 1.54 2002/03/24 15:46:20 swa
6644 name change related issue.
6646 Revision 1.53 2002/03/24 11:51:00 swa
6647 name change. changed filenames.
6649 Revision 1.52 2002/03/24 11:01:06 swa
6652 Revision 1.51 2002/03/23 15:13:11 swa
6653 renamed every reference to the old name with foobar.
6654 fixed "application foobar application" tag, fixed
6655 "the foobar" with "foobar". left junkbustser in cvs
6656 comments and remarks to history untouched.
6658 Revision 1.50 2002/03/23 05:06:21 hal9
6661 Revision 1.49 2002/03/21 17:01:05 hal9
6662 New section in Appendix.
6664 Revision 1.48 2002/03/12 06:33:01 hal9
6665 Catching up to Andreas and re_filterfile changes.
6667 Revision 1.47 2002/03/11 13:13:27 swa
6668 correct feedback channels
6670 Revision 1.46 2002/03/10 00:51:08 hal9
6671 Added section on JB internal pages in Appendix.
6673 Revision 1.45 2002/03/09 17:43:53 swa
6676 Revision 1.44 2002/03/09 17:08:48 hal9
6677 New section on Jon's actions file editor, and move some stuff around.
6679 Revision 1.43 2002/03/08 00:47:32 hal9
6680 Added imageblock{pattern}.
6682 Revision 1.42 2002/03/07 18:16:55 swa
6685 Revision 1.41 2002/03/07 16:46:43 hal9
6686 Fix a few markup problems for jade.
6688 Revision 1.40 2002/03/07 16:28:39 swa
6689 provide correct feedback channels
6691 Revision 1.39 2002/03/06 16:19:28 hal9
6692 Note on perceived filtering slowdown per FR.
6694 Revision 1.38 2002/03/05 23:55:14 hal9
6695 Stupid I did it again. Double hyphen in comment breaks jade.
6697 Revision 1.37 2002/03/05 23:53:49 hal9
6698 jade barfs on '- -' embedded in comments. - -user option broke it.
6700 Revision 1.36 2002/03/05 22:53:28 hal9
6701 Add new - - user option.
6703 Revision 1.35 2002/03/05 00:17:27 hal9
6704 Added section on command line options.
6706 Revision 1.34 2002/03/04 19:32:07 oes
6707 Changed default port to 8118
6709 Revision 1.33 2002/03/03 19:46:13 hal9
6710 Emphasis on where/how to report bugs, etc
6712 Revision 1.32 2002/03/03 09:26:06 joergs
6713 AmigaOS changes, config is now loaded from PROGDIR: instead of
6714 AmiTCP:db/junkbuster/ if no configuration file is specified on the
6717 Revision 1.31 2002/03/02 22:45:52 david__schmidt
6720 Revision 1.30 2002/03/02 22:00:14 hal9
6721 Updated 'New Features' list. Ran through spell-checker.
6723 Revision 1.29 2002/03/02 20:34:07 david__schmidt
6724 Update OS/2 build section
6726 Revision 1.28 2002/02/24 14:34:24 jongfoster
6727 Formatting changes. Now changing the doctype to DocBook XML 4.1
6728 will work - no other changes are needed.
6730 Revision 1.27 2002/01/11 14:14:32 hal9
6731 Added a very short section on Templates
6733 Revision 1.26 2002/01/09 20:02:50 hal9
6734 Fix bug re: auto-detect config file changes.
6736 Revision 1.25 2002/01/09 18:20:30 hal9
6737 Touch ups for *.action files.
6739 Revision 1.24 2001/12/02 01:13:42 hal9
6742 Revision 1.23 2001/12/02 00:20:41 hal9
6743 Updates for recent changes.
6745 Revision 1.22 2001/11/05 23:57:51 hal9
6746 Minor update for startup now daemon mode.
6748 Revision 1.21 2001/10/31 21:11:03 hal9
6749 Correct 2 minor errors
6751 Revision 1.18 2001/10/24 18:45:26 hal9
6752 *** empty log message ***
6754 Revision 1.17 2001/10/24 17:10:55 hal9
6755 Catching up with Jon's recent work, and a few other things.
6757 Revision 1.16 2001/10/21 17:19:21 swa
6758 wrong url in documentation
6760 Revision 1.15 2001/10/14 23:46:24 hal9
6761 Various minor changes. Fleshed out SEE ALSO section.
6763 Revision 1.13 2001/10/10 17:28:33 hal9
6766 Revision 1.12 2001/09/28 02:57:04 hal9
6769 Revision 1.11 2001/09/28 02:25:20 hal9
6772 Revision 1.9 2001/09/27 23:50:29 hal9
6773 A few changes. A short section on regular expression in appendix.
6775 Revision 1.8 2001/09/25 00:34:59 hal9
6776 Some additions, and re-arranging.
6778 Revision 1.7 2001/09/24 14:31:36 hal9
6781 Revision 1.6 2001/09/24 14:10:32 hal9
6782 Including David's OS/2 installation instructions.
6784 Revision 1.2 2001/09/13 15:27:40 swa
6787 Revision 1.1 2001/09/12 15:36:41 swa
6788 source files for junkbuster documentation
6790 Revision 1.3 2001/09/10 17:43:59 swa
6791 first proposal of a structure.
6793 Revision 1.2 2001/06/13 14:28:31 swa
6794 docs should have an author.
6796 Revision 1.1 2001/06/13 14:20:37 swa
6797 first import of project's documentation for the webserver.