NAME
privoxy - Privacy Enhancing Proxy
SYNOPSIS
privoxy [--help ] [--version ] [--no-daemon ] [--pidfile
pidfile ] [--user user[.group] ] [configfile ](UNIX)
privoxy.exe [configfile ](Windows)
OPTIONS
Privoxy may be invoked with the following command line
options:
--help Print brief usage info and exit.
--version
Print version info and exit.
--no-daemon
Don't become a daemon, i.e. don't fork and become
process group leader, don't detach from controlling
tty, and do all logging there.
--pidfile pidfile
On startup, write the process ID to pidfile.
Delete the pidfile on exit. Failiure to create or
delete the pidfile is non-fatal. If no --pidfile
option is given, no PID file will be used.
--user user[.group]
After (optionally) writing the PID file, assume the
user ID of user and the GID of group, or, if the
optional group was not given, the default group of
user. Exit if the privileges are not sufficient to
do so.
If the configfile is not specified on the command line,
Privoxy will look for a file named config in the current
directory (except on Win32 where it will try config.txt).
If no configfile is found, Privoxy will fail to start.
DESCRIPTION
Privoxy is a web proxy with advanced filtering capabili
ties for protecting privacy, filtering web page content,
managing cookies, controlling access, and removing ads,
banners, pop-ups and other obnoxious Internet junk.
Privoxy has a very flexible configuration and can be cus
tomized to suit individual needs and tastes. Privoxy has
application for both stand-alone systems and multi-user
networks.
Browsers must be individually configured to use Privoxy as
a HTTP proxy. The default setting is for localhost, on
port 8118 (configurable in the main config file). To set
the HTTP proxy in Netscape and Mozilla, go through: Edit;
Preferences; Advanced; Proxies; Manual Proxy Configura
tion; View.
For Internet Explorer, go through: Tools; Internet Proper
ties; Connections; LAN Settings.
The Secure (SSL) Proxy should also be set to the same val
ues, otherwise https: URLs will not be proxied. Note:
Privoxy can only proxy HTTP and HTTPS traffic. Do not try
it with FTP or other protocols.
For other browsers, check the documentation.
CONFIGURATION
Privoxy can be configured with the various configuration
files. The default configuration files are: config,
default.filter, and default.action. user.action should be
used for locally defined exceptions to the default rules
of default.action These are all well commented. On Unix
and Unix-like systems, these are located in /etc/privoxy/
by default. On Windows, OS/2 and AmigaOS, these files are
in the same directory as the Privoxy executable.
The name and number of configuration files has changed
from previous versions, and is subject to change as devel
opment progresses. In fact, the configuration itself is
changed and much more sophisticated. See the user-manual
for a complete explanation of all configuration options
and general usage, and notes for upgrading from Junkbuster
and earlier Privoxy versions.
The actions list (ad blocks, etc) can also be configured
with your web browser at http://config.privoxy.org/.
Privoxy's configuration parameters can also be viewed at
the same page. In addition, Privoxy can be toggled on/off.
This is an internal page, and does not require Internet
access.
SAMPLE CONFIGURATION
A brief example of what a simple default.action configura
tion might look like:
# Define a few useful custom aliases for later use
{{alias}}
# Useful aliases
+crunch-cookies = +crunch-incoming-cookies +crunch-outgoing-cookies
-crunch-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
fragile = -block -deanimate-gifs -fast-redirects -filter \
-hide-referer -prevent-cookies -kill-popups
## Turn some actions on ################################
{ \
-add-header \
-block \
+deanimate-gifs{last} \
-downgrade-http-version \
-fast-redirects \
+filter{html-annoyances} \
+filter{js-annoyances} \
+filter{content-cookies} \
+filter{webbugs} \
+filter{banners-by-size} \
+hide-forwarded-for-headers \
+hide-from-header{block} \
+hide-referrer{forge} \
-hide-user-agent \
-handle-as-image \
+set-image-blocker{pattern} \
-limit-connect \
+prevent-compression \
+session-cookies-only \
-crunch-cookies \
-kill-popups \
}
/ # '/' Matches *all* URL patterns
# Block, and treat these URL patterns as if they were 'images'.
# We would expect these to be ads.
{+imageblock}
.ad.doubleclick.net
.a[0-9].yimg.com/(?:(?!/i/).)*$
ad.*.doubleclick.net
# Block any URLs that match these patterns
{+block}
ad*.
.*ads.
banner?.
/.*count(er)?\.(pl|cgi|exe|dll|asp|php[34]?)
.hitbox.com
# Make exceptions for these harmless ones that would be
# caught by our +block patterns just above.
{-block}
adsl.
advice.
.*downloads.
Then for a user.action, we would put local, narrowly
{{alias}}
# Useful aliases
-crunch-cookies = -crunch-incoming-cookies -crunch-outgoing-cookies
# Set personal exceptions to the policies in default.action #######
# Sites where we want persistant cookies, so allow *all* cookies
{-crunch-cookies -session-cookies-only}
.redhat.com
.sun.com
.msdn.microsoft.com
# This site breaks easily.
{-block -fast-redirects}
.forbes.com
See the comments in the configuration files themselves, or
the user-manual for explanations of the above syntax, and
other Privoxy configuration options.
FILES
/usr/sbin/privoxy
/etc/privoxy/config
/etc/privoxy/default.action
/etc/privoxy/standard.action
/etc/privoxy/user.action
/etc/privoxy/default.filter
/etc/privoxy/trust
/etc/privoxy/templates/*
/var/log/privoxy/logfile
Various other files should be included, but may vary
depending on platform and build configuration. More docu
mentation should be included in the local documentation
directory.
SIGNALS
Privoxy terminates on the SIGINT, SIGTERM and SIGABRT sig
nals. Log rotation scripts may cause a re-opening of the
logfile by sending a SIGHUP to Privoxy. Note that unlike
other daemons, Privoxy does not need to be made aware of
config file changes by SIGHUP -- it will detect them auto
matically.
NOTES
This is a beta version of Privoxy. Not all features are
well tested.
Please see the User Manual on how to contact the develop
ers for feature requests, reporting problems, and other
questions.
Other references and sites of interest to Privoxy users:
http://www.privoxy.org/, the Privoxy Home page.
http://www.privoxy.org/faq/, the Privoxy FAQ.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/, the Project Page
for Privoxy on SourceForge.
http://config.privoxy.org/, the web-based user interface.
Privoxy must be running for this to work. Shortcut:
http://p.p/
http://www.privoxy.org/actions/, to submit ``misses'' to
the developers.
http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/cookies.html, an explana
tion how cookies are used to track web users.
http://www.junkbusters.com/ijb.html, the original Internet
Junkbuster.
http://www.waldherr.org/junkbuster/, Stefan Waldherr's
version of Junkbuster, from which Privoxy was derived.
http://privacy.net/analyze/, a useful site to check what
information about you is leaked while you browse the web.
http://www.squid-cache.org/, a very popular caching proxy,
which is often used together with Privoxy.
http://www.privoxy.org/developer-manual/, the Privoxy
developer manual.
DEVELOPMENT TEAM
Jon Foster
Andreas Oesterhelt
Stefan Waldherr
Thomas Steudten
Rodney Stromlund
Rodrigo Barbosa (RPM specfiles)
Moritz Barsnick
Hal Burgiss (docs)
Alexander Lazic
Gábor Lipták
Guy
Haroon Rafique
Roland Rosenfeld
Georg Sauthoff
David Schmidt (OS/2, Mac OSX ports)
Joerg Strohmayer
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by Privoxy Developers <develop
ers@privoxy.org>
Some source code is based on code Copyright (C) 1997 by
Anonymous Coders and Junkbusters, Inc. and licensed under
the GNU General Public License.
LICENSE
Privoxy is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public
License, version 2, as published by the Free Software
Foundation.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be
useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more
details, which is available from the Free Software Founda
tion, Inc, 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA
02111-1307, USA.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
License along with this program; if not, write to the
Free Software Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place - Suite 330
Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA