Privoxy Frequently Asked Questions
-[ Copyright © 2001-2004 by Privoxy Developers ]
+[ Copyright 2001-2007 by Privoxy Developers ]
-$Id: faq.txt,v 1.42.2.7 2004/01/30 23:46:57 oes Exp $
+$Id: faq.sgml,v 2.35 2007/11/19 17:57:59 fabiankeil Exp $
-This FAQ gives quick answers to frequently asked questions about Privoxy. It
-can't and doesn't replace the User Manual.
+This FAQ gives quick answers to frequently asked questions about Privoxy. It is
+not a substitute for the Privoxy User Manual.
-Privoxy is a web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for protecting
-privacy, modifying 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 customized to suit individual needs and
-tastes. Privoxy has application for both stand-alone systems and multi-user
-networks.
+What is Privoxy?
+
+Privoxy is a non-caching web proxy with advanced filtering capabilities for
+enhancing privacy, modifying web page data, managing HTTP cookies, controlling
+access, and removing ads, banners, pop-ups and other obnoxious Internet junk.
+Privoxy has a flexible configuration and can be customized to suit individual
+needs and tastes. Privoxy has application for both stand-alone systems and
+multi-user networks.
Privoxy is based on Internet Junkbuster (tm).
-Please note that this document is constantly evolving. This copy represents the
-state at the release of version 3.0.3. You can find the latest version of the
+Please note that this document is a work in progress. This copy represents the
+state at the release of version 3.0.7. You can find the latest version of the
document at http://www.privoxy.org/faq/. Please see the Contact section if you
want to contact the developers.
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Table of Contents
1. General Information
- 1.1. What is this new version of Privoxy?
- 1.2. Why "Privoxy"? Why a name change at all?
- 1.3. How does Privoxy differ from the old Junkbuster?
- 1.4. What is a "proxy"? How does Privoxy work?
- 1.5. How does Privoxy know what is an ad, and what is not?
- 1.6. Can Privoxy make mistakes? This does not sound very scientific.
- 1.7. Will I have to configure Privoxy before I can use it?
- 1.8. My browser does the same things as Privoxy. Why should I use Privoxy
+ 1.1. Who should give Privoxy a try?
+ 1.2. Is Privoxy the best choice for me?
+ 1.3. What is a "proxy"? How does Privoxy work?
+ 1.4. Does Privoxy do anything more than ad blocking?
+ 1.5. What is this new version of "Junkbuster"?
+ 1.6. Why "Privoxy"? Why change the name from Junkbuster at all?
+ 1.7. How does Privoxy differ from the old Junkbuster?
+ 1.8. How does Privoxy know what is an ad, and what is not?
+ 1.9. Can Privoxy make mistakes? This does not sound very scientific.
+ 1.10. Will I have to configure Privoxy before I can use it?
+ 1.11. Can Privoxy run as a server on a network?
+ 1.12. My browser does the same things as Privoxy. Why should I use Privoxy
at all?
- 1.9. Is there is a license or fee? What about a warranty? Registration?
- 1.10. I would like to help you, what do I do?
+ 1.13. Why should I trust Privoxy?
+ 1.14. Is there is a license or fee? What about a warranty? Registration?
+ 1.15. Can Privoxy remove spyware? Adware? Viruses?
+ 1.16. Can I use Privoxy with other ad-blocking software?
+ 1.17. I would like to help you, what can I do?
- 1.10.1. Money Money Money
- 1.10.2. Software
- 1.10.3. You want to work with us?
+ 1.17.1. Would you like to participate?
+ 1.17.2. Contribute!
+ 1.17.3. Software
2. Installation
2.1. Which browsers are supported by Privoxy?
2.2. Which operating systems are supported?
2.3. Can I use Privoxy with my email client?
- 2.4. Can I install Privoxy over Junkbuster?
- 2.5. I just installed Privoxy. Is there anything special I have to do now?
- 2.6. What is the proxy address of Privoxy?
- 2.7. I just installed Privoxy, and nothing is happening. All the ads are
+ 2.4. I just installed Privoxy. Is there anything special I have to do now?
+ 2.5. What is the proxy address of Privoxy?
+ 2.6. I just installed Privoxy, and nothing is happening. All the ads are
there. What's wrong?
- 2.8. I get a "Privoxy is not being used" dummy page although Privoxy is
+ 2.7. I get a "Privoxy is not being used" dummy page although Privoxy is
running and being used.
3. Configuration
- 3.1. Where can I get updated Actions Files?
- 3.2. Can I use my old config files?
- 3.3. What is an "actions" file?
- 3.4. The "actions" concept confuses me. Please list some of these
+ 3.1. What exactly is an "actions" file?
+ 3.2. The "actions" concept confuses me. Please list some of these
"actions".
- 3.5. How are actions files configured? What is the easiest way to do this?
- 3.6. There are several different "actions" files. What are the differences?
- 3.7. How can I make my Yahoo/Hotmail/GMX account work?
- 3.8. What's the difference between the "Cautious", "Medium" and
- "Adventuresome" defaults?
- 3.9. Why can I change the configuration with a browser? Does that not raise
- security issues?
- 3.10. What is the default.filter file? What is a "filter"?
- 3.11. How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my LAN?
- 3.12. Instead of ads, now I get a checkerboard pattern. I don't want to see
+ 3.3. How are actions files configured? What is the easiest way to do this?
+ 3.4. There are several different "actions" files. What are the differences?
+ 3.5. Where can I get updated Actions Files?
+ 3.6. Can I use my old config files?
+ 3.7. Why is the configuration so complicated?
+ 3.8. How can I make my Yahoo/Hotmail/Gmail account work?
+ 3.9. What's the difference between the "Cautious", "Medium" and "Advanced"
+ defaults?
+ 3.10. Why can I change the configuration with a browser? Does that not
+ raise security issues?
+ 3.11. What is the default.filter file? What is a "filter"?
+ 3.12. How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my LAN?
+ 3.13. Instead of ads, now I get a checkerboard pattern. I don't want to see
anything.
- 3.13. Why would anybody want to see a checkerboard pattern?
- 3.14. I see some images being replaced by a text instead of the
+ 3.14. Why would anybody want to see a checkerboard pattern?
+ 3.15. I see some images being replaced with text instead of the
checkerboard image. Why and how do I get rid of this?
- 3.15. Can Privoxy run as a service on Win2K/NT?
- 3.16. How can I make Privoxy work with other proxies like Squid?
- 3.17. Can I just set Privoxy to use port 80 and thus avoid individual
+ 3.16. Can Privoxy run as a service on Win2K/NT/XP?
+ 3.17. How can I make Privoxy work with other proxies like Squid or Tor?
+ 3.18. Can I just set Privoxy to use port 80 and thus avoid individual
browser configuration?
- 3.18. Can Privoxy run as a "transparent" proxy?
- 3.19. How can I configure Privoxy for use with Outlook Express?
- 3.20. How can I have separate rules just for HTML mail?
- 3.21. How can I allow permanent cookies for my trusted sites?
+ 3.19. Can Privoxy run as a "transparent" proxy?
+ 3.20. Can Privoxy run as a "intercepting" proxy?
+ 3.21. How can I configure Privoxy for use with Outlook Express?
+ 3.22. How can I have separate rules just for HTML mail?
+ 3.23. I sometimes notice cookies sneaking through. How?
+ 3.24. Are all cookies bad? Why?
+ 3.25. How can I allow permanent cookies for my trusted sites?
+ 3.26. Can I have separate configurations for different users?
+ 3.27. Can I set-up Privoxy as a whitelist of "good" sites?
+ 3.28. How can I turn off ad-blocking?
+ 3.29. How can I have custom template pages, like the BLOCKED page?
+ 3.30. How can I remove the "Go There Anyway" link from the BLOCKED page?
4. Miscellaneous
4.1. How much does Privoxy slow my browsing down? This has to add extra
time to browsing.
- 4.2. I noticed considerable delays in page requests compared to the old
- Junkbuster. What's wrong?
+ 4.2. I notice considerable delays in page requests. What's wrong?
4.3. What are "http://config.privoxy.org/" and "http://p.p/"?
- 4.4. Do you still maintain the blocklists?
- 4.5. How can I submit new ads?
- 4.6. How can I hide my IP address?
- 4.7. Can Privoxy guarantee I am anonymous?
- 4.8. Might some things break because header information or content is being
- altered?
- 4.9. Can Privoxy act as a "caching" proxy to speed up web browsing?
- 4.10. What about as a firewall? Can Privoxy protect me?
- 4.11. I have large empty spaces / a checkerboard pattern now where ads used
+ 4.4. How can I submit new ads, or report problems?
+ 4.5. If I do submit missed ads, will they be included in future updates?
+ 4.6. Why doesn't anyone answer my support request?
+ 4.7. How can I hide my IP address?
+ 4.8. Can Privoxy guarantee I am anonymous?
+ 4.9. A test site says I am not using a Proxy.
+ 4.10. How do I use Privoxy together with Tor?
+ 4.11. Might some things break because header information or content is
+ being altered?
+ 4.12. Can Privoxy act as a "caching" proxy to speed up web browsing?
+ 4.13. What about as a firewall? Can Privoxy protect me?
+ 4.14. I have large empty spaces / a checkerboard pattern now where ads used
to be. Why?
- 4.12. How can Privoxy filter Secure (HTTPS) URLs?
- 4.13. Privoxy runs as a "server". How secure is it? Do I need to take any
+ 4.15. How can Privoxy filter Secure (HTTPS) URLs?
+ 4.16. Privoxy runs as a "server". How secure is it? Do I need to take any
special precautions?
- 4.14. How can I temporarily disable Privoxy?
- 4.15. When "disabled" is Privoxy totally out of the picture?
- 4.16. My logs show Privoxy "crunches" ads, but also its own CGI pages. What
- is a "crunch"?
- 4.17. Can Privoxy effect files that I download from a webserver? FTP
+ 4.17. Can I temporarily disable Privoxy?
+ 4.18. When "disabled" is Privoxy totally out of the picture?
+ 4.19. How can I tell Privoxy to totally ignore certain sites?
+ 4.20. My logs show Privoxy "crunches" ads, but also its own internal CGI
+ pages. What is a "crunch"?
+ 4.21. Can Privoxy effect files that I download from a webserver? FTP
server?
- 4.18. I just downloaded a Perl script, and Privoxy altered it! Yikes, what
+ 4.22. I just downloaded a Perl script, and Privoxy altered it! Yikes, what
is wrong!
- 4.19. Where can I find more information about Privoxy and related issues?
- 4.20. I've noticed that Privoxy changes "Microsoft" to "MicroSuck"! Why are
+ 4.23. Should I continue to use a "HOSTS" file for ad-blocking?
+ 4.24. Where can I find more information about Privoxy and related issues?
+ 4.25. I've noticed that Privoxy changes "Microsoft" to "MicroSuck"! Why are
you manipulating my browsing?
+ 4.26. Does Privoxy produce "valid" HTML (or XHTML)?
5. Troubleshooting
- 5.1. I just upgraded and am getting "connection refused" with every web
- page?
- 5.2. I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is still getting through.
+ 5.1. I cannot connect to any websites. Or, I am getting "connection
+ refused" message with every web page. Why?
+ 5.2. Why am I getting a 503 Error (WSAECONNREFUSED) on every page?
+ 5.3. I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is still getting through.
How?
- 5.3. One of my favorite sites does not work with Privoxy. What can I do?
- 5.4. After installing Privoxy, I have to log in every time I start IE. What
+ 5.4. One of my favorite sites does not work with Privoxy. What can I do?
+ 5.5. After installing Privoxy, I have to log in every time I start IE. What
gives?
- 5.5. I cannot connect to any FTP sites. Privoxy seems to be blocking me.
- 5.6. In Mac OSX, I can't configure Microsoft Internet Explorer to use
+ 5.6. I cannot connect to any FTP sites. Privoxy is blocking me.
+ 5.7. In Mac OSX, I can't configure Microsoft Internet Explorer to use
Privoxy as the HTTP proxy.
- 5.7. In Mac OSX, I dragged the Privoxy folder to the trash in order to
+ 5.8. In Mac OSX, I dragged the Privoxy folder to the trash in order to
uninstall it. Now the finder tells me I don't have sufficient
privileges to empty the trash.
- 5.8. In Mac OSX Panther (10.3), images often fail to load and/or I
+ 5.9. In Mac OSX Panther (10.3), images often fail to load and/or I
experience random delays in page loading. I'm using localhost as my
browser's proxy setting.
- 5.9. I get a completely blank page at one site. "View Source" shows only:
+ 5.10. I get a completely blank page at one site. "View Source" shows only:
<html><body></body></html>. Without Privoxy the page loads fine.
- 5.10. Why am I getting a 503 Error (WSAECONNREFUSED) on every page?
5.11. My logs show many "Unable to get my own hostname" lines. Why?
5.12. When I try to launch Privoxy, I get an error message "port 8118 is
already in use" (or similar wording). Why?
5.14. Why are binary files (such as images) corrupted when Privoxy is used?
5.15. What is the "demoronizer" and why is it there?
5.16. Why do I keep seeing "PrivoxyWindowOpen()" in raw source code?
+ 5.17. I am getting too many DNS errors like "404 No Such Domain". Why can't
+ Privoxy do this better?
+ 5.18. At one site Privoxy just hangs, and starts taking all CPU. Why is
+ this?
+ 5.19. I just installed Privoxy, and all my browsing has slowed to a crawl.
+ What gives?
+ 5.20. Why do my filters work on some sites but not on others?
6. Contacting the developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests
6.1. Get Support
- 6.2. Report Bugs
+ 6.2. Reporting Problems
+
+ 6.2.1. Reporting Ads or Other Configuration Problems
+ 6.2.2. Reporting Bugs
+
6.3. Request New Features
- 6.4. Report Ads or Other Actions-Related Problems
- 6.5. Other
+ 6.4. Other
7. Privoxy Copyright, License and History
1. General Information
-1.1. What is this new version of Privoxy?
+1.1. Who should give Privoxy a try?
+
+Anyone who is interested in security, privacy, or in finer-grained control over
+their web and Internet experience.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+1.2. Is Privoxy the best choice for me?
+
+Privoxy is certainly a good choice, especially for those who want more control
+and security. Those with the willingness to read the documentation and the
+ability to fine-tune their installation will benefit the most.
+
+One of Privoxy's strengths is that it is highly configurable giving you the
+ability to completely personalize your installation. Being familiar with, or at
+least having an interest in learning about HTTP and other networking protocols,
+HTML, and "Regular Expressions" will be a big plus and will help you get the
+most out of Privoxy. A new installation just includes a very basic
+configuration. The user should take this as a starting point only, and enhance
+it as he or she sees fit. In fact, the user is encouraged, and expected to,
+fine-tune the configuration.
+
+Much of Privoxy's configuration can be done with a Web browser. But there are
+areas where configuration is done using a text editor to edit configuration
+files. Also note that the web-based action editor doesn't use authentication
+and should only be enabled in environments where all clients with access to
+Privoxy listening port can be trusted.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+1.3. What is a "proxy"? How does Privoxy work?
+
+A web proxy is a service, based on a software such as Privoxy, that clients
+(i.e. browsers) can use instead of connecting directly to web servers on the
+Internet. The clients then ask the proxy to fetch the objects they need (web
+pages, images, movies etc) on their behalf, and when the proxy has done so, it
+hands the results back to the client. It is a "go-between". See the Wikipedia
+proxy definition for more.
+
+There are many reasons to use web proxies, such as security (firewalling),
+efficiency (caching) and others, and there are any number of proxies to
+accommodate those needs.
+
+Privoxy is a proxy that is primarily focused on privacy protection, ad and junk
+elimination and freeing the user from restrictions placed on his activities.
+Sitting between your browser(s) and the Internet, it is in a perfect position
+to filter outbound personal information that your browser is leaking, as well
+as inbound junk. It uses a variety of techniques to do this, all of which are
+under your complete control via the various configuration files and options.
+Being a proxy also makes it easier to share configurations among multiple
+browsers and/or users.
-In the beginning, there was the Internet Junkbuster, by Anonymous Coders and
-Junkbusters Corporation. It saved many users a lot of pain in the early days of
-web advertising and user tracking.
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+1.4. Does Privoxy do anything more than ad blocking?
+
+Yes, ad blocking is but one possible use. There are many, many ways Privoxy can
+be used to sanitize and customize web browsing.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+1.5. What is this new version of "Junkbuster"?
+
+A long time ago, there was the Internet Junkbuster, by Anonymous Coders and
+Junkbusters Corporation. This saved many users a lot of pain in the early days
+of web advertising and user tracking.
But the web, its protocols and standards, and with it, the techniques for
-forcing users to consume ads, give up autonomy over their browsing, and for
-spying on them, kept evolving. Unfortunately, the Internet Junkbuster did not.
-Version 2.0.2, published in 1998, was (and is) the last official release
-available from Junkbusters Corporation. Fortunately, it had been released under
-the GNU GPL, which allowed further development by others.
+forcing ads on users, give up autonomy over their browsing, and for tracking
+them, keeps evolving. Unfortunately, the Internet Junkbuster did not. Version
+2.0.2, published in 1998, was (and is) the last official release available from
+Junkbusters Corporation. Fortunately, it had been released under the GNU GPL,
+which allowed further development by others.
So Stefan Waldherr started maintaining an improved version of the software, to
which eventually a number of people contributed patches. It could already
The result of this is Privoxy, whose first stable version, 3.0, was released
August, 2002.
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-1.2. Why "Privoxy"? Why a name change at all?
+1.6. Why "Privoxy"? Why change the name from Junkbuster at all?
-Privoxy is the "Privacy Enhancing Proxy". Also, its content modification and
-junk suppression allow you to browse your "private edition" of the web.
+Though outdated, Junkbusters Corporation continues to offer their original
+version of the Internet Junkbuster, so publishing our Junkbuster-derived
+software under the same name led to confusion.
-Junkbusters Corporation continues to offer their original version of the
-Internet Junkbuster, so publishing our Junkbuster-derived software under the
-same name led to confusion.
+There are also potential legal complications from our use of the Junkbuster
+name, which is a registered trademark of Junkbusters Corporation. There are,
+however, no objections from Junkbusters Corporation to the Privoxy project
+itself, and they, in fact, still share our ideals and goals.
-There are also potential legal complications from the continued use of the
-Junkbuster name, which is a registered trademark of Junkbusters Corporation.
-There are, however, no objections from Junkbusters Corporation to the Privoxy
-project itself, and they, in fact, still share our ideals and goals.
+The developers also believed that there are so many improvements over the
+original code, that it was time to make a clean break from the past and make a
+name in their own right.
-The developers also believed that there are so many changes from the original
-code, that it was time to make a clean break from the past and make a name in
-their own right.
+Privoxy is the "Privacy Enhancing Proxy". Also, its content modification and
+junk suppression gives you, the user, more control, more freedom, and allows
+you to browse your personal and "private edition" of the web.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-1.3. How does Privoxy differ from the old Junkbuster?
+1.7. How does Privoxy differ from the old Junkbuster?
Privoxy picks up where Junkbuster left off. All the old features remain. The
new Privoxy still blocks ads and banners, still manages cookies, and still
-helps protect your privacy. But, these are all enhanced, and many new features
-have been added, all in the same vein.
-
-The configuration has changed significantly as well. This is something that
-users will notice right off the bat if upgrading from Junkbuster 2.0.x. The
-"blocklist" "cookielist", "imagelist" and much more has been combined into the
-"actions" files, with a completely different syntax. See the note to upgraders
-for details.
+helps protect your privacy. But, most of these features have been enhanced, and
+many new ones have been added, all in the same vein.
Privoxy's new features include:
- * Integrated browser based configuration and control utility at http://
+ • Integrated browser based configuration and control utility at http://
config.privoxy.org/ (shortcut: http://p.p/). Browser-based tracing of rule
and filter effects. Remote toggling.
- * Web page content filtering (removes banners based on size, invisible
- "web-bugs", JavaScript and HTML annoyances, pop-up windows, etc.)
+ • Web page filtering (text replacements, removes banners based on size,
+ invisible "web-bugs", JavaScript and HTML annoyances, pop-up windows,
+ header manipulation, etc.)
- * Modularized configuration that allows for standard settings and user
+ • Modularized configuration that allows for standard settings and user
settings to reside in separate files, so that installing updated actions
files won't overwrite individual user settings.
- * HTTP/1.1 compliant (but not all optional 1.1 features are supported).
-
- * Support for Perl Compatible Regular Expressions in the configuration files,
+ • Support for Perl Compatible Regular Expressions in the configuration files,
and generally a more sophisticated and flexible configuration syntax over
previous versions.
- * Improved cookie management features (e.g. session based cookies).
+ • Improved cookie management features (e.g. session based cookies).
- * GIF de-animation.
+ • GIF de-animation.
- * Bypass many click-tracking scripts (avoids script redirection).
+ • Bypass many click-tracking scripts (avoids script redirection).
- * Multi-threaded (POSIX and native threads).
+ • Multi-threaded (POSIX and native threads).
- * User-customizable HTML templates for all proxy-generated pages (e.g.
+ • User-customizable HTML templates for all proxy-generated pages (e.g.
"blocked" page).
- * Auto-detection and re-reading of config file changes.
+ • Auto-detection and re-reading of config file changes.
- * Improved signal handling, and a true daemon mode (Unix).
+ • Improved signal handling, and a true daemon mode (Unix).
- * Every feature now controllable on a per-site or per-location basis,
+ • Every feature now controllable on a per-site or per-location basis,
configuration more powerful and versatile over-all.
- * Many smaller new features added, limitations and bugs removed, and security
+ • Many smaller new features added, limitations and bugs removed, and security
holes fixed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-1.4. What is a "proxy"? How does Privoxy work?
-
-A web proxy is a service, based on a software such as Privoxy, that clients
-(i.e. browsers) can use instead of connecting directly to the web servers on
-the Internet. The clients then ask the proxy to fetch the objects they need
-(web pages, images, movies etc) on their behalf, and when the proxy has done
-so, it hands the results back to the client.
-
-There are many reasons to use web proxies, such as security (firewalling),
-efficiency (caching) and others, and there are just as many different proxies
-to accommodate those needs.
-
-Privoxy is a proxy that is solely focused on privacy protection and junk
-elimination. Sitting between your browser(s) and the Internet, it is in a
-perfect position to filter outbound personal information that your browser is
-leaking, as well as inbound junk. It uses a variety of techniques to do this,
-all of which are under your control via the various configuration files and
-options.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-1.5. How does Privoxy know what is an ad, and what is not?
+1.8. How does Privoxy know what is an ad, and what is not?
Privoxy's approach to blocking ads is twofold:
their banners from a directory called "banners"!) and the host (blocking the
big banner hosting services like doublecklick.net already helps a lot). Privoxy
takes advantage of this fact by using URL patterns to sort out and block the
-requests for banners.
+requests for things that sound like they would be ads or banners.
Second, banners tend to come in certain sizes. But you can't tell the size of
an image by its URL without downloading it, and if you do, it's too late to
the first place.
Both of this involves a certain amount of guesswork and is, of course, freely
-configurable.
+and readily configurable.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-1.6. Can Privoxy make mistakes? This does not sound very scientific.
+1.9. Can Privoxy make mistakes? This does not sound very scientific.
Actually, it's a black art ;-) And yes, it is always possible to have a broad
rule accidentally block or change something by mistake. You will almost surely
can be addressed as needed, allowing you to customize your installation. (See
the Troubleshooting section below.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-1.7. Will I have to configure Privoxy before I can use it?
+1.10. Will I have to configure Privoxy before I can use it?
-No, not really. The default installation should give you a good starting point,
-and block most unwanted content.
+That depends on your expectations. The default installation should give you a
+good starting point, and block most ads and unwanted content, but many of the
+more advanced features are off by default, and require you to activate them.
-But you will certainly run into situations where there are false positives, or
+You do have to set up your browser to use Privoxy (see the Installation section
+below).
+
+And you will certainly run into situations where there are false positives, or
ads not being blocked that you may not want to see. In these cases, you would
certainly benefit by customizing Privoxy's configuration to more closely match
-your individual situation. And we would encourage you to do this. This is where
-the real power of Privoxy lies!
+your individual situation. And we encourage you to do this. This is where the
+real power of Privoxy lies!
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+1.11. Can Privoxy run as a server on a network?
+
+Yes, Privoxy runs as a server already, and can easily be configured to "serve"
+more than one client. See How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my LAN
+below.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-1.8. My browser does the same things as Privoxy. Why should I use Privoxy at
+1.12. My browser does the same things as Privoxy. Why should I use Privoxy at
all?
Modern browsers do indeed have some of the same functionality as Privoxy. Maybe
-this is adequate for you. But Privoxy is much more versatile and powerful, and
-can do a number of things that browsers just can't.
+this is adequate for you. But Privoxy is very versatile and powerful, and can
+probably do a number of things your browser just can't.
In addition, a proxy is good choice if you use multiple browsers, or have a LAN
-with multiple computers. This way all the configuration is in one place, and
-you don't have to maintain a similar configuration for possibly many browsers.
+with multiple computers since Privoxy can run as a server application. This way
+all the configuration is in one place, and you don't have to maintain a similar
+configuration for possibly many browsers or users.
+
+Note, however, that it's recommended to leverage both your browser's and
+Privoxy's privacy enhancing features at the same time. While your browser
+probably lacks some features Privoxy offers, it should also be able to do some
+things more reliable, for example restricting and suppressing JavaScript.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+1.13. Why should I trust Privoxy?
+
+The most important reason is because you have access to everything, and you can
+control everything. You can check every line of every configuration file
+yourself. You can check every last bit of source code should you desire. And
+even if you can't read code, there should be some comfort in knowing that other
+people can, and do read it. You can build the software from scratch, if you
+want, so that you know the executable is clean, and that it is yours. In fact,
+we encourage this level of scrutiny. It is one reason we use Privoxy ourselves.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-1.9. Is there is a license or fee? What about a warranty? Registration?
+1.14. Is there is a license or fee? What about a warranty? Registration?
-Privoxy is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It is free to
-use, copy, modify or distribute as you wish under the terms of this license.
-Please see the Copyright section for more information on the license and
-copyright. Or the LICENSE file that should be included.
+Privoxy is free software and licensed under the GNU General Public License
+(GPL) version 2. It is free to use, copy, modify or distribute as you wish
+under the terms of this license. Please see the Copyright section for more
+information on the license and copyright. Or the LICENSE file that should be
+included.
There is no warranty of any kind, expressed, implied or otherwise. That is
something that would cost real money ;-) There is no registration either.
-Privoxy really is free in every respect!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+1.15. Can Privoxy remove spyware? Adware? Viruses?
+
+No, at least not reliably enough to trust it. Privoxy is not designed to be a
+malware removal tool and the default configuration doesn't even try to filter
+out any malware.
+
+Privoxy could help prevent contact from (known) sites that use such tactics
+with appropriate configuration rules, and thus could conceivably prevent
+contamination from such sites. However, keeping such a configuration up to date
+would require a lot of time and effort that would be better spend on keeping
+your software itself up to date so it doesn't have known vulnerabilities.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+1.16. Can I use Privoxy with other ad-blocking software?
+
+Privoxy should work fine with other proxies and other software in general.
+
+But it is probably not necessary to use Privoxy in conjunction with other
+ad-blocking products, and this could conceivably cause undesirable results. It
+might be better to choose one software or the other and work a little to tweak
+its configuration to your liking.
+
+Note that this is an advice specific to ad blocking.
-1.10. I would like to help you, what do I do?
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-1.10.1. Money Money Money
+1.17. I would like to help you, what can I do?
+
+1.17.1. Would you like to participate?
+
+Well, we always need help. There is something for everybody who wants to help
+us. We welcome new developers, packagers, testers, documentation writers or
+really anyone with a desire to help in any way. You DO NOT need to be a
+"programmer". There are many other tasks available. In fact, the programmers
+often can't spend as much time programming because of some of the other, more
+mundane things that need to be done, like checking the Tracker feedback
+sections.
+
+So first thing, get an account on SourceForge.net and mail your id to the
+developers mailing list. Then, please read the Developer's Manual, at least the
+pertinent sections.
+
+You can also start helping out without SourceForge.net account, simply by
+showing up on the mailing list, helping out other users, providing general
+feedback or reporting problems you noticed.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+1.17.2. Contribute!
We, of course, welcome donations and could use money for domain registering,
buying software to test Privoxy with, and, of course, for regular world-wide
get-togethers (hahaha). If you enjoy the software and feel like helping us with
-a donation, just drop us a note.
+a donation, just drop us a note and get your name on the list of contributors.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-1.10.2. Software
+1.17.3. Software
If you are a vendor of a web-related software like a browser, web server or
proxy, and would like us to ensure that Privoxy runs smoothly with your
however, guarantee that we will fix all potential compatibility issues as a
result.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-1.10.3. You want to work with us?
-
-Well, helping the team is always a good idea. We welcome new developers,
-packaging gurus or documentation writers. Simply get an account on
-SourceForge.net and mail your id to the developers mailing list. Then read the
-Developer's Manual.
-
-Once we have added you to the team, you'll have write access to the CVS
-repository, and together we'll find a suitable task for you.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
2. Installation
2.1. Which browsers are supported by Privoxy?
Any browser that can be configured to use a proxy, which should be virtually
-all browsers. Direct browser support is not necessary since Privoxy runs as a
-separate application and talks to the browser in the standardized HTTP
-protocol, just like a web server does.
+all browsers, including Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari among
+others. Direct browser support is not an absolute requirement since Privoxy
+runs as a separate application and talks to the browser in the standardized
+HTTP protocol, just like a web server does.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
2.2. Which operating systems are supported?
-At present, Privoxy is known to run on Windows(95, 98, ME, 2000, XP), Linux
-(RedHat, SuSE, Debian, Conectiva, Gentoo, Slackware), Mac OSX, OS/2, AmigaOS,
-BeOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, and many more flavors of Unix.
+At present, Privoxy is known to run on Windows(95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista),
+GNU/Linux (RedHat, SuSE, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Slackware and others), Mac
+OSX, OS/2, AmigaOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, and various other
+flavors of Unix.
But any operating system that runs TCP/IP, can conceivably take advantage of
Privoxy in a networked situation where Privoxy would run as a server on a LAN
Source code is freely available, so porting to other operating systems is
always a possibility.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
2.3. Can I use Privoxy with my email client?
recommend using email clients that can be configured to convert HTML to plain
text for these reasons.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-2.4. Can I install Privoxy over Junkbuster?
-
-We recommend you un-install Junkbuster first to minimize conflicts and
-confusion. You may want to save your old configuration files for future
-reference. The configuration files and syntax have substantially changed, so
-you will need to manually port your old patterns. See the note to upgraders and
-installation chapter in the user manual for details.
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-Note: Some installers may automatically un-install Junkbuster, if present!
+2.4. I just installed Privoxy. Is there anything special I have to do now?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-2.5. I just installed Privoxy. Is there anything special I have to do now?
-
-All browsers must be told to use Privoxy as a proxy by specifying the correct
+All browsers should be told to use Privoxy as a proxy by specifying the correct
proxy address and port number in the appropriate configuration area for the
-browser. See below. You should also flush your browser's memory and disk cache
-to get rid of any cached junk items, and remove any stored cookies.
+browser. It's possible to combine Privoxy with a packet filter to intercept
+HTTP requests even if the client isn't explicitly configured to use Privoxy,
+but where possible, configuring the client is recommended. See the User Manual
+for more details. You should also flush your browser's memory and disk cache to
+get rid of any cached junk items, and remove any stored cookies.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-2.6. What is the proxy address of Privoxy?
+2.5. What is the proxy address of Privoxy?
If you set up the Privoxy to run on the computer you browse from (rather than
your ISP's server or some networked computer on a LAN), the proxy will be on
127.0.0.1 (sometimes referred to as "localhost", which is the special name used
by every computer on the Internet to refer to itself) and the port will be 8118
-(unless you have Privoxy to run on a different port with the listen-address
-config option).
+(unless you used the listen-address config option to tell Privoxy to run on a
+different port).
When configuring your browser's proxy settings you typically enter the word
"localhost" or the IP address "127.0.0.1" in the boxes next to "HTTP" and
Privoxy can also be used to proxy for a Local Area Network. In this case, your
would enter either the IP address of the LAN host where Privoxy is running, or
-the equivalent hostname. Port assignment would be same as above. Note that
-Privoxy doesn't listen on any LAN interfaces by default.
+the equivalent hostname, e.g. 192.168.1.1. Port assignment would be same as
+above. Note that Privoxy doesn't listen on any LAN interfaces by default.
Privoxy does not currently handle any other protocols such as FTP, SMTP, IM,
IRC, ICQ, etc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-2.7. I just installed Privoxy, and nothing is happening. All the ads are there.
+2.6. I just installed Privoxy, and nothing is happening. All the ads are there.
What's wrong?
Did you configure your browser to use Privoxy as a proxy? It does not sound
nothing at all), it could either be that the browser is not set up correctly,
or that Privoxy is not running at all. Check the log file. For instructions on
starting Privoxy and browser configuration, see the chapter on starting Privoxy
-in the user manual.
+in the User Manual.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-2.8. I get a "Privoxy is not being used" dummy page although Privoxy is running
+2.7. I get a "Privoxy is not being used" dummy page although Privoxy is running
and being used.
First, make sure that Privoxy is really running and being used by visiting
http://p.p/. You should see the Privoxy main page. If not, see the chapter on
-starting Privoxy in the user manual.
+starting Privoxy in the User Manual.
Now if http://p.p/ works for you, but other parts of Privoxy's web interface
show the dummy page, your browser has cached a redirection it encountered
that shift-reloading the dummy page won't help, since that'll only refresh the
dummy page, not the redirection that lead you there.
-The procedure for clearing the cache varies from browser to browser. As an
-example, Mozilla users would click Edit --> Preferences --> Advanced --> Cache
-and then click both "Clear Memory Cache" and "Clear Disk Cache".
+The procedure for clearing the cache varies from browser to browser. For
+example, Mozilla/Netscape users would click Edit --> Preferences --> Advanced
+--> Cache and then click both "Clear Memory Cache" and "Clear Disk Cache". In
+some Firefox versions it's Tools --> Options --> Privacy --> Cache and then
+click "Clear Cache Now".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
3. Configuration
-3.1. Where can I get updated Actions Files?
-
-Based on your feedback and the continuing development, updated actions files
-will be made available on the files section of our project page.
-
-If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
-Privoxy or the actions file, subscribe to our announce mailing list,
-ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-3.2. Can I use my old config files?
-
-The syntax, number, and purpose of configuration files has substantially
-changed from Junkbuster and earlier versions of Privoxy. The old files, like
-blocklist will not work at all. If you are upgrading from a 2.0.x version, you
-will need to port your configuration data to the new format. Note that even the
-pattern syntax has changed! Even configuration files from the 2.9.x versions
-will need to be adapted, as configuration syntax has been very much in flow in
-the 2.9.x series.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-3.3. What is an "actions" file?
+3.1. What exactly is an "actions" file?
-Actions files are where various actions that Privoxy might take while
-processing a certain request, are configured. Typically, you would define a set
-of default actions that apply to all URLs, then add exceptions to these
-defaults where needed.
+Privoxy utilizes the concept of " actions" that are used to manipulate and
+control web page data. Actions files are where these actions that Privoxy could
+take while processing a certain request, are configured. Typically, you would
+define a set of default actions that apply globally to all URLs, then add
+exceptions to these defaults where needed. There is a wide array of actions
+available that give the user a high degree of control and flexibility on how to
+process each and every web page.
Actions can be defined on a URL pattern basis, i.e. for single URLs, whole web
sites, groups or parts thereof etc. Actions can also be grouped together and
site, you would need to define an exception for this site in one of your
actions files, preferably in user.action.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-3.4. The "actions" concept confuses me. Please list some of these "actions".
+3.2. The "actions" concept confuses me. Please list some of these "actions".
For a comprehensive discussion of the actions concept, please refer to the
-actions file chapter in the user manual. It includes a list of all actions and
+actions file chapter in the User Manual. It includes a list of all actions and
an actions file tutorial to get you started.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-3.5. How are actions files configured? What is the easiest way to do this?
+3.3. How are actions files configured? What is the easiest way to do this?
Actions files are just text files in a special syntax and can be edited with a
text editor. But probably the easiest way is to access Privoxy's user interface
with your web browser at http://config.privoxy.org/ (Shortcut: http://p.p/) and
-then select "View & change the current configuration" from the menu.
+then select "View & change the current configuration" from the menu. Note that
+this feature must be explicitly enabled in the main config file (see
+enable-edit-actions).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-3.6. There are several different "actions" files. What are the differences?
+3.4. There are several different "actions" files. What are the differences?
-As of Privoxy v2.9.15, three actions files are being included, to be used for
+Three actions files are being included by the developers, to be used for
different purposes: These are default.action, the "main" actions file which is
-actively maintained by the Privoxy developers, user.action, where users are
-encouraged to make their private customizations, and standard.action, which is
-for internal Privoxy use only. Please see the actions chapter in the user
-manual for a more detailed explanation.
+actively maintained by the Privoxy developers and typically sets the default
+policies, user.action, where users are encouraged to make their private
+customizations, and standard.action, which is for internal Privoxy use only.
+Please see the actions chapter in the User Manual for a more detailed
+explanation.
Earlier versions included three different versions of the default.action file.
The new scheme allows for greater flexibility of local configuration, and for
browser based selection of pre-defined "aggressiveness" levels.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+3.5. Where can I get updated Actions Files?
+
+Based on your feedback and the continuing development, updates of
+default.action will be made available from time to time on the files section of
+our project page.
+
+If you wish to receive an email notification whenever we release updates of
+Privoxy or the actions file, subscribe to our announce mailing list,
+ijbswa-announce@lists.sourceforge.net.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+3.6. Can I use my old config files?
-3.7. How can I make my Yahoo/Hotmail/GMX account work?
+The syntax and purpose of configuration files has remained roughly the same
+throughout the 3.x series, but backwards compatibility is not guaranteed. Also
+each release contains updated, "improved" versions and it is therefore strongly
+recommended to install the newer configuration files and merge back your
+modifications.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+3.7. Why is the configuration so complicated?
+
+"Complicated" is in the eye of the beholder. Those that are familiar with some
+of the underlying concepts, such as regular expression syntax, take to it like
+a fish takes to water. Also, software that tries hard to be "user friendly",
+often lacks sophistication and flexibility. There is always that trade-off
+there between power vs. easy-of-use. Furthermore, anyone is welcome to
+contribute ideas and implementations to enhance Privoxy.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+3.8. How can I make my Yahoo/Hotmail/Gmail account work?
The default configuration shouldn't impact the usability of any of these
-services. It will, however, make all cookies temporary, so that your browser
+services. It may, however, make all cookies temporary, so that your browser
will forget your login credentials in between browser sessions. If you would
like not to have to log in manually each time you access those websites, simply
turn off all cookie handling for them in the user.action file. An example for
.login.yahoo.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+These kinds of sites are often quite complex and heavy with Javascript and thus
+"fragile". So if still a problem, we have an alias just for such sticky
+situations:
+
+# Gmail is a _fragile_ site:
+#
+{ fragile }
+ # Gmail is ...
+ mail.google.com
+
+
+Be sure to flush your browser's caches whenever making these kinds of changes,
+just to make sure the changes "take".
+
+Make sure the domain, host and path are appropriate as well. Your browser can
+tell you where you are specifically and you should use that information for
+your configuration settings. Note that above it is not referenced as gmail.com,
+which is a valid domain name.
-3.8. What's the difference between the "Cautious", "Medium" and "Adventuresome"
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+3.9. What's the difference between the "Cautious", "Medium" and "Advanced"
defaults?
Configuring Privoxy is not entirely trivial. To help you get started, we
Where the defaults are likely to break some sites, exceptions for known popular
"problem" sites are included, but in general, the more aggressive your default
-settings are, the more exceptions you will have to make later. See the User
-Manual for a more deatiled discussion.
+settings are, the more exceptions you will have to make later. New users are
+best to start off in "Cautious" setting. This is safest and will have the
+fewest problems. See the User Manual for a more detailed discussion.
-It should be noted that the "Adventuresome" profile (formerly known as the
-"Advanced" profile) is not only more aggressive, but also includes fun and,
-extreme usage of most of Privoxy's features. Use at your own risk!
+It should be noted that the "Advanced" profile (formerly known as the
+"Adventuresome" profile) is more aggressive, and will make use of some of
+Privoxy's advanced features. Use at your own risk!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-3.9. Why can I change the configuration with a browser? Does that not raise
+3.10. Why can I change the configuration with a browser? Does that not raise
security issues?
It may seem strange that regular users can edit the config files with their
"privoxy", with only 644 permissions.
When you use the browser-based editor, Privoxy itself is writing to the config
-files. Because Privoxy is running as the user "privoxy", it can update the
+files. Because Privoxy is running as the user "privoxy", it can update its own
config files.
-If you run Privoxy for multiple untrusted users (e.g. in a LAN), you will
-probably want to turn the web-based editor and remote toggle features off by
-setting "enable-edit-actions 0" and "enable-remote-toggle 0" in the main
-configuration file.
+If you run Privoxy for multiple untrusted users (e.g. in a LAN) or aren't
+entirely in control of your own browser, you will probably want to make sure
+that the the web-based editor and remote toggle features are "off" by setting "
+enable-edit-actions 0" and "enable-remote-toggle 0" in the main configuration
+file.
+
+As of Privoxy 3.0.7 these options are disabled by default.
-Note that in the default configuration, only local users (i.e. those on
-"localhost") can connect to Privoxy, so this is not (normally) a security
-problem.
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+3.11. What is the default.filter file? What is a "filter"?
-3.10. What is the default.filter file? What is a "filter"?
+The default.filter file is where filters as supplied by the developers are
+defined. Filters are a special subset of actions that can be used to modify or
+remove web page content or headers on the fly. Content filters can be applied
+to anything in the page source, header filters can be applied to either server
+or client headers. Regular expressions are used to accomplish this.
-The default.filter file is where filters are defined, which can be used to
-modify or remove, web page content on the fly. Filters apply to anything in the
-page source, including HTML tags, and JavaScript. Regular expressions are used
-to accomplish this. There are a number of pre-defined filters to deal with
-common annoyances. The filters are only defined here, to invoke them, you need
-to use the filter action in one of the actions files. Filtering is
-automatically disabled for inappropriate MIME types.
+There are a number of pre-defined filters to deal with common annoyances. The
+filters are only defined here, to invoke them, you need to use the filter
+action in one of the actions files. Content filtering is automatically disabled
+for inappropriate MIME types, but if you now better than Privoxy what should or
+should not be filtered you can filter any content you like.
+
+Filters should not be confused with blocks, which is a completely different
+action, and is more typically used to block ads and unwanted sites.
If you are familiar with regular expressions, and HTML, you can look at the
provided default.filter with a text editor and define your own filters. This is
potentially a very powerful feature, but requires some expertise in both
-regular expressions and HTML/HTTP.
+regular expressions and HTML/HTTP. You should place any modifications to the
+default filters, or any new ones you create in a separate file, such as
+user.filter, so they won't be overwritten during upgrades. The ability to
+define multiple filter files in config is a new feature as of v. 3.0.5.
+
+There is no GUI editor option for this part of the configuration, but you can
+disable/enable the various pre-defined filters of the included default.filter
+file with the web-based actions file editor. Note that the custom actions
+editor must be explicitly enabled in the main config file (see
+enable-edit-actions).
-Presently, there is no GUI editor option for this part of the configuration,
-but you can disable/enable the various pre-defined filters of the included
-default.filter file with the web-based actions file editor.
+If you intend to develop your own filters, you might want to have a look at
+Privoxy-Filter-Test.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-3.11. How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my LAN?
+3.12. How can I set up Privoxy to act as a proxy for my LAN?
By default, Privoxy only responds to requests from 127.0.0.1 (localhost). To
have it act as a server for a network, this needs to be changed in the main
If you run Privoxy on a LAN with untrusted users, we recommend that you
double-check the access control and security options!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-3.12. Instead of ads, now I get a checkerboard pattern. I don't want to see
+3.13. Instead of ads, now I get a checkerboard pattern. I don't want to see
anything.
The replacement for blocked images can be controlled with the set-image-blocker
URLs match both a handle-as-image and block action.
If you want to see nothing, then change the set-image-blocker action to
-"blank". This can be done by editing the default.action file, or trough the
+"blank". This can be done by editing the user.action file, or through the
web-based actions file editor.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-3.13. Why would anybody want to see a checkerboard pattern?
+3.14. Why would anybody want to see a checkerboard pattern?
-Remember that telling which image is an ad and which isn't, is mostly
-guesswork. While we hope that the standard configuration is rather smart, it
-can and will make errors. The checkerboard image is visually decent, but it
-shows you that and where images were blocked, which can be very helpful in case
-some navigation aid or otherwise innocent image was erraneously blocked. Some
-people might also enjoy seeing how many banners they don't have to see..
+Remember that telling which image is an ad and which isn't, is an educated
+guess. While we hope that the standard configuration is rather smart, it will
+make occasional mistakes. The checkerboard image is visually decent, and it
+shows you where images have been blocked, which can be very helpful in case
+some navigation aid or otherwise innocent image was erroneously blocked. It is
+recommended for new users so they can "see" what is happening. Some people
+might also enjoy seeing how many banners they don't have to see.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-3.14. I see some images being replaced by a text instead of the checkerboard
+3.15. I see some images being replaced with text instead of the checkerboard
image. Why and how do I get rid of this?
This happens when the banners are not embedded in the HTML code of the page
will try to load the actual banner images and the usual image blocking will
(hopefully!) kick in.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-3.15. Can Privoxy run as a service on Win2K/NT?
+3.16. Can Privoxy run as a service on Win2K/NT/XP?
-Yes, it can run as a system service using srvany.exe. See the discussion at
-http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=361118&aid=485617&group_id=
-11118, for details, and a sample configuration.
+Yes. Version 3.0.5 introduces full Windows service functionality. See the User
+Manual for details on how to install and configure Privoxy as a service.
-Version 3.0.1 fixes the problem where the icon and menu where not available in
-the taskbar for this usage.
+Earlier 3.x versions could run as a system service using srvany.exe. See the
+discussion at http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=361118&aid=
+485617&group_id=11118, for details, and a sample configuration.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-3.16. How can I make Privoxy work with other proxies like Squid?
+3.17. How can I make Privoxy work with other proxies like Squid or Tor?
This can be done and is often useful to combine the benefits of Privoxy with
-those of a caching proxy. See the forwarding chapter in the user manual which
-describes how to do this.
+those of a another proxy. See the forwarding chapter in the User Manual which
+describes how to do this, and the How do I use Privoxy together with Tor
+section below.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-3.17. Can I just set Privoxy to use port 80 and thus avoid individual browser
+3.18. Can I just set Privoxy to use port 80 and thus avoid individual browser
configuration?
No, its more complicated than that. This only works with special kinds of
-proxies known as "transparent" proxies (see below).
+proxies known as "intercepting" proxies (see below).
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+3.19. Can Privoxy run as a "transparent" proxy?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+The whole idea of Privoxy is to modify client requests and server responses in
+all sorts of ways and therefore it's not a transparent proxy as described in
+RFC 2616.
-3.18. Can Privoxy run as a "transparent" proxy?
+However, some people say "transparent proxy" when they mean "intercepting
+proxy". If you are one of them, please read the next entry.
-No, Privoxy currently does not have this ability, though it is planned for a
-future release. Transparent proxies require special handling of the request
-headers beyond what Privoxy is now capable of.
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-Chaining Privoxy behind another proxy that has this ability should work though.
-See the forwarding chapter in the user manual. As a transparent proxy to be
-used for chaining we recommend Transproxy (http://www.transproxy.nlc.net.au/).
+3.20. Can Privoxy run as a "intercepting" proxy?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Privoxy can't intercept traffic itself, but it can handle requests that where
+intercepted and redirected with a packet filter (like PF or iptables), as long
+as the Host header is present.
-3.19. How can I configure Privoxy for use with Outlook Express?
+As the Host header is required by HTTP/1.1 and as most web sites rely on it
+anyway, this limitation shouldn't be a problem.
+
+Please refer to your packet filter's documentation to learn how to intercept
+and redirect traffic into Privoxy. Afterward you just have to configure Privoxy
+to accept intercepted requests.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+3.21. How can I configure Privoxy for use with Outlook Express?
Outlook Express uses Internet Explorer components to both render HTML, and
fetch any HTTP requests that may be embedded in an HTML email. So however you
have Privoxy configured to work with IE, this configuration should
automatically be shared.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-3.20. How can I have separate rules just for HTML mail?
+3.22. How can I have separate rules just for HTML mail?
The short answer is, you can't. Privoxy has no way of knowing which particular
application makes a request, so there is no way to distinguish between web
security issues), see http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=211118&
aid=629518&group_id=11118.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+3.23. I sometimes notice cookies sneaking through. How?
+
+Cookies can be set in several ways. The classic method is via the Set-Cookie
+HTTP header. This is straightforward, and an easy one to manipulate, such as
+the Privoxy concept of session-cookies-only. There is also the possibility of
+using Javascript to set cookies (Privoxy calls these content-cookies). This is
+trickier because the syntax can vary widely, and thus requires a certain amount
+of guesswork. It is not realistic to catch all of these short of disabling
+Javascript, which would break many sites. And lastly, if the cookies are
+embedded in a HTTPS/SSL secure session via Javascript, they are beyond
+Privoxy's reach.
+
+All in all, Privoxy can help manage cookies in general, can help minimize the
+loss of privacy posed by cookies, but can't realistically stop all cookies.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+3.24. Are all cookies bad? Why?
-3.21. How can I allow permanent cookies for my trusted sites?
+No, in fact there are many beneficial uses of cookies. Cookies are just a
+method that browsers can use to store data between pages, or between browser
+sessions. Sometimes there is a good reason for this, and the user's life is a
+bit easier as a result. But there is a long history of some websites taking
+advantage of this layer of trust, and using the data they glean from you and
+your browsing habits for their own purposes, and maybe to your potential
+detriment. Such sites are using you and storing their data on your system. That
+is why the privacy conscious watch from whom those cookies come, and why they
+really need to be there.
+
+See the Wikipedia cookie definition for more.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+3.25. How can I allow permanent cookies for my trusted sites?
There are several actions that relate to cookies. The default behavior is to
allow only "session cookies", which means the cookies only last for the current
browser session. This eliminates most kinds of abuse related to cookies. But
-there may be cases where we want cookies to last.
+there may be cases where you want cookies to last.
To disable all cookie actions, so that cookies are allowed unrestricted, both
in and out, for example.com:
.example.com
-Place the above in user.action. Note some of these may be off by default
+Place the above in user.action. Note that some of these may be off by default
anyway, so this might be redundant, but there is no harm being explicit in what
you want to happen. user.action includes an alias for this situation, called
-allow-cookies.
+allow-all-cookies.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+3.26. Can I have separate configurations for different users?
+
+Each instance of Privoxy has its own configuration, including such attributes
+as the TCP port that it listens on. What you can do is run multiple instances
+of Privoxy, each with a unique listen-address configuration setting, and
+configuration path, and then each of these can have their own configurations.
+Think of it as per-port configuration.
+
+Simple enough for a few users, but for large installations, consider having
+groups of users that might share like configurations.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+3.27. Can I set-up Privoxy as a whitelist of "good" sites?
+
+Sure. There are a couple of things you can do for simple white-listing. Here's
+one real easy one:
+
+ ############################################################
+ # Blacklist
+ ############################################################
+ { +block }
+ / # Block *all* URLs
+
+ ############################################################
+ # Whitelist
+ ############################################################
+ { -block }
+ kids.example.com
+ toys.example.com
+ games.example.com
+
+
+This allows access to only those three sites by first blocking all URLs, and
+then subsequently allowing three specific exceptions.
+
+Another approach is Privoxy's trustfile concept, which incorporates the notion
+of "trusted referrers". See the Trust documentation for details.
+
+These are fairly simple approaches and are not completely foolproof. There are
+various other configuration options that should be disabled (described
+elsewhere here and in the User Manual) so that users can't modify their own
+configuration and easily circumvent the whitelist.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+3.28. How can I turn off ad-blocking?
+
+Ad blocking is achieved through a complex application of various Privoxy
+actions. These actions are deployed against simple images, banners, flash
+animations, text pages, JavaScript, pop-ups and pop-unders, etc., so its not as
+simple as just turning one or two actions off. The various actions that make up
+Privoxy ad blocking are hard-coded into the default configuration files. It has
+been assumed that everyone using Privoxy is interested in this particular
+feature.
+
+If you want to do without this, there are several approaches you can take: You
+can manually undo the many block rules in default.action. Or even easier, just
+create your own default.action file from scratch without the many ad blocking
+rules, and corresponding exceptions. Or lastly, if you are not concerned about
+the additional blocks that are done for privacy reasons, you can very easily
+over-ride all blocking with the following very simple rule in your user.action:
+
+ # Unblock everybody, everywhere
+ { -block }
+ / # UN-Block *all* URLs
+
+
+Or even a more comprehensive reversing of various ad related actions:
+
+ # Unblock everybody, everywhere, and turn off appropriate filtering, etc
+ { -block \
+ -filter{banners-by-size} \
+ -filter{banners-by-link} \
+ allow-popups \
+ }
+ / # UN-Block *all* URLs and allow ads
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+This last "action" in this compound statement, allow-popups, is an alias that
+disables various pop-up blocking features.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+3.29. How can I have custom template pages, like the BLOCKED page?
+
+Privoxy "templates" are specialized text files utilized by Privoxy for various
+purposes and can easily be modified using any text editor. All the template
+pages are installed in a sub-directory appropriately named: templates. Knowing
+something about HTML syntax will of course be helpful.
+
+Be forewarned that the default templates are subject to being overwritten
+during upgrades. You can, however, create completely new templates, place them
+in another directory and specify the alternate path in the main config. For
+details, have a look at the templdir option.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+3.30. How can I remove the "Go There Anyway" link from the BLOCKED page?
+
+There is more than one way to do it (although Perl is not involved).
+
+Editing the BLOCKED template page (see above) may dissuade some users, but this
+method is easily circumvented. Where you need this level of control, you might
+want to build Privoxy from source, and disable various features that are
+available as compile-time options. You should configure the sources as follows:
+
+ ./configure --disable-toggle --disable-editor --disable-force
+
+
+This will create an executable with hard-coded security features so that
+Privoxy does not allow easy bypassing of blocked sites, or changing the current
+configuration via any connected user's web browser.
+
+Finally, all of these features can also be toggled on/off via options in
+Privoxy's main config file which means you don't have to recompile anything.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
4. Miscellaneous
4.1. How much does Privoxy slow my browsing down? This has to add extra time to
browsing.
-It should not slow you down any in real terms, and may actually help speed
-things up since ads, banners and other junk are not being displayed. The actual
-processing time required by Privoxy itself for each page, is relatively small
-in the overall scheme of things, and happens very quickly. This is typically
-more than offset by time saved not downloading and rendering ad images.
+How much of an impact depends on many things, including the CPU of the host
+system, how aggressive the configuration is, which specific actions are being
+triggered, the size of the page, the bandwidth of the connection, etc.
+
+Overall, it should not slow you down any in real terms, and may actually help
+speed things up since ads, banners and other junk are not typically being
+retrieved and displayed. The actual processing time required by Privoxy itself
+for each page, is relatively small in the overall scheme of things, and happens
+very quickly. This is typically more than offset by time saved not downloading
+and rendering ad images and other junk content (if ad blocking is being used).
"Filtering" content via the filter or deanimate-gifs actions may cause a
perceived slowdown, since the entire document needs to be buffered before
-displaying. See below.
+displaying. And on very large documents, filtering may have some measurable
+impact. How much depends on the page size, the actual definition of the filter
+(s), etc. See below. Most other actions have little to no impact on speed.
+
+Also, when filtering is enabled but zlib support isn't available, compression
+is often disabled (see prevent-compression). This can have an impact on speed
+as well, although it's probably smaller than you might think. Again, the page
+size, etc. will determine how much of an impact.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-4.2. I noticed considerable delays in page requests compared to the old
-Junkbuster. What's wrong?
+4.2. I notice considerable delays in page requests. What's wrong?
If you use any filter action, such as filtering banners by size, web-bugs etc,
or the deanimate-gifs action, the entire document must be loaded into memory in
order for the filtering mechanism to work, and nothing is sent to the browser
during this time.
-The loading time does not really change in real numbers, but the feeling is
-different, because most browsers are able to start rendering incomplete
-content, giving the user a feeling of "it works". This effect is especially
-noticeable on slow dialup connections.
+The loading time typically does not really change much in real numbers, but the
+feeling is different, because most browsers are able to start rendering
+incomplete content, giving the user a feeling of "it works". This effect is
+more noticeable on slower dialup connections. Extremely large documents may
+have some impact on the time to load the page where there is filtering being
+done. But overall, the difference should be very minimal. If there is a big
+impact, then probably some other situation is contributing (like anti-virus
+software).
Filtering is automatically disabled for inappropriate MIME types. But note that
if the web server mis-reports the MIME type, then content that should not be
because of the MIME type as reported by the server, or because of some
configuration setting that enables/disables filtering.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
4.3. What are "http://config.privoxy.org/" and "http://p.p/"?
not be intercepted, and you have accessed the real web site at
config.privoxy.org.
-With recent versions of Privoxy (version 2.9.x and later), the user interface
-features information on the run time status, the configuration, and even a
-built-in editor for the actions files.
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-Note that the built-in URLs from earlier versions of Junkbuster / Privoxy,
-http://example.com/show-proxy-args and http://i.j.b/, are no longer supported.
-If you still use such an old version, you should really consider upgrading to
-3.0.3.
+4.4. How can I submit new ads, or report problems?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Please see the Contact section for various ways to interact with the
+developers.
-4.4. Do you still maintain the blocklists?
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-No. The patterns for blocking now reside (among other things) in the actions
-files, which are actively maintained instead. See next question ...
+4.5. If I do submit missed ads, will they be included in future updates?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Whether such submissions are eventually included in the default.action
+configuration file depends on how significant the issue is. We of course want
+to address any potential problem with major, high-profile sites such as Google,
+Yahoo, etc. Any site with global or regional reach, has a good chance of being
+a candidate. But at the other end of the spectrum are any number of smaller,
+low-profile sites such as for local clubs or schools. Since their reach and
+impact are much less, they are best handled by inclusion in the user's
+user.action, and thus would be unlikely to be included.
-4.5. How can I submit new ads?
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-Yes, absolutely! Please see the Contact section for how to do that. Please note
-that you (technically) need the latest Privoxy version for this to work.
+4.6. Why doesn't anyone answer my support request?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Rest assured that it has been read and considered. Why it is not answered,
+could be for various reasons, including no one has a good answer for it, no one
+has had time to yet investigate it thoroughly, it has been reported numerous
+times already, or because not enough information was provided to help us help
+you. Your efforts are not wasted, and we do appreciate them.
-4.6. How can I hide my IP address?
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-If you run both the browser and the proxy locally, you cannot hide your IP
-address with Privoxy or any other software. The server needs to know your IP
-address to send the answers back to you.
+4.7. How can I hide my IP address?
-Fortunately there are many publicly usable anonymous proxies out there, which
-solve the problem by providing a further level of indirection between you and
-the web server, shared by many people, and thus letting your requests "drown"
-in white noise of unrelated requests as far as user tracking is concerned.
+If you run both the browser and Privoxy locally, you cannot hide your IP
+address with Privoxy or ultimately any other software alone. The server needs
+to know your IP address so that it knows where to send the responses back.
-Most of them will, however, log your IP address and make it available to the
-authorities in case you abuse that anonymity for criminal purposes. In fact you
-can't even rule out that some of them only exist to *collect* information on
-(those suspicious) people with a more than average preference for privacy.
+There are many publicly usable "anonymous" proxies out there, which provide a
+further level of indirection between you and the web server.
-You can find a list of anonymous public proxies at multiproxy.org and many more
-through Google. A particularly interesting project is the JAP service offered
-by the Technical University of Dresden (http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/
-index_en.html).
+However, these proxies are called "anonymous" because you don't need to
+authenticate, not because they would offer any real anonymity. Most of them
+will log your IP address and make it available to the authorities in case you
+violate the law of the country they run in. In fact you can't even rule out
+that some of them only exist to *collect* information on (those suspicious)
+people with a more than average preference for privacy.
-There is, however, even in the single-machine case the possibility to make the
-server believe that your machine is in fact a shared proxy serving a whole big
-LAN, and we are looking into that.
+If you want to hide your IP address from most adversaries, you should consider
+chaining Privoxy with Tor. The configuration details can be found in How do I
+use Privoxy together with Tor section just below.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-4.7. Can Privoxy guarantee I am anonymous?
+4.8. Can Privoxy guarantee I am anonymous?
-No. Your chances of remaining anonymous are greatly improved, but unless you
-are an expert on Internet security it would be safest to assume that everything
-you do on the Web can be traced back to you.
+No. Your chances of remaining anonymous are improved, but unless you chain
+Privoxy with Tor or a similar proxy and know what you're doing when it comes to
+configuring the rest of your system, you should assume that everything you do
+on the Web can be traced back to you.
Privoxy can remove various information about you, and allows you more freedom
to decide which sites you can trust, and what details you want to reveal. But
-it's still possible that web sites can find out who you are. Here's one way
-this can happen.
+it neither hides your IP address, nor can it guarantee that the rest of the
+system behaves correctly. There are several possibilities how a web sites can
+find out who you are, even if you are using a strict Privoxy configuration and
+chained it with Tor.
+
+Most of Privoxy's privacy-enhancing features can be easily subverted by an
+insecure browser configuration, therefore you should use a browser that can be
+configured to only execute code from trusted sites, and be careful which sites
+you trust. For example there is no point in having Privoxy modify the
+User-Agent header, if websites can get all the information they want through
+JavaScript, ActiveX, Flash, Java etc.
A few browsers disclose the user's email address in certain situations, such as
when transferring a file by FTP. Privoxy does not filter FTP. If you need this
source code, because anticipating their behavior is easier. Trust the source,
Luke!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+4.9. A test site says I am not using a Proxy.
+
+Good! Actually, they are probably testing for some other kinds of proxies.
+Hiding yourself completely would require additional steps.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+4.10. How do I use Privoxy together with Tor?
+
+Before you configure Privoxy to use Tor, please follow the User Manual chapters
+2. Installation and 5. Startup to make sure Privoxy itself is setup correctly.
+
+If it is, refer to Tor's extensive documentation to learn how to install Tor,
+and make sure Tor's logfile says that "Tor has successfully opened a circuit"
+and it "looks like client functionality is working".
+
+If either Tor or Privoxy isn't working, their combination most likely will
+neither. Testing them on their own will also help you to direct problem reports
+to the right audience. If Privoxy isn't working, don't bother the Tor
+developers. If Tor isn't working, don't send bug reports to the Privoxy Team.
+
+If you verified that Privoxy and Tor are working, it is time to connect them.
+As far as Privoxy is concerned, Tor is just another proxy that can be reached
+by socks4 or socks4a. Most likely you are interested in Tor to increase your
+anonymity level, therefore you should use socks4a, to make sure DNS requests
+are done through Tor and thus invisible to your local network.
+
+Since Privoxy 3.0.5, its main configuration file is already prepared for Tor,
+if you are using a default Tor configuration and run it on the same system as
+Privoxy, you just have to edit the forwarding section and uncomment the line:
+
+# forward-socks4a / 127.0.0.1:9050 .
+
+
+
+This is enough to reach the Internet, but additionally you might want to
+uncomment the following forward rules, to make sure your local network is still
+reachable through Privoxy:
+
+# forward 192.168.*.*/ .
+# forward 10.*.*.*/ .
+# forward 127.*.*.*/ .
+
+
-4.8. Might some things break because header information or content is being
+Unencrypted connections to systems in these address ranges will be as (un)
+secure as the local network is, but the alternative is that your browser can't
+reach the network at all. Then again, that may actually be desired and if you
+don't know for sure that your browser has to be able to reach the local
+network, there's no reason to allow it.
+
+If you want your browser to be able to reach servers in your local network by
+using their names, you will need additional exceptions that look like this:
+
+# forward localhost/ .
+
+
+
+Save the modified configuration file and open http://config.privoxy.org/
+show-status/ in your browser, confirm that Privoxy has reloaded its
+configuration and that there are no other forward lines, unless you know that
+you need them. If everything looks good, refer to Tor Faq 4.2 to learn how to
+verify that you are really using Tor.
+
+Afterward, please take the time to at least skim through the rest of Tor's
+documentation. Make sure you understand what Tor does, why it is no replacement
+for application level security, and why you probably don't want to use it for
+unencrypted logins.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+4.11. Might some things break because header information or content is being
altered?
-Definitely. More and more sites use HTTP header content to decide what to
-display and how to display it. There is many ways that this can be handled, so
-having hard and fast rules, is tricky.
+Definitely. It is common for sites to use browser type, browser version, HTTP
+header content, and various other techniques in order to dynamically decide
+what to display and how to display it. What you see, and what I see, might be
+very different. There are many, many ways that this can be handled, so having
+hard and fast rules, is tricky.
-"User-Agent" in particular is often used in this way to identify the browser,
-and adjust content accordingly. Changing this now (at least not further than
-removing the OS information) is not recommended, since so many sites do look
-for it. You may get undesirable results by changing this.
+The "User-Agent" is sometimes used in this way to identify the browser, and
+adjust content accordingly.
-For instance, different browsers use different encodings of Russian and Czech
-characters, certain web servers convert pages on-the-fly according to the User
-Agent header. Giving a "User Agent" with the wrong operating system or browser
+Also, different browsers use different encodings of non-English characters,
+certain web servers convert pages on-the-fly according to the User Agent
+header. Giving a "User Agent" with the wrong operating system or browser
manufacturer causes some sites in these languages to be garbled; Surfers to
Eastern European sites should change it to something closer. And then some page
access counters work by looking at the "Referer" header; they may fail or break
if unavailable. The weather maps of Intellicast have been blocked by their
server when no "Referer" or cookie is provided, is another example. (But you
can forge both headers without giving information away). There are many other
-ways things can go wrong when trying to fool a web server.
+ways things can go wrong when trying to fool a web server. The results of which
+could inadvertently cause pages to load incorrectly, partially, or even not at
+all. And there may be no obvious clues as to just what went wrong, or why.
+Nowhere will there be a message that says "Turn off fast-redirects or else! "
Similar thoughts apply to modifying JavaScript, and, to a lesser degree, HTML
elements.
accordingly. Cookies are probably the most likely adjustment that may be
required, but by no means the only one.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-4.9. Can Privoxy act as a "caching" proxy to speed up web browsing?
+4.12. Can Privoxy act as a "caching" proxy to speed up web browsing?
-No, it does not have this ability at all. You want something like Squid for
-this. And, yes, before you ask, Privoxy can co-exist with other kinds of
-proxies like Squid. See the forwarding chapter in the user manual for details.
+No, it does not have this ability at all. You want something like Squid or
+Polipo for this. And, yes, before you ask, Privoxy can co-exist with other
+kinds of proxies like Squid. See the forwarding chapter in the user manual for
+details.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-4.10. What about as a firewall? Can Privoxy protect me?
+4.13. What about as a firewall? Can Privoxy protect me?
-Not in the way you mean, or in the way a true firewall can. Privoxy can help
-protect your privacy, but not protect you from intrusion attempts. It is, of
-course, perfectly possible and recommended to use both.
+Not in the way you mean, or in the way some firewall vendors claim they can.
+Privoxy can help protect your privacy, but can't protect your system from
+intrusion attempts. It is, of course, perfectly possible to use both.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-4.11. I have large empty spaces / a checkerboard pattern now where ads used to
+4.14. I have large empty spaces / a checkerboard pattern now where ads used to
be. Why?
-It would be technically possible eliminate the banners in a way that frees
-their screen estate in many cases, by doing all banner blocking with filters,
-i.e. eliminating the whole image references from the HTML pages instead of
-letting them stay in, and blocking the resulting requests for the banners
-themselves.
+It is technically possible to eliminate banners and ads in a way that frees
+their allocated page space. This could easily be done by blocking with
+Privoxy's filters, and eliminating the entire image references from the HTML
+page source.
-But this would consume considerable CPU resources, would likely destroy the
-layout of many web pages which rely on the banners consuming a certain amount
-of screen space, and would fail in other cases, where the screen space is
-reserved e.g. by tables anyway. Also, making the banners disappear without a
-visual trace complicates troubleshooting.
+But, this would consume considerably more CPU resources (IOW, slow things
+down), would likely destroy the layout of some web pages which rely on the
+banners utilizing a certain amount of page space, and might fail in other
+cases, where the screen space is reserved (e.g. by HTML tables for instance).
+Also, making ads and banners disappear without any trace complicates
+troubleshooting, and would sooner or later be problematic.
-So we won't support this in the default configuration, but you can of course
-define appropriate filters yourself.
+The better alternative is to instead let them stay, and block the resulting
+requests for the banners themselves as is now the case. This leaves either
+empty space, or the familiar checkerboard pattern.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+So the developers won't support this in the default configuration, but you can
+of course define appropriate filters yourself to achieve this.
-4.12. How can Privoxy filter Secure (HTTPS) URLs?
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+4.15. How can Privoxy filter Secure (HTTPS) URLs?
Since secure HTTP connections are encrypted SSL sessions between your browser
and the secure site, and are meant to be reliably secure, there is little that
to block under these conditions. Fortunately, this does not seem to be a very
common scenario since most cookies come by traditional means.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-4.13. Privoxy runs as a "server". How secure is it? Do I need to take any
+4.16. Privoxy runs as a "server". How secure is it? Do I need to take any
special precautions?
-There are no known exploits that might affect Privoxy. On Unix-like systems,
-Privoxy can run as a non-privileged user, which is how we recommend it be run.
-Also, by default Privoxy only listens to requests from "localhost" only. The
-server aspect of Privoxy is not itself directly exposed to the Internet in this
-configuration. If you want to have Privoxy serve as a LAN proxy, this will have
-to be opened up to allow for LAN requests. In this case, we'd recommend you
-specify only the LAN gateway address, e.g. 192.168.1.1, in the main Privoxy
+On Unix-like systems, Privoxy can run as a non-privileged user, which is how we
+recommend it be run. Also, by default Privoxy listens to requests from
+"localhost" only.
+
+The server aspect of Privoxy is not itself directly exposed to the Internet in
+this configuration. If you want to have Privoxy serve as a LAN proxy, this will
+have to be opened up to allow for LAN requests. In this case, we'd recommend
+you specify only the LAN gateway address, e.g. 192.168.1.1, in the main Privoxy
configuration file and check all access control and security options. All LAN
hosts can then use this as their proxy address in the browser proxy
configuration, but Privoxy will not listen on any external interfaces. ACLs can
be defined in addition, and using a firewall is always good too. Better safe
than sorry.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+4.17. Can I temporarily disable Privoxy?
+
+Privoxy doesn't have a transparent proxy mode, but you can toggle off blocking
+and content filtering.
-4.14. How can I temporarily disable Privoxy?
+The easiest way to do that is to point your browser to the remote toggle URL:
+http://config.privoxy.org/toggle.
-The easiest way is to access Privoxy with your browser by using the remote
-toggle URL: http://config.privoxy.org/toggle. See the Bookmarklets section of
-the User Manual for an easy way to access this feature.
+See the Bookmarklets section of the User Manual for an easy way to access this
+feature. Note that this is a feature that may need to be enabled in the main
+config file.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-4.15. When "disabled" is Privoxy totally out of the picture?
+4.18. When "disabled" is Privoxy totally out of the picture?
-No, this just means all filtering and actions are disabled. Privoxy is still
-acting as a proxy, but just not doing any of the things that Privoxy would
+No, this just means all optional filtering and actions are disabled. Privoxy is
+still acting as a proxy, but just doing less of the things that Privoxy would
normally be expected to do. It is still a "middle-man" in the interaction
-between your browser and web sites.
+between your browser and web sites. See below to bypass the proxy.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-4.16. My logs show Privoxy "crunches" ads, but also its own CGI pages. What is
-a "crunch"?
+4.19. How can I tell Privoxy to totally ignore certain sites?
+
+Bypassing a proxy, or proxying based on arbitrary criteria, is purely a browser
+configuration issue, not a Privoxy issue. Modern browsers typically do have
+settings for not proxying certain sites. Check your browser's help files.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+4.20. My logs show Privoxy "crunches" ads, but also its own internal CGI pages.
+What is a "crunch"?
A "crunch" simply means Privoxy intercepted something, nothing more. Often this
is indeed ads or banners, but Privoxy uses the same mechanism for trapping
not go out to the 'net), and the familiar CGI configuration is returned to the
browser, and the log consequently will show a "crunch".
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Since version 3.0.7, Privoxy will also log the crunch reason. If you are using
+an older version you might want to upgrade.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-4.17. Can Privoxy effect files that I download from a webserver? FTP server?
+4.21. Can Privoxy effect files that I download from a webserver? FTP server?
From the webserver's perspective, there is no difference between viewing a
document (i.e. a page), and downloading a file. The same is true of Privoxy. If
Filtering is potentially more of a concern since the results are not always so
obvious, and the effects of filtering are there whether the file is simply
viewed, or downloaded. And potentially whether the content is some obnoxious
-advertizement, or Mr. Jimmy's latest/greatest source code jewel. Of course, one
+advertisement, or Mr. Jimmy's latest/greatest source code jewel. Of course, one
of these presumably is "bad" content that we don't want, and the other is
"good" content that we do want. Privoxy is blind to the differences, and can
only distinguish "good from bad" by the configuration parameters we give it.
-Privoxy knows the differences in files according to the "Document Type" as
+Privoxy knows the differences in files according to the "Content Type" as
reported by the webserver. If this is reported accurately (e.g. "application/
zip" for a zip archive), then Privoxy knows to ignore these where appropriate.
Privoxy potentially can filter HTML as well as plain text documents, subject to
file that is intended to be saved to disk, then any content that might have
been altered by filtering, will be saved too, for these (probably rare) cases.
-Note that versions later than 3.0.2 do NOT filter document types of "text/
-plain". Prior to this, Privoxy did filter this document type.
+Note that versions later than 3.0.2 do NOT filter document types reported as
+"text/plain". Prior to this, Privoxy did filter this document type.
-In short, filtering is "ON" if a) the Document Type as reported by the
-webserver is appropriate and b) the configuration allows it (or at least does
-not disallow it). That's it. There is no magic cookie anywhere to say this is
-"good" and this is "bad". It's the configuration that let's it all happen or
+In short, filtering is "ON" if a) the content type as reported by the webserver
+is appropriate and b) the configuration allows it (or at least does not
+disallow it). That's it. There is no magic cookie anywhere to say this is
+"good" and this is "bad". It's the configuration that lets it all happen or
not.
If you download text files, you probably do not want these to be filtered,
3.0.2 or earlier) in your user.action file. And also, for any site or page
where making any changes at all to the content is to be avoided.
-Privoxy does not do FTP at all, only HTTP protocols, so please don't even try.
+Privoxy does not do FTP at all, only HTTP and HTTPS (SSL) protocols, so please
+don't try.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-4.18. I just downloaded a Perl script, and Privoxy altered it! Yikes, what is
+4.22. I just downloaded a Perl script, and Privoxy altered it! Yikes, what is
wrong!
Please read above.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-4.19. Where can I find more information about Privoxy and related issues?
+4.23. Should I continue to use a "HOSTS" file for ad-blocking?
+
+One time-tested technique to defeat common ads is to trick the local DNS system
+by giving a phony IP address for the ad generator in the local HOSTS file,
+typically using 127.0.0.1, aka localhost. This effectively blocks the ad.
+
+There is no reason to use this technique in conjunction with Privoxy. Privoxy
+does essentially the same thing, much more elegantly and with much more
+flexibility. A large HOSTS file, in fact, not only duplicates effort, but may
+get in the way and seriously slow down your system. It is recommended to remove
+such entries from your HOSTS file. If you think your hosts list is neglected by
+Privoxy's configuration, consider adding your list to your user.action file:
+
+ { +block }
+ www.ad.example1.com
+ ad.example2.com
+ ads.galore.example.com
+ etc.example.com
+
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+4.24. Where can I find more information about Privoxy and related issues?
Other references and sites of interest to Privoxy users:
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://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/ijbswa/contrib/, cool and fun
-ideas from Privoxy users.
+http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=460288, to submit "misses"
+and other configuration related suggestions to the developers.
http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/cookies.html, an explanation 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://privacy.net/, 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
+http://www.squid-cache.org/, a popular caching proxy, which is often used
together with Privoxy.
+http://www.pps.jussieu.fr/~jch/software/polipo/, Polipo is a caching proxy with
+advanced features like pipelining, multiplexing and caching of partial
+instances. In many setups it can be used as Squid replacement.
+
+http://tor.eff.org/, Tor can help anonymize web browsing, web publishing,
+instant messaging, IRC, SSH, and other applications.
+
http://www.privoxy.org/developer-manual/, the Privoxy developer manual.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-4.20. I've noticed that Privoxy changes "Microsoft" to "MicroSuck"! Why are you
+4.25. I've noticed that Privoxy changes "Microsoft" to "MicroSuck"! Why are you
manipulating my browsing?
We're not. The text substitutions that you are seeing are disabled in the
default configuration as shipped. You have either manually activated the "fun"
filter which is clearly labeled "Text replacements for subversive browsing fun!
-" or you have implicitly activated it by choosing the "Adventuresome" profile
-in the web-based editor (formerly known as the Advanced profile).
+" or you are using an older Privoxy version and have implicitly activated it by
+choosing the "Adventuresome" profile in the web-based editor. Please upgrade.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+4.26. Does Privoxy produce "valid" HTML (or XHTML)?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Privoxy generates HTML in both its own "templates", and possibly whenever there
+are text substitutions via a Privoxy filter. While this should always conform
+to the HTML 4.01 specifications, it has not been validated against this or any
+other standard.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
5. Troubleshooting
-5.1. I just upgraded and am getting "connection refused" with every web page?
+5.1. I cannot connect to any websites. Or, I am getting "connection refused"
+message with every web page. Why?
+
+There are several possibilities:
+
+ • Privoxy is not running. Solution: verify that Privoxy is installed
+ correctly, has not crashed, and is indeed running. Turn on Privoxy's
+ logging, and look at the logs to see what they say.
+
+ • Or your browser is configured for a different port than what Privoxy is
+ using. Solution: verify that Privoxy and your browser are set to the same
+ port (listen-address).
-Either Privoxy is not running, or your browser is configured for a different
-port than what Privoxy is using.
+ • Or if using a forwarding rule, you have a configuration problem or a
+ problem with a host in the forwarding chain. Solution: temporarily alter
+ your configuration and take the forwarders out of the equation.
-The old Privoxy (and also Junkbuster) used port 8000 by default. This has been
-changed to port 8118 now, due to a conflict with NAS (Network Audio Service),
-which uses port 8000. If you haven't, you need to change your browser to the
-new port number, or alternately change the listen-address option in Privoxy's
-main configuration file.
+ • Or you have a firewall that is interfering and blocking you. Solution: try
+ disabling or removing the firewall as a simple test.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-5.2. I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is still getting through.
+5.2. Why am I getting a 503 Error (WSAECONNREFUSED) on every page?
+
+More than likely this is a problem with your TCP/IP networking. ZoneAlarm has
+been reported to cause this symptom -- even if not running! The solution is to
+either fight the ZA configuration, or uninstall ZoneAlarm, and then find
+something better behaved in its place. Other personal firewall type products
+may cause similar type problems if not configured correctly.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+5.3. I just added a new rule, but the steenkin ad is still getting through.
How?
If the ad had been displayed before you added its URL, it will probably be held
in the browser's cache for some time, so it will be displayed without the need
-for any request to the server, and Privoxy will not be in the picture. The best
-thing to do is try flushing the browser's caches. And then try again.
+for any request to the server, and Privoxy will not be involved. Flush the
+browser's caches, and then try again.
If this doesn't help, you probably have an error in the rule you applied. Try
pasting the full URL of the offending ad into http://config.privoxy.org/
-show-url-info and see if it really matches your new rule.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-5.3. One of my favorite sites does not work with Privoxy. What can I do?
+show-url-info and see if it really matches your new rule. Blocking ads is like
+blocking spam: a lot of tinkering is required to stay ahead of the game. And
+remember you need to block the URL of the ad in question, which may be entirely
+different from the site URL itself. Most ads are hosted on different servers
+than the main site itself. If you right-click on the ad, you should be able to
+get all the relevant information you need. Alternately, you can find the
+correct URL by looking at Privoxy's logs (you may need to enable logging in the
+main config file if its disabled).
+
+Below is a slightly modified real-life log snippet that originates with one
+requested URL: www.example.com (name of site was changed for this example, the
+number of requests is real). You can see in this the complexity of what goes
+into making up this one "page". There are eight different domains involved
+here, with thirty two separate URLs requested in all, making up all manner of
+images, Shockwave Flash, JavaScript, CSS stylesheets, scripts, and other
+related content. Some of this content is obviously "good" or "bad", but not
+all. Many of the more questionable looking requests, are going to outside
+domains that seem to be identifying themselves with suspicious looking names,
+making our job a little easier. Privoxy has "crunched" (meaning caught and
+BLOCKED) quite a few items in this example, but perhaps missed a few as well.
+
+Request: www.example.com/
+Request: www.example.com/favicon.ico
+Request: img.example.com/main.css
+Request: img.example.com/sr.js
+Request: example.betamarker.com/example.html
+Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/bestsellers/skyscraper.php?likref=BSellers
+Request: img.example.com/pb.png
+Request: www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: www.advertising-department.com/ats/switch.ps.php?26856 crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: img.example.com/p.gif
+Request: www.popuptraffic.com/assign.php?l=example&mode=behind crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: www.popuptraffic.com/scripts/popup.php?hid=5c3cf&tmpl=PBa.tmpl crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: www.popuptraffic.com/assign.php?l=example crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/best_sellers.css
+Request: www.adtrak.net/adx.js crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: img.example.com/hbg.gif
+Request: img.example.com/example.jpg
+Request: img.example.com/mt.png
+Request: img.example.com/mm.png
+Request: img.example.com/mb.png
+Request: www.popuptraffic.com/scripts/popup.php?hid=a71b91fa5&tmpl=Ua.tmp crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: www.example.com/tracker.js
+Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/lsi_head.gif
+Request: www.adtrak.net/adjs.php?n=020548130&what=zone:61 crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: www.adtrak.net/adjs.php?n=463594413&what=zone:58&source=Ua crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: www.lik-sang.com/Banners/best_sellers/bottomani.swf
+Request: mmm.elitemediagroup.net/install.php?allowpop=no&popupmincook=0&allowsp2=1 crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: www.example.com/tracker.js?screen=1400x1050&win=962x693
+Request: www.adtrak.net/adlog.php?bannerid=1309&clientid=439&zoneid=61 crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: 66.70.21.80/scripts/click.php?hid=5c3cf599a9efd0320d26&si
+Request: 66.70.21.80/img/pixel.gif
+Request: www.adtrak.net/adlog.php?bannerid=1309&clientid=439&zoneid=58&source=Ua&block=86400 crunch! (Blocked)
+Request: 66.70.21.80/scripts/click.php?hid=a71b9f6504b0c5681fa5&si=Ua
+
+
+Despite 12 out of 32 requests being blocked, the page looked, and seemed to
+behave perfectly "normal" (minus some ads, of course).
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+5.4. One of my favorite sites does not work with Privoxy. What can I do?
First verify that it is indeed a Privoxy problem, by toggling off Privoxy
-through http://config.privoxy.org/toggle, and then shift-reloading the problem
-page (i.e. holding down the shift key while clicking reload. Alternatively,
-flush your browser's disk and memory caches).
-
-If still a problem, go to http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info and paste the
-full URL of the page in question into the prompt. See which actions are being
-applied to the URL, and which matches in which actions files are responsible
-for that. Now, armed with this information, go to http://config.privoxy.org/
-show-status and select the appropriate actions files for editing.
+through http://config.privoxy.org/toggle (the toggle feature may need to be
+enabled in the main config), and then shift-reloading the problem page (i.e.
+holding down the shift key while clicking reload. Alternatively, flush your
+browser's disk and memory caches).
+
+If the problem went away, we know we have a configuration related problem. Now
+go to http://config.privoxy.org/show-url-info and paste the full URL of the
+page in question into the prompt. See which actions are being applied to the
+URL, and which matches in which actions files are responsible for that. It
+might be helpful also to look at your logs for this site too, to see what else
+might be happening (note: logging may need to be enabled in the main config
+file). Many sites are complex and require a number of related pages to help
+present their content. Look at what else might be used by the page in question,
+and what of that might be required. Now, armed with this information, go to
+http://config.privoxy.org/show-status and select the appropriate actions files
+for editing.
You can now either look for a section which disables the actions that you
suspect to cause the problem and add a pattern for your site there, or make up
actions, but is also likely to turn off more actions then needed, and thus
lower your privacy and protection more than necessary,
-Troubleshooting actions is discussed in more detail in the user-manual appendix
-. There is also an actions tutorial.
+Troubleshooting actions is discussed in more detail in the User Manual
+appendix, Troubleshooting: the Anatomy of an Action. There is also an actions
+tutorial with general configuration information and examples.
+
+As a last resort, you can always see if your browser has a setting that will
+bypass the proxy setting for selective sites. Modern browsers can do this.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-5.4. After installing Privoxy, I have to log in every time I start IE. What
+5.5. After installing Privoxy, I have to log in every time I start IE. What
gives?
This is a quirk that effects the installation of Privoxy, in conjunction with
[Thanks to Ray Griffith for this submission.]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-5.5. I cannot connect to any FTP sites. Privoxy seems to be blocking me.
+5.6. I cannot connect to any FTP sites. Privoxy is blocking me.
Privoxy cannot act as a proxy for FTP traffic, so do not configure your browser
to use Privoxy as an FTP proxy. The same is true for any protocol other than
-HTTP or HTTPS.
+HTTP or HTTPS (SSL).
Most browsers understand FTP as well as HTTP. If you connect to a site, with a
URL like ftp://ftp.example.com, your browser is making an FTP connection, and
and cannot proxy such traffic.
To complicate matters, some systems may have a generic "proxy" setting, which
-will silently enable both HTTP and FTP proxying! So it is possible to
-accidentally enable FTP proxying in these cases. And of course, if this
-happens, Privoxy will indeed cause problems since it does not know FTP.
+will enable various protocols, including both HTTP and FTP proxying! So it is
+possible to accidentally enable FTP proxying in these cases. And of course, if
+this happens, Privoxy will indeed cause problems since it does not know FTP.
+Newer version will give a sane error message if a FTP connection is attempted.
+Just disable the FTP setting and all will be well again.
Will Privoxy ever proxy FTP traffic? Unlikely. There just is not much reason,
and the work to make this happen is more than it may seem.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-5.6. In Mac OSX, I can't configure Microsoft Internet Explorer to use Privoxy
+5.7. In Mac OSX, I can't configure Microsoft Internet Explorer to use Privoxy
as the HTTP proxy.
Microsoft Internet Explorer (in versions like 5.1) respects system-wide network
the entry field. Enter 8118 in the Port field. The next time you start IE, it
should reflect these values.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-5.7. In Mac OSX, I dragged the Privoxy folder to the trash in order to
+5.8. In Mac OSX, I dragged the Privoxy folder to the trash in order to
uninstall it. Now the finder tells me I don't have sufficient privileges to
empty the trash.
The trash may still appear full after this command; emptying the trash from the
desktop should make it appear empty again.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-5.8. In Mac OSX Panther (10.3), images often fail to load and/or I experience
+5.9. In Mac OSX Panther (10.3), images often fail to load and/or I experience
random delays in page loading. I'm using localhost as my browser's proxy
setting.
understand the issue yet. In any case, changing the proxy setting to 127.0.0.1
instead of localhost works around the problem.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-5.9. I get a completely blank page at one site. "View Source" shows only:
+5.10. I get a completely blank page at one site. "View Source" shows only:
<html><body></body></html>. Without Privoxy the page loads fine.
Chances are that the site suffers from a bug in PHP, which results in empty
webmasters, telling them to use zlib.output_compression instead of ob_gzhandler
in their PHP applications (workaround) or upgrade to PHP 4.2.3 or later (fix).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-5.10. Why am I getting a 503 Error (WSAECONNREFUSED) on every page?
-
-More than likely this is a problem with the network stack. ZoneAlarm has been
-reported to cause this symptom -- even if not running. The solution is to
-either fight the ZA configuration, or uninstall ZoneAlarm, and then find
-something better behaved in its place. Other firewall type products may cause
-similar type problems if not configured correctly.
-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
5.11. My logs show many "Unable to get my own hostname" lines. Why?
listen-address setting). If the system cannot supply this information, Privoxy
logs this condition.
-Typically, this would be considered a system configuration error. It is not a
-fatal error to Privoxy however, but may result in a much slower response from
-Privoxy due to DNS timeouts.
+Typically, this would be considered a minor system configuration error. It is
+not a fatal error to Privoxy however, but may result in a much slower response
+from Privoxy on some platforms due to DNS timeouts.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+This can be caused by a problem with the local HOSTS file. If this file has
+been changed from the original, try reverting it to see if that helps. Make
+sure whatever name(s) are used for the local system, that they resolve both
+ways.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
5.12. When I try to launch Privoxy, I get an error message "port 8118 is
already in use" (or similar wording). Why?
Port 8118 is Privoxy's default TCP "listening" port. Typically this message
-would mean that there is already one instance of Privoxy running, and you are
-actually trying to start a second Privoxy on the same port, which will not
-work. How and why this might happen varies from platform to platform, but you
-need to check your installation and start-up procedures.
+would mean that there is already one instance of Privoxy running, and your
+system is actually trying to start a second Privoxy on the same port, which
+will not work. (You can have multiple instances but they must be assigned
+different ports.) How and why this might happen varies from platform to
+platform, but you need to check your installation and start-up procedures.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
5.13. Pages with UTF-8 fonts are garbled.
-This is caused by the "demoronizer" filter, which was introduced in version
-3.0.2, and was inappropriately turned on by default. You should either upgrade
-Privoxy, or at least upgrade to the most recent default.action file available
-from SourceForge. Or you can simply disable the demoronizer filter.
+This is caused by the "demoronizer" filter. You should either upgrade Privoxy,
+or at least upgrade to the most recent default.action file available from
+SourceForge. Or you can simply disable the demoronizer filter.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
5.14. Why are binary files (such as images) corrupted when Privoxy is used?
This may also be caused by the "demoronizer" filter, in conjunction with a web
-server that is misreporting a file type. Binary files are exempted from
-Privoxy's filtering (unless the web server by mistake says the file is a plain
-text file). Either upgrade Privoxy, or go to the most recent default.action
-file available from SourceForge.
+server that is misreporting the content type. Binary files are exempted from
+Privoxy's filtering (unless the web server by mistake says the file is
+something else). Either upgrade Privoxy, or go to the most recent
+default.action file available from SourceForge.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
5.15. What is the "demoronizer" and why is it there?
corruption of the fonts, and thus should not be on.
On the other hand, if you use non-Microsoft products, and you occasionally
-notice wierd characters on pages, you might want to try it.
-
-This filter was introduced with version 3.0.2 of Privoxy, and was on by default
-in that version. It is off in all subsequent versions (unless turned on by the
-user).
+notice weird characters on pages, you might want to try it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
5.16. Why do I keep seeing "PrivoxyWindowOpen()" in raw source code?
you should set an exception for this site or page such that the integrity of
the page stays in tact by disabling all filtering.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+5.17. I am getting too many DNS errors like "404 No Such Domain". Why can't
+Privoxy do this better?
+
+There are potentially several factors here. First of all, the DNS resolution is
+done by the underlying operating system -- not Privoxy itself. Privoxy merely
+initiates the process and hands it off, and then later reports whatever the
+outcome was. And tries to give a coherent message if there seems to be a
+problem. In some cases, this might otherwise be mitigated by the browser itself
+which might try some work-arounds and alternate approaches (e.g adding "www."
+to the URL).
+
+In other cases, if Privoxy is being chained with another proxy, this could
+complicate the issue, and cause undue delays and timeouts. In the case of a
+"socks4a" proxy, the socks server handles all the DNS. Privoxy would just be
+the "messenger" which is reporting whatever problem occurred downstream, and
+not the root cause of the error.
+
+In any case, versions newer than 3.0.3 include various improvements to help
+Privoxy better handle these cases.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+5.18. At one site Privoxy just hangs, and starts taking all CPU. Why is this?
+
+This is probably a manifestation of the "100% cpu" problem that occurs on pages
+containing many (thousands upon thousands) of blank lines. The blank lines are
+in the raw HTML source of the page, and the browser just ignores them. But the
+pattern matching in Privoxy's page filtering mechanism is trying to match
+against absurdly long strings and this becomes very CPU-intensive, taking a
+long, long time to complete. Until a better solution comes along, disable
+filtering on these pages, particularly the js-annoyances and unsolicited-popups
+filters.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+5.19. I just installed Privoxy, and all my browsing has slowed to a crawl. What
+gives?
+
+This should not happen, and for the overwhelming number of users world-wide, it
+does not happen. I would suspect some inadvertent interaction of software
+components such as anti-virus software, spyware protectors, personal firewalls
+or similar components. Try disabling (or uninstalling) these one at a time and
+see if that helps.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+5.20. Why do my filters work on some sites but not on others?
+
+It's probably due to compression. It is a common practice for web servers to
+send their content "compressed" in order to speed things up, and then let the
+browser "uncompress" them. When compiled with zlib support Privoxy can
+decompress content before filtering, otherwise you may want to enable
+prevent-compression.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
6. Contacting the developers, Bug Reporting and Feature Requests
configuration. However, please note the following hints, so we can provide you
with the best support:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
6.1. Get Support
All users are of course welcome to discuss their issues on the users mailing
list, where the developers also hang around.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Note that the Privoxy mailing lists are moderated. Posts from unsubscribed
+addresses have to be accepted manually by a moderator. This may cause a delay
+of several days and if you use a subject that doesn't clearly mention Privoxy
+or one of its features, your message may be accidentally discarded as spam.
+
+If you aren't subscribed, you should therefore spend a few seconds to come up
+with a proper subject. Additionally you should make it clear that you want to
+get CC'd. Otherwise some responses will be directed to the mailing list only,
+and you won't see them.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+6.2. Reporting Problems
-6.2. Report Bugs
+"Problems" for our purposes, come in two forms:
-Please report all bugs only through our bug tracker: http://sourceforge.net/
-tracker/?group_id=11118&atid=111118.
+ • Configuration issues, such as ads that slip through, or sites that don't
+ function properly due to one Privoxy "action" or another being turned "on".
+
+ • "Bugs" in the programming code that makes up Privoxy, such as that might
+ cause a crash.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+6.2.1. Reporting Ads or Other Configuration Problems
+
+Please send feedback on ads that slipped through, innocent images that were
+blocked, sites that don't work properly, and other configuration related
+problem of default.action file, to http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=
+11118&atid=460288, the Actions File Tracker.
+
+New, improved default.action files may occasionally be made available based on
+your feedback. These will be announced on the ijbswa-announce list and
+available from our the files section of our project page.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+6.2.2. Reporting Bugs
+
+Please report all bugs through our bug tracker: http://sourceforge.net/tracker
+/?group_id=11118&atid=111118.
Before doing so, please make sure that the bug has not already been submitted
-and observe the additional hints at the top of the submit form.
+and observe the additional hints at the top of the submit form. If already
+submitted, please feel free to add any info to the original report that might
+help to solve the issue.
+
+Please try to verify that it is a Privoxy bug, and not a browser or site bug or
+documented behaviour that just happens to be different than what you expected.
+If unsure, try toggling off Privoxy, and see if the problem persists.
-Please try to verify that it is a Privoxy bug, and not a browser or site bug
-first. If unsure, try toggling off Privoxy, and see if the problem persists.
-The appendix of the user manual also has helpful information on action
-debugging. If you are using your own custom configuration, please try the stock
-configs to see if the problem is configuration related.
+If you are using your own custom configuration, please try the stock configs to
+see if the problem is configuration related. If you're having problems with a
+feature that is disabled by default, please ask around on the mailing list if
+others can reproduce the problem.
-If not using the latest version, chances are that the bug has been found and
+If you aren't using the latest Privoxy version, the bug may have been found and
fixed in the meantime. We would appreciate if you could take the time to
-upgrade to the latest version (or even the latest CVS snapshot) and verify your
-bug, but this is not required for reporting.
+upgrade to the latest version (or even the latest CVS snapshot) and verify that
+your bug still exists.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+Please be sure to provide the following information:
-6.3. Request New Features
+ • The exact Privoxy version you are using (if you got the source from CVS,
+ please also provide the source code revisions as shown in http://
+ config.privoxy.org/show-version).
-You are welcome to submit ideas on new features or other proposals for
-improvement through our feature request tracker at http://sourceforge.net/
-tracker/?atid=361118&group_id=11118.
+ • The operating system and versions you run Privoxy on, (e.g. Windows XP
+ SP2), if you are using a Unix flavor, sending the output of "uname -a"
+ should do, in case of GNU/Linux, please also name the distribution.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ • The name, platform, and version of the browser you were using (e.g.
+ Internet Explorer v5.5 for Mac).
-6.4. Report Ads or Other Actions-Related Problems
+ • The URL where the problem occurred, or some way for us to duplicate the
+ problem (e.g. http://somesite.example.com/?somethingelse=123).
-Please send feedback on ads that slipped through, innocent images that were
-blocked, and any other problems relating to the default.action file through our
-actions feedback mechanism located at http://www.privoxy.org/actions/. On this
-page, you will also find a bookmark which will take you back there from any
-troubled site and even pre-fill the form!
+ • Whether your version of Privoxy is one supplied by the Privoxy developers
+ via SourceForge, or if you got your copy somewhere else.
-New, improved default.action files will occasionally be made available based on
-your feedback. These will be announced on the ijbswa-announce list and
-available from our the files section of our project page.
+ • Whether you are using Privoxy in tandem with another proxy such as Tor. If
+ so, please temporary disable the other proxy to see if the symptoms change.
+
+ • Whether you are using a personal firewall product. If so, does Privoxy work
+ without it?
+
+ • Any other pertinent information to help identify the problem such as config
+ or log file excerpts (yes, you should have log file entries for each action
+ taken).
+
+You don't have to tell us your actual name when filing a problem report, but
+please use a nickname so we can differentiate between your messages and the
+ones entered by other "anonymous" users that may respond to your request if
+they have the same problem or already found a solution.
+
+Please also check the status of your request a few days after submitting it, as
+we may request additional information. If you use a SF id, you should
+automatically get a mail when someone responds to your request.
+
+The appendix of the Privoxy User Manual also has helpful information on
+understanding actions, and action debugging.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+6.3. Request New Features
+
+You are welcome to submit ideas on new features or other proposals for
+improvement through our feature request tracker at http://sourceforge.net/
+tracker/?atid=361118&group_id=11118.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
-6.5. Other
+6.4. Other
For any other issues, feel free to use the mailing lists. Technically
interested users and people who wish to contribute to the project are also
mailing lists, including list archives, at: http://sourceforge.net/mail/?
group_id=11118.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
7. Privoxy Copyright, License and History
-Copyright © 2001 - 2004 by Privoxy Developers <developers@privoxy.org>
+Copyright 2001-2007 by Privoxy Developers <
+ijbswa-developers@lists.sourceforge.net>
-Some source code is based on code Copyright © 1997 by Anonymous Coders and
+Some source code is based on code Copyright 1997 by Anonymous Coders and
Junkbusters, Inc. and licensed under the GNU General Public License.
Portions of this document are "borrowed" from the original Junkbuster (tm) FAQ,
and modified as appropriate for Privoxy.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
7.1. License
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 Foundation, Inc, 59 Temple Place - Suite
-330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
+is available from the Free Software Foundation, Inc, 51 Franklin Street, Fifth
+Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, 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
+ Foundation, Inc. 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor
+ Boston, MA 02110-1301
USA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
7.2. History
-In the beginning, there was the Internet Junkbuster, by Anonymous Coders and
-Junkbusters Corporation. It saved many users a lot of pain in the early days of
-web advertising and user tracking.
+A long time ago, there was the Internet Junkbuster, by Anonymous Coders and
+Junkbusters Corporation. This saved many users a lot of pain in the early days
+of web advertising and user tracking.
But the web, its protocols and standards, and with it, the techniques for
-forcing users to consume ads, give up autonomy over their browsing, and for
-spying on them, kept evolving. Unfortunately, the Internet Junkbuster did not.
-Version 2.0.2, published in 1998, was (and is) the last official release
-available from Junkbusters Corporation. Fortunately, it had been released under
-the GNU GPL, which allowed further development by others.
+forcing ads on users, give up autonomy over their browsing, and for tracking
+them, keeps evolving. Unfortunately, the Internet Junkbuster did not. Version
+2.0.2, published in 1998, was (and is) the last official release available from
+Junkbusters Corporation. Fortunately, it had been released under the GNU GPL,
+which allowed further development by others.
So Stefan Waldherr started maintaining an improved version of the software, to
which eventually a number of people contributed patches. It could already
projects / privoxy.git / blobdiff